The Pre-Ragnar Agony...

If you haven't already read the intro, you might want to catch up, here...we'll wait.

Welcome back...now let's get going...

In the months leading up to Ragnar, there were circumstances and happenings and happenstances and unluckiness a plenty...

First, TBC broke his collarbone. He was out of commission for a full 8 weeks. Luckily, he was back in action by February, so plenty of time to recover for the race.

The Frankenfoot

Then Mr. Man finally got his much needed foot surgery scheduled...Huzzah! Except...they scheduled it for 6 weeks before Ragnar....whomp, whomp. Which made his ability to run the race...questionable...at best.

Then TBC got a nasty, awful terribly, very bad case of strep throat...which kept him out of school for a full week. As a responsible parent, it seemed pretty irresponsible to pull him from *more* school, to run a race...

So we posted that we had 2 spots available on our team, to see if anyone would bite...

...a week passed. No one did. (or at least we *thought* no one did...turns out they *did*...but Facebook, in it's inimitable wisdom, had moved the messages to the mythical and mysterious "Filtered Message Requests" folder. Never to be seen nor heard from again...or at least not until much too late.)

So we decided to cross our fingers, say a prayer and hope for the best. Original team stayed assembled, truant teenager and hobbled husband included.

The next big kerfuffle was an eleventh hour call from the van rental company...the PIC had reserved 2 15 passenger behemoths for us, months in advance...and now, suddenly, the company that he had rented them through had opted to shutter the doors on that location. So he had to scramble to find an alternative.

But, he's a hero, so he succeeded. And our epic journey seemed bound for greatness...I mean, really? What else could go wrong? Right?

Right??

RIGHT????

As I may or may not have mentioned in the past, I have really, really, REALLY shitty travel karma.

I set out for the airport at 3:20am on Thursday. My flight was set to leave at 6:54am.

I arrived at the airport to find that the security line looked like something out of pre-fast pass Disney World.  The line snaked around the corner, down the hall and straight on through to the far side of the moon.

I nervously started texting my husband and asking the TSA folks for guidance and maybe a little help...nope. They said "It's gonna be *close*."

I got to the gate 10 minutes before the flight was set to depart, and found the plane sitting there, presumably with my luggage safely stowed beneath it.

But the doors were shut.

I asked the nearest Spirit Air employee to help me...their answer was, quite simply, that I was not getting on that plane. 

The "fine" people of Spirit Air were gracious enough to be of absolutely no help whatsoever in helping me find an alternative flight arrangement.

They would rebook me...but not until the next day. Which wouldn't work, since we would be starting our run at 6AM.

They said they could put me on stand-by for the flight that Mr. Man and TBC were flying out on...but it wasn't a guarantee.

I asked if they could help me find a flight on another airline. Nope.

I was on the verge of tears and may have whimpered. I don't think they noticed...

Thankfully, Southwest was happy to have my business.

Oh goody. *Another* security line.

Less thankfully the terminals didn't connect with one another. So I got to go through a second security line. And pat down. But I made it. With an hour plus to spare...

Happily, I had a fully charged iPad and a rental of Deadpool to watch...so everything was coming up roses...FINALLY.

The flight was FULL. And of course, since I had only *just* booked it, I was in one of the later boarding groups. Which meant I was absolutely *guaranteed* a seat in the middle. Of two strangers. My *favorite* place to be.

I entered the plane and started eyeing my potential neighbors...looking for a pair that didn't appear to be too objectionable...but trying to hold off on making eye contact until I got close enough to attempt to give them the "sniff test". Don't judge, BO is a *thing*.

I found some likely contestants and decided to engage..."Hey, I don't snore, I don't talk, I won't take up much room and I promise not to bite, kick, thrash nor throw-up...mind if I sit between you?"

With an offer like that, how could they refuse?

The flight went off without any hitches, and I landed safely in Boston, without incident. I was met, at my gate, by the PIC...and then we scurried off to meet up with the rest of the early flight crew - the Flash, The Mighty B and Liz - performed a daring rescue of my luggage, which contained the all important Glitter Skirts, and then we called our Uber!

The Flash, The Mighty B, Liz, ME and the PIC

The rest...will come after some rest! 

