A Walk With the Goblins

What a gorgeous day along the Front Range!

I started my day too early, woke up at 5:15. I thought of going out for a run and getting an early start, but I couldn't clear the fog enough to go downstairs and make coffee. So I went back to bed. I slept until 7:30, and decided to bag the run, and get my butt in gear so I could go to Denver and spend as much time as possible with Steph.

Traffic wasn't bad in the morning and I got to ehr house by 10. We hung out and caught up until it was time to go over to Karen & Pat's for the No Goblin Gas 50K run and BBQ. We drove over to Karen's house and were going to drop off some stuff before we went to the trailhead, but Steph couldn't remember the code to get in the garage, so we went to the trailhead instead. We were giggling about our memory issues.

We got to the trailhead and met Ed and Sylvia there. Ed took off with the boys and the three of us women took off down the trail for a walk. Sylvia was great. I can tell that this group of ultrarunners have completely accepted her even though she doesn't run. She's great for Ed, smart, strong, and funny. I am so happy they found each other. Sylvia and I also discovered that we are both originally from Philadelphia.

It was a nice day, a little on the warm side, but not hot.

After about an hour we headed back to Karen & Pat's house to start setting up, Steph remembered how to get into the house. We got things going and soon everyone started to show up. There were lots of people, ultrarunners I didn't know, or recognized from the remote past. I saw a few people I hadn't seen in years. And there were dogs, and babies, so we had it all covered.

There were quite a few younger ultrarunners there, asking me all kinds of questions about Badwater, and other races I've done. They're so intense when they ask me the questions. It's like they expect this hard-core superbuff extreme intense psycho athlete, and they find themselves talking to a middle-aged, graying, wrinkling, not skinny or buffed-out, short little person wearing normal clothes, not decorated with a bunch of sponsors or athletic company logos, who just answers their questions. They probably think I'm the wife of one of the other runners there.

I think they are always shocked. "Oh, YOU'RE Alene? I've heard about your adventures." It's funny because I always tell people, I really don't take racing all that seriously.

Then they give me that funny look, "But don't you train for it?"

Yes I do train hard for Badwater, but just to finish alive, you have to. What I don't take seriously is the competitiveness. I just get out there and do my thing. If I want to run fast, I train to run fast and I put my mind to it when I'm in the race. If I'm just out there to socialize and finish, then I socialize and finish. I really don't worry about it when I'm training and I certainly don't worry about what people think of my performance or how I measure up to other runners.

They ask me what I eat, and how much I drink. I tell them, I eat any food that sounds good, and I have no idea how much I drink. I don't keep track. And then they look even more surprised. When they asked me the question about how much I drink, I looked across the table at Ed. He tried to answer for me, but he didn't know either. He runs the same way I do, he doesn't worry about it. He just goes out and finishes.

There's a lot to be said for not being OCD about every element of training. You can't be or you'll drive yourself crazy.

I wish I could teach that to up and coming runners. I won't pound myself into the ground, or keep track of every little thing I do. There are too many other things in life worth enjoying that you can't enjoy if you live, eat, sleep and breathe ultrarunning.

I see so many young ultrarunners get out there, when they first discover they can run 100 miles, and they get fixated on pushing their bodies to the limit. I can understand the curiosity factor- just how much can I do? How far can I go? They try to find out how many miles a week they can run, or how many 100 milers in a year, how much vertical or how many miles they can run in a year, and the physical fatigue and mental burnout are waiting there for them, like a pile of fresh dog poop. Eventually they will step in it...

How's that for an analogy? But it's all part of learning, and discovering your limits, and that's what this sport is all about. I always hope I can help people avoid the pitfalls that I and other people have experienced along the way.

It was Ed's birthday last month and we had a cake for him. He's feeling spunky at 63. He challenged a guy 10 years older than him to a race, it was the father of one of the 30 something ultrarunners there. Ed was a little surprised when the other guy took him up on it! Maybe you should keep your mouth shut, Ed! We all got a good laugh out of that scene...

On my way home, traffic was backed up on all the northbound routes, I-25 and everything parallel to it. I found a way to get off the exit ramp on 76, and get on 270, which I took to highway 85, and north to Greeley. So it took me two hours to get home. But it beats sitting in bumper to bumper traffic in Denver.

Steph and I are excited about planning a girls' trip to Death Valley next spring. We're going to check out all the places we never have time to visit when we're there for Badwater.

Over the past week I came up with more ideas on how to de-stress. I'll be putting those into action when I get back from OKC.

Tomorrow, easy 12 miles on the agenda, and I have to start packing for my trip and race! I can't believe it's the end of October already.

Goblin at the No Goblin, and Silence

Signed, sealed, delivered. Not that I had any question about who I would vote for. I don't expect any magic solutions to society's ills in the next 4 years as a result of this president or any other, but I vote with my conscience, and I can only vote in the direction I'd rather see us moving. Now if I could just get the phone calls to stop, it would be delightful.

