Runner Girl Rides Her Bike--Part 1

Everyone copes with anxiety differently. Some people eat more. Some drink more. Some shop more. Apparently, I run more.

This is the only honest way I can explain how I jumped from 35-40 running miles a week, to sometimes over sixty. In case you weren’t sure—that’s not a safe increase. Obviously—as I became the not-so-proud recipient of a strained Achilles tendon and stress fractured foot to prove it.

Truthfully, I didn’t set out to increase my mileage. It was unintentional—if you can believe adding 15-20 extra miles a week could pass under one’s radar. But, looking back, I can see how it happened. 

Christmas 2010 was still not the peaceful, joy-filled season I was hoping for. Better than 2009—our first year as an oreo family of seven—yet still personally unsettling. We trekked to Reno at the beginning of December--first time with five kiddos--where I ran a disappointing California marathon, and the rest of the trip I spent somewhat tight- chested, as it was yet another "first meeting", and for whatever reason, those first meetings always leave me tight-chested.

Then the usual holiday-rush and post-holiday daze, all of which left me slightly bewildered by the beginning of 2011. I guess this is where the extra mileage came to play. My solution for shaking the New Year blues was adding a three-mile run into my early-morning routine.

Adding a morning run isn’t a problem. Not backing off regular mileage is.

Here I was, doing this incredibly healthy thing for all the wrong reasons. I wasn’t adding extra miles to just start my day off right. I was running to escape this uncomfortable season of life.

Just as high-speed police chases never seem to end well, neither did my own attempt at escape. All it did was leave me broken—unable to even go one mile for relief from the pressing in of my life.

I had made a decision to start doing triathlons before my last marathon. Now I was forced into the sport by virtue of injury. I begrudgingly began swimming at the gym, and mustered all the excitement of a child ordered to clean his messy room, when it came to buying me a bike and gear.

I tried to put on a happy face for riding—and even let a little joy slip out as I surged down hills and powered back up again. But, it was a fragile happiness, lasting only until my first unintentional contact with the ground.

“TIMMMBBBBERRR!”

“I hate this. It’s stupid. Why can’t I just run?” I muttered, as I crawled out from underneath my bike—quite unsuccessfully, I might add, since my feet were still clipped in.

Why can’t I just run, I prayed. Why do I have to be so uncomfortable? Why does everything have to be so hard right now?

Whine, whine, whine… right?   

Or maybe... it’s an honest question, coming from an honestly seeking heart, looking for a true and honest answer?

.... more to come. 

Thanks for allowing me to write my journey as I swim, bike, fall and even run a little through it.

Grace and Peace,

Shari

Getting Dirty

Finally. The grass is shooting through the bed of straw which has graced our yard for two weeks now. For the past three months our yard has looked like a disaster. The process of landscaping-- at least our landscaping--is so dirty, messy, wrought with pitfalls, back-tracking, little mistakes... big mistakes and slow, slow progress.

My life has felt a little like my yard lately. Messy, mistake-ridden and just down right dirty.

I over-trained for my last marathon and stress-fractured my foot during the race. Then, I was too prideful to quit, running over 16 miles on a fractured foot. I've had people say how amazing it was that I finished. What they don't realize it was no noble cause which kept me going... it was fear of humiliation.

Then there's this adjusting to a daughter thing. I'm embarrassed to say how many days I've been reduced to cursing once everyone is in bed and Superman and I are safely out of ear-shot...
               "I'm telling you, all it seems all I hear is b!&#%ing and moaning!"

I'm guessing this is because I've never tape recorded myself and had it played back on me.

I know I've mentioned this before, but here I am again, wondering... is this her personality? Is this her "girl-ness"? Is this her adjusting to adoption?

I remember the first year I attended a homeschool conference. I went to all the boy-specific workshops-- how to teach 'em, how to discipline 'em, how to put up with their farting and grossness...

This year, I'll be attending all the girl-specific sessions. Especially the ones on how to handle  b!&#%ing and moaning. :-)

Thankfully, my yard is almost done. At least the overhaul. Now what's left is to help it grow, keep planting and nurturing the gardens, keep getting dirt under my nails and into my shoes. After all, it's the only way my flowers will continually burst with color, the birds and butterflies will dance and serenade us and my vegetables will produce abundantly.

