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The Butterflies In My Stomach Are Having A Party

Raceinfo

Since September 2009, I have run seven half-marathons, four ten-milers, two 15K races, two quarter-marathons, twelve 10K races, one 8K race and three 5K races. That’s a total of 31 races covering more than 400km.

You’d think I’d be OK with pre-race nerves. And yet, as I sit here now, three days before my 8th half-marathon, I’m in absolute flitters. I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, I cannot concentrate on anything apart  from the countdown clock on the race website. Which, in case you’re interested, currently reads 2 days, 18 hours, 59 minutes.

The biggest cause of the problem is Taper Madness. This is a real condition – so real that there’s a website devoted to it. It happens during the last two or three weeks before a distance race, when you reduce your training mileage in order to rest your body. The reduction in physical activity plus the pre-race jitters result in you prowling restlessly around the house in search of something to do with your overflowing energy levels.

Not only is this not fun for me, it’s not great for my family either. My constant fidgeting and nerviness has them on edge. I think they were somewhat relieved yesterday when I told them that my training schedule called for a short run.

“Get out,” they told me, “and don’t come back until you’ve run for at least thirty minutes.”

That run did me the world of good, although I went somewhat faster than I was supposed to. I couldn’t help it. It was either that or explode from the pent-up energy. For the remainder of the day, I was calmer and less antsy, and generally nicer to be around.

This morning, I’m back in bounce-on-the-ceiling mode, and I’m likely to stay that way until the start of the race.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle.

 

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A Young Athlete’s Journey Of Discovery

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Tomorrow, my 7-year-old son James will be trying out for his school cross-country team. As a runner, I am delighted. As the daughter of a former elite marathoner, I am downright thrilled. From wherever my dad is now, on the other side of the mortal divide, I’m sure he is smiling down on his grandson and namesake with pride.

Tomorrow’s try-out won’t be James’ first exposure to running. He ran his first race when he was just 5 years old. It was a 1km run for kids aged 5-12, meaning he was one of the youngest participants. He finished right around the middle of the pack, in seven minutes. It was a very good showing for a 5-year-old running his first race. About a year later, he ran another 1km race. He finished it in just under seven minutes, in spite of a large hill and the fact that there were hundreds of kids taking part. Then, this Spring, James made the relay team at his school.

So he is no stranger to athletics, and even at 7 years old, he kind of looks like a pro. Almost everyone who sees him run comments on how magnificent he looks. He has a beautiful natural form, a balletic fluidity that I can only envy. There is no awkward shuffling or ungainly loping. When James runs, he truly looks as if he was born to run. He is like Mother Nature’s model of perfect engineering.

What James has in pure physical technique, though, he lacks in strategy – at least where cross-country running is concerned. Strategy is something that is gained from experience, and he just doesn’t have enough of that yet. And so he makes the same mistake that I sometimes make, even with all of the miles I have on my legs: the mistake of taking off like a rocket and then running out of steam.

I have been trying to counsel him ahead of tomorrow’s try-out.

“Start slower,” I say, “And then you’ll be able to keep going for longer.”

But it’s so hard for him to understand. To a 7-year-old’s literal mind, it’s hard to reconcile the idea of going more slowly with the reality of racing. And my gut is telling me to go easy on the advice and give him enough space to discover for himself what his true running style is.

It is easy for me to be emotionally vested in the outcome of my son’s athletic efforts,  because it creates a link that unites him with the grandfather he never got to know. But I need to remember that he is not doing this for me. He is doing it for himself. He made the decision, without any prior discussion with me, to go for this try-out. It would not  be right for me to start having expectations, or to behave like the scary moms in shows like Toddlers And Tiaras.

I have already equipped James as best I can. I have advised him on strategy and pacing, and now it is up to him to go out and find his own way in his athletic endeavours. Maybe he’ll burn out in the try-outs and discover that he is better suited to sprinting. Or maybe he will find his rhythm and earn a place on the cross-country team.

No matter what happens, this is not my journey of discovery, but James’. I hope that he can learn from his failures and embrace the successes.

I already know that he has the legs of an athlete. Now it’s up to him (with Mommy close by, of course) to develop his athlete’s heart.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit to the author.

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Magical Moments

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Yesterday’s post was all about the poor hand that life has been dealing me lately. I feel as if the Universe read my post and decided to make some recompense, because today has been absolutely amazing.

It started with a run early this morning – a run that, funnily enough, I was a hair’s breath away from bailing on. I didn’t sleep well last night, and I woke up feeling – to borrow a wonderful phrase from a book I read – rough as a badger’s arse. I certainly didn’t feel up to running for 18km. But I knew that if I didn’t go, I would regret it. I would go through the entire day feeling a sense of incompleteness that would only be satisfied by running.

So I dragged my badger’s arse out of bed, blearily had some coffee and peanut butter toast, and hit the road. As soon as I started running, I felt better – helped no doubt by the perfect autumn weather. I decided to just enjoy the run without caring about my pace, and perhaps because of that, I clocked one of my best-ever times for a run of that distance – 1:59:43 for 18.23km. My legs were killing me, but I felt absolutely fantastic. I’d lost quite a bit of confidence in my running in recent weeks, and this run was just what I needed to restore some of that.

