When I was in college, it would take me a while to transition between life at Haverford and life back in Nashville.  Whether it was a quick trip for Thanksgiving or the longer winter break, I needed a period of adjustment.  It ranged from hours to a day, and in this period I would be extra quiet, uneasy, and more than a bit anxious.

I gradually moved past this as I entered grad school and then my “adult life” in the DC area.  But this weekend was a blast from the past.

A quick trip left me with less than 48 hours in Nashville, mostly just the 4th of July.  It was a cheap flight, I wanted to get out of my apartment, and wanted to see my friends and my new place.

It was easy to go down there.  Delayed flights left me less time than I wanted on Saturday evening, but dinner with great friends made it easy to slip in to the life I want in Nashville.

Sunday was perfect.  Too much time in the sun drinking sweet tea and eating snowballs left me with bright pink shoulders.  Old friends and good food were capped off by a stunning view of fireworks from a bridge over the Cumberland.  I couldn’t have scripted it better.

But this morning I woke up, put the house back in order, and headed returned to the airport for a morning flight.  Unlike Saturday’s delays, we left early and I soon found myself back in Reagan National, headed to my car to pick up the dog.

It’s hard to be back.  I have three weeks left here and they will be full of work, packing, and a few goodbyes.  With less than two weeks from our next race, the pace will pick up significantly as soon as I wake up tomorrow.  It’s hard to get back to this life.  It’s hard to leave the carefree holiday and come back to the stress of living my current life.  It’s my transition period all over again.

When I trained with Team M4M (Miles 4 Melanoma) last year, there were three Kevins on the team.  One was Stenny, the founder and head coach of M4M.  The second was an assistant coach, a great guy who would run with us, invariably at the moments when we needed a push up that horrendous hill on the Capital Crescent Trail.

The third Kevin didn’t run with us very often.  He lived outside New York and came down a few times for the longer weekend runs.  He was easily the strongest runner in the group.  He ran 8:00 minute miles like it was a piece of cake.  I remember passing him on an out-and-back portion of a run on a particularly humid Saturday morning.  I felt like I was swimming to get through the trail, but he just breezed by with an easy gait.

He ran with Miles 4 Melanoma because he was a Stage III melanoma survivor.  He was in remission and his love for running gave him an outlet to raise money for a cause that was so personal to him.  Despite his obvious dominance in the group, he was one of the nicest guys you could hope to meet.  Quiet and humble, but quick to smile.

He ran Marine Corps this past October in 3:35, an astonishing time for anyone.

They discovered in March that his cancer had returned in the form of a brain tumor.  It metastasized quickly.  The team members from last year were alerted this past weekend to the fact that he was currently in hospice care and not expected to make it much longer.  His doctors were shocked and saddened that a body made so strong from running could be beaten so quickly by the vicious disease.  The team quickly rallied, with emails pouring in with questions of donations, support, meals, anything.

Two days ago, we got the email announcement that he passed away.  He was 40 years old.  He was with his family and he went peacefully.  According to Stenny, he was even talking about running just before he passed.  It was what made him happy.

I cried for Kevin.  I know that I didn’t really know him and that my tears were as much for Marcy as they are for him.  I miss her desperately right now and wish she was here to pick up the phone and talk me through the summer.

It’s beautiful here in DC.  The heat and humidity broke, leaving us with phenomenal weather in the 70s with low humidity.  After I finish work this afternoon, I’m heading out to Carderock for a long run.  It’s one of the places I ran with Kevin, it’s a spot I never knew about before joining M4M, it’s where my parents and I were the morning that Marcy passed away, and it’s the most peaceful, beautiful park in the area.  I’ll be running for Kevin, for Marcy, for me, and with the belief that running brings peace.

Over the past couple of months I’ve discovered that the key to becoming a better runner is to succumb to mind-numbing, stomach-churning stress.

Now, before you scoff at this plan, hear me out.  Stress causes your anxiety to go up.  Anxiety often yields excess energy.  Excess energy must be burned off lest you force everyone around you to stop answering your phone calls.

