About 2 weeks ago I finished my first season as a coach for Girls on the Run (GOTR). For people who are unfamiliar with the program, volunteer coaches from the community sign on for 10 weeks to train 3rd to 5th grade girls for a 5K while teaching them age-appropriate lessons (e.g. values, promises, self-esteem, communication, healthy choices). I love running, kids and volunteering... this was the perfect opportunity for me. So, some of my favorite moments from the season (with thanks to my co-coach Megan whose pictures I used):

Community Service Project

One of our lessons was a community service project that the girls planned and we made cards for soldiers. 

While we did this, I was speaking with the girl above about my trip to Antarctica and the conversation went something like this:

S: You're going to Antarctica, right?  Are you going to die?

Me: Um, I hope not. In fact I hope to take pictures of penguins and when I come back I'll send them to you.

S: (pause) ... I like penguins! But if you do die, I'll go to your funeral.

Thanks...? Other cool moments were when two of our older girls broke out and recited the entire Gettysburg address completely spontaneously! I am so proud that our girls are so sweet, such great athletes and smart cookies, too! And three girls worked together to make a card. One accidentally wrote "Dare" instead of "Dear" and they ended up with a card that said "Dare to be brave." I couldn't think of anything more fitting!

Coaching Highlights

I have so many great memories from coaching, but two really stand out, for very different reasons.

The girl in the picture above, on the right, was a little spark plug. She had so much energy and always had a smile. Once she ran by me and she had been going for what seemed like forever. I was cheering her on and telling her to keep it up and as she sped by she only yelled.... "I..... AM.... HYPERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!" I think everyone who witnessed it was just doubled over in laughter because she was such a great source of energy. I will definately be channeling her for my next marathon. I should also note that at the end of the season she won the "Most Likely to Stand Tall" award because whenever we asked the girls what their favorite promise to themselves was, she would reply "I promise to stand tall because I'm short!"

Unlike our other little balls of energy, we had a small handful of girls who were really hard to get moving when we started. One really stood out and at times she confided in the coaches that the kids made fun of her and that she didn't really like herself. At first, she was very unsure of herself and she would walk more than she would run and it was tough to get her to participate. But over time she started not only to open up, but to participate, run, and smile while she did it. One day she came up to me and asked for a challenge. I told her to run two laps without stopping and come back and do situps. She did that, got lots and lots of praise and went off to walk the next lap. When she came around again, she asked for another challenge. This time: three laps. While she was on her 2nd lap another girl (K) came up and asked for a challenge. I told her to wait until the first girl (A) finished her laps so that the two of them could run together. Not only did they run together, but they cheered each other on the whole time. At the end of the session, we have girls nominate another girl who did something good to lead the stretches. K nominated A because the A motivated her!  I was SO PROUD. Here's a picture of A finishing the 5K with Sarah, my Antarctica companion, and another one of the other coaches:

Wondergirl 5K

It was a miserable day for a 5K. I woke up and wondered if there was any way I could possibly pull of staying home. It was cold and rainy. Poor Lisa, (bottom left) was shivering and chattering But, in spite of it, most of our girls and their parents toughed it out and made it anyway! I am so proud of their accomplishment! Here's a picture of the coaches running while shedding clothes to pass off to Megan...

...and me and Sarah with one of the girls at the finish line. This girl broke her foot something like 3 weeks before the race and finished anyway!

What did we get out of GOTR?

• Almost all of our girls have now run a 5K!

• They've helped support our troops

• They've learned about how to stay healthy physically and emotionally. I found out at the end-of-season banquet that one of our girls had a big falling out with her friends at school during the season. Her dad said that because of the lessons she learned at GOTR and the friends she made there she was able to cope with it really well.

• They made friends! Even though they were different ages and from different schools at the end-of-season banquet they all sat at the same table together.

• I really benefited from their positive energy and they really motivated and inspired me.

I can't wait to coach next year! (That is, if I don't die a slow, painful, penguin-induced death while in Antarctica )

I have an abnormal phobia of snakes. It is bad. In college I was a physiology/neurobiology and psychology double major and as such I took a lot of biology and genetics classes. Textbooks  for these subject love to show snakes (shudder) doing snake things... eating antelopes, possessing genes that make them a certain pattern (calico cats also have genes that make them a special pattern... show pictures of kitties for crying out loud!). I am so terrified of snakes I had to have my college roommate go through my textbooks, find any pictures of snakes, and cover them with post-it notes because otherwise I couldn't read my books. I can't look at pictures, I can't see them on TV, I can't even stop to think about what would actually happen if I saw one. I told you when we started.... big fear of snakes.  

