It’s funny, but long distance running has taught me one thing: To listen to my body.

It’s not that I didn’t listen before. I did.

I just didn’t react.

Here’s a scenario. My knee hurt. I was running a few times a week a few miles at a time. I was addicted to running, having traded it in long ago for my one a day pack of cigarettes. I didn’t want to falter. So I didn’t slow down. Kept running. Hurt the knee. Out for quite some time.

Fast forward to when I began training for a marathon. My knee hurt. I cut back. Knee pain went away.

You see the difference?

I have always listened to my body. I have always heard what it had to say. However, now I finally have put two things together: If it hurts and I don’t take care of it, I don’t have it anymore. Or, at least, it doesn’t work as well as it did.

When training for a long run, I’ve become acutely aware of everything that is going on in my body. I can tell when I’m hungry long before the hunger pains strike. In fact, I eat now in advance. I eat when I wake up, before I get out of the door, on mornings when I’m running over an hour. If I’m going past one and a half hours I not only eat before I leave but I also take my preemptive slug of gel around forty five minutes so I won’t burn out at mile 13.

If my feet hurt when I am done with a run, I rest them. I put the tight shoes away and pull on the sneakers.

Now, when my body tells me something, I listen.

I’ve also gotten better at hearing what it has to say, which I think is because I am more in tune with my body when I’m out there going 12, 14, 16 miles at a time. I can feel my neck growing stiff from holding my arms at my sides, so I stretch them. I stop during a long run when my knee begins to twinge a bit and I stretch my legs out so it won’t hurt when I am done. I am so much more in tune to how I feel, to what my body feels, and to what will happen if I don’t care for myself, than I ever was.

Of course, this is mostly selfish on my part, I suppose. I don’t want to hurt myself so badly that I can’t get back out there and run again. If I hurt my knee, I won’t make the marathon. If I don’t eat, I’ll not have enough energy to kick it into high gear at the end of the race-whether I am racing others or just the clock.

How has long distance helped you relate to your body? Do you feel what it tells you more than you used to, and do you listen?

I love long distance running.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say this over and over again. I just love the days that I get up early, load up my pack and head out into the early dawn-sometimes pre-dawn-day.

Today I spent my time thinking about so many different things and I made some discoveries on this run.

First, I discovered, or rediscovered, the vividness of everything after a long run. Does this happen to you? The sky, when blue, is the bluest it has every been. The green of leaves on the tree outside are so bright green it’s almost unbelievable. I know these things are always these colors, right? But why does everything seem so much brighter, so much more alive, when you finish an 11 miler?

Secondly, the body is an amazing machine. Seriously. You can train it to do almost anything you want it to do. I mean, you can run 26.2 miles or more! You just have to train. I thought of my body today as I ran, the way that it met that last marathon challenge and the way that I hope it meets this one. How is it that my feet can pound the pavement that long and still carry me around the rest of the day? That my arms can remain in the same position for 2 hours and not remain sore after the run? It is so true, that if we treat our bodies well, they will treat us well, and since we have to live in this shell for (hopefully) a really long time, I think its in our best interest to be kind to our body!

Thirdly, our minds are even more amazing than our bodies. It is our mind that says, “Okay, I’ve been running now for an hour and a half. I’m hot. I’m sweaty. I want something to eat-like a side of beef and a dozen eggs-but I’m gonna keep on going for a bit longer. When we train our minds to think positive thoughts, positive thoughts will follow. Don’t believe me? Train for a marathon. You can’t run 26.2 if you spend the entire time getting down on yourself, thinking you can’t do it.

The beautiful thing is this: If you train your mind to run long distances, you can train your mind to do anything. If you can stand the silence of being alone for this long of a time, you can do whatever it is that you want to do. I have yet to meet a runner with a negative attitude about life. Have you? Most runners really appreciate everything around them. I think that we learn to do this through our running, particularly in the distances, because we spend so much time training ourselves to think positively. We can make the finish line. We can do that last four mile stint before we get home. We can climb that obnoxious hill that suddenly jumped out in front of us.

I made one other startling discovery on this run. As I ran down the beach I stopped at a line of public restrooms to use the bathroom (damn long runs-that is the ONE negative thing I can say about them-I can’t get through them without having to GO!) I pushed the first few doors. Two were locked, and then the third swung open but stopped short. I looked down and saw a body on the floor. Yep, a body. Was it dead? I don’t know. I screamed, turned, and ran. I looked back and was not being followed. The door hadn’t reopened. Being alone and female, I was not about to go back and see if that guy was okay (and it was a guy, I think, from the state of the blue jeans). Instead, I hurried on. Living in a beach community, it’s not abnormal to find someone passed out somewhere along the beach. Thankfully it was daylight and there were other runners around, so I felt pretty safe. I couldn’t find someone to tell about the body though, as there weren’t any county workers or police there yet. So, I don’t know what happened to that guy, but I can tell you he scared the living daylights out of me this morning!

