The Friday Ramble 12/18/20

Each week, the Friday Ramble offers a training snapshot along with other things that are floating around in my brain. This week: Getting past mad and tapping into the mind-body connection on a profound level. Also, glove recommendations. 

One of my goals coming into 2020 was to take a yoga class. Later today I’m going to do so for the first time in over a decade. This is my response to last week’s challenge. 

I’ve been sort of doing yoga for years, but I’m extremely self conscious about it to the point where I’ve only taken one actual yoga class in front of other people. Mainly due to the fact that my body couldn’t do anything even slightly resembling the poses, that class was not a particularly enlightening experience. Being around a bunch of flexible, blissed out yogis while I was grunting and moaning made me feel, quite honestly, like an idiot. 

Even though I was terrible at it, the thing was that I kind of liked yoga. My experience came through OnDemand videos that I started doing in my living room during the summer of 2009 after I was laid off from Boston magazine. My breath wasn’t connected and my down dogs were barking, but doing those videos helped get me through a stressful period. 

After I went to that class, however, I put yoga in my rearview mirror. When I started training a few years later, my friend (and fellow ex Bo-Magger) Rebecca Pacheco put out a DVD through Runner’s World called, appropriately enough, Yoga for Runners. 

What serendipity! 

I would pop that DVD into my Macbook and follow Rebecca through the various sun salutations and hip mandalas. If only we could return to those times. The drive on the Macbook eventually started to fail, and then Apple stopped installing drives altogether, and it was up to me to lead myself through Rebecca’s class. 

I had done the routine enough to memorize the basics, and that formed the backbone of my post-run stretch. It’s nothing too elaborate. There’s the aforementioned down dogs and mandalas, plus a sphinx, cat cows, and something vaguely resembling pigeon, along with a few other bits and pieces.  

I like the stretch that yoga provides, but the routine was missing an obvious element. The breath. It was supposed to connect to the body, somehow. Without an instructor to keep me focused on the present, my mind would be somewhere off in the ether while my body was twisting itself into a knot. In essence, I was doing some yoga, rather than practicing the form. 

Back in April, when the pandemic was just beginning to take hold of our lives, I caught up with Rebecca for an interview. If you’re curious or in any way interested in yoga, I’d encourage you to take a spin through our conversation. 

After we talked, she sent me an invite to her online class. I was tempted, but quickly found a half dozen reasons to decline. “No problem,” she said. “Whenever you’re ready.” 

Months passed, and I began making an honest attempt to connect to the breath before stretching. I wasn’t always successful, and I definitely didn’t always remember, but little by little a new ritual was developing. 

Soon, that ritual -- five deep breaths and five deep exhales followed by a little nadi cleansing -- became routine. My stretch began to evolve from something I did to my muscles into something that became an extension of me. I began appreciating my body, rather than fighting it. 

Then in late October, Rebecca popped back into my life just when I needed to hear from her. I was feeling down and overwhelmed, drained and unhappy. She again invited me to a class, and this time I took her up on the offer. 

For the past few weeks, I’ve been taking her class via video replay on Saturday mornings. It’s become an integral part of recovery following my long runs on Friday. That technical distance between actual class and replay provided a safe space for me to explore yoga, away from feeling self-conscious about practicing for real in front of other people. 

I’m not going to lie. Rebecca’s class is a challenge. I am not graceful or even fluid. My movements are sometimes choppy and my breath isn’t always where I’d like it to be. Yet, each week I find something -- if not multiple somethings -- that connect my mind and body in a profound way. 

I am finally ready to practice with other people. No, it won’t be in a proper studio. My fellow yogis will be in their own digital space and Rebecca will be in hers. But taking a live yoga class was a goal I made coming into the year, and it’s a goal I’m going to achieve before the year ends. 

What I’m reading: Out There by Devin Kelly

Have you ever read a piece that sticks with you for reasons you don’t quite understand? You read it again and again, trying to reconnect to the layer of meaning that registered the first time, only to discover different interpretations with each reading. 