When I'm not running or with my nose in a de-snaked textbook, I'm in training to be a therapist. I see a handful of clients and I'm supervised by a licensed psychologist. Just so happens my supervisor, Larry, is amazing. For any of my psychologist readers, he was trained by the founder of cognitive-behavioral psychology, Aaron T. Beck, and he was one of the therapists on the TDCRP. As most of the clients in our clinic have anxiety, Larry often talks about the saber-tooth tiger in the room. The short version of how this works is people with anxiety get aroused for any number of reasons (caffeine, overactive adrenal gland, whatever). Because arousal is a component of the adaptive fight or flight response people start looking for what could be causing this response... where is the saber tooth tiger in the room? Is it under the table? Behind the couch? The problem is, there isn't a saber-tooth tiger, so people with anxiety attribute it to something else and to something non-adaptive. My job as a psychologist is to get people to shift their thinking so that they can acknowledge that they can calm down because there's no tiger in the room that's going to attack. 

So tying this back to running...  Yesterday I was on the treadmill and running at a pretty good clip. Heart rate was up, breathing was up, adrenaline was flowing. I like to watch action-type stuff on TV when I run because it matches my physiological state. While watching SpikeTV a commercial pops on with the mother of all snakes. If I hadn't been running I would have likely fallen off of whatever I was sitting on and I cowered in tears (I know ... it's really maladaptive, I told you... bad phobia). But, I saw the snake and my physiological arousal couldn't increase anymore... heart was already pumping, adrenaline was at its max... it was a fight or flight ceiling effect. As a cognitive psychologist I thought, "Huh... that should scare me." But I wasn't having any sort of physiological response because I was already maxxed out. It was such an awesome lesson for me. I know the next time I see a snake my heart rate will still spike and I'll start to sweat and my adrenaline will go through the roof... but now I know that that's all it is. There isn't really a saber-tooth tiger (snake) that's going to get me, it's just my mis-attribution of arousal. I knew that before, but now it's a different type of knowledge. The 3-year-old knows the stove is hot because dad said so.... the 3-year-old really knows the stove is hot once they touch it.  

Running always surprises me with what it teaches me, but I never would have expected this. At least yesterday, for the first time in almost 25 years, in the battle of Kat vs. visual representation of snake, Kat came out on top. And I think yesterday helped tip the balance in my favor. Even if it didn't and I really run into a snake one day, I'll at least have the confidence that I can outrun it

In my very first blog post I promised, in other words, to post the good, the bad, and the ugly. So, here's the ugly.

After the end of a CRAZY semester, I hit the ground running. I couldn't wait to get back into training. I went from monthly mileage of 20 miles (read another post about a near-amputation and pneumonia) to 80 miles in April. Now 80 miles a month isn't anything so spectacular, but I made the mistake of forgetting to put it in perspective. Last Tuesday I went for a 5 mile run and BONKED. Bonked like I have never bonked before.  I ran about 2.5 miles (thankfully I was on a treadmill) and I felt worse than I did at mile 25 of a marathon. I didn't have the energy to walk or stretch. I took the elevator up one floor to my condo, I grabbed a banana and I laid on the ground. It was PATHETIC (and no, I'm not the type to be unduly hard on myself, it really was a disaster).

That day I was also the most irritable I had been in YEARS. I'm a sunshine, happy kind of person. I'm that obnoxious friend who always looks for the silver lining. Yes, some could even call me perky. But not on Tuesday. I was cranky. I was bitter. On Wednesday I went shopping with a friend (another psychologist) and as we were driving and I was cursing at drivers, she had the courage to say, "It sounds like you have a lot of anger today" in perfect therapist speak.  She was right and that made me even more mad.  Later that day I had the pleasure of catching up with a friend from college:

Jake: Hey! How are you?!

Me: Eh. I'm pissy. I'm in a bad mood.

Jake: What? Are you allowed to do that?!

Yes. On Tuesday and Wednesday I was allowed to do it. I did it rather well in fact. I hated being in such a bad mood, but nothing (not even running!    ) could break me out of my funk. Add to this the fact that I was EXHAUSTED. And anxious. My heart was pounding out of my chest, just racing. I couldn't relax, even when I was going to sleep (and I am a champion when it comes to sleeping). I realized that for the last few days I'd been sleeping terribly, having a hard time going to sleep and waking up in the middle of the night. Well, my dear readers, my post title gave it away. At some point  on Wednesday, a lightbulb went off. Decreased performance. Low mood. Fatigue. Increased resting heart rate.  Insomnia. Classic signs of overtraining.

I rested all day on Thursday (after sleeping  12 hours Wednesday night!). I slept another 12 hours Thursday night. Friday I ran 5 deliberately slow miles and today I'm resting before a 12 mile bike/8 mile run tomorrow. For now I'm going to increase my rest days from one day a week to two. I'm going to reorganize my workouts so that I don't have two hard workouts together (currently following Hal Higdon's Intermediate Spring Training which has Saturday as Tempo/Fartlek days, followed by a Sunday long run). I'm also going to temporarily cut my hill workout. At this point in my training, I think mileage is more important than hills, and Pittsburgh is so hilly, I can't avoid them. Instead of having a separate hill workout, I'll just handle the hills on my regular runs.

So cheers to training, but keeping it in perspective. Happy running    (notice the smile's back!)