Tulsa Tough is Coming!

Very soon, Tulsa will be inundated with bicycles as the 11th annual Saint Francis Tulsa Tough opens on Friday June10. The Tulsa Tough is a three-day cycling festival that offers rides for just about every fitness level. Even if you’re not a cyclist, it’s amazing to watch the criterion rides on Friday night in the Blue Dome District or Saturday in the Brady Arts District. It’s thrilling to be among the crowd cheering the skill and speed of these professional cyclists.

There are also rides for recreational cyclists to join; ranging in distances of 36, 64 and 102 miles. There is even a 5.8 mile Townie ride on Sunday afternoon for families. This will be my fourth year to ride the Gran Fondo - which is a distance of a little over 100 miles. It may sound crazy, but I look forward to this event every summer. It’s become a tradition for my husband and me. Our oldest son began riding this event in 2011, and he inspired me to attempt the distance.

Bikes and cycling have been part of our family from the very beginning. Steve and I rode many miles together in the months we were dating and through our early marriage. Each of our kids can recall being pulled behind Steve’s bike in the trailer before they were on their own two wheels. Now that they’re all teens and older, we’ve returned to riding as a couple. These are sweet times together, reminiscent of our early years.

Being on a bike brings me a sense of happiness – joy – freedom. I am generally a cautious person, but on the bike I find a higher level of courage and tolerance for speed. Admittedly, on a bike, speed is relative. Slowly climbing a hill at 8-10 mph and then flying down the other side at 25-30 mph is something I welcome. On the long, flat roads of Oklahoma, cycling can feel like a nature walk on two wheels; listening to the rhythmic rustling of tall grass, the calls of birds, the occasional sighting of wildlife, even the chance to stop and forage mulberries along the trail. There are also a few less-than-pleasant realities of cycling on the open road: blasts of hot air from passing vehicles, drivers who honk and yell as they come alongside you and the presence of fresh road kill. As a cyclist, you just take it all. Welcome to life in the bike lane!

Cycling also tests me as an athlete – pushing me to summon strength, develop endurance and dig deep for determination. The Gran Fondo ride is no Sunday afternoon picnic. It’s incredibly challenging and deeply rewarding. The event begins downtown with hundreds of cyclists leaving en masse. There is the familiar whir of chains gliding over cogs, the cheers of spectators and the adrenaline rush of a tribe coming together again. But after only a few miles on the course, the riders spread out behind the peloton into clusters of bikes and several will ride alone for much of the 100 mile distance.

For me, the Tulsa Tough is a chance to enjoy time with part of my family as we press through one of the most physically demanding days of our year. It’s also about being in and among the cycling community. This is Tulsa! And this event brings together cyclists from all over the nation, and support from all over town.

I am looking forward to testing my training again next weekend. I’m not a fast rider, and that’s okay. This is not about winning or setting records. It’s about fitness and family. I am grateful for both.

Honey!

So this happened...

On a lark, I applied for sponsorship with Honey Stinger earlier this year.  I really didn't expect to be accepted.  After all,  I'm just an ordinary, forty-something-age-group athlete.  But I couldn't be more excited to have a brand to identify with.  I primarily used Honey Stinger products during my fall marathon training season.  The honey gel packs were a great change from the pudding-like gels I had used before. I much prefer using real food to fuel rather than glucose. The honey is easier on my stomach too.

I am looking forward to next year, and what this first try at sponsorship may yield.

On Running My First Marathon

I ran my first marathon in November of 2013.  Recently, I was asked to write about that experience.  That essay was published here.

Now I have completed 5 full marathons.  The truth is, I am an unlikely athlete.  Every time I run I defy the habits of a past version of myself.  It's a humbling reality. I am grateful.

"Latin is a dead language". Methinks not!

About a year ago, I decided to take on the task of tutoring a group of high school students through Classical Conversations Challenge II level.  This commitment includes being prepared to tutor Latin.  Having never studied Latin, I wasn't sure where to begin. I wanted my studies to be formal and systematic, and maybe even fun. But, as I read about the many methods to study Latin, I also came across numerous articles and book chapters that included the phrase, "Latin is a dead language..." usually followed by, "but here's why you should study it anyway".  That phrase alone is enough to keep most of us disinterested in pursuing Latin.  It makes the study sound pointless and futile; "well, it's really a dead language no one speaks anymore, but it's good for you, so do it anyway."

All this time, I accepted the premise that Latin is no longer spoken anywhere in the world.  It is, however, the basis for many modern languages and therefore beneficial as a foundation for other language study.  That's all fine and good.

