Creative Counting

When there is no time to run, I find that I get very creative with delineating what activities "count" as exercise. I have been in a hotel room for a week so everything is off schedule. Sure there is a gym at the hotel, but I am traveling with my son who can't be left in the hotel room alone (or can he at age 6?) and I certainty can't take him with me to the gym, he would die of boredom (or would he play with the iPad like a happy little camper?). Well I can't get caught up in silly details, but the gym is out! The heat takes running outside out. I could probably find a YouTube video to do...something, but...but...I have no reason why I didn't do that. Damn, that would have been a good idea. But then, what would I write about? I would feel so bad that you wonderful, deserving people didn't hear me gripe this week and I simply couldn't do that to you.

What the hell was my point? Oh yes, counting OTHER activities as exercise. So in a typical day, while on vacation, I have had to heave my 50 lb child into and out of various preferred viewing positions at museums. That counts as bicep curls at least! Chase a running 6 year old up and down stairs and around museums while carrying my purse, packed with every sort of Armageddon necessity, along with my child's backpack full of... crap, that definitely counts as weighted sprints. The 9 million times I drop things on the floor out of my purse while searching for something that has fallen to the bottom of my bottomless pit, then bending down to pick those fallen items up is obviously squats. And of course, the countless times I had to snake on my belly under a coffee table into the "cave" to reset the broken DVD player counts as yoga AND Pilates!

So when I start to feel bad about being off schedule with my running (Again!), I breath a sigh of relief. Sure I didn't run this week, but I got a mean work out.

You know if you add in lifting my wine glass each evening...

-Cheers from the Vivác Winery Family!

Work it baby, work it!

The alarm is silenced after a few painful seconds of beeping. It is 5am. The darkness blinds me. Every inch of my body resounds with the reverberation of the alarm, every cell clenched. The sheets hush my tension, the perfect weight against the chill in the air. My pillow softens under my head. I wonder for a moment how the bed can be so cruel? At night as I crawl in, the bed seems too hard, the sheets like rough paper and the pillow a rock. I spend so much of the night too hot or too cold only to awaken to the world's most perfect, comfortable cloud of a bed! Absolutely cruel.

Ahhh, the sweet joy of rolling over and falling back to sleep, cradled in the soft warm sheets.

Why didn't I get up? Because getting up at 5am is crazy! If I could I would sleep till 9am or 10am every day. Getting up at 5am to go running? I don't think so. No, that alarm was for Jesse.

Jess diligently rises with the buzzing. He heads out in the soft morning light to meet Scott, a new friend and one of the best track coaches out there. It just so happens he lives in Dixon. Jess runs 2 miles to their meeting spot, then runs sprints, intervals and various other disgusting exercises designed to make you puke. When the torture is over, he runs 2 miles home.  Que "Rocky" theme music.

Jess finds me still in bed when he returns. He beams with excitement about his morning routine. I love his enthusiasm and commitment. His face weekly becoming more and more chiseled, a far cry from the rounded face of high school reunion photos currently circling Facebook.

Scott, while I have only spoken to him a few times, has become a big part of our family. He is there for most conversations, referenced to over the course of the day and there first thing in the morning. I can see I might need to get to know Scott better.

Jess' training will culminate in the "Deadman's Ultra" in Cuba this October. No, no, not THAT Cuba. Cuba, New Mexico. I believe Cuba consists of a couple small hotels, some dinosaur stuff (as you can imagine Denim is excited) and a grocery store. I know, your jealous that I am going and you are not right?

I have to say I am not happy about the name of this 53 mile race: "Deadman". I hope they are being funny. However, 53 miles over rough terrain might be just that, a deadman's race. I certainly hope not.

After his 10 hour race, we will celebrate in royal fashion! I think we will have to pull something very special from the cellar. Jess claims this will be his 1st and last 50 miler. I say never say never. Some how I foresee that with celebration wine spilling from his glass, he will say "Maybe a 100 miler next?"

-Cheers from the Vivác Winery Family!

www.VivacWinery.com

Olympic Trials & Tribulations

This past week, as we sat watching the Olympic trials on TV, my son sat near by writing his own dinosaur book and I realized just how much has happened in the last 4 years.

4 Years ago I watched my first Marathon on TV. Jesse insisted we watch the Olympic Marathon race. I couldn't have imagined anything more boring. Watching people run is like...watching people golf, only maybe more boring. I seated myself on the floor with our then 2 year old son as he played with his very first dinosaur; a gift that would alter our lives drastically. I settled in for what I assumed would be a slow decent into a torturous death.

As the women's Marathon came to a drastic finish with athletes collapsing, crying, barely walking, some unable to finish at all, I stared shocked at the TV. Why the hell would anyone do that? As if the producers of the show heard me, they launched immediately into the history of women running, the history of the Marathon in Greece that was 26 miles (the duty of a messenger to run information about the war) to the addition of the .2 mile being added (so the British Royals could have the start of the race in front of the Palace). It was amazing to learn that running, a natural instinct of the human body, was so controversial! Women had to sneak into races and were persecuted, literally shoved as they ran in races and degraded simply for wanting to run.

Katherine Switzer is one of the big names associated with women's running. She was the first to enter and complete the Boston Marathon in 1967. For those of you not into running as a sport, Boston is to running what Krispy Kreme is to doughnuts, or In n' Out Burger is to fast food burgers. It is what all the others want to be. Naturally everyone wants to run it, so of course it is the hardest to get into. It isn't the Olympic level, however Olympians do run it, it is the 'possibly attainable mega race' for amateurs...if running multiple Marathons really fast can be call amateur.

In order to run the Boston Marathon... you have to run a different Marathon... and have a qualifying time. For example, for Jesse and Chris' age group, they would have to run a 3 hour 10 minute Marathon just to be considered eligible for registering for Boston. Then they would need to fly out to Boston, pay a steep entrance fee... and run another Marathon.

For those of you thinking it isn't at all like the In n'Out or Krispy Kreme analogy, you must not live in Dixon, New Mexico where you have to travel hundreds of miles in order to get your hands on one of these delicious, heavenly delights, or you don't have an inclination for ridiculously amazing junk food.

Wow, I got way off track. No pun intended.

So I watched my first Marathon 4 years ago thinking what ridiculous people they were and cementing in my mind that I would never do that.

Now as I watch the trials and feel the excitement of watching the Olympic games, I look forward to watching the Marathon. I see how ironic my ideas of what and who I am have been and that you can never say "never". I have run for 3 years now which means it wasn't long after the last Olympics that I picked up the sport. I have run several races including a half marathon and a full Marathon and am deciding on which race will be next. A far cry from the woman sitting on the floor mocking the runners flailing on the screen in agony.

With the 2012 Olympics, I am reflecting on how much has changed in our lives. I am not only inspired by the amazing athletes but the incredible ability for people in general to adapt, change and thrive in situations they thought were beyond them. None of the athletes at the Olympics have an easy story of how they got there. It is with this thinking that I offer to all of you... what have you said you could "never" do? Why did/ do you think that? What would your life look like if the opposite were true?

It certainly can be applied to many situations, what if Jesse and Chris had said "open a winery?" "no way! I can't do that!". We would be sitting watching the Olympics with terrible wine in our glass, wondering how we will pay for our child to become a Paleontologist. We are still wondering how we will pay for his education, but at least we are enjoying incredible wine while we do it. You never know, maybe he'll be the one to run Boston.


-Cheers from the Vivác Winery Family!

www.VivacWinery.com