I will admit that I am not the poster child for dealing with stress.  It’s gotten me in, shall we say, predicaments, before and I certainly don’t intend to go back in that direction.  Let’s get that straight right now.

But I have never run as well as I have during this year’s round of stress.  It helps that it’s super hot outside right now, so I’m forced to run on the treadmill.  (I’m not forced, but I just don’t handle the heat well.)  I get bored easily on the treadmill, so I start playing with the settings in order to break of the monotony of staring at the same thing.  I listen to a song and crank up the speed.  Watch a World Cup game and really crank up the speed.  Get stressed about life and crank up the speed and the incline.

I’ve brought my 4-mile time down quite a bit since mid-April when this all really started.  I’ve fine-tuned the songs that I can stand to listen to while watching the various characters that hang out at Gold’s Gym in Tysons.  I have specific treadmills that I like better than others, mostly because they are positioned for maximum air movement.

Today I left work and came home to get more done.  Concentration was hard to come by and my legs were just calling out to be pushed.  I gave up the fight just after 3 and headed to the gym.  For someone who never really wanted to do speedwork, it seems bizarre that I went in with the intention of running mile repeats.  But I did.  And I ran them.  Three mile repeats, each faster than the last, with the last 1/4 mile of the overall four miles run under 8:00 minute/mile.

It felt so good to push through the miles, to see the numbers tick up, to give my mind something to think about other than the normal crap.  Despite the fact that I’ve gutted through two marathons, three marathon training periods, and a whole bunch of other races, I’m not always good about pushing myself past my limits.  With these speed sessions, I do something that I don’t consider myself particularly good at.  I push myself to up the ante every time, to knock more seconds off the time I ran before.

There are tons of metaphors joining life and running.  I get a quote from Runner’s World everyday in my inbox and usually they have something to do with how running makes you better at life.  I particularly like the one claiming that life is a marathon, not a sprint.

But lately the sprints really help.  I appreciate the fact that usually it is running that makes you better at life.  That’s all well and good, but I think people are missing the fact that nothing calms nerves better than a serious sweat session.  Antsy legs can’t bounce when the muscles are spent and sleep comes faster when the body is exhausted.  I’d rather rid myself of this stress, but at least this life is making me run a lot faster than I ever thought I could.

If you’re born in a city with an iconic sports team, it’s likely that you will grow up to root for that team.  New York?  Take your pick between the Yankees and the Mets, just don’t ever change allegiances.  Oakland?  You will bleed black and silver following the Raiders.

I grew up with a variety of teams.  Because the Titans didn’t come to Nashville until high school, my home football teams were Vanderbilt and, occasionally, Tennessee.  My dad followed the Cubs, but because I never got in to baseball, I really didn’t care one way or another.  Basketball was easy –  the Lady Vols, but for Pat Summit more than the players.

But there has only ever been one team that I really follow, root for, pray for, agonize over: the Italian national soccer football team.

My love started when I was 12 and my mom and I spent a month living in Florence.  We happened to be there during the World Cup in a year when Italy was good.  We joined our fellow Florentines as they dropped everything to watch or listen to the game.  One evening, just before we were to leave, we ate at a nice restaurant in the middle of the Piazza Signoria.  Even though we couldn’t see the game, the yelling, moaning, and cheering coming from all the windows around us let us know what was going on.  When Italy won, people poured in to the streets, climbing on Vespas and riding around with the flag flying behind them.  It was an incredible atmosphere – impossible to resist.

When we returned to the States that summer, we were already hooked.  The three of us sat in front of the tv to watch the finals – Italy vs. Brazil.  The game was scoreless through regulation and overtime, leading to the inevitable, agonizing shootout.   My favorite player, Roberto Baggio, was poised to hit the tying goal, necessary for keeping Italy in the hunt for the win.  He missed.  Game over.  Brazil claimed its fourth World Cup title as Baggio and the rest of the Italian team struggled to figure out what just happened.  We were heartbroken and hooked.