Then, last week, while studying something completely different, the topic of Latin sprang up in a highly unexpected place.  Let me explain. I have a fascination with health, fitness, and nutrition.  In my down time, I study books, articles, websites and podcasts related to this triad of topics.  So, last week I listened to the Rich Roll podcast as he interviewed Matt Ruscigno, a registered dietician and endurance athlete.  In the course of their conversation, longevity was mentioned as well as the title of a book I'd never read.  The Blue Zone.  Being the book addict that I am, I immediately searched for it at the library.  The author highlights regions of the world where higher percentages of the population live astoundingly long lives.  Not just longer lives, but lives full of health and vitality long into their 80s, 90s and 100s.

The basic subject matter of the book is intriguing, but what made me stop in my tracks, put the book down and laugh "AHA!" aloud in an empty room was what I read on page 34.

     "The original Sardinians, in fact, did not keep their ancient Nuraghic languages.  The Romans had subjugated them long enough that, by the time they escaped to the mountains, they had adopted Latin, which has survived the centuries remarkably intact.  In the Sardinian dialect spoken in the Blue Zone, for example, the word for house is still the Latin word domus.  Their pronunciation more closely resembles Latin too.  The English word sky is cielo in Italian but is kelu in Sardinian, preserving the hard K sound as it was pronounced in the original Latin caelum (ka-AY-lum).  The same goes for sentence structure.  A modern-day Italian says io bevo vino (I drink wine) but Sardinians would say it as an ancient Roman would have, io vino bevo (I wine drink)."

It appears that Latin is not a dead language after all.  When I read the paragraph above to my Latin students, one of them announced "I think this calls for a field trip!"  What a way to breathe new life in to the study of a not-so-dead language!

Focus for 2014

Every year I set goals.  I write them on a 3x5 card.  Post them on the board.  Let them marinate.  Sometimes they are fulfilled, but often not.

This year I did something different.  I took a more minimal approach and chose words to represent what I want to focus on this year.  Here are my words.

Strength

Finances

Hackschooling

Create beauty

Contentment

On their own, these words don’t say much.  They certainly don’t communicate any significance to others.  Here is a bit of the back story.

Strength. Physical and mental.

 The mechanisms: Physical: daily exercise; cycling 3x/week, running 3x/week, yoga, body weight exercises, weights. Train for specific races and events.  Mental: daily Khan Academy, scripture memorization, Latin. 

Finances. Increase awareness of our personal finances. Increase income. Increase savings. 

The mechanisms: You Need a Budget software. Smart Passive Income blog.

Hackschooling. Develop creative ways to engage myself in learning and researching and writing. This is for personal development as well as professional development for Classical Conversations Challenge II.    

The mechanisms: Classes and seminars (both live and online), experimenting, reading.

Create Beauty.  This encompasses art, gardening, cooking, hospitality, home repair. 

The mechanisms: currently undefined.

Contentment. Different than happiness - more like living with joy.

The mechanism: Daily gratitude. Prayer. Intentional, focused, undistracted time with my family members. 

This year will be more about being and doing, and less about having.  I’m looking forward to it.

Lost and Found

I’ve been discouraged lately.  My work with Classical Conversations has been hard.  It has left me feeling that I have too little time to work with my own children in their studies.  I’ve been overwhelmed and ready to quit.  I have questioned whether this is really the model I want us to follow.  It takes so much time to study all the various parts of the curriculum.  We are rarely fully prepared for our seminar days.  I don’t like constantly feeling behind.  Even though we all study hard, it feels like there are not enough hours in the day to get it all done.  Honestly, I have been ready to build an exit plan and try something else.

The questions have rattled my brain:  Why am I, why are we - doing this? Why are we doing this, this way?  I don’t want to spend eight hours a day studying.  I don’t want my children parked at a table all day studying.  Where is the creativity? The inspiration?  The love of learning?  This has been the running dialogue in my head for weeks.

My children are all very artistic and creative, but a couple struggle with mild to moderate dyslexia.  I’ve read a lot about learning styles and individualized plans to help work with the strengths of divergent learners.  I recently even explored a local educational option that works specifically with teens who “don’t fit the mold of standard school”. I was looking for something different, maybe even "easier", because what we are doing is very hard - for all of us.  We have never used “standard school” but the past three semesters of Classical Conversations have felt more school-ish than anything else we've ever done.  I joined primarily to find community and accountability for my oldest son.  We were planning for his senior year, and while he wanted to continue homeschooling, he also wanted something different for this final year.  It was a good experience.  He learned.  We all learned.