Guess it'll be the same with my life. Keep getting dirty.

Grace and Peace,
Shari

If you ever wonder why I run...Small Groups January Highlight Video

You may wonder what could poses me to wake up at absurd hours of the morning, run in extreme weather conditions, subject my body to "physical torture" (as my boys would say) and spend hours at a time on my feet. This video put together by my church meant to highlight some of the small groups in our church, is your answer.

I realized that when I gave my testimony (which was the first one-- duh), I used the word "rough" to describe our adoption-- in an indirect way. "Miraculous" is what adoption truly is. "Rough" is just part of the miracle. I would never go back. I would never give up the rough and miss out on the miraculous. And as long as my feet will carry me, I will never stop running-- for it truly is God's gift to me. He chose running as His glorious way to "run" me through the rough places into His Miracle. Into His arms.

Grace and Peace,
Shari

The Big Race

Well, it's over. The months, weeks and hours of marathon training is over. Yesterday morning, Team Dragovich piled into the mini-van at 5am (Thank you Lord, for the time change!) and drove to Raleigh, NC, so I could run in the 5th marathon of my running "career". And, boy... do I know how to pick 'em! HA!!! Let me just preface this next part with-- I really had no choice. I knew I wanted to do a race before Tony left on his big "D" and before we brought home kiddos from Ethiopia. I also was very limited in what race I could do. We couldn't travel for this race, and the only other race remotely close was OBX-- and it is next weekend... the weekend before he deploys. Not to mention we would have had to travel. So... City of Oaks it was.

Boys waiting to see Mommy at Mile 10

In all the reviews of this course, the word "hilly" seemed to come up alot. It is compared over and over again to Boston's course-- a famously hilly race. I ran Boston in 2007-- um... NOT a good comparison! City of Oaks is TWICE as hilly as Boston-- at LEAST... and I will argue down to the bone with anyone who tries to deny it. It is WAY hillier than St. Louis-- which is also considered a hilly course, and the course which I quailfied for Boston on in 2006. There is not a flat spot in the entire race. And, YES, I studied the topographical map of the race before running it and Tony and I even drove the course on Saturday. Scary, insane and wow... are the words which come to mind-- of course, I wouldn't allow myself such thoughts before the race-- that would be death to self!! But, now that it is over?... well, there's no holding back! :D

There I am-- still track sub 8's (min. per mile)

My goal was to break 3:30-- run sub-8:00 splits. I ran the first half well under that... 7:40-7:50's. The second half was where I lost all my time-- 30 seconds per mile. Which, of course, was where all the killer hills were. I gained some ground the last 5 miles, but it wasn't enough to break 3:30. My final time was 3:33:08. On the bright side, I won my age group (30-34), came in 14th overall for the females standings out of 255 total women; and 98th out of over 900 total marathon runners. It is a PR for me (personal record), and I requalified for Boston easily. The other good thing is, I didn't lose any more time on the second half than any of the top runners did. Only one woman in the top 10 ran even splits the entire 26.2 miles. All the other top runners (men, too) dropped 30 seconds or more off their pace the second half of the race. I truly believe that I have sub 3:30 legs-- maybe even on that course, if I had just a little more experience racing on that sort of terrain and knew better how and when to push my legs.

Now they are waiting for me in Umstead Park-- mile 17

Most importantly, I learned a lot. I have one more marathon under my belt, my boys were overly proud of their mama and Tony was super proud of my performance. He is already planning my next year of training and racing and was looking up all the races "we" are going to do over the next years-- nice fast, flat courses to kick out some killer times. I am learning to be content with my performances, recognize where I need to "toughin' up", and zeroing in on what I really want to be able to achieve in my "running career" and why.

Mile 24-- no more sub 8's-- that's okay, I'm still movin' at least!

