You will feel funny, but you will survive.

Seriously, where does the time go? I blinked and six days are gone; I should have written this post at least four or five days ago. Three days tops.


I volunteered to be a model (six words I never thought I would string together unless I was writing a piece of fiction) for a calendar of local runners, with all the proceeds going to cancer research. I said I would do it if I could run with my kids in the Chariot, since that's such a huge part of who I am as a runner these days. The wonderful woman who is producing this calendar agreed and so I showed up at the agreed-on location last Saturday with two kids and a Chariot. We waited awhile for me to get my makeup done and I kept thinking, "Yes, you need makeup; everyone will have makeup so that their features show up in the photos. You will feel funny, but you will survive." I haven't worn makeup since I was married in June 2007. Before that... high school? So let's say 1988 or 90 at the latest. A long time.


I have to mention that both Sonja and Haven were impeccably behaved considering that the spot where the makeup was being done had a railing overlooking a ten-foot drop to the water on one side and a staircase going up to a parking lot on the other side. We waited well over an hour and no one fell into the water or was hit by a car, so everything went smoothly.


We were third in line to have our photo taken and by that time Haven was past her nap time. Translation: Mama was getting a bit stressed. And it's weird, because I don't normally get too stressed about that stuff since Haven is not a wee Babe anymore, but I think it was because I didn't know anyone (off of Twitter that is) and I already felt really nervous about having my photo taken (not a big fan outside of self-portraits). So when I was asked to slow my running down so that the photographer could get a better shot, I wasn't surprised. I just thought, "Oh great, so now they might think I'm trying to look fast or something." All things you can't properly articulate when you don't know people that well, your kid is about to lose it and you're a ball of nerves. Sigh. The fact that none of my photos have appeared on the calendar's Facebook page makes me think that none of them were any good, but who knows.


I need to explain a little further about why I felt uncomfortable: I put my hair in a ponytail. Sounds run of the mill for a runner, right? Not so for this runner. I always wear a hat when I run, but I didn't want the brim to hide my face in the photo. I thought about leaving my hair loose, but I  didn't want it to look all strange. So I pulled it back into a ponytail, but I have thousands of tiny short hairs from all the hair I lost after having my kids, so I used some pomade to try to slick them all back. I ended up looking like a reject from Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" video. Even more so once my makeup was done; I just needed the short black dress and black pumps. Don't get me wrong, the makeup was nice and the woman who applied it was lovely and talented, but I am simply not used to makeup at all. 

By the time our shoot was done, the girls were at the breaking point. I started running at full speed back to the car with Haven screaming the entire way. I had to call Peter to tell him that I wasn't able to come meet him downtown as I had originally planned; I needed to go straight home to put Haven to bed. So as I was running over the Selkirk trestle, I called him to let him know what was going on and then I realized what I looked like at that moment: slicked-back ponytail, full makeup, talking on my pink-cased iPhone while pushing my kids in my high-end Chariot. Just put a chihuahua in a basket on the handlebar alongside a cup holder with my skinny latte and I could easily belong on the streets of Yaletown. I definitely got a few looks. All I could do was laugh.

There's one thing I know for sure: I'm my own worst critic and most, if not all of these observations were made only by me. Having never met me before, the wonderful folk involved in the calendar saw nothing strange about my hair and likely didn't know how nervous I was. I guess if they're reading this, they know now and I hope they see the humour in it. Most of all, I hope the photos don't suck; I'd really like to get a couple of them to spruce up my blog!


This calendar is going to be awesome. Please check out the Facebook page to find out when and where you can buy one, even if my photo doesn't make the cut. ;)

_______________________

Last Sunday Running Moms ran seventy-five minutes for a total of around 12 km. Tomorrow we will run 10 km in around an hour and it will be our last long run before the Half Marathon October 9th. Everyone is getting excited and I imagine more than a little nervous. 


The last week before a race can be tough, since even though you know in your mind that you're ready, you still question whether you're ready, because you've been tapering and somehow you feel like taking it easy for a couple weeks will make you unfit. In fact the opposite is true: your hard work in training is behind you and no amount of hard work in the last couple of weeks before the race will gain you any fitness. 


Truthfully, the last thing you want to do is tire yourself out in the two weeks before the race; if you step up to the start line feeling rested, you're more likely to have the energy to push through any rough patches.


Breathe. Rest. Hydrate. The race will be what it will be.