This year, however, I am also tutoring a Challenge II class - the equivalent of 10^th grade.  I have had to put in so much study time to support my tutoring that it leaves little time for the other study I’d really like to be doing. (namely, on nutrition, fitness, entrepreneurship, gardening).  I’ve become resentful of the time required to prepare for my job as tutor.  I want more time for my own stuff.  I’ve been whining.  At first just to myself.  Lately though, I’ve whined to my family and even to my students.  Not cool.

Then I ran a marathon.  

That day stands out as significant on many points. I will write a post on the other factors later.  The part that matters here though, is that running that marathon was a huge breakthrough for me physically and mentally.  Never in my life - ever - had anyone suggested to me that I might be a runner.  For me to run my first 5K was a departure from the normal course of my adult life.  The marathon took this to an entirely different level.  It taught me that setting a high goal matters more than I realized.  If I had never set the marathon goal, I never would have accomplished all the smaller goals I met in the process of training.  By putting that marathon goal out there, I had to dedicate time and attention to preparation.  Long hours of preparation.  Changes in schedule.  In lifestyle.  In priorities.  Somewhere along the course that day and over the hours following the race, I realized how the same training model relates to our family’s educational process.  If we don’t set high, difficult academic goals - we may not even meet the shorter smaller goals that we’d rather set.  Those long hours of study actually make me crave the physical work of running and cycling.  The study also makes me crave creative outlets of music, art and cuisine.  If I take away the challenge of study, do I risk losing the impetus for the other pursuits?  A change in expectation, by changing our curriculum may prove to be more compromising in the end.

I could say, I’ve come full circle and am ready to start fresh with CC.  Really, this was more than full circle, more like climbing a winding mountain road and having my perspective shift and change through the journey.  This exploration of intent and content has taken me to a more solid platform than just a mental do-over.  I have a high regard for the wisdom of those in CC who have gone before me as parents educating their children at home.  It is right for me to be attentive to their words, and to yield to this process of being both a parent/teacher to my own children and a tutor/mentor to the students in my class.   

 Some days, I haven’t even wanted to want to do well with school.  I’ve been that disheartened.  The desire has been rekindled now.  I am ready to submit to the work it will take to finish this year well.  Kind of like my marathon goals: don’t quit, don’t get hurt, finish strong... and smiling!

November 24, 2013  Finished smiling!

  

Tulsa Run 2013 -- Pushing Hard to the Finish Line!

I'm the runner in blue...

On October 26, I completed my second Tulsa Run 15K.  It was a great race.  I was excited to be running a course I've run before. My finish time of 1:26:14 was over 12 minutes better than last year’s event.  I've only been running for 18 months, so these trackable improvements mean a lot.

There is more that could or should be said of this day, but I consciously tried not to overemphasize the race in my mind.  In the larger context of marathon training, it was really only a Saturday long run.  I still have miles to cover before my bigger goal is reached.

It's Working -- But, what is it?

I have not eaten wheat in three and a half weeks. Over the first 10-14 days I noticed no physical changes - only cravings.  But then, last week I had some of my best workouts ever. I had speeds on the bike that have been elusive before. I set PRs in my running.  In fact, my base pace for running has improved by :30 - :45 per mile.  So, what's working? Is it the wheat free diet? Is it that my fitness has has hit a new level of strength? Is it because I've started pre-fueling my long workouts differently? How will I ever really know?

I've only gone wheat-free, but not grain free. I've still eaten some oats, rice and corn; just not every day. I chose to drop wheat because it is indicated as a cause of joint inflammation and pH acidity - two things that are counter productive to health and fitness. Overexposure to wheat can also create irritation in the digestive tract, which can lead to malabsorption of nutrients and other undesirable affects.

My diet was already free of most highly processed foods -- we keep a whole food kitchen rather than stocking packaged, manufactured items. Dropping the wheat meant eliminating things like pasta and homemade bread, not convenience foods (cereal, crackers, croutons, cookies, etc).  We dropped the convenience items a long time ago for various other reasons. So, I wonder if the last remnants of wheat in my diet are what is making the big difference in my athletic performance.

My fitness routine is a fairly recent discipline. I've only been regularly exercising for about eighteen months. It is possible that I've hit a new level of strength based solely on the consistent physical work I've done every week for a year and a half. I don't have a prior experience to compare this to. I've never been as active in my entire life as I am right now. I'm forty-five years old, and I know I could out-perform my 20 year old self! But, is a solid base alone the facet to credit for this sudden improvement in pace and strength?