I hope you enjoyed the pics of our big event. One more neat detail... Tony and the boys saw me 5 different times-- miles 4, 10, 17, 24 and the end. In order to see me at mile 17, they had to park the car at the entrance to Umstead Park, RUN 1 mile in, on the trails, down one of the steepest hills of the race to see me. Tony had Sam make marks in the dirt for every woman that passed before me. They counted 17. When I came by, they cheered me on, told me where I was in the standings and then ran back up the hill (remember-- 1 mile up), back in the van and on to mile 24. I managed to knock off 3 women by the time they saw me again... something I may not have tried to do, if I hadn't known they were keeping track :). Tony said Isaac was so excited for me during this race, and I guess he kept getting frustrated with Sam for not hurrying enough. Apparently he kept getting after Sam to, quote: "Hurry, UP! Mommy is waiting for us!" :)

They are my heroes.

Mommy and her boys-- after the race. Sam is holding my 1st place-- in age group-- plaque.

Grace and Peace,
Shari

Home again, home again; jiggety jig...

So... I have been hiding away in the mountains of Nevada for the past week. I have to say... hiding is fun sometimes ;D... but it got to be too much hiding, and so we had to come home. I missed home... North Carolina really does feel like home and I love it!! But, we had a great time visiting Tony's family in Nevada. His parents live in an undisclosed location-- which I will never tell, lest it becomes discovered and more people move in and ruin it for them-- ha, ha!! They live outside of Virginia City, NV; up a big steep hill from Reno, NV and it is a fun getaway. We spent our week playing in the snow, mud and rocks. We spent three days skiing (the boys made two of those days) at Mt. Rose, and Sugarbowl in CA; we bowled, went out for Thai, Tony made a UNR basketball game with his brother, and I caught up on some reading. And of COURSE, we found a way to stop in at the bookstore while we were there... We did other things, too; but you get the idea :)

We even made it back without too much hassle-- our baggage on the other hand, did not. It should be arriving tomorrow morning sometime. Not so thrilled about that, but it is not really high on my radar right now. Unfortunately, I'm already taking inventory of my week, calculating the hours in my days and the amount I need to cram into them... and my little internal calculator just blew up-- guess I'll have to spend another week on vacation!! HA! And of course, you know the "coming home" drill-- look through all the mail, listen to all the phone messages, delete-- I mean, READ all the emails... Then try to make sense of it all. Well, my happy surprise mail I got to open was my passport in the mail-- that wasn't supposed to come until the end of March or even April. My UNHAPPY mail was the State of Maryland telling me that they couldn't process mine or Tony's fingerprints because the prints were "illegible", and we must have them redone. They kindly included a training letter that I guess we are supposed to "offer" to our local officers in case they need extra "training" on how to take fingerprints??? Of course the training is offered in Maryland and so really it is for MARYLAND officials-- yet somehow we received this bit of information... whatever. The best part is they cashed our checks-- they didn't actually do anything, but they still cashed my checks... Nice. So, now I get to call them tomorrow and try to make sense of their chaos...

My other unhappy mail was a letter I have been waiting for from our family coordinator from our agency which she was supposed to sign and have notarized so we could then go have have it sent BACK to VA for certification... this would be a second attempt on this particular letter-- the first one was notarized wrong and therefore rejected by the Commonwealth of VA. When I finally got the second one, it looked good at first and I thought it was HAPPY mail-- but it turns out that the notary forgot to put her seal on the document-- kind of important when you are notarizing something!! I'm glad I caught it BEFORE I sent it back for try #2! Guess I have to get this paper figured out, now, too. But... I just got back from vacation... I am refreshed and ready to handle all these minor challenges!!

Now, while I was in Nevada, I had time to try to process some things-- like running and why there is such a lack of it lately and how much I hate that and what I am going to do about it. Now, we have a plan ("we"-- meaning Tony and I) to get me running again... I figure maybe if I post it, then I am more accountable and more likely to be guilted-- I mean, motivated to follow through! The goal is 20 miles a week. I almost went into sharing my plan-- that is probably boring for 99% of you :)... BUT; I am GOING to get over this running slump!! Sooner rather than later!

I know I processed lots of other things-- but that is for me and God alone :) Trips are good... home is wonderful... my life is full and rich and blessed!