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

My partner

Hot tears weld up in my eyes. My body felt alive with tingles that swept from head to toe. Even the hair on my head seemed to arch out of my scalp with intensity. I had the surging desire to run.

I didn't jump up from my seat and go running down the street in my flip flops, but instead I stayed seated at a table in a crowded cafe and let tears quietly cut through my make-up. I sat at the table and let the sensation and desire to run wash over me, through me, wave after wave reminding me why I run, calling me to run.

It was at that moment I put down the "TrailRunner" magazine article about Scott Jurek and decided to share my thoughts with all of you.

I feel like a novice, a newbie, a baby. I want so badly to be a runner...I want to...WANT to run. I find frustration in the fact that I have only run 1 half marathon, 1 5K and only 1 full Marathon. I realize many of you will be rolling your eyes at the "only", but it is a strange world (the world of running), the more you do, the more you see others do; be it faster, farther or more. I feel like I simply fight myself to even get my shoes on much less join the toned, dedicated, disciplined runners I admire.

Since running the Marathon in March, I have aimed for several races of varying length and completed...drum roll please...ZERO! Ya, it pretty much takes that accomplishment and pride from completing your first Marathon into embarrassment and self doubt pretty quickly.

What was I thinking? I'm not a runner yet! Runners run! I slumped. The truth is after
several attempts at jumping back into training, I have slowly regressed, cutting mileage, trying to trick myself into finding enthusiasim until I finally cut back so much that I haven't even run once in 2 weeks. OK, maybe it has been closer to 3 weeks. I simply haven't found the drive! I tried to dig deep, push through, but found a bored, sad core with zero inspiration.

Today as I read Scott Jurek's story of becoming an UltraRunner (50 miles or more) I was touched by the struggle between pushing ones self past pain and discomfort and finding the journey, the partnership with your body. I realize part of my sadness with the loss of running is the incredible bond and partnership I have had with my husband as he trained me through every one of my races. The encouragement he gave me when I cried on the side of the road, the cheers he gave as I pushed on and completed new distances. I don't think I have it in me to run without him. I miss him.

For all of you now thinking he died, he did not. He is on his own training mission for a 50 miler and that leaves me on my own to do my training alone. Due to circumstances of where we live (middle of nowhere) there are no running groups to join and due to where we live (middle of nowhere) and being a woman, I don't feel safe running certain places alone. This is just enough of an obstacle to stop me from lacing up, but to top off my excuse list, we also have a 6 year old son on summer vacation, we run our own winery (along with my brother-in-law and his wife) and about a million other things that fall under the heading "sorry for myself".

Excuses ran out today. Scott Jurek's story reminded me that the beauty of running is you don't have to read books or win races to run. Running is a relationship with YOUR body. It is a matter of partnering with yourself to "free ourselves".

With a sudden realization and acceptance, I let the tears fall...and people stare. I let the tingling sensation stir deep inside me and well up. I could feel the joy and inspiration for running reappear. I realized I can't hold my husband to being the reason why I run. I have to be my own partner. I have to stop crying in the cafe!

So, I don't know what will happen when I cry on the side of the road during a hard, long run by myself. I know those will be times when I miss my husband a lot. I hope I will be able to be there for myself with words of encouragement, something I have struggled to do my entire life. I hope I use the emotion to pick myself up, dust myself off and run home and into my husband's arms. I know he will be very proud of me that day.

Until then, I will simply get started again, stop giving myself such a hard time and learn to love running all by myself. Like a big girl. Of course that has to start tomorrow...I have wine to drink today!


-Cheers from the Vivác Winery Family!

www.VivacWinery.com

Prostitute wine

When we started the winery, we thought we were going to be running a sprint race to the golden lotus of fame and fortune.  13 years later, we realize we are running a Marathon....and the lotus may be a mirage. But, we are still running.

In the beginning, as with everything, you find you make mistakes. Out of the gate too fast, over train, take out a ton of loans, you know, the over enthusiastic approach. Take the case of one of our first wine club newsletters, our wine maker Jesse sat down to type a serious wine review of the newly released Barbera. As a young wine maker with a new winery, the need to be taken seriously was great. This made it even more embarrassing to have spell check on an old computer change "Prosciutto" to "Prostitute"! As you will read in the copy of the letter sent in by a wine club member in his elder years, the wine paired beautifully. It is when someone reminds you that mistakes are made, lessons are learned and regardless, we move forward, that you realize, this race will have bumps in the road and may not be the course you set out on. This bump has forever sealed the fate of the Barbera made at Vivác as "The Prostitute Wine".

So don't forget to not take your race so seriously! What matters is that you keep going, riding out the bumps in the road, no matter how big they are.

Now where is that little Prostitute? I need a glass of wine.


-Cheers from the Vivác Winery Family!

www.VivacWinery.com

Getting your Freak on

It is an interesting journey, running. I use to say I would only run if something were chasing me. Now I am trying to run on vacation. If I can find a race somewhere interesting and call it a vacation, even better! So what happened? My crazy husband and his crazy brother happened.

When you watch someone run well, it is inspiring. Even if you think they are a little crazy for doing it. Maybe that is why it is so inspiring.

This past weekend, Jess and Chris ran yet another Marathon, this time in Taos. Jess had a PR of 3:48 (5th place over all) and shined with pride at the finish line. Chris, who was unable to do the training necessary to run a Marathon the way he would have wanted, finished 13 minutes behind his brother. The look of frustration and irritation was apparent. I started to feel bad for him. I started to empathize with the idea of not doing well despite all your hard work. Then I had a thought that stunned me into reality. Chris ran a few long runs, skipped most of the training and then ran a 4:01 Marathon at 7,000ft! Wait wait wait, I don't feel sorry for you! That is absolutely not fair! He came in 7th over all at the race. This is NOT a sad race day! 