Recently, I've been reading more about proper fueling pre-workout. I started experimenting. I already fuel strategically before my long runs by eating some light, but quick energy, choices like dates and nuts, or a small glass of carrot juice. Last week I decided to switch things up by including my usual post-workout dose of Emergen-C with my standard pre-fuel. It was on a riding workout day. I set a personal record for my favorite 15 mile course and records on several segments within the course. I was impressed - but not sure what had made the difference. Next day I included the Emergen-C again, this time before a run workout. Again I set personal records -- my fastest mile ever. Maybe it was still a fluke. But I do think I've been placing such heavy demands on my body this year and my nutrition had not necessarily been keeping pace with the output. I'm still tweaking my diet and focusing on the proper intake before the workouts and in the recovery period following the workouts.  It's a work in progress.

Wheat Free Living

It is Day 10 of my current no-wheat experiment.  In previous attempts this was my "fail day".  To me, making it past ten days is an important juncture in seeing if wheat free has merit for my body composition.

I am also really struggling with an attempt to add in animal protein.  My research into wheat free eating led me to the books and articles on the 'ancestral diet'.   For over a year, I've been reading about the paleo or primal lifestyle which includes animal protein at every meal.  I've never been a big meat eater.  Ever.  But, since this concept also avoids wheat (actually all grains) I wanted to take a closer look. I've been very intrigued by some of the claims and concepts of this ancestral eating plan.  In July I tried to switch from a six month total vegetarian experiment to a paleo menu.  So, overnight I nixed all grains and beans and switched to just animal protein and plants (veg and fruit).  I was amazed that I started losing weight.  Every day my weight was dropping by close to a pound.  I really didn't need to lose weight - but it happened anyway.

I only lasted with Paleo for ten days before I "slipped up" and ate some beans and rice.  Then I ate some pasta.  My experiment cratered after that.  The trouble with me and Paleo is that, I really don't like meat.  I've tried.  Really.   I just can't seem to choke it down so frequently.  How can I possibly do Paleo if I don't even like meat?  I don't even eat eggs well.  The meal plans make me feel stressed from  trying to eat meat even once a day - let alone three times.  I did find an interesting article on a vegetarian version of Paleo.  I'm not sure I could manage this either for a long term eating plan.  I do like grains.  I believe my body relies on them for fuel for my active lifestyle.

I do know that several athletes that I admire have taken wheat out of their diets.  There seems to be a connection with wheat and slow muscle recovery, inflammation and a more acidic body pH level.  This  research is what has led me to begin my "no wheat experiment" again.  I've committed to staying wheat free for the whole month of August.  I'll make my final assessment of any personal benefits after that.

Tally of the Day - Monday style.

Food/Fuel
Today's breakfast was a spontaneous creation inspired by my craving for bread.  Those who adopt a paleo-grain-free-diet do not encourage such baking - especially at the beginning of the journey - because it does not change one's mindset about food.

I ignored all that advice this morning and made a wheat-free-carrot-walnut-spice-coffee- ___.  I was going to say coffee cake, but the texture of the finished product was anything but cake-like.  My kids had to spoon honey over it to make it palatable.  They resorted to making cinnamon toast with some whole wheat tortillas we still had.

Here is today's morning kitchen experiment:

I ate it.  It wasn't terrible.  It wasn't great either.  Wheat free baking is tricky business.  Especially since I made up the recipe by adapting two other recipes from a favorite cookbook.

Lunch refuel was a little sketchy. Just some blueberries and bacon, before getting the kids to an afternoon social event at church.  We grabbed peanut butter Clif Bars afterward; then came home and snacked on peaches while I made dinner.

I made a pot of (gluten free) Taco Soup for dinner -- complete with a pan of corn bread for my still-wheat-eating family.

Fitness
Today's training consisted of 40 minutes on the spin bike at the gym, followed by 45 minutes of yoga/pilates/barre.

Homework
I didn't get much done on the tutor prep front today.  I was able to connect with the parent of one of my students and walk through the Challenge II guide a little.  I located a youtube of Beowulf to listen to.  [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaB0trCztM0 ].   I won an ebay auction for a set of prepared slides for Biology.  I also had a parent orientation meeting for one of my sons tonight.  He'll be a Challenge IV student this year.  This is his senior year of school.  I love going to meetings hosted by other tutors.  I gain so much from hearing the perspective of those who have been in Classical Conversations longer than we have.  It also makes me realize what a difficult task I have ahead of me as a Challenge II tutor.

Still, it was a very good day.