The ‘Run Mindful’ retreat that put my feet and heart on a different path… (And one hell of an epic selfie.)

I am moving to Bend Oregon.

Like – I’m writing this blog sitting in the middle of an empty living room, in a camp chair, surrounded by boxes.

Big changes.

Feels about as big as losing 200 pounds. Maybe not as big as reversing Type 2 diabetes.  Damn close. Seriously.

Actually, this change is because of and driven by those other changes.

It was time for a fresh start, a new beginning. A time to align all the parts of my life. Time to really listen to my heart and not let logic or fear or ‘adulting’ crowd out her voice.

Late last summer I went to Boulder for the Run Mindful retreat. I went to learn how to be mindful and use meditation and I thought it was an interesting idea to explore while running.  My mind is a freaking hamster wheel and often I just open my mouth and let whatever’s rolling around in my head flop right out of my mouth.  I’ve been working for years on changing that. Being more intentional and thoughtful and learning to quiet my brain.  This retreat included mountain running, time with the famous-ultrarunner/equally-phenomenal-dad/mom-humans; Timothy and Krista Olsen, I got to see my friend Matt, a chance to meet other runners wanting to focus on being mindful.  My kind of vacation!

It was incredible.

I didn’t realize at the time it was launching an awakening or a mid-life crisis.  Whatever. Same thing, different names. 🙂 I was standing on the edge of a change in a fog.

This retreat cleared the fog.

Those days in the mountains, at high altitude, spectacular food from Real Athlete Diets, no cell phone, running, restful sleep and meditation, intentional conversations…

I started to get my mind calm enough to really hear the small quiet voice in my heart that said ‘I {you} need something different than this life you’ve carefully created. I know you’re scared shitless.  Hear me out…  This could be amazing if you’re brave enough.’

I heard it in snippets at first, and was in just the right setting and moment and place that I finally heard her whisper. I listened. I didn’t get it at first. But I didn’t refuse it. I didn’t create noise to drown out the seemingly illogical thinking like I normally would.

I kept quieting my mind and listening…

I wanted to move to an endurance community where I could run and play and meet other people who cared deeply about the land we were choosing and using as our playgrounds.  I was ready for a new work challenge – with a leadership shift in my college at Oregon State, the timing was oddly perfect for me to slip away after 14 years.  I wanted to live in a place that wasn’t a social-desert; I want a boyfriend. I wanted to change my professional work and dig in/lean-in on work that mattered for our future.

I felt like my heart was going to explode.  She was off and running (pun intended) and instead of shutting her up, ignoring her for the logical ‘adult’ reasons like a job/mortgage and stability….

I followed.

This experience has been like the technical single-track with sharp drop-offs and switchbacks that scare me to death and that I have grown to adore.  The ‘how’ changed several times. The ‘true North’ never did. I was able to get clear with each twist and turn and rattlesnake in the path. From ‘I want to live in Boulder’ to ‘I want to be in a mountain town, with a strong endurance community.’ From ‘Whatever job I’m qualified for’ to ‘What work would matter deeply no matter how hard I have to work to learn how to do it?’

It’s been a wild, sloppy, ‘bonus miles’ kind of trail race. My endurance training has served me well. 🙂

There have been candid/scary moments of ‘WHAT THE FUCK AM I THINKING?’ I’d be lying to deny those moments. And a few folks would call me out for not acknowledging those human, normal, bravery-checks that were tears or frantic calls for reassurance.

Yet, deep down I knew I was doing the right thing even while the details or moments would have everyone around me convinced (uh — and me, I was semi-convinced a time or two..!) this was just crazy…

My house is for sale.  I’ve worked my last day at OSU.  I start a new job with the Deschutes Land Trust in early June.  I’ve down-sized my belonging to basics and a few tubs of sappy-sentimental-crappola that I simply couldn’t part with.  The moving truck is rented, a rental lease is signed…

This is finally happening.

This is so much more than a move ‘over the hill’.

This for me is more like a movement.  I’m going to Bend, not break.

Nemo and especially Dory,  have become new role models for me.

I feel like I’m a lot like Dory.  Optimistic, helpful, and while she suffers from short-term memory loss; I’m simply easily distracted.

But the real reason I love this pair?

I’m learning how to swim. Learning how to be in public in a swimsuit, learning a new skill, learning to love it.

Learning a ton of new stuff.

I knew how to dog paddle and tread water.  I could swim to save my life. I can do a handstand and somersault in shallow water to show off for my nephews. That’s it.

But using swimming for exercise?  Uh… No.

I took lessons for a full year a few years back.  At the very beginning of this health journey I wanted to do a Ironman.  And then I realized — you have to be able to swim. And if I really wanted to do a triathlon, I better figure out the water part.

