When life gets you down, put things in perspective...

Today's post only peripherally involves food.  Don't worry, I'll still provide a recipe by the end of this spiel, but this post mostly focuses on the importance of putting things in perspective.  And running.

I've had numerous people ask me why I run.  WHAT possesses you to get up every morning and run before work? WHY do you feel the need to put extra miles in on the weekends?  HOW do you motivate yourself to run these long distance races?  Or simply, WHY do you run?

I do it because running represents a microcosm of my life.  Most people think I'm crazy because I love training in hilly areas.  But to be honest, I absolutely crave the feeling of accomplishment after tackling a big one -- the pain, the blood, sweat, and tears that go into trudging up a mountain (or what appears to be a mountain 10 miles into a run, ha!), all well worth it when I get to the top.  Forgive me for being hokey, but when I run uphill, I picture my climb to represent adversity, life's deepest fears, the things we feel we'll never overcome.  Trust me, when you see a large hill in front of you during a race, your immediate thought probably isn't, "Let's do this shit!!"  It's more than likely something like, "Jesus, this is a big hill. Am I going to make it?  Everyone else is walking or stopping around me, maybe I should give myself a break, too."  That's all the negative talk your head, dictating what you can and cannot do.  All that negative talking can really limit your abilities, you know, if you really let it.  And while it's important to listen to your body and understand your limitations (I'm getting to that next), it's vital to be able to tell the difference between your mind trying to talk you down and your body giving you warning signs to play it cool.  If I decide that it's just negative banter in my head, I redirect my mind towards my only goal for the next 15 seconds to 5 minutes (yeah, some hills are big) -- climb to the top.  And don't stop.  I did try to stop once during a long distance race, actually.  I was at mile 11 of a half marathon in Austin, Texas and I was just plain exhausted from the heat.  I started to walk uphill, when I heard a guy on the sideline yell, "NO!  Don't walk! You can do this! Just run it!  You know you have it in you!" The guy was near screaming in my face, and boy did I listen to him.  "OKAYYYYYY," I yelled back and nodded my head vigorously.  I then ran up that hill with every fiber in my being, and suddenly, a second wind kicked in.  I conquered that hill, the one that I wasn't sure if I could climb.  The one I was sure I would walk up because I was just too damn tired.  I did it because someone encouraged me and I shut that negative talk away so I could see my path very clearly (I'm suddenly reminded of the Bad Idea Bears from Avenue Q).  And similarly, when I get to a point in my life when I feel like I just can't deal with what's in front of me (it's happened before, and it's bound to happen again), I know I can overcome.  As long as I know my clear path to the finish line, I just need to put things in perspective, shut down those Bad Idea Bears, and keep on keepin' on.  We can all do it.

Now, getting to knowing one's limitations.  Life is sometimes hard.  Life sometimes throws us curveballs.  Life never turns out the way we plan it to be, no matter how hard we try.  And what do we do when things don't go our way?  We figure out a new plan. We improvise.  We find a solution to the problem and move on, knowing that, even though life threw us off a little bit, we still have our loved ones around us.  Last Thursday (on my 28th birthday, no less), I woke up with a terrible cold and I panicked.  I had, just 48 hours earlier, purchased an entry ticket for the Atlanta Publix Half Marathon on Sunday.  I HAD to be at that race!  I decided to take action.  I would take ibuprofen three times a day, I would drug myself with pseudoephedrine twice a day. I'd make myself lemon, ginger, and honey tea and drink it every hour.  I'd keep myself hydrated and stay off my feet.  I was going to play this game right if I was going to make this race!  I went the entire weekend thinking I was going to make that race, guys.  I was super determined.  I even went out and bought myself energy gus, picked up my race packet, and signed up for a pace group.  I was NOT going to let a silly little rhinovirus get the best of me!  (*Note: 3 years ago, while working at the CDC Influenza Division, I was hit by, no less, the influenza virus 4 days before another long distance race.  Talk about bad luck!)  But, by Saturday evening, I began to realize the limitations of my own body.  I had been running on crazy adrenaline the last three days; or, maybe it was the 100+ fever talking, who knows.  Regardless, I finally understood that if I ran this race on Sunday morning, I would set back my recovery another week.  Plus, the temperatures were so high on Sunday that my fever probably would have spiked mid-race.  BUT I COULDN'T GIVE UP YET!  Perhaps there was a solution!  Perhaps I could take preemptive measures to drug myself and keep my fever down!  I decided to look for Runner's World articles and blogs on 'rules of thumb' for running races with a cold.  "So, if your symptoms are from the neck up, you're okay to run! That's me! Wait, except for fevers? And body aches?  Ah, nuts.  Maybe this other website will tell me otherwise." Yeah, that's what I was doing for about an hour.  Ridiculous.  This was the Bad Idea Bears started planting ideas in my head.  I eventually returned to reality, confirmed with a few friends (thanks, Katie and Helen) that if I ran the exact race course the following weekend by myself, I could still justify wearing my race shirt, and finally relaxed and gave up fighting my body the rest of the night.  :)