This week has been a week of little sleep.

My mom came to town for a visit, which was great, but it really excited my oldest daughter. At four, she is this bundle of energy that keeps going and going and going. Seriously, I have never met another child with that much energy, and I taught school for ten years!

I laugh because she will be a runner like me. She has to be, or she will jump out of her skin.

My mom says I was the same when I was a young girl! So she does get it honestly, as they say.

Anyway, we have been busy visiting, and my youngest kept getting up around 6 or so because she was too excited about grandma being here to sleep. I continued on my workout routine for the most part, but I skipped the tri training day at the gym. Too much time away from my mom on her last day here. Instead I did a 4.25 run, which was great in itself. I missed swimming though.

I bought a kettlebell and I love the thing! I worked my abs and arms today and used it for a variety of exercises and it worked well.

The day before yesterday I purchased my materials for the ACSM training! I need to get CPR certified and will probably do this before we leave Los Angeles. Then I’ll just have to get the testing done when we get moved.

For now, though, I’m beat, and I had a big old Starbucks coffee on the way to drop my mom at the airport this morning so sleep will never come. I knew better, but I was so tired at that point-just four and a half hours of sleep yesterday because my youngest was up all night – that I couldn’t resist. I had to get to the airport after all!

Maybe I”ll try to rest a while. I’m reading this great book Breaking Trails: A Climbing Life about a woman named Arlene Blum. These types of stories always amaze me, those about climbing mountains in the freezing cold and dodging avalanches as people around you die while trying to summit.

What a crazy life!

Last night I couldn’t put the book down. I realized as I read that I love this lady because she is much like me, and like most athletes – no, all athletes – I know. Testing physical limits. Proving yourself, to yourself. I run long distances not to show everyone else I can do it, but because I want to prove to myself that I can. That is the mentality of a long distance runner, I believe. We do it so we know we can do it, and then we think, “I can do even more.”

When I crossed that finish line at my first marathon one thought went through my head. “I can do anything.” If I can run 26.2 miles through a torrential Southern California downpour, I can do anything.

I know Arlene felt this way as she climbed these peaks, her feet freezing, her hands like ice. It’s somewhat like running those long twenty milers. Your feet are sore, maybe the knee pings a bit, you’re hungry and tired but you are alive. How else can I say this? You are alive when you are running twenty milers.

Do we need to feel pain to feel alive? I don’t think so. Running distances is not about pain. You shouldn’t be in pain and it shouldn’t be torture or you are doing it for the wrong reasons.

Still, there is some gratification I feel when I get home, completely spent. I have pushed myself to the limits and I have survived.

I can do ANYTHING.

And that is what keeps me going, even when I don’t get more than four and a half hours of sleep!

Have a great running weekend, friends. I’m doing 11 tomorrow, possibly twelve.

I got my recent issue of Runner’s World the other day and they had a great article about the Olympic runners.

I hadn’t thought a lot about the fact that the athletes competing in the Olympics this year in Beijing will be facing harsh pollution problems.

I suppose I should have. After all, I live (at least for a bit longer!) in Los Angeles.

Let me correct myself: I am now in Orange County. We were in Los Angeles, just a few short minutes from downtown, when we first moved here.

The city itself was just incredible. Pasadena is this picturesque town at the bottom of the mountains, filled with majestic trees and beautiful Craftsman type homes. In fact, many of the neighborhoods you see on television when you watch commercials and sitcoms come straight from Madison Heights, which was a short jog from my front door.

We lived at the top of the street in a condo that we rented, but we could run just half a mile and be in the middle of tv town. I can’t tell you how many times I saw a commercial or show being shot, and then how many times I saw that scene on the television a few months later! It was quite magical.

The smog, though, was unbearable on most days, particularly in the middle of the summer heat.

Let me tell you, running in smog is not pretty. It burns: your eyes, your lungs, your throat. You can tell the instant you step out of the door if there is smog in the air.

I have always been a morning runner, so for the most part this didn’t affect me much. As long as I was out of the door early, while the morning fog was still settled on the town, I was okay.