Tomorrow I'm headed to Denver to hang out, not run, with a group of ultrarunners I've known for many years. We're all old fart ultrarunners, except me of course, most have been in the ultraworld for at least the past 20 years, and the premise is "No Goblin Gas".

There usually is a race in Utah that is a day's drive away for most of us, called the Goblin Valley 50K, and it has been cancelled indefinitely, so this year they are staying home and doing a 50K training run in southwest Denver. And what would an ultra be without a party, food and beer afterwards?

I'm going to walk with Steph for a couple of hours, then we'll set up for the post-run BBQ. I plan to do a lot more of the goblin than the no goblin. I will also get to meet Sylvia, who is my friend Ed's new girlfriend. That's Ed who ran with me in the Black Hills this summer. He was just starting to date Sylvia when we were there in June, and things seem to be working out.

I survived another two days of work. Thought I would never make it through the first 12 hour shift, but I got 9 hours of sleep afterwards, a rare event for me on a work night, because I didn't have to go in until noon on Thursday. Then I only worked 9 hours because I had the closing shift. It was nice to not feel exhausted at work for a change.

Lately I've talked a lot about work and work hangovers and I vent because I do get tired, 12 hour shifts are hard, especially with the psychosocial components of the work I do. That's why nursing is a profession in which it is so easy to burn out.

It's easy to hang a bag of chemo or a liter of fluids, but taking care of the patient's needs demands not only attention to their physical condition, but also to everything they need in their lives when living with a serious illness.

One of the things you see in nursing, that is more the norm than the exception, is the propensity for people's past life issues to come out when suddenly they are faced with a life-threatening illness and the rigorous treatments that go along with that.

So many people have not worked through their past traumas to the point where they can consciously identify them, and have the awareness that something they are experiencing in their body during cancer or other treatment is a result of their past psychological history, and not the current physical condition.

When they experience the trauma of cancer treatment, all the unresolved issues come charging to the surface and it can be a huge obstacle for them as they struggle through the intensity of staying on track with medications, appointments, procedures, follow-ups, treatments, side effects, and dealing with the issues that come up in their own families surrounding their illness.

I'm not even going to delve into it here, but who knows how much the trauma of past experience affects the immune system to the degree that genetic mutations that happen at the cellular level are allowed to flourish unchecked and become cancer.

I had my review at work yesterday. It went well, there's always an element of anxiety before you go in to find out what they think of you and what your peers have to say. I am so thankful that I work in a place where I can get useful, valuable input and support to go along with it, that truly helps me professionally and personally. I think I work in one of those rare workplaces, which I attribute to careful, consistent, and conscientious management for many years. That is rare these days in the workplace.

Which is the exact opposite of what I experienced in my previous workplace. How fitting then, that Patricia Singleton posted this post on her blog yesterday.

If you feel like reading her blog, there is a link at the bottom under "blogs I read" on the right hand side of this blog as you scroll down. A blog about sexual abuse doesn't really fit in to a running blog, but I find Patricia's blog applicable to everything in life, because of the theme that underlies her writing. It's about ending violence and abuse, and shedding light on the forces that perpetuate abuse. And that applies to all kinds of violence, not just sexual abuse.

The way I found Patricia, was way back in the days when I was a new nurse working in ICU, I was having one of my sleepless nights and dealing with a lot of the workplace violence that nurses often experience, called "eating their young".

When I worked there, there was a culture of abuse, not only directed at new nurses, but at anyone who failed to kiss the narcissistic boss's ass along with her minions. Almost everyone was intimidated into silence, except for a few of us who spoke our minds, and we became the targets.

Eventually, after a large percentage of the staff turned over within a year, the administration got wise and got rid of that boss. The reason it was allowed to go on so long was that there was a person in a high level administrative position who was protecting her and looking the other way, and until that person left the organization, nothing happened.

Justice was served in that case, but not before many of us experienced a lot of physical and mental stress that was costly not only to us as individuals, but to the organization.

I stumbled on Patricia's blog with a Google search on some topic related to violence or abuse in the workplace. I found Patricia's insights to be enlightening and perceptive, and since someone important in my life is a sexual abuse survivor I also found the insights on sexual abuse and its consequences to be valuable and eye-opening for me.

I think this blogpost from Patricia and the links she includes within the post are excellent and thought-provoking reading material, they are short and easy to read, but worthwhile. The violence associated with silence affects everyone, in some way. There is no person who is immune to any type of abuse. Perpetrators of abuse don't just become that way by themselves, they have experienced abuse in order to learn how it's done.

I think it's important to bring silence to everyone's attention because we are all indoctrinated with compliance at an early age, don't make waves, don't speak up, keep a low profile. It's easier to ignore injustice than to act on it.

There's much work to do, it's a political issue as much as a personal issue, that could be a whole blog in itself. I think it's a good idea to check ourselves every so often. Am I speaking up about issues that I care about? Am I serving someone's best interest, or am I hurting them by being silent? Silence that allows violence to continue, is violence itself.

I thank Patricia for the reminder, and the inspiration. She's an amazing woman and if you're interested in these issues, I highly recommend her blog.