Leaving today

I leave today. In fact, I have to drive to the airport in two hours. All of the things I want to pack are still laying all over the floor and I can't decide whether I want to bring a towel with me or not. This is a very complex issue of course, because on the negative side, a towel takes up a lot of space. I may need this towel, however, in my apartment, or for traveling, or in case I go to the beach. As you can see, this is a very difficult decision.

Somehow packing will always disintegrate into an uncivilized process of stuffing everything into the suitcase. And errands and goodbyes will always be smooshed into the last few hours before leaving. Saying these kinds of goodbyes -- where you know you'll be gone for a long time, but it's short enough to call temporary -- is kind of like getting punched in the stomach. It doesn't draw any blood but still brings tears to the eyes and leaves a lingering soreness.

I'm off to do crazy things with or without the towel.

Scary vs. dangerous

A few people have asked me, “Aren’t you scared about going to France?” and most of them have been surprised when I acknowledge that yes, I am. If you’re scared, why do it?

I had a fascinating conversation on a run last spring with my friend Alyxe on how easy it is to confuse feeling scared with the actual presence of danger. Just because you feel fear, does not mean there is danger. For example, I am scared of the unknown I will encounter in France, of communicating ineffectively, of offending people, of feeling lonely where I live. There is nothing inherently dangerous about any of that, and I should realize that.

At the same time, fear is still a valid emotion, and I don’t want to imply that one should never feel scared if there is no danger present.

When I lived in Spain Elizabeth and I would often walk home late in the evening, about a 10-minute trip from the city center to our neighborhood. The crime rate in Cáceres is extremely low, to the point of being nearly nonexistent. We had to muster up a bit of healthy fear to motivate us to remain vigilant for shadowy figures on our route. Fear can be an excellent motivator like that. Especially in cases of real potential danger, we remember to buckle our seatbelts, to use the buddy system, or to learn how to decrease your risk (by wearing subtle clothing, for example, in a high crime area).

I am motivated to read about Montluçon and about France, to study my French and mumble French conversations to myself when no one’s watching, to remember the culture lessons I took from living in Spain and from KPIC, and to locate a positive attitude and remember that although picking up and movin to France is scary, there's nothing inherently dangerous about ths adventure.

Last night I had a moment of clear thought where I just didn’t care about what I was temporarily leaving behind and at the same time felt bold and independent enough to deal with whatever I encountered in France. I felt ruthless and cold. Then my range of emotions came back and I felt so much better.

Disappointing non-race

Unfortunately, the day afterI wrote the last post about my training and racing plan for Sunday's marathon, I got sick again. Honestly, more than being miserable from the symptoms, I was angry that I was sick with such bad timing*, ruling out the marathon and making the France transition more difficult. Now that I've been on antibiotics for over two days, I'm still a little annoyed because now I feel great, perfectly able to run.

Because I hate being negative I have to acknowledge the positive aspects of the situation. I won't be limping around for a week. I can sleep in on Sunday. I've gained some great fitness this summer and set some new PRs. I can spend this weekend socializing and preparing for France. And of course I don't have to spend 12 hours in the car listening to my dad's terrible radio selections.

(*Okay, the timing could be worse. For example, I had minor colds through college - but rarely - and I was only sick enough to take antibiotics once. I can't imagine being an effective participant in class let alone taking, say, a legendary abnormal psych exam feeling the way I did a couple days ago. Honestly, I think a huge factor in my college success was staying healthy - and therefore clear-headed, efficient, and positive - and I'm grateful that my health has been so strong, because my illnesses have certainly been short and treatable. And I'm sorry that I have been so complain-y recently!)

Eight days left

I turned in my resignation to my supervisor today. In return I got a high five of congratulations on the job as well as a "we'll miss you," a nice graceful exit from the job. My last day will be Friday and then I'll spend Saturday through Tuesday panicking about leaving for France.

The marathon is in just five days. It's sort of strange to be planning something as big as running a marathon while having this big move overshadowing it. I do run better at races that I feel more casually about, so I'm hoping my current attitude ("Marathon? What marathon?") will be a plus.