But those days I did a later run, it was torture.

I can understand the idea behind the political reasons of hosting the Olympics in China, but I am having a difficult time understanding why this is working on a health basis.

We are basically sending athletes into a country filled with so much smog that they are suggesting those competing out of doors wear masks!

We know this is not good for health reasons. Why do this to these competitors? Is it fair?

What are your thoughts on this? Should the Olympics have been held in Beijing with the air quality problems?

Just curious as to what other people out there are thinking on this issue!

Okay, so don’t throw your grounds at me if you think drinking coffee before a race is a bad idea.

I get it. You don’t want to get all hopped up on caffeine before a long race. I’m sure your heart will hate you for chugging three mugs of java right before you run ten miles.

But . . . a study in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport does show that drinking down an eight ounce mug of coffee improved race times of both recreational and advanced runners in a 5K.

Study co-author Brendan O’Brien says that the key may be that caffeine alters your perception of pain and allows you to run farther and faster than when you haven’t chugged a tall latte.

I know in my house, if I get up for a long run, or any very early morning run, I save the caffeine for post-run.

If I get up early and then head to the gym to run, I have a cup of coffee prior to working out.

I have found on days when I have that cup of coffee beforehand that it does get my blood moving.

But I have also found that it does the same on those mornings when I have had a good night’s sleep.

I doubt I’ll start consuming caffeine before each run, but the study does make me feel better about the days when I do drink coffee before a run!

So what’s your routine? Coffee or no before a run? I have read about people who get up for a marathon and go into it with one bagel and one cup of coffee in their bellies. Is this you?!

We all know how just one little thing can change the course of our lives forever.

One moment. One instant. One second.

The same goes with training. I recall training for my first marathon, the Surf City, and during a house cleaning episode I ran my very large, very heavy chair over my big toe, which immediately swelled. I thought for sure I had broken it. I called my mom crying. I had trained so hard.

Luckily, the toe ended up being fine.

Fast forward to this morning. I was cleaning again and, as most of you know, training for the Long Beach marathon. The phone rang. I sprinted towards it, praying it was my husband.

It was.

You see, we’ve been waiting for some news about a new job, in a new state, clear across the country.

Our family is all on the east coast; we are on the west. We love it here. California offers so much to those who enjoy fitness and health.

On the other hand, if you moved here right as the housing market boomed and you didn’t buy, you are out. A median home costs $600K in our neighborhood. We like our neighborhood, but the homes for this price are old and mostly need updating. At $600K we would be breaking the banks and then have work to do.

This relocation meant a few things. First, we’d be closer to family. Second, we’d be able to afford a house. Third, we are gypsies at heart, my husband and I. We enjoy going new places, exploring new territories. The thought of ’settling’ down’ kind of terrifies us.

So we have had our fingers crossed. And the call came.

He got the job!

We are moving. Not only that, we are doing so in just three short months. Two weeks after the Long Beach Marathon. I hadn’t signed up for it yet knowing what might happen. Now it looks like I won’t.

I could, I suppose. However, I’m going to be so busy with packing and moving arrangements that I don’t want to put an added stress on what will be a hectic few months.

Instead, I’m going to run the Disney Marathon in January. I signed up yesterday, after hearing about our move. My family lives fairly close, so we could make it a family weekend and I could do the race. I’d love to do one where my mom is at the finish line. When she had her stroke in December, I ran my first marathon in February for her.

Now, maybe the next time she can be waiting at the finish line along with the rest of my family.

The really cool thing: When we found out he got the job, my mom was in an airplane on the way to visit us for a week. She got off of the airplane and after telling me about the trip, I asked her this: Next time you come out, do you want to fly nonstop or would you prefer to do it this way again, with a stop in between?

Mom: I guess with the stop.

Me: Oh, well, it doesn’t matter anyway. This is your last visit to California anyway.

My mom broke down in tears.

Life changes so fast. We have been in California for six years. I’ve enjoyed the time here, but I am glad to be moving on.

So, on to my running and my personal certification training. I’m going to do that marathon in january and get the certification and begin a mommy boot camp class in Georgia, where we will be living. I can’t find anything like it in that area and it has been something I’ve wanted to do for quite some time.

And for my running, I know it will be different. It will be humid there, and I’m used to running in the dry heat. It will be less traffic (the town is fairly small) and I can’t wait to not dodge lights and cars who don’t look before pulling out of a shopping center.

I will keep you posted on the training during the move.

Life is going to be hectic, but then it is already.

You just gotta keep running through!