Resolution: to breathe better.

This may seem insignificant, but how you breathe is very important.

So this year, I resolve to pay attention to how I breathe, to not hold my breathe, to breathe even when it hurts. Because you know, if you’re breathing, you’re living.

What Went Well In 2011 – Personally
Everything went well. I went to not one, but two, music festivals (Outside Lands in SF and Austin City Limits in Austin.) I missed music so much, music that I enjoy – Kanye West, The Black Keys, The Decemberists, Bright Eyes, Stevie Wonder, Iron & Wine, Arcade Fire, Beirut, John Fogerty and so many more. It almost felt weird at Outside Lands, as if I had forgotten how to rock out, but by Sunday I let loose. And it was much better in Austin, where I was able to just enjoy even in the sometimes pulsing hot sun. Having a place to stay that was only a 20 minute walk also made life easier. I was glad to share Outside Lands with R, D and D’s brother. I was beyond thrilled when I ran into an old friend, S. The world is small and our lives so similar.

I met R who has been a complete blessing in every which way. We’ve traveled across the country together, to the Bahamas together and have navigated three successful months of living together in Brooklyn so far. Many more (happy) months to come. Our road trip took us from California to Arizona to Colorado to Nebraska to Omaha to Illinois to Ohio to Pennsylvania to New York. It was something I won’t ever forget – and I got to visit four more new states. I saw the Grand Canyon and it is truly amazing. I saw historical things like the cave dwellings in Mesa Verde which I had never even heard of. I got to meet a lot of nice people – R’s friends and family and Couchsurfers. I got to drive the open desert roads (too bad it was in the dark!). I got to have a pie-milkshake and vote in the coffee bean pole. I got to take hundreds of photos (which I need to print!). I got to see the country and it has only made me want to see even more of it, every corner.

The Bahamas was a place of new experiences too — scuba diving and kayaking, mangroves and caves, swimming in beautiful, perfect blue ocean, seeing fireworks from so close and NOT getting sunburned! Win. It was an accident, but I also liked being draped in clothes that were the colorful patriotic colors of the country – yellow and teal. Colors have power, energy.

Once R and I settled into Brooklyn, we kept the adventures going. I’ve learned to rock climb and totally love it – we go twice a week. For Christmas, we went to our first hockey game together (Rangers vs Islanders) at MSG. We watched the end of the World Series at our neighborhood bar. We’ve explored other neighborhood bars. We stood on the sidewalk and cheered for the NYC marathoners (I was desperately wishing I was one of them). We saw one of my favorite photographers–Annie Liebovitz–at the 92nd Y. We saw two Broadway plays: Mountain Top and War Horse. We’ve hosted several couchsurfers and are just starting to get into the AirBnB racket. Our neighborhood is perfect, small and safe with everything you need right around the corner and with Manhattan just a short subway ride away.

Oh, and I should mention my three-week stint in LA, where R showed me his home. We saw RATM at the Coliseum, we ate at Jose Andres’ The Bazaar, we saw the Dodgers win and enjoyed fireworks on the field, we saw the Avett Brothers (officially my favorite band), we went to the Hollywood Bowl twice. I ran all around his neighborhood in beautiful California weather, we enjoyed the beach and I went into the biggest waves I’ve ever been in, we hiked stairs in the middle of the mountain and found a strange artists graffiti house. We went to six Flags and rode the rollercoasters. We went to the Observatory and watched an amazing video on the cosmos.

I also have to mention watching the Avett Brothers in Cooperstown in NY. It was at Ommegang Brewery, it was like watching your favorite band at a hoe-down. There was only two or three hundred people max, and it was raining and smelled like a farm. It was a wonderful way to see this folksy band. Ryan and I sang our little hearts out and stomped around in the mud drinking our so-so beers. We were so close I thought we’d be able to touch them. Two days later, R, my dad and I packed a U-Haul and moved to Brooklyn. After unpacking the van and my car, I got terrible ill from that night in the rain. But it was absolutely worth it. Cannot wait to see them again in 2012.

As much as I love R and have gotten to do and enjoy so much because of him. Last year wasn’t all about him. I spent New Years Eve in Miami with J drinking champagne in the streets and watching fireworks on the beach. I got to run on the beach for the first time. D and I explored San Francisco – one of the first cities I truly enjoyed in my past year of travel. I hung out with my brother in Santa Barbara and he weirded me out with his conspiracy theories. I visited my old roommate L in LA and was given a whole new perspective on the city (and met R.) I went to Portland to chill with M & F and got to run my first long run – 8 miles! I hang out with J regularly when I’m in Baltimore and she has risen through the ranks to best friend. I love that lady. I saw one of my poker friends marry a beautiful, awesome woman in Baltimore. I saw my sister and her family in North Carolina, saw my Uncle and his family in Massachusetts, my Aunt and cousins in Georgia. All in all, I feel like I saw everyone in 2011. I even got to spend a good amount of time at home with my parents and grandpa.