Later on, when I was showered and fed, I lay on my bed with my husband watching TV. Usually this doesn’t last for very long: I tend to be all antsy and wanting to get up and get things done, but today I was content to just relax. My husband and I sat there for ages, drinking cups of coffee and chatting about the contestants on The Voice, which we both enjoy watching. Neither of us was in any rush to go anywhere or do anything. We were content to just be with each other. With all the stress that’s been going on lately, there has been some inevitable discord, but today our frames of mind were in perfect harmony.

Eventually, we got up because the kids wanted us to put up their bouncy castle in the backyard. This involved first finding the bouncy castle, which hadn’t been used since March. After some rooting around in the garage and the garden shed, we located it. Miraculously, we found the motor in the same box, and then we were in business. For the next hour or so, the kids happily bounced around, and I basked in the sound of their laughter.

It’s the best sound in the entire world. How could I not be happy?

Since this morning, there has been a series of magical moments strung together to make a perfect day. It is impossible to dwell on the negative on days like this. Instead, I find it very easy to feel truly grateful for all of the richness in my life.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit: Ali Smiles 🙂. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.

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Getting Through The Wipeout Zone

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As I sit down to write this post, I am feeling emotionally bruised and mentally exhausted. The last few months have been rough. There has been a lot of life going on, and that life has included death and other forms of loss. I’ve been responding to it all in the way I usually do when things go wrong: by launching myself into frantic motion, partly in a quest to move forward, and partly because I’m afraid of inactivity.

What it means, though, is that I often don’t give myself enough time to process the stuff that’s happening in my life. Four months ago I lost my job. Within 24 hours I had an appointment to see a career coach, and the very next week I was knee-deep in résumé consultations and job-search workshops. Every time a life event has came along and knocked me off-kilter, I’ve just gotten up and kept going until the next thing has thrown me off-balance. It’s like being on an emotional version of Wipeout.

Eventually, of course, everything kind of caught up to me and I was forced to come to a screeching halt for my own safety. I had to give myself time to evaluate and plan, to have and resolve conflicts that had been waiting in the wings, and to go through the angst and the crying and the sadness that I had been trying so hard to fight. It’s made the last two weeks or so particularly brutal.

Of course, the world hasn’t come to a standstill while I’ve been going through all of this. I’ve still had laundry to do, meals to cook and a house to keep in some kind of order. Kids have gone back to school, IEP information forms have been submitted, a 10th birthday has been celebrated.

Life has gone on. And so, in spite of all the loss and gut-wrenching stress of the last few months, have I. I don’t believe in that line that “God only gives us as much as we can handle”, but I do believe that in general, human beings are resilient creatures. I’ve been through a lot worse than this in the past, and I’ve survived.

As much as it sometimes feels as if this rough patch will go on forever, I know that this too shall pass, and my life will return to a state in which I can wake up each morning and know that everything is OK.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit: Pengannel. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.

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5 Diversions That Keep Me Sane

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Several years ago, shortly before George was diagnosed with autism, I realized that I needed a life. I can trace this realization to the exact moment it struck me. George, who was three, was at daycare, and one-year-old James was taking a nap. For all intents and purposes, I was alone. I was wandering from room to room picking up toys and gathering dirty laundry with only the background noise of the TV for company. The TV was tuned to TVO Kids because I had been too lazy to change the channel. An episode of Max & Ruby came on (for the uninitiated, Max & Ruby is an immensely annoying kids’ TV show featuring two child bunnies with unaccountably absent parents), and I actually sat down to watch because it was an episode that I hadn’t seen.

About three seconds later, I was struck by how ridiculous this was. Here I was, a grown woman with a university education, making a conscious choice to watch a TV show aimed at three-year-olds. What had happened to me? Clearly, I needed to take urgent action to prevent my brain from turning to mush. I decided to resurrect old interests that had gone by the wayside, and to start investing more time and effort into my friendships.

Since then, life has become more complicated for a variety of reasons, and so it has become even more important for me to have my me-time. Here are my five favourite things to do when I need to disconnect from the responsibilities of parenting.

1. Go for a run. I’m not sure whether it’s the fresh air or the motion, but there is something magical about the way running restores my mental equilibrium. This weekend, I was feeling an incredible amount of sadness. I went out for a long run, and when I got back I discovered that I had left the sadness out on the road somewhere.

2. Book, wine and bubble bath. This is my favourite way to unwind after a long day. When the kids are asleep, I run a bubble bath, and then I retreat from the world with a glass of wine and one of the Indigo Books new book releases.

3. Time with friends. The trouble with most of my friends is that they live in other countries. I don’t get out socially very much, but I still take whatever opportunities I can to grab lunch or coffee with friends. And for the friends who don’t live in the same city as me, there’s always Facebook. I have some amazing friends who I’ve never actually met in person, and those friendships are just as important to me as my “real-life” friends. While some people might criticize me for “wasting time on Facebook”, what I am actually doing is spending time with friends.

