After a ten minute search, I find my sneakers shoved into a corner of my closet. It’s been at least two weeks since I’ve run and yet, here I am, scrambling to get organized.

My hat? My headphones? Socks?

There is no one holding me accountable today, and yet, I quiet the negative voice in my head, I ignore the sink full of dishes. I run, but what does it accomplish? I run so I can run again so I can run again so I can run again. Like laundry or dishes, a break is always welcome but ultimately a bad decision.

The air is cool, I wonder if my shorts are enough. The dog pulls on her leash before I am fully ready to start but I let her lead my dragging feet. I am awkward, clumsy feeling after this long break. My feet hit the asphalt heavy, my legs are cold my breath ragged. I hate this.

My ear buds blare pop music produced sometime within the past decade and my thoughts wanter. My lungs expand, contract, expand. The cool air fills them – my mind empties.

Somewhere between my house and the halfway mark, things change. My feet find a steady rhythm, my mouth turns up into a smile.

I make a quick decision and turn into the woods, a well groomed trail through my neighbourhood. Release the dog from her leash and she darts away. Push my legs harder, faster up the hill – I always try to race her. I’m almost there but then she’s back, suddenly, crashing past me. Push my legs up the steepest part, around the fallen tree, over the large rocks. My legs feel like jelly, my lungs are screaming and then: I’m out of the woods. I jog slowly to my house, breathing hard.

My shirt is damp, clinging to my back. My legs tremble, my lungs feel hot. Face flushed, salty; this is why I do it. This is why I make myself run (to run again and run again). Because I get to see my dog thundering by with her tongue hanging out. Because I get to feel my lungs scream. Because I get to feel my knees buckle under me.

Because it makes me feel alive.

The four main components of the Chi Running form are posture, lean, heel lift and arm swing. This blog entry discusses arm swing.

In Chi Running the arms are completely relaxed from the hands all the way up to the shoulder. They are also constantly bent at a 90 Degree angle and swing at the same cadence as your legs. Keep your shoulders relaxed and down and let your arms hang down from the shoulder socket.

This 90 Degree angle because it creates the shortest arm length, which also is the easiest length to swing. To emphasize the point try swinging straight arms (longest length) versus arms bent at 90 Degrees (shortest arms) and notice the difference in effort.

The arms swing at your side front to back with a slight angle inwards in front of you but never crossing your centerline. If they swing past your centerline, they create momentum in the sideways direction rather than to the front, which wastes energy.

You never swing your elbows further forward than your ribs. This throws your legs forward which can cause heel strike and also rotates the shoulders. You also never swing your wrists further back than your ribs.

Your arms swing like pendulums from the ball in the shoulder socket and as separate entities from your shoulders. This is to ensure your shoulders don’t swing with the forward and backward movement of the arms. In Chi Running your shoulders always point forward, and never rotate. If your shoulders rotate they reduce your stride length and you lose speed.

You swing you arms to the rear like you are elbowing someone behind you rather than swinging them to the front like you are punching someone in front of you. Once your arm is swung to the rear, just let it fall forward using gravity. Swinging their arms to the rear instead of forward will keep their shoulders stable and not rotating along with the arms. This helps stabilize everything above the midpoint of your spine. It’s everything below this midpoint that rotates when you run.

My husband and I went to the movies the other night but asked the babysitter to come over an hour and a half early.

As she walked up the driveway, the girls ran to her. And then we donned our sneakers and went for a run together. Up a hill and then through the woods. watching for roots and rocks, stumps, as my husband ran ahead of me and the dog let her tongue fall far out of her mouth. Careful not to slip on the broken slate, pushed up a hill, the dog turned back to me, happiness in her eyes.

My legs were burning and my lungs were screaming as I tried to keep up with my husband. Down the hill to a lake where we rested and threw a stick for the dog. Turned around and home again, my ankles were tired, my legs were lead weight. We snuck back into the house (the kids were outside) and rinsed off, got ready quickly for our movie. Gave goodbye hugs and kisses and don’t-forget-to-brush-your-teeth’s.

Cheeks still flushed and we left the windows down on the drive to cool off. He reached over and squeezed my leg.

It was the best date we’ve had in a while. And the movie stunk.

I ran a half marathon in June and a sprint tri in July. I had the best intentions of doing another sprint in September, and a half in February and, and and…

Last week someone asked me what my next goal was and I kind of gaped, open-mouthed, like a fish and stuttered, “Uh… I don’t know.”