So I buckled down and got some ‘adult learner’ swim lesson with a very patient swim coach named Troy.  He worked hard to help me get over my fears and teach me the basics.  I’m asthmatic and claustrophobic.  Putting my face in the water and then trying to breathe — well…  It took some work.  A lot of work.  A lot of blowing bubbles and coating me off the side of the pool.  Secretly, my commitment to working with Troy was also my commitment to getting over my anxiety at being in public in a bathing suit. It was the first step to trying to get ready for a triathlon — which I wanted to do from the very beginning of my health journey.  But it was ALWAYS the swimming that stopped me.

So I found a coach to give up on the lame excuses and see if I could make it happen…  Troy was working into a whole lot of baggage some of which he didn’t even know about.  And he never batted an eye.   Just helped me learn and get comfortable with the water.

He had to stop coaching me when he went to PT school. I was mostly focused on ultra’s, so it was easy to abandon swimming.  The whole exercise/cardio/water-in-the-face/breathing thing was something I just couldn’t seem, to figure out on my own.   Resigned to the fact that triathlons were just not going to be my sport – I bailed out of the pool.

I can now — two years later — appreciate how well Troy set me up for the time when I would want to actively re-engage in learning on my own. (Thank you Troy.)

I want some cross-training in my world.  I really do want to do a triathlon. It was TIME to add something else in the activity mix.  I got back in the pool in March mostly because of an injured Achilles.  It swiftly became a ‘get to’ not a ‘have to’  And the ‘get to’ led to a HUGE attitude shift.  Instead of ‘pools are where injured runners skulk and recover’ to ‘can I get better, figure out the breathing and use swimming like I use running?’

Yes I can.

I’m loving being in the ‘newbie’ stage of a new sport.

I’ve learned a few things in the past few weeks that might be helpful for other newbies:

• Chlorine makes everything smell. All the time. No escape. I’m about ready to shave my head.
• When elastic gives out in your bathing suit…  It goes instantly. Poof.  I had a near miss with a boob almost flopping out of an armhole mid-stroke.
• Goggles are blinders. They fog, they slip… Spit, baby shampoo — I can’t seem to battle the fog no matter the suggested hack.
• A cold, damp swimsuit early in the morning is evil.
• Swim caps don’t do a damn thing except rip hair out.
• When someone in your lane accidentally physically connects with you during lap swim — even lightly – you instantly know you are being attacked by a shark.

I can swim a mile. 🙂  And deeply enjoy it.  I have to stop at the end of the pool on most lengths, but it’s getting better weekly.  I’m getting stronger.

I’m driven to get more competent with this skill. By the end of summer I want to be able to swim a meditative, mile, non-stop.

Thank goodness for patient friends who send you videos, teach you terminology, give you on-the-deck, goofy/funny, dry-land re-enactments of what you should be doing in the water.  Grateful for the friends who spend time in the water with me and are understanding of my new desire to learn this skill.

What new skill are you learning?!  Please share. 🙂  I want to hear the good, the bad, the funny. 🙂

Spencer is in the very final stages of writing a book.

‘Appetite for Addiction’

It will be out and for sale in a matter of weeks.

It’s about his life as an alcoholic and addict.  It leads us up to the edge of sobriety.

I remember when Spencer told me he was starting his book.  I knew something was up.  He’d been writing feverishly and been singularly focused on writing. I figured he was writing a really intense blog.  Or journaling about something.

Then he told me he’d started writing the book and had something like 100 pages already written. So that’s what he’d been working on.  A book.

He offered to let me read an early draft of a few pages. This is the story he let me read (OSU Football).

I finished it and was not entirely sure how to react.  (Did you read it?!)

I mean the writing was stunningly vivid.  I finished the chapter and could tell you details and the picture of the story he had painted so perfectly well…  Felt like I’d been there and seen it all play out with my own two eyes.

And I was left wondering one thing…

I was a little shocked and didn’t really bother to filter what I was thinking.  So I just asked him…

‘HOW the hell are you even still alive?’

Really.

Holy shit.

Reading the stories of my friend, a man who I know in such contrast to these stories I am sitting here reading, when he was what I’ll call an ‘active alcoholic’…

The shit he did, the even bigger shit he survived, the situations he got himself into…

Whoa.

I remember looking up from the laptop…  Jaw agape. Asking him ‘Spencer, how did you not die? How are you still alive?’ and he gave a startled laugh at the bluntness of my question, paused and thought for a few seconds and then shrugged and said ‘I really don’t know…’

His book is a labor of love.  Honesty.  Intention.  Transparency.

Hours and hours spent writing on his trusty laptop.

His soul and memories and difficulties are all now in black and white for the world to read.

He uploaded the final manuscript to the editors this past week.  This is the last step before the rest of us can buy our very own copy of his story on Amazon.

His hope is that others may find themselves in the pages of his book.  Depression, alcohol, addiction…  The over-arching hope that others may find parts of themselves in the pages.  And get help.  Or know that the future can look different then the day they’re standing in.

Spencer wrote so others could and would know that they are not alone.

{We’re building up to launch the book. You can follow him on FB and Insta for more details.}

I am so proud of him for taking this from a dream to Kindle.

Congratulations Spence!