My goal for the marathon is sub-3:15. When I ran the Flying Pig Marathon in May I aimed for 3:20 and finished in 3:23 because I seriously underestimated the hills - especially the effect of the downhills on my poor quads! The Quad Cities Marathon is flatter and I am better trained this time around, so I think 3:15 is pretty reasonable. For the hell of it, here's a summary of this summer's training, with long runs and races in parentheses after the weekly mileage:

June 12-18 ... 57.5 (14; 4-mile race in 25:43)
June 19-25 ... 62 (16)
June 26-July 2 ... 66.2 (14; 10k race in 42:14)
July 3-9 ... 50.3 (16; 15k race in 1:05:51)
July 10-16 ... 71 (18)
July 17-23 ... 71 (14)
July 24-30 ... 45 (16)
July 31-Aug 6 ... 75 (3 11-mile runs; 4 mile race in 25:38)
Aug 7-13 ... 71 (20)
Aug 14-20 ... 60 (14)
Aug 21-27 ... 80 (20)
Aug 28-Sept 3 ... 24 (cut fingers and had stitches)
Sept 4-10 ... 26.1 (5k xc race in 21:59; sick from antibiotic)
Sept 11-17 ... 40 (14)
Sept 18-24 ... Estimated 20-25

After losing some training because of the accident with my fingers and then the reaction to the antibiotic I lost some of my confidence in my fitness. I guess I'm really writing the above training summary to give myself a much-needed confidence boost going into Sunday. Looking at the numbers gives me concrete proof that I've put in the hard work necessary and worrying about it now will do nothing; I just need to trust myself.

Montluçon preview

On the website for Montluçon, France, there is a great visite virtuelle available. It's really cool to be able to get 360 degree views of various parts of the city so I can have accurate mental images of my new town before I arrive. I especially recommend clicking on centre ville and checking out the views of the downtown area, but the agglomeration photos are interesting also. I am so curious to see what my apartment, schools, markets, and everything will look like. I have this fantasy of living in a tiny attic apartment in an 18th century building with a vegetable market at street level.

Team

I went to watch my college cross country team run their first meet yesterday. They all ran very well, especially considering they just returned from a high mileage week at camp.

It was great beyond words to see everyone and I got to talk with almost everyone. I love that every woman on this team is so unique, friendly, intelligent, compassionate, self-confident, hard-working, and fascinating. I could have talked hours with everyone, and I wish I'd had the time to speak with the new first-years that I don't know yet.

Many of my best memories and closest friendships (not to mention a couple scars...) took place because of my membership on this special team. When I had to say good-bye, I cried in the car on the way back to the highway.

Speaking in tongues

In honor of finding out today that I will also be teaching Spanish in France, I decided to write up a comparison of my readiness for speaking Spanish two years ago right before leaving for Spain versus my readiness for speaking French now.


Spain
Had declared a Spanish major
Had taken 6 years of Spanish plus a lit class
Wasted valuable speaking practice time in class/lab
Thought I knew a lot of vocabulary
Had several English-speaking contacts
Lived with a host family
Arrived with other students
Spoke Spanish just as well as the others in the group
Thought I’d be fluent within two weeks
Timid and worried about embarrassing myself

France
Skipped the most basic French class
Took two basic French classes
Made a conscious effort to practice speaking more
Think I can fake a lot of vocabulary
Hope I have some English-speaking contacts
Need to find an apartment
Traveling alone
Probably speak the worst French of anyone
Aware of the work needed to progress toward fluency
Certain I’ll embarrass myself; looking forward to telling the resulting hilarious stories


I’m not sure that it’s evident from these lists, but I am actually more confident of my ability to speak French upon arrival than I should have been (!) of my Spanish two years ago.

First, having some fluency in Spanish gives me a huge advantage when it comes to acquiring French; I did decide to skip French 101 and just look over the material before taking 102, which worked out well because I understood the basics of the language. Many times, I can recognize French words because of their similarity to Spanish, or I can fake it in French based off Spanish.

The second reason I think I am better off now is because I have lost all my inhibitions about sounding dumb in a foreign language. When I first arrived in Spain, I barely spoke, or I would practice sentences and conversations in my head before finding the guts to break the silence. Then I would realize all the errors I’d committed and feel embarrassed anyway. For the first few weeks I was always nervous. Now as I think about speaking French almost constantly, I know that I am going to struggle, and it will be exhausting and embarrassing. If I don’t try, however, I will not make it to Moulins, nor will I have an apartment, food, job, etc., and I will not improve my French, which is one of my ultimate goals.