I slept soundly for the most part that night, but I kept having vivid dreams of waking up at 4 AM, feeling 100%, and deciding to run the race anyway at the last minute.  TWICE I had the same dream!  Anyway, to ameliorate these feelings of guilt and defeat, Joe and I cheered race participants on from the 20 mile marker the next day. I'd like to think our high fives and words of encouragement to "just push through that wall" helped at least a few people.  It was the least I could do to help out the running community of Atlanta, right? (Joe and I are both too familiar with that terrible, stubborn, lonely wall around miles 18-20.  It's a doosey to get through.)

That cheered me up a little, but I still felt a little glum.  Joe kept reminding me that if I had indeed run this race, I would have ended up like Allie (of Hyperbole and a Half).  [**Note: If you have not experienced the awesomeness that is Hyperbole and a Half, you MUST read this blog.  It is a fantastic time waster.  And hilarious.  You might be crying and falling out of your chair due to intense belly-aching laughs.]  To cheer me up, we decided to cook together a simple, yet hearty, chicken fiesta soup (similar to a chicken tortilla soup, but with potatoes added to it).  It was a fantastic meal, topped with an avocado and tomato pico de gallo and crushed tortilla chips.

Here's the recipe below...enjoy!

Ingredients:

-1 whole chicken, with skin
-1 pot full of water
-3 small tomatoes, or 2 large ones
-2 avocados
-1 large red onion
-2 handfuls of red potatoes
-1 cup corn
-1 cup black beans
-1 bunch of cilantro
-Salt/pepper to taste
-1 whole lime
-tortilla chips (as a topper)
-shredded cheddar cheese (as a topper)

Preparation:

Chicken broth:
-Place whole chicken, with skin, into a pot full of water with some salt, and heat until boiling.  Let simmer and continue to heat on low for about an hour.
*Note: You can also add things like carrots, celery, and bay leaves to the pot of water when making the broth.  We kept it simple, though.

Avocado and tomato pico de gallo:
-Dice 2 avocados, 2 small tomatoes (or 1 large tomato), and a fourth of a red onion into small cubes.
-Slice a handful of cilantro into the pico de gallo.
-Salt and pepper generously.
-Add the squeeze of about half a lime.
-Adjust seasonings as needed.

Chicken Fiesta Soup:
-In a pot full of chicken broth, add diced potatoes, 1 diced tomato, 3/4 diced onion, 1 cup of black beans (pre-washed), 1 cup of corn (pre-washed), half of a chicken (shredded), salt/pepper, and the squeeze of half a lime.
-Cook on high heat until boiling, then let simmer for 2+ hours.
-Remove from heat, ladle in a healthy serving of the chicken fiesta soup, and top with crushed tortilla chips, shredded cheddar cheese, and pico de gallo, if desired.
-ENJOY!