4. Learning new things. I am enrolled in a post-graduate writing certificate program, that I’m hoping will lead to a Masters degree program. Since enrolling in the program and successfully completing the first two classes, I have been reminded of how much I love to learn. Yes, it’s hard work, and I bitch and moan about deadlines and so on, but my complaints are really just hot air. I love being in school, and I love the feeling of accomplishment that I get from it.

5. Nocturnal TV time. I have bouts of insomnia from time to time, and there are few things worse than lying awake in the middle of the night worrying about stuff like whether your child with autism will be OK after you’ve shuffled off your mortal coil. When it feels as if the anxiety will overtake me, I get out of bed and curl up on the couch sipping wine and watching my Friends DVDs. Sometimes, all I need is a bit of solitude combined with feel-good comedy.

What are your go-to methods for escaping reality?

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle, published in accordance with my disclosure policy. Photo credit: jonathanhoeglund. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.

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The First Decade

Today my son George is ten years old. There are no words to say how I feel, so I made this video instead.

A Decade Of George

This is an original video created by Kirsten Doyle. Music written and produced by Eric VonHunnius.

 

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The Perfection Of An Imperfect Body

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Today I’m going to digress slightly from my usual subject matter by talking about something that affects anyone who has even a slight chance of growing older – particularly women over the age of 40 who happen to be parents.

I keep seeing “suggested posts” in my Facebook newsfeed that talk about women who are able to use “simple tricks” to defy the effects of aging. The one I saw today is entitled 55-Year-Old Mom Looks 35, with a subheading saying, “Mom’s $5 Trick Angers Botox Doctors”. I never click on these things, because the next thing I know, I’d have new browser windows opening up faster than I could close them, and all of them would be trying to sell me something.

More to the point, I never click on these things because I get really annoyed by the implied message: that beauty is reserved for those who have the appearance of being young and childless.

For a long time, society has been obsessed with an idea of how women “should” look. We should be thin, we should have glossy hair and perfect skin, we should have perky little boobs and firm little backsides. We should have wrinkle-free faces, cellulite-free thighs and no trace of stretchmarks on any part of our bodies.

It’s bad enough that young women – girls, even – feel the pressure to live up to this ideal. Expecting it of older women is just downright unreasonable.

Ads like the one mentioned above make me angry, because they send the message that women should be ashamed of getting older. As a 43-year-old woman, I should be ashamed of my cellulitey thighs, the stretch marks on my belly, the laugh lines around my eyes and the grey that’s been creeping into my hair more and more each year. I should feel self-conscious about the fact that I can no longer fit into size 8 clothing, and I should be mortified because my belly jiggles and my breasts are starting to sag.

Now, let me make it clear that I am not one of these super-confident women who are completely satisfied with how they look. I have body issues coming out of the ying-yang. I’d love to be a few pounds lighter. I’d love to have boobs that were slightly less large, and I’d love to permanently look as if I’d just stepped out of a hairdresser’s salon.

But do I want to look younger? Do I wish my body looked the way it did before my children were born?

Hell, no. My scars and wiggly bits tell the story of where I’ve been and what I’ve lived through. My stretch marks and jiggling belly are a testament to the two lives that I brought into the world. The breasts that sag a little more than they used to still carry the memory of providing nourishment and comfort to my babies. My laugh lines and starting-to-go-grey hair are a map of the things that I have accomplished, the laughter that I have shared with loved ones, the pain that I have lived through, and the stupid things I have done that I have learned from.

My body does not meet the ideals of beauty that the Hollywood culture tells us to aspire to. I have plenty of flaws and every year I get a little further from what a young woman is “supposed” to look like.

But my 40-something, post-pregnancy body is beautiful in its own way.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit: Charlotte Astrid. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.

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Autism: My Child’s Reward For My Specialness

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A story that’s trying hard to be a feel-good tale is doing the rounds on Facebook. A family that includes a special needs child was eating out at a restaurant, and the special needs child started to get a little boisterous. Mom was feeling self-conscious, knowing that her son’s behaviour might be bothering other diners, but then a waitress approached the table and said that a kind stranger was footing the bill for their meal.

So far, so good, right? As the parent of a child with autism, I am touched that someone would extend such kindness to a special needs family. But the story doesn’t end there. The waitress also handed the family a note from the stranger. The note said, “God only gives special children to special people.”

While many people are going on about how sweet and kind all of this is, I am blown away by the presumptuousness within the message. Yes, paying for the family’s meal was incredibly nice, and I have no problem with the gesture. It’s the note that I take issue with, and not only because of the implied assumption that everyone believes in God.

My son was diagnosed with autism at a time when a lot was wrong in my life. My relationship with my husband had hit a rocky patch, our finances were in complete meltdown, I was going through postpartum depression, I was struggling with the loss of my father… There was a lot going on.

During this terrible time, while I was trying to adjust to the reality of autism, someone told me that God never gives us more than we can handle. If that is true, how do you explain the fact that there are people who reach the point of being unable to cope, who feel so desperate that they decide to take their own lives