Ugly race

I decided to run an open 5k cross country race Monday, thinking that the time off running because of the stitches could at least be turned into a PR. What I didn't take into account was the fact that I had been feeling sick (pressure in my head, dehydration, temperature sensitivity, lack of sleep), probably a side effect of the antibiotics I'd been taking. In this case, the negative effects of my illness outweighed the potential positive effects of a couple rest days and I ran my worst race ever.

The first part of the race goes through an athletic field, mostly on grass but with a narrow dirt trail before going into the woods. I hit the first mile thinking I'd paced myself perfectly to my goal split of 6:20, and I was surprised to see it was actually 6:48. I told myself the mile mark could be long and I'd just run by feel and see if the splits evened out by the second. I tried not to worry, but there were at least a couple people ahead of me at this point that I had expected to be leading.

In the second mile I moved into the second place female spot just after coming out of the woods. We circled around the other side of the field and began the loop again. I could see the girl in the lead and I tried to focus on staying steady, knowing that it was likely she was slowing down. I came though the second mile in 14:10, and I was shocked that I was running that slowly. I was in the woods at this point so it was difficult to see her, but I tried to maintain focus even though I was feeling discouraged. I was also dripping sweat from my face, which worried me since it was only about 60 degrees out.

Coming out of the woods I had about 800 meters to the finish line and there was too much ground to make up on her. I made it to the finish line in 21:59. I had hoped to break 20, and based on the performances of some people I know (especially my dad and Mark, who both ran well!) I think I should have at least come close to meeting that goal.

The last time I ran a 5k slower than that was my sophomore year in college on an extremely tough course. I also ran a similar time on an easy course that year -- when I lost a shoe mid-race and had to go back to retrieve it. Needless to say, I'm pretty disappointed with the time, but considering how I had been feeling (and then how I felt the rest of the day) I don't think I could have expected much better. I'll just consider it a learning experience and a tempo run and get back to work trying to figure out these last few weeks before the Quad Cities Marathon.

Gazpacho

Although I was pretty upset at having been awakened at 6:30 by the mattress company calling to announce they'd be delivering my parents' new mattress in an hour (which of course meant that the doorbell woke me again an hour later!) it was nearly balanced out because my parents took the time to go to the Farmers Market after the delivery. They came home with a bunch of fresh veggies, so -- with my dad's help, because I can't cut with my fingers bandaged -- we made gazpacho soup.

Gazpacho is a traditional cold Spanish soup. When I lived in Spain, I only had it once. I remember coming home from class, nearly sweating through my clothes and sitting down to tortilla española and pouring the cold gazpacho over the top. My recipe does not quite measure up, but here's how I do it:

Cut tomatoes in quarters and put them in the blender. You'll probably need some liquid to get the blending started so use a little balsamic or red wine vinegar or tomato juice if you'd prefer it not be so tart. Blend enough tomatoes to that about 2/3 to 3/4 of the blender is full. Then I cut other veggies in large pieces that are still a manageable size for the blender. I like cucumber, red/green/yellow pepper, onion, carrots, and fresh garlic cloves, although other forms of garlic work fine. I have no exact measurements so I just dip a spoon in and stop when it tastes right. Chill the soup and serve with salt (optional) and diced veggies (also optional).

In very succinct form, here are some highlight of the past few weeks:

• Coffee with Sandra and conversation about our upcoming year abroad.
• Planning winter vacation with Mark
• Having dinner with my cousin Andy (all the way from Texas!), Aunt Pat , Grandma and my mom
• My cousin Elizabeth's 16th birthday party
• Spending the night at my sister's new apartment
• Running 80 miles last week, including a fairly comfortable 20-miler
• Seeing Coldplay at Pine Knob with Mark, his brother and his brother's girlfriend. They really put on an amazing live show and manage to make it feel personal despite the site of the venue.

And the lowlight:

• Cutting my fingers on broken glass and getting eight stitches.

The good things clearly outweigh the bad, but so as not to end on such a low note, I have to add also that Sandra is now in Belfast. I am so proud of her and excited for her to have such a unique and challenging opportunity working there.