Ragnar - The Prologue

Way back when, in 2012, when we were training for our first full marathon, my PIC (Partner In Crime) signed up to do a Ragnar Relay. I’d never heard of one, but it sounded like a grueling ordeal to me…2 vans, 12 people, 200 miles in 2 days, no sleep.

 The idea of being trapped in a van with so many people…*stinky* people…sounded awful. I’m a bit (read: 100%, Grade A) of an introvert, so really, not being able to get away from people and all of the stimulus for that long is my idea of torture.

To him, it sounded like the perfect way to check his 16 mile training run off, as it coincided pretty perfectly. Now, let me just put this out here…my PIC? Not a fan of the running. He’ll be the first to tell you that he actually *doesn’t enjoy* running. He likes *races*…he *hates* training.

Anyway, August came and he packed himself up and went on an adventure…and he LOVED it. Like passionately, fervently, religiously L-O-V-E-D loved it. And has spent every year since then trying to convince me to come out and run one with him. And I have resisted. Until this year.

One of my goals for this year – my top goal, actually – is to run with as many people that I know from the internet, in real life, as possible. Between Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and the blogosphere, I have made some really amazing running friends…most of whom I have never met. I want 2016 to be the year of running with them. So, when the PIC started posting about his Ragnar experience in the O’Dark Thirty Virtual Run Club on Facebook, we suddenly had the opportunity to gather 12 folks for a team…and before I knew what had happened, we had a team for Ragnar Cape Cod…Team Sole Crushers…

Our team consisted of:

Van 1

• Myself – No intro needed. At least I hope not. I mean, if you’re here and you need an intro, then I’m kind of confused about how you got here. You’re welcome for sure…but how did this happen?
• TBC (The Boy Child) – My 14 year old son. My first born, soccer loving, goofball of a kid.
• Mr. Man – The peanut butter to my bacon, the pickles to my ice cream, the one and true love of my life.
• The PIC – My bestie, my Partner In Crime
• The PIC’s Brother – Multi-talented, board game designing, food loving, real life teddy bear. Totally tolerable dude too. ;)
• The PIC’s Brother’s Wife – Just about the cutest, sweetest lady I have met in a long time.

Van 2

• The PIC’s Brother’s Cousin – Undercover Super Hero
• The PIC’s Brother’s Cousin’s Brother – Super nice, shirt-off-his-back kind of guy
• The PIC’s Brother’s Boss – This lady is a hoot. And a pastry chef. And a bad ass runner. So pretty much the total package.
• The Flash – My co-worker and dear friend. Dude is seriously speedy but is always willing and ready to slow down to *your* pace and stay with you. And he makes it all look *easy*. Like “Oh, sub 7 minute miles? NBD.”
• The Mighty B – We were cheerleaders together in high school and we still kind of are…this one totally defies the “dumb cheerleader mold” though and is a bad ass STEM teacher.
• Liz – OK…I tried to come up with a clever nickname but this is a warrior mama we are talking about here. She’s sweet and loving and passionate and fierce. We met online 15 years ago, when we were both fighting to become moms…and the fight hasn’t gone out of her yet.

So, the PIC was unanimously voted captain, and our adventure began...

Give Some Credit Where It's Due

Kids today get a pretty bad rap. They are entitled, indulgent and spoiled. They have never learned to lose, are used to getting their own way and don't respect their elders. Did I miss anything?

Social media is hailed as one of the evils of the modern day. By connecting with the world we have forgotten about privacy, modesty and boundaries. We fail to connect with the people around us because we are too busy connecting with people online. Sounds pretty bad, huh?

Kids *on* social media must then be one of the four horsemen. Right? Right??

Of course they are. Except for when they aren't.

The Saturday before last, a sweet, wonderful, young girl that we know, Ella*, collapsed, whilst at a sporting event due to an aneurysm. She was rushed to the hospital and placed into a medically induced coma, while the doctors worked to find the bleed and stop it, to save her life. This lovely child is the picture of perfect health and the product of healthy, wonderful, loving family. We have known her for years, and have been praying for her, constantly.

I remember, when I was in school, we had a classmate that passed away, unexpected, due to an aneurysm. She had a headache one day, laid down to take a nap and try to sleep it off, and just...never woke up.