Initially, I was quite clear about how Kelly’s essay made me feel. It made me mad. Not because of anything it said about the author or his existential relationship with running, but rather, I was mad because of what the piece said about me. Reading it exposed a raw feeling of emptiness that had been building throughout the summer. 

As Kelly writes: 

What happens if what you once used to make sense of things no longer helps you make sense of things? What happens if the patterns and habits and metaphors we lean on do not serve us in the moments we need them? What happens if the stories we tell ourselves about our lives leave us lonely, wrestling with meaning? What then?

Well, yeah. What then? 

When I read the piece, I was mad I didn’t have a better answer for that question. I was mad that I couldn’t articulate what I was feeling, and I was mad that Kelly was capable of exploring it with depth and sincerity while I was dealing with a protracted writing slump.  

Doc Rivers, the coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, likes to say, “You’ve got to get past mad.” He’s talking about the dynamics of a basketball team when strong personalities clash on a daily basis, but I think it applies to just about any human interaction.  

As recreational runners, we (usually) have no teammates depending on us. We can be as selfish as we want on our runs, given the time constraints of family and jobs. When we are running, when we’re out there, the only person we have to answer to is ourselves. That relationship is the most complex one I know.

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions, but I like setting goals for myself. Maybe you don’t see a difference, but to me resolutions are finite, while goals afford me space to explore my (perceived) limits. 

So, here’s a goal for 2021: I’m going to try to get past being mad with myself. When I’m fortunate enough to be out there on a run, I’m going to try to do better at appreciating the moment for what it is, and not what I want it to be.  

More gear recs: Gloves

We had a lot of great responses to Wednesday’s winter running recs post. One question that kept coming up was about gloves. Whoo boy, do I have a lot to say about running gloves. 

I have tried more than a half-dozen different gloves and have yet to find the absolutely perfect pair that will keep me warm and happy on a winter run. That’s a significant problem because my hands are always cold. After much trial and error, I’ve come to the conclusion that the perfect pair of running gloves simply doesn’t exist. I do have some favorites, however. 

When temps are in the 50s and 60s any pair of running gloves will do. I’ve lost track of how many of these I’ve lost over the years. Right now I have a pair by Brooks and they’re fine. When it gets a little colder -- 30s and 40s -- I really like this pair by Smartwool. And when it gets really cold -- 20s and below -- these Craft convertible mittens are delightful. 

This season I decided to splurge on a pair of waterproof gloves, also by Craft. I wore them once in a rainstorm, but it was a little too warm outside and I wound up taking them on and off every few miles. I’m curious to see how they do with snow on dryer days. 

Oh, and speaking of gear, Ian Corless has a fantastic post on layering. His blog is an excellent resource for ultrarunners and outdoor enthusiasts. 

And finally 

We got a foot of snow on Thursday, so I’m taking this opportunity to take a few days off from running to recharge and rest my body. Just before the snow came on Wednesday, I had an amazing run where everything came together and flowed in wonderful synchronicity. 

As we all know, those days don’t come around very often. When it dawned on me that one of those days was happening right that very second, I eased into the feeling, rather than trying to ride it for all it was worth. I believe that made all the difference. 

It’s funny. I didn’t come into the run with any preconceived notions of how it would go, or even the route I would take. If anything, I figured I’d take it easy. But when I got to the place where I could take the toughest trail in the park, my body wanted to go there and my mind didn’t argue. I wouldn’t call the run an out-of-body experience. It was very much the opposite. I was all the way there, connecting mind, body, and spirit.  

I don’t think I would have been able to resist chasing the flow state even a few weeks earlier. At the same time, my mind might have put limits on what my body wanted to do at that moment. Being there, being all the way there, is the kind of progress I’m interested in right now. Not times or miles or splits. 

And with that, it feels like a good time to take a little break. 

Enjoy your runs this weekend. Go ahead and brag about them in the comments, especially if you get out there in the snow.