songs of experience

Track & Field Olympian, Joan Nesbit Mabe, waxes philosophical... and sometimes wanes.

11/22/2004

its time to face the music

Filed under: — Joan @ 10:10 pm

I just ran a mile time trial this morning. It is the beginning of winter so, of course, I haven’t done any real speed-work and many would argue I was foolish to do such a thing. I wanted to see where I am, to face the music, if you will (by the way, I find “if you will” to be a pretentious, faddish, and downright silly expression!). I have never related to those people - mostly guys - who feel they must run 12 weeks of 100 mpw before they will ever set foot on a track or enter a race. I think they’re afraid of the truth. They want to imagine the runner they might be, rather than BE the runner they are. I find it extremely liberating to know precisely how fit (or NOT fit, as the case may be) I am. Today, November 22, 2004 … at the age of 42 … I am a 5:03 miler.

11/21/2004

a runner runs

Filed under: — Joan @ 2:40 pm

My circle of moms didn’t disappoint. I went to them openly with my greivance that no one was reading what I was “assigning” and they told me “Yes, YES, we are! Sometimes we just don’t know what to say in response.” What a relief. I had felt so alone in my passionate freakdom. Maybe the Hemingway piece was too esoteric. I don’t know; I guess I’ll stick with running quotes for a while:

This week’s reading is from a collection of testimonials called, “How Running Changed My Life.”

What Is She Running From?
by, Jeannine Bergers Everett

“Who on earth knows who they are at twenty-five? I’m not so sure I even knew at thirty-five, but I was more open to the possibilities. In my work as a researcher into human behavior, I was looking at the role of title and declaration on decision and action. In this work, I saw the relationship between open declaration and commitment to achieve . . . you aren’t what you eat, you are what you say you are.
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11/15/2004

pearls before swine

Filed under: — Joan @ 10:17 pm

I am peeved. Today I gave my Janes a reading assignment and only three of the runners bothered to read the thing. Harrumph. I believe that coahcing is not about mechanically serving up work-outs week in and week out; it’s about building a community of believers. A team. You need to believe in each other to work harmoniously toward a goal race. As a coach, I am mere facilitator of this comraderie. However, if one member (or, in this case, nearly all members) is withholding his or her PERSON from the group, then the bond will be weak. I can’t imagine my not reading something that a coach (or a friend) hand-selected for me. It was insulting. I will not try this “experiment” again.

Then again, maybe I’ll try to re-boot on Wednesday.

11/14/2004

a clean well-lighted place

Filed under: — Joan @ 12:49 pm

This week’s reading might strike some of you as odd. You might worry about my mental state of health (which, I assure, you is in fine fettle). I chose this Hemingway piece because I have felt that this seejanerun season has produced a particularly safe circle. I look forward to coming to the Janes each Monday and Wednesday with gratitude and openness and genuine faith in my fellow woman. For me, it has been a clean, well-lighted place.

Enjoy the short story!!
-joan

The Complete Short Stories Of Ernest Hemingway : The Finca Vigia Edition
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11/8/2004

women who run with the wolves

Filed under: — Joan @ 5:46 pm

This week’s quote comes from Women Who Run with the Wolves:

Women Who Run with the Wolves

“One of the most amazing things about this long initiation (into the Wild Woman - the one who can make it up and over TOWER HILLS!!) is that the woman undergoing this process continues to do all the regular living of topside life: loving lovers; birthing babies; chasing children; chasing art; chasing words; carrying food; paints, skeins; fighting for this and the other; burying the dead; doing all the workaday tasks as well as this deep faraway journey.

A woman, at this time, is often torn in two directions, for there comes over her an urge to wade into the forest as though it is a river and to swim in the green, to climb to the top of a crag and sit … face into the wind.

It is a time when an inner clock strikes an hour that forces a woman to have a sudden need of a sky to call her own, a tree to throw her arms about, a rock to press her cheek against. Yet she must live her topside life as well.

It is to her extreme credit that even though she many times wishes to, she does not drive her car into the sunset.”

My running moms are serious runners seeking to enhance their already meaningful existence(s) … not one-dimensional fitness freaks who ignore the IMPORTANT things in life in order to be thinner or faster. Some of us do happen to be fast, but not at the expense of children or husband or REAL self. Its a delicate balance … sooooooooooooooo much harder than when I was simply, single-mindedly, training for the Olympics.

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