I wrapped up the skirt project. I trained for a marathon (but couldn’t run it). I ran a marathon relay in Baltimore. I took lots of photographs. I take vitamins and supplements.

Without even knowing it, 2011 was about getting my personal life back in order, and it worked.

Theme for 2011:
Year of Courage. I will put my heart into everything. I will live and love without fear. I will not half-ass anything. I will not fear failure or vulnerability. I will not be victimized or stay silent. I will do more then I ever thought I could. I will gain strength and self-worth. I will amaze and impress myself. I will make myself proud. I will not recognize myself in a year from now. The new ‘me’ will actually be me.

Check.

The subway at 3:00am is a freak social experiment.

I found this is of particular interest, because for years I’ve toyed with this idea of an anti-attack app. How does my idea differ from the released apps? Noise. I guess the use for my fictional app is when a man or woman is walking alone at night on the street. Maybe you’re a little inebriated, maybe you’re just not physically intimidating and the next thing you know you’re a little nervous about where you’re walking. Why not hit a button that lets out a low whistle that draws attention to you. Loud enough for people to be like huh, what’s that? And try to find the source. Suddenly, people are keeping an eye on you. Witnesses can’t (shouldn’t) say they didn’t see you go by. Ideally the noise would become a learned sound – like the ding of a text message or start of an apple computer.

And when you’re really panicked – why not hit a button that yells Help and has a little siren? The benefit is that if you are attacked, an attacker now has to handle both you and your phone. Toss your phone and the perp now has two situations to deal with. Maybe it can’t turn off without the password in case the perp tries to steal it.

In my mind, I thought including some sort of noise alert alarm would be clutch in an anti-assault app. Especially because women as a whole are taught to be quiet, to not draw attention to themselves, etc. Let the phone do it for them. And when put into a position where you can’t be vocal even if you want to, let the phone do it for you. Will people use the button to call wolf? Maybe, but maybe it’ll be like calling 911, people know you don’t use it unless you mean it.

The app would obviously have a 911 option. I also think it should have some sort of “Open/Safe Areas” map. If you end up on a street you don’t know late at night, you could click this and it would direct you to the nearest open public location through verbal commands, so you don’t have to have your phone out. That way you can get some place safe and take a few minutes to look at a map, call a friend or cab, etc.

MY dad told me a story a few years ago about how a woman was walking home and got nervous, so she called her boyfriend. Well, that didn’t help anything because the man following her, grabbed her hair from behind and raped and killed her. I guess my point is – pretending to be on the phone with your friend, or being on the phone with your friend is NOT a safety measure. If anything it’s a false sense of security that is just going to split your attention.

Anyway, that’s my ramble…

New plan?
Stop running for the month.
Run on Dec 1st and see how it goes.
Potentially run the half-marathon in Miami at the end of January.
Potentially run a full marathon in March/April, depending on how training goes over the winter.

I realized that I’d rather be that wacky, 60-year-old lady who runs five miles every morning with no marathons under my belt, than that 60-year-old lady whose had three knee surgeries and can hardly walk from running one marathon.

In the meantime, I’ve discovered rock climbing and bouldering. And I’m really enjoying that. So, one door closes, another opens right?

Unfortunately, my plans have gone awry.

Back Story
About two weeks ago, I went for a long run and about two miles into it I had some knee pain. I’ve been lucky in that during all this training, I had never had an injury worse than blisters. By mile five, I had to call for a ride because I couldn’t go forward. It felt like my knee was stabbing itself.

I saw a doc and he told me it was tendonitis, to take it easy and ice it, and when it hurts stop running. To be more specific, it’s Iliotibial band syndrome.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been in a bit of a fog. I’m too nervous to even look at my training schedule, which would have had me running anywhere from 6 to 14 miles nearly every other day, running hills and doing speed training.

Instead, every few days I’d take off on nothing more than a flat 3 or 4 miles hoping that my knee would be perfect and all would be good. Such has not been the case. Nearly every time my knee has cut my run short. And the pain lasts longer than just the run. Going down stairs, lifting my knee to uncross my legs have become trying tasks after a run.

What Do I Do?
My marathon is in four days away. I could:

a.) Defer my entry to next year and find a different marathon in the spring to slowly train for;
b.) Run it knowing full well I’ll have to drop out as soon the pain hits which may be at mile 3 and just try to enjoy the experience;
c.) Run it and try to make it to the halfway mark, pain be damned;
d.) Take some painkillers, get a brace and pain be damned try wholeheartedly for the whole thing. A marathon is all about mental toughness anyway, right?