It was shocking. It was upsetting. It was scary...

We learned about it quite a few days after it had happened. For the first several days, she was just...absent. It wasn't until the family started releasing details about funeral arrangements that the school took steps to pull us together and inform us. They made support resources available. They provided a structure and a framework for us to process the news and to deal with it. They offered helpful suggestions for how we could do something for the family. In short, the school held our collective hands and controlled the flow of information to us. and told us how to cope.

We learned about this young girl's aneurysm almost immediately. TGC and I had gone for a run. We came back and as she was preparing to post something on her instagram about our run, she noticed that her timeline was flooded with messages about her friend.

She turned those big, green eyes to me and asked "what does it mean, when a blood vessel in someone's brain bursts?"

Of all of the questions that I could ever envision coming out of my 12 year old's lips, that was certainly not one of them.

As she scrolled through her timeline, more information popped up. She looked at me and she said "Mama, it says here that Ella had an...an-ner-sym?..."

"aneurysm..."

"...during her swim meet. And that she was rushed to the hospital. It says here that she is in surgery..."

I reached out to the grown-ups that I knew, that might have been there...they didn't even seem to know *that* much. Word had not gotten circulated as quickly, through the parental social circles.

"Mom, we are all supposed to wear orange and fluorescent green, to school, on Monday, for Ella."

As the day wore on, more information started to trickle in, from the adults. Detailed information. Frightening information. We, as parents, were all in shock. We didn't know what to say or do. We couldn't answer our children's questions about *why* or *how* this could happen. We were certainly not organizing the communication to our kids or directing them on how to process the information. We weren't telling them, en masse, how to cope. I think we were all just *in shock*.

Later that day, posts started showing up on *my* timelines and feeds...beautiful signs and cards and posters for Ella...all with the hashtag #Ellastrong, all with her family members tagged.

Over the next several days, guardedly optimistic news would come out of the hospital. Ella seems likely to make a full and speedy recovery. As these tidbits have come along, we have passed them down to our kids...but they typically already seem to know. They have their own communication system up and running...and it is humming along way more effectively than ours.

On Monday, the whole school was a sea of orange and green. (Being a maroon and grey town, that is pretty unusual.) There were even teachers wearing their "Ella Colors".

...I mention all of this...these signs of solidarity...this outpouring of support...to highlight an important facet. All of this? Was organized by the kids. While we adults were reeling with the news and trying to fight our way past the "oh my goodness, what if that were *my* child...", the kids were mobilizing and organizing and rallying themselves around one of their own. They came up with the idea to wear the colors. They made the signs. They spread the word.

These kids that we are raising...they live so much of their lives *online*. They get such a bad rap, for being the social media generation...but maybe, just maybe it's not such a bad thing.

Social media is powerful. It's fast, lightening fast...it's wide reaching...and that scares us. You can be anyone or anything that you want, online...and to a largely cynical mindframe, that means something bad.

Social media is the ultimate crowd sourcing tool. Need a mob? It's on standby.

...but these kids? The ones who are growing up in it? They are so adept at using it...and so quick to channel everything that they have got into it...we immediately assume and worry that they will use it for bad...

...and then push came to shove. And they harnessed that power into making it do something good.

There are some bad eggs out there, sure. There always have been and there always *will* be, I am afraid. Nobody's parenting is *perfect*...but I can't believe, even for a second, that it's all *bad*. Are we all just mucking it up, all of the time? Really? Every parent that I know gives a shit. Every parent that I know wants not only the best for their child, but for their child to be a good person.

 If that is what we all want...if that is what we are all working towards...why do we automatically assume that we are falling down on that job? Have a little faith in the job we are doing. Give a little credit where it's due.

And give our kids a chance, to show us how much they have learned. They might just teach us a thing or two.





*Name changed for the privacy of the family.

The Brooks Running Run Happy Hour

Last night marked another foray outside of my comfort zone.

"Live Lager". Heh.

Our local running store, The Appalachian Running Company was hosting a neat event...the Brooks Running Run Happy Happy Hour. Conveniently, the ARC is located right next to a bar...so pulling off a happy hour event is sort of a no brainer.