It is at that point that I realized these crazy people I am surrounded by are more than just crazy. They are Freaks of nature. Jesse told me stories of working the packet pick up for the race and the number of people that were simply on vacation and saw that there was going to be a marathon the next day; they thought "hey that sounds like fun!". Who shows up to a mountain town and unexpectedly runs a FULL MARATHON?! Crazy people? No, Freaks!

Turns out there was a guy that ran a 100 miler 3 weeks previous and ran 2 full Marathons since then...he signed up for the "fun little Taos Marathon" because he had never run here before. WHAT?!
Women, men, it didn't matter, they flooded in and signed up to run...while on vacation. This is a whole new level of crazy runners.

For those of you not up on the running or training of a full Marathon, let me fill you in. 16 weeks is considered fast training for a Marathon and requires you to be a runner before hand, that means you run regularly, this is not a couch to Marathon program. Then as you increase millage, and want to kill yourself, you push your body to the brink, then you back off giving it much needed rest before the big race. It is important to mention at this point that people will refer to a Marathon as "little" in reference to the draw, the crowds or organization, NOT the length. A Full Marathon is ALWAYS 26.2 miles, always, even if it is a "little" race. So when people decide to run a Marathon on vacation, these are people that run Marathons a lot, people that are in such good shape that they do not need a taper, they can simply run 26.2 miles any time they want. They are, say it with me...FREAKS!

I stood at the finish line chatting with a new friend, a runner. He spoke of the blights of running a Marathon, the pain and destruction of your body. He spoke of how he loves the 5K or 10K. He sounded like the voice of sanity amongst all the crazies. My mom bought it hook, line and sinker. She looked at me, always the caring mother and I could see she was thinking "you see, maybe that is too much for your body" (not everyone is in the Marathons-are-fun crazy sector and family members are usually the ones most concerned for your health). I whispered to her that she was right, this guy wasn't crazy at all. He modestly told stories of running, but left out that he has run Duke City Marathon 14 times, placing 3rd last year and has run countless other Marathons around the country. No, no he isn't crazy. He is a Freak! He is actually the guy that trains Freaks!

So now as I started to see that I had joined the ranks of the crazy, there was yet more to aspire to. I am not yet a Freak. I don't know if I ever will be. I looked at my husband, he had just PR'd at 7,000ft and this was simply a training run on his way to a 50 miler this fall, definitely a Freak. I looked at my son, wearing my red "Fueled by Vivác" shirt, eyes beaming with excitement and pride at his dad, he has already run a 5K at age 5 and can't wait for his next opportunity to run another race and I see that we have probably spawned a little Freak.

So, as I pour another glass of wine, I am left to ponder, when will I discover my inner Freak?

-Cheers from the Vivác Winery Family!

www.VivacWinery.com

Running Rescue

It is hotter than hell, sweat seems to be purging from your skin as if your entire body were a wet sponge being wrung out, your head pulses and you know you probably are going to die. This is what it feels like to run in the heat of summer. Yet I see all of you crazy people doing it...while I drink chilled wine...in an air conditioned restaurant.

I have discovered that I am actually a winter runner...and a heavy drinker. So strange since I am always cold, but I really hate the heat...and I really like wine. The heat makes me feel like I am suffocating. The heat makes me lethargic. The heat makes me mad. So I don't run in the heat. Waking up early also seems to make me mad, but Jess would say waking up at all makes me mad. What can I say, I am not a morning person (and no it isn't because of the wine)! So I can't beat the heat with an early morning run and the treadmill is boring if you do it everyday. It is a real dilemma. But I have to keep running don't I?

Inevitably, when you are training hard or have finished a big race or simply run everyday for fun, you can and will burn out. Guess what I have? No not alcoholism silly! Burn out!

After the intense effort to train for my 1st marathon, I found that running just to run was refreshing, however, slowly the drive to run has been replaced with the drive to do anything BUT run. It feels like I am trying to run away from running.

Talking this dilemma over with my many running enthusiast friends, and of course Jesse (who said it took him over a year to run another marathon after his 1st, and is now approaching his 5th only 2 yrs after that) I have discovered something. Something I will generously share with you. You are welcome.

Runners are tweakers! They are obsessive, often compulsive people that take on running in a way that makes something that should be a fun activity and turn it into the center of their lives. Jesse said at a dinner party the other night when asked what was new "all I can think about is my running". When runners aren't running, they are planning their runs, reading about running (thank you by the way), figuring out what to eat...that will be best for running! It is pretty easy to burn out when it is so all consuming.

It occurred to me that after 3 years of "serious" running, I have postpartum from the marathon. The excitement, the build up, it is over and I want to get that back. The training and races prior to that were leading up to the incredible moment of crossing the finish line at my first marathon! A feeling of empowerment and pride that is like nothing else you've ever experienced.

How do you ask, does someone get that amazing feeling back? Rid themselves of the postpartum? I have no freakin idea people!

What I am trying out as a cure is diverting my attention. Not wanting to run in the heat? Not wanting to hit the treadmill to watch the same bad TV shows? Play list sucks? Go find a friend and hike in the cooler mountains, swim laps at the pool, jump on a trampoline (actually a great workout) or run the river (as in Rafting, not "I Shouldn't be Alive" craziness)! Mix it up so you feel like you are having some Summer fun! And, of course, drink plenty of wine.

...or start taking the same crazy pills Jesse is taking and train for a 50 miler. I bet that finish line blows your mind!


www.VivacWinery.com