But….
I know what the smart decision is. I know what the rational decision is. BUT those are the frustrating choices, the choices that make me feel like a failure, like I lost this epic battle with the marathon and life.

I embraced running after some really tough times last year. And to be frank, I felt like I had something to prove. And so by finishing the marathon, I wanted to say hey, I can do this, I am better and stronger than I think I am, better than people have treated me. For all those people who didn’t think I could, for myself who thought I couldn’t — well, there’s my time, there’s my sweaty bib, I did it. I have ridden the highs and lows of training and life and come out on top. Except for right now and on Sunday which may be the worst low of all.

And now I feel like it’s slim that I’m going to have that moment. I feel like, everyone who’s ever doubted me was right — most importantly myself. I probably am my biggest anti-cheerleader (is there a better word for that?), I am very critical of myself. And as I have to make this decision, I can feel all that negativity coming back. That voice that says I can’t do this, I’m a failure, that my knee is a cop out etc. And I don’t know how to shut it up. And I don’t know what to do.

I learned how to make the 8-knot, the double 8-knot, the fisherman’s knot; learned the language (Belay on! and Take! Take!!! — which means pay attention I’m coming down, which I said a lot); and figured out all the gear – the harness, the gri-gri, the shoes etc.

The other interesting part of it, is the trust. R was belaying for me as I climbed and it was not easy to let go of the wall or conquer my nerves. I had to keep looking down to make sure he was paying attention – and when you’re 15 ft up, you really don’t want to look down.

I also had the bad habit of climbing about 3/4 up the wall and then wanting to stop. Not because I was physically tired, but because I was starting to get intensely scared and I figured 3/4 of the way up was high enough, especially on my first day! Apparently, this attitude is not approved of in the climbing community. Whenever I stopped and was ready to go down, our instructer, Bill (who was absolutely great!) would just laugh me off and say yup, yup, keep going, to the top. And so damn him, I would turn back to the wall and very nervously, clutching for dear life, climb to the top. I did this 3 times. All the way to the top of the wall! I’m not a climbing prodigy or anything, I didn’t use specific routes or have to deal with inclines or anything, but it was incredibly rewarding to conquer some fears.

And it made me realize that in life, I reach a point and I stop. Fear, discomfort, what it is, it stops me in my tracks and I say to myself, well, guess that’s good enough. But damn it, it’s not. And I guess this is what people mean when they say you can’t do it alone, because if it wasn’t for Bill or R, I wouldn’t have kept going. Sometimes we have to ask for help to keep going.

It was a totally new experience — I’ve never done anything like it and it was really fun. If you’ve never tried climbing, I definitely recommend it. It can be pretty intimidating, but everyone — at least at Brooklyn Boulders — was really nice.

Recently, I’ve fallen in love, begun a road trip across the country, and continued to rock the shit out of my job and marathon training, among other things. Quite frankly, I put the internet – blogs and twitter – on the back burner.

I think I’m undergoing a pretty epic transition in my life. And I don’t want to fuck it up.

I have this desire to just be the best version of me possible. And not only the desire, but also the motivation recently. Thoughts and feelings that have been brewing within me for my whole life, might actually turn into action in the coming months and years.

I hope you keep abreast of my journey, even if it feels sporadic at times. Your thoughts and support and criticisms are always welcome.

I recommend subscribing to this site, as well as the travel blog ISO: Adventure and my design site Heather Van De Mark.com (no, this is not completely forgetton) via Google Reader or RSS or whatever you use to keep up to date. And follow me on Twitter.

What I’m saying is, don’t forget about me while I crawl into a hole for the next two or three months. Because when I emerge, I will be a force to be reckoned with. Thanks and love you.

Apparently my red blood cells are very small in size and worse, there’s not many of them. R said something about me giving blood and she said I can’t — not shouldn’t, but can’t. I was like ooh, damn.

She gave me iron pills but basically told me to start eating meat again. So, that begs the question — especially given my increasing training schedule — do I end my vegetarian streak and join team meat again?

I took my seat and hung out until the rest of the plane boarded, as is my preference, because why rush to sit on a plane? I was the last passenger on, and the woman scanning my boarding pass asked if I was traveling alone. I was. She moved me to a window seat in a totally empty row near the front of the plane. It was one of those ‘choice seats’ you see when picking your seat online that are an extra $35 — apparently for this flight there were no takers. So I got a good seat for nothing.

Even better? As I walked passed first class, I saw a mom with two small children, one of which was already letting out some high-pitched wails.

I lucked out.

And I saw the most spectacular desert sunset. Truly beautiful. Clearly, these iPhone photos don’t capture it but I don’t think I’ve seen a better sunset. Can’t wait to be sitting in Sedona with R next week watching the sun sink.

Update: I decided to upgrade to first class on my flight from MKE to LAX. Crossing my fingers for no babies.