A local(ish) Brooks representative was on hand, handing out Brooks Pint Glasses - super, duper cool - and showing off some of the upcoming models of shoes. He also brought a bunch of sweet Brooks clothes for folks to try on and (of course) buy. Everyone that came got a coupon for a free beer, next door.

The night was to kick off at 5:30, with an easy 3 mile run.

I saw the event on my FB feed and immediately checked off that I was going.

And then I immediately started stressing and coming up with reasons that I probably wouldn't be able to make it.

Both Mr. Man and TBC had indoor soccer training, in the opposite direction, at different locations at about the same time. There was no way I would be able to make it.

Nope. Not a chance.

C'mon Adidas...you just can't *pay*
for that kind of ad space.

But then fate stepped in. On Sunday, TBC was on the receiving end of a really vicious tackle, during the last game of the season...well, of the outdoor season, anyway...it was one of those tackles that makes the whole sideline *gasp* in shared parental horror. He went airborne, flipped and then came crashing down on his shoulder. The rest of his body crumpled to the ground and then rebounded for a sickening little bounce.

The kid hit the ground hard enough that he had "Adidas" bruised into his upper thigh...not from being stepped on, but from the embroidered logo on his shorts. That's right, ladies and gents, he got bruised by...thread. Stop and think about that, for a minute. Just how hard do you need to hit the ground to get  thread to *bruise* you? Ask TBC. He can now tell you.

So, yeah. Bad tackle.

Not surprisingly, this adventure scored him a trip to Urgent Care for his very first set of X-rays.

The crack is the white line,
right above the joint.

Verdict? Fractured collarbone and separation of the shoulder joint. No soccer (or much of anything else) for 4-6 weeks. This will be the absolute longest that this child has gone without playing soccer since he was 5.

Suddenly, only 1 of my boys had indoor soccer during the event.

No reason not to go now.

I got there exactly on time. I pulled into the parking lot and immediately felt a little queasy, when I realized that there was not a single parking spot available. The lot was overflowing. I'd have to improvise a spot.

I zipped up my light up vest and strapped on my head lamp, took a deep breath and walked across the parking lot towards the group of people that seemed to be pouring out of the store. I did a quick scan of the crowd, to see if anyone looked even vaguely familiar. Nobody did.

Moments later, we all took off on our run.

I found a comfortable spot, nestled behind a group of folks that seemed to know one another pretty well. They chatted amicably and I tried to be unobtrusive and wondered what the heck I would do if any of them actually talked to me.

Not a bad way to spend a
Wednesday evening

It was a simple out and back. Nothing terribly scenic or challenging, but not a bad run. I chuckled to myself about how this group of blinky-flashy fools must look to the drivers in the cars that happened past us. We were in something of an industrial area, so it's not exactly prone to having runners back there, let alone en masse in the dark!

On the way back, I noticed a women a few strides ahead of me had an untied shoe. I pushed a bit, to bring myself even with her and worked on screwing up the nerve to mention her untied shoe to her...when suddenly, she stepped off the course, to tie it. Ah well. Maybe next time.

Anyway, before too long, we were back at the store. I trotted back to my car, so that I could dispose of the light up gear and grab my glasses and wallet. As I got to the car, I briefly considered just getting in my car and heading back home. I'd gone on a "group run", wasn't that enough socializing?

I talked myself out of it and back into the store I went. If nothing else, by golly, I was getting that darned pint glass!

For the next 20 or so minutes, I meandered around the store. I collected my pint glass, tried on a quilted, winter skirt (which I bought for a super cheap $25!!!), talked to one woman, briefly, about a spray to get the stink out of athletic gear and tried not to look like a psycho.

Just as I was getting ready to bolt, a non-running friend of mine, from work popped in to say hi and give me an intro to a friend of his that is part of the running community. We talked for a few minutes and then, finally, I called it a night.

Though I didn't stay, to have a beer with the other runners - though I'm not 100% sure how many of them stuck around, to be honest - I did make an effort and put myself in a social situation where I knew NO ONE.

We're going to call this one a win, and try to ride that victor wave through next Tuesday, to another group run, with the Chambersburg Beer Runners. Who knows, maybe this time I will even stick around for a beer.