Speedwork by starlight

Every Thursday night we have a sitter come. Rebecca shows up at 7:00pm, knocks softly, I hand her the baby monitor and list of emergency contacts and Alan and I tip-toe out the door and escape into the mountains on our bikes. Alone and together on the trail, we reconnect. Cycling brought us together and brings us back every time. For 90 minutes we have uninterrupted, deep and meaningful conversations. The promise of Thursday nights gets me through the week.

 

Riding through Northern Spain on our Honeymoon, 2007.

Just another amazing honeymoon bike ride.

Moots and Mountains - Alan's loves.

Soaked and spent after getting caught in a nasty rainstorm mid-60 mile ride.

 

Picnic break in Park Guell, Barcelona, 2007.

With Alan at Cambridge last week and me feeling particularly exhausted after a week home alone with the three kids, I debated many times canceling Rebecca last Thursday. "I've been up since 3am," I told myself, "I don't want to burn the candle from both sides.. I really don't need to run tonight." The night before was one of those times when you are sure your kids gather together to plot which awake shift they would take. I swear one of them was up from 3am until the sun finally rose at 6 and brought with it a sense of relief that the torturous night had finally ended. I would have canceled Rebecca for this Thursday and passed out on the couch again at 8pm, as I had done the previous evening if I had not felt guilty. She has been incredibly reliable and I do not want her to begin flaking out on us, so I had better not do it to her, I reasoned.

Around 2pm I received a confirmation text that she would be arriving at 7. The effects of my morning coffee were wearing off and exhaustion was slowly overtaking my body when I realized that I still didn't have to run. I could use this time to go grocery shopping (No, too lame), or pick up those free underwear with the Victoria's Secret coupon I received in the mail (No, I dread the mall), or treat myself to one of those local Asian foot massages. That didn't sound half-bad, except for the fact that I am cheap and I couldn't stomach the idea of paying a babysitter $20 and then paying an additional $20-$30 for a massage. The pull of running was too tempting. It was FREE, would offer me some alone time with my thoughts and I might even feel fast without the weight of pushing any kids uphill! So a run it was. Like a pig to the pork, I was committed.

Quickly, 6:30pm arrived and the kids were all peacefully and deeply asleep in their own beds. Rebecca's quiet knock sounded, I strapped on my Vibrams and headed up to Mulholland. Following my new "Run Your Fastest 10K-Ever Training Plan," I would complete my first set of intervals. But first, I must complete the dreaded warm-up.

Let me say that I have always abhorred warm-ups. They're awful. Running slow, stomach full of butterflies as you know what is to come and feel ready to just jump in and get the pain over with, but no, first you are told that you must complete this god-awful-jog to loosen up your muscles. Ever since my first cross-country race in HS I have hated warming-up. The clear night sky and light feeling of running solo got me through my easy 2 miles. I hid my water bottle up a little side trail for safe-keeping until I would need it on my return cool-down, punched the "start" button on my chile-red Nike watch that Alan rescued for me from a Motel-6 parking lot back in the Spring of 2005 and was on my way. The training plan had me doing 4x800m repeats at race-pace (7:15/mi) with 400m recovery jogs between. Since I didn't know the exact distance, couldn't spot any mile markers and have decided (for now at least) to forgo an expensive-GPS-high tech-computerized watch, I simply ran what I guessed to be 7:15 pace for 3 min and 38 seconds. Having been a runner for more than half my life now, one thing I do know fairly well is pace. After completing the trials of miles for so many years, you become equipped with a good internal pace calculator. Unless the course is insanely hilly, I can almost always guess my pace correctly give or take 10 seconds. The intervals felt good. The pace wasn't too fast, 800m is such a short distance and I was simply enjoying the evening air and the joy of easily passing a few male mountain bikers as they slogged uphill. Heck, I hadn't run fast like this in so many years, it was novel, unadulterated fun. I felt like a kid skipping over switchbacks in the moonlight. To cap it all off, my neighbor was up there, car parked off the side of the dirt road, playing acoustic guitar and singing into the nighttime sky. Classical music echoed off the mountains. A golf-cart of three young Persian guys passed me, shouting, in heavy accent, "You are amazing! You inspire us!!" (I was a bit shocked as I wasn't even running that fast, but still the encouragement was appreciated.) It was a magical evening.

Then came the cool-down. Ah, the coveted cool-down. For as terrible as a warm-up can be, the cool-down is the most glorious feeling you can experience when running. You have just completed a hard workout or race and now you get to just run! I have always been in love with the cool-down. By far my favorite part of distance running, I feel like I could go on forever. And I have. This has always been the easiest time for me to rack up extra weekly miles. This evening was no different. I finished my mandated 2 miles (per my self-created training plan) but was in no way ready to be done with the night. So I continued on, enjoying the live concert, taking in the night sky and the way the lights shone on Warner Center in the distance. Relishing in the fact that my kids were all at home, in peaceful slumber, unaware that their mother was out in the dark.. running. Then I realized that it was getting quite dark. My inner mother voice that I have acquired in the past 4 years urged me to run back home. My impulsive teenage-runner self pushed me to continue with the fun. Ultimately, the mother in me won that night and I glided on home, taking the shortest, safest route from Mulholland to our house on Tepoca Road. By the time I made it up our street the sky was pitch black. I floated up our steep driveway, unstrapped my shoes near the mailbox (always paranoid the ripping sound of Velcro is going to wake my sleeping Isaac, whose room sticks out adjacent to our front door) and creaked the door open. Rebecca was seated in the same position on the couch, studiously completing her undergraduate Child Development research on her Dell. Just as every other Thursday night for the past two months, she told me happily that she "Never heard a peep!" I handed her 20 bucks, thanked her for giving me this retreat and quietly locked the door behind her. In many ways, it was just another typical night, but the satisfaction of completing my first speed workout to the sound of live acoustic music under the starlit sky reminded me that life is nothing short of wonderful.

Pink, Montana Sky.

Not the same one I ran under last Thursday night, but mine was just as magical, if only in my head.