And I don’t. Summer’s winding to a close and I just kind of want to enjoy it, instead of focusing on a race. I’m not very good at balancing all things in my life and find that when training revs up, something else suffers. I believe that eventually, I’ll figure it out as I’m not willing to stop racing, but still. Life has been quiet and lovely and warm and summery. The house has been cleaner, the kids sweeter, the nights cooler. We’re on vacation for two of the next three weeks, I don’t want to have to run while we’re away. I want to run because I want to run.

There’s a 1ok in September that I’ll probably do, it’s been a while and I think I could shave a good chunk off my previous time. My run clinic ends tonight, culminating in the Halifax Navy 10k next Sunday. I went for a run by myself (well, me and my dog) yesterday because it’s been so long since I’ve run alone, and it was… nice.

I’ve always claimed that I need a goal to stay focused, and maybe this upcoming 10k is a good one. But maybe I’m at a place where I can cruise for a couple months, in between. It’s been kind of nice.

It’s hard not to happily lick dripping ice cream off a cone in the heat of summer, isn’t it? Or smack as you suck the barbeque sauce off your fingers after eating too many ribs. The perspiration on a cold glass of beer as you wash the car or build an extension onto your deck, the whipped cream that goes so well dolloped on juicy, local strawberries.

The women in my husband’s family are bakers. I’m not. Well, I make a mean birthday cake, a pretty solid apple pie and a quickly devoured pan of brownies, but I don’t spend one day a week baking. Especially in the summer (my general rule is: the oven only turns on when the temperature is below 22C). He grew up in a home where the after school snack was a handful (or three) of cookies, followed my milk, chugged straight from the bottle.

I made cupcakes with my girls this weekend. Steve works Saturdays and they were climbing the walls, so we mixed and poured and baked together. They love helping me, regardless of what I’m doing, so it was extra fun that the finished product was something delish instead of say, a folded basket of towels. They happily devoured the warm, unfrosted cupcakes after their lunch. We iced them after nap and hid them in the office for a grand presentation when Steve got home from work. They’re “I Love You, Daddy” cupcakes! My four year old gleefully exclaimed, extremely proud of her green sprinkles. Cake! Cake! Daddy! Cake! My two year old chimed in. We ate them all, too, over the next few days.

I worry about my kids, though, in this world where they will all too soon become aware of the unrealistic female ideal that is portrayed by our media outlets. As soon as they can read, they’ll start seeing that they could lose belly fat with this one easy trick! And they’ll see how celebrities are scorned for being so human as to have cellulite. And that’s just in the grocery store. Online, in school, in books and television shows, it goes on and on.

It’s frightening just how targeted children are. The most important task in my life is to protect those children, and I do, ferociously, against inappropriate cartoons and books, against the gag-inducing amount of princess marketing. My job is to keep them safe. And part of keeping them safe is keeping them healthy. So we eat no processed foods, mostly organic meats and vegetables. We talk about food, about the job it plays in your body. We talk about taking care of your body through exercise, be that running or yoga or walking or swimming or bike riding, or even just playing. I think it’s the most we can do.

The fact remains, however frightening and at times heartbreaking, that there will come a time when they grow away from me. It happens a little more each year, but eventually, I’ll have to let go. As young women, much too innocent to be out on their own (as we all were, once), they will be armed with what my husband and I have taught them. That it’s important to take care of your body, through exercise and food. That even after “Happily Ever After” there’s still a lot of work to be done. And maybe most importantly, that sometimes, cupcakes and dripping ice cream cones are ok. Even if they do spoil your lunch.

“To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow the coup de grace for the painter as well as for the picture.”  Pablo Picasso

GRANT: I think we all know this feeling in a race or a run when we reach the end.  We can see the end.  Maybe there is a crowd cheering, or maybe not.  Regardless we feel the pull of the finish.  It is carrying us forward even if our legs are faltering.

VICKY: You must be getting near the end of PRE.

GRANT: Yeah.  It’s horrible.

VICKY: Yes, it was quite painful for me too.  I hated it.

GRANT: For me it is the fact that I have watched 2 PRE movies.  Read Running with the Buffaloes and Bowerman and the Men of Oregon and I am now 3 quarters finished PRE.  I have been reading so many books about Prefontaine and track and field I just can’t take it anymore.

VICKY: Exactly.  Don’t you just wish you could rip the mustache right off of him.

GRANT: I don’t want to be harsh, but I can’t wait to get to the end already.

VICKY: Hurry up and finish so we can move on to the next book.

GRANT: I can see the finish.  It is not that far off.