Baggio after missing the shot. Image found here.

I ended up in Italy for the 1998 World Cup and fell in love with the Italian team all over again.  There’s just something about watching soccer football in a European country that sucks you in to the drama and makes you care more than you ever thought you could.  Listening to the city around you as collective breaths are held, quick prayers are spoken, angry words are shouted, and joy is unleashed is an incredible experience.  There’s nothing like it.

In 2006, I followed the Cup through live updates on Sports Illustrated’s website during work.  When the Italians made it to the semi-final game with Germany, I was on my way back from a weekend trip in Miami.  I watched as long as I could in the hotel before the cab left, and then continued to peer at the bar tv next to the security line.  During the final game, I sat crouched on the floor of my tiny apartment in Rosslyn, wringing my hands.  The game ended in a tie, leading to Zidane’s infamous headbutt in extra time and another agonizing shootout.  I’d like to believe that they pulled it out to redeem Baggio.  But it doesn’t really matter, the important thing is that they won.  And it was awesome.

Image credit here.

It’s World Cup time again and I couldn’t be happier.  Italy opened their group play yesterday with a miserable 1-1 tie with Paraguay.  My mom and I traded phone calls as we watched in different states.  We agreed that Italy needs to get their act together if they intend to be a threat in this year’s Cup.  We talked about who was new this year, who gestured the best, what we thought about the new uniforms.  I’ll continue to watch the games with my parents throughout the tournament.  We won’t be in the same city, but you can bet it will seem like we are.

I love the Italian team.  I have history with them, know their names, follow their moves across various European teams.  When it comes to soccer football, I bleed blue.  Forza Azzurri!

It is no secret that I don’t love flying.  Yes, I love that you can get to incredible places in mere hours.  Yes, it’s a great way to see friends and family for the holidays.  But there have been periods of my life during which I actively feared and disliked flying.  It’s gotten better since I jumped out of the plane, but there are still moments of fear every now and then.

Last night I flew back from Denver.  We have a race out there next month and needed to get a couple of meetings out of the way.  We were only out there for one night, but it was one night spent at one of America’s most incredible resorts.  We had great weather the whole time, but they were predicting strong storms to come through on Friday evening.

My boss flew out at 1:30 as she was meeting her husband for a weekend trip rather than going back to DC.  My flight was scheduled for 4:30.  The skies were clear and it seemed like maybe the storms had gone a different direction.

At 3:15, the skies started to turn dark in the distance.  Our plane came in as scheduled and the new crew boarded immediately.  Other flights were trying to get out before the weather came in; boarding announcements started incorporating threatening statements to slowpokes.

The clouds moved in as time ticked by.  I started to fidget a bit.  I left my seat, went to the bathroom, came back to the gate.  Got up again, found a seat on the floor, surrounded myself with my bags.  And watched the skies.

Finally they started to call passengers to the plane.  I had bumped myself up to the bulkhead seat, so I was one of the first to get on the plane.  As I headed down the jet-bridge, sirens started to wail in the terminal.  I turned to the Air Force officer boarding behind me and asked if he thought we should be worried about the alarm.  He figured it was weather related and pointed at the black sky as we passed a window.

I put my bags up in the overhead compartment and found my seat.  The pilot was hanging out in the galley, so I struck up a conversation with him and a flight attendant.  We talked about the tornado warning, the fact that the pilot once saw a tornado while in flight and actually thought about alerting the passengers, and what it was like when lightning struck the nose of a plane.

I hadn’t noticed it, but there wasn’t anyone else getting on the plane.  I wandered to the window, where the pilot was standing, and looked out.  The skies seemed clearer, so I mentioned something about that.  He told me to look out the other window.  I peered out and saw incredible black skies swirling over the terminal.  There were plastic bags and other random trash flying across the tarmac with the wind.  Suddenly I had a strong urge to do a few sudoku puzzles.

I buried my head in the airline’s magazine, ripping through the medium and hard puzzles before I finally looked up again.  Passengers were coming down the jet-way and they didn’t want to spare us any details.  It seemed that while we were sitting on the plane, everyone in the terminal was instructed to stay inside, away from windows.  They watched as the skies turned black all around them and the wind reached frenzying speeds.  They were, however, much safer than we had been sitting out in the plane.

The sirens started wailing in the terminal and again people stopped boarding. We were informed that the warning had been extended through 5:00 and they weren’t allowing anyone else out of the terminal.  Once the rest of the passengers finally came on the plane, we learned that they weren’t allowing anyone out on the tarmac due to lightning, so bags couldn’t be loaded.

I spent most of this time texting with people, trying to get some sympathy and calm my nerves.  I talked with the pilot some more, chatted with the flight attendant, and made friends with my seat mates (once they got on the plane).

Finally the storm abated and we backed away from the gate.  Aside from the fact that the woman next to me downed three vodkas while we were in the air, the flight was ok.  There was some turbulence in the beginning, but no flying cows, and no spinning houses.  I consider that a win.

Not my picture, but more or less what the sky looked like. Image found here.

Happiness is a strange concept.  We spend most of our lives chasing it.  We look for it in other people, we look for it in jobs, we look for it in pets, and we look for it in anything we can possibly construe as giving happiness.

Some people find it easily.  It seems to find them.  They don’t ever go looking, they just embody it.  They live it every day.

Some people can’t ever seem to find it.  They search hard and search everywhere.  They find substitutes and pretend these are enough.

For those lucky ones, it is effortless.  They wake up and the sun shines, no matter what the weather.  The glass can never be half full because it never dips below completely full.

For the unlucky ones, there never seems to be a break.  They turn to pills, to vices, to anything that will mimic the feelings that come from true happiness.

I don’t count myself in either of these groups.  I have been over the moon happy and count myself lucky to know that feeling.  I have also suffered from depression that didn’t seem to have a giving point.  I have found success and I have known failure.

There must be the bad to fully experience and appreciate the good.   This is obvious.  Any full life must include both – staying numb gets you nowhere and gets you nothing.

I don’t think there’s a secret to happiness.  Sure, there are mental tricks to making a bad day better.  Yes, there are drugs that can trick your brain in to thinking everything will be fine.

Family and friends go a long way.  Sweet puppies can also bring your blood pressure down.  But really there’s no way to rely on others to bring you happiness.  I don’t think that everyone can make themselves happier by simply deciding to make it so.  But believing in yourself and knowing that you can make yourself happy goes a long way to getting you to a state of better living.

In two short months, I will leave the DC area and move to Nashville.  I’ve spent almost 6 years in the Virginia suburbs and I still love the city, even if I don’t take advantage of it quite like I should.

I grew up in Nashville and never thought I would go back.  We always talked in high school about where we would live and why it would never be Nashville.  But then we left and Nashville changed.  These fancy new apartment buildings went up, new restaurants and coffee places moved in, and a new museum and state-of-the-art symphony house brought new people flocking to the once honky-tonk central of Broadway.

Slowly, my friends have trickled back there.  They have homes and lives and are happy and content.  One has a fantastic business that I plan to visit regularly.  One has nieces and nephews on whom she dotes.  They have all come back for different reasons, from different parts of the country, and even abroad.

I had a taste of the city when I was there for my reunion.  It felt different and it felt comfortable.  I have always talked about going “home” when I fly from Washington to Nashville.  After all, I spent 18 years of my life there before heading north for college.

It is true that there are things about this area that I will miss.  I will miss the streets that once seemed so daunting and now are so familiar.  And the trails that I’ve run hundreds of miles on, the good Vietnamese restaurants, the Mall, the Metro, the Indian food, and the fact that you can hear any number of languages at your local mall, to name a few.

But I am gaining so much more than I’m giving up.  I get to live close enough to my parents to talk to them in person, rather than on the phone.  I get to spend evenings with some of my closest girlfriends.  I get find new places to run, and build a tolerance to the wicked humidity that hangs over the late summer days.  And I get to make a new life in a city that I once wrote off and learn to love it all over again.

[Apparently prostrating yourself to the running gods pays off.  Either that or entering a small, first-year race.  This is rare for me, but please pardon a tiny bit of bragging.]

Last week I decided that I needed a plan for the weekend.  I checked out the local race calendars and found a 4-miler not too far from the apartment.  I like that distance, it’s what I run most often in training.  It doesn’t hurt that 4 is my lucky number.

I got to the race site super early on Saturday morning.  The past two weekends, I’ve gotten to the site way before I should and spent some time sitting in the car reading Runner’s World magazine.  It is an oddly nice way to pass some time before running.

About half an hour before the race started, I got out of the car and wandered around, watching people and getting my legs warmed up.  There weren’t that many people, maybe 100 or so.  There were a few that looked fast and a few that I scoped out as people to beat.  It’s what I do before any race, even the marathons when I realize that I’m doing less “racing” and more “surviving.”

The race started when the director yelled “go.”  We took off at a nice pace, but the course went downhill so it felt fine.  It was a quick loop course.  The stretches weren’t too long but there were a few annoying hills.  As I cruised down the final hill, I got one of the worst side stitches I’ve ever had.  I slowed to a walk and actually started cursing before realizing that I wasn’t alone out there.  It finally loosened up enough that I could start up again, and I set my sights on a guy that had passed me while I walked.

I caught up to him and we rounded the final corner together.  I had a few steps on him, but just before we reached the finish line, my stitch came back and he stepped up his pace.  I crossed the finish line, stopped my watch, and walked away from the mats to take the chip off my shoe.  I scoped out the post-race food and decided that I was done and headed home.

The next day I checked the website to see if they posted the results.  It was a rather pleasant surprise:

I placed second in my age group.  I never thought I would place in an age group.  Never.  It should be obvious at this point that I’m fairly proud of this.  I know that it was a smaller, first-year race, but I’m happy with it.  It may never happen again, but that’s fine.

The race folks are sending me the $15 gift certificate that I won.  Despite the fact that I can very easily spend that (and more) at a running store, I’m planning to put it in a frame up on my wall.

Running is nothing if not an exercise in humility.  Being nothing but humble, I present a picture from my latest half marathon:

Ouch. Be nice.

I’ve got two dogs for the next week as I’m watching my boss’s dog, Kenan.  Kenan is awesome; he’s laid back, expressive, and full of personality.  He’s had a rough year with two knee surgeries, but he has come back wonderfully and still smiles when you put the leash on to take him for a walk.

Kenan is a little wary of Sasha.  She’s full of energy, wants to play all the time, and is a tad over-possessive of me.  I have to separate them at meal times.  Kenan eats a mix of dry food and homemade food.  Sasha got one whiff of the homemade stuff and decided that she has found her reason for living.  This means that I need to provide some serious distraction for her while he’s eating.

If I am in the kitchen working on my own food, I turn around and find four big doggie eyes staring back at me.  Kenan is often on his bed in the corner and Sasha is usually perched in her spot on the back of the couch.  Kenan has big, beautiful, expressive eyes and Sasha has some serious intensity in hers.  It’s fun to see the two of them and realize how wonderful and different dogs can be.

Kenan is older with a very developed personality.  He knows what he likes and doesn’t waste any time on the things he doesn’t care for.

Sasha still has the impulse control of a puppy, that is to say very little.  She has boundless energy that ends with a deep nap draped across the nearest lap or couch cushion.

It should be interesting to watch the two of them interact this next week.  But in times like now, when Sasha is asleep on the couch next to me and Kenan is snoring on his bed a few feet away, it’s very comforting to have these two awesome buddies to keep me company.

**Edited to add the following picture.  Call it a late birthday present, Cam.**

Four eyes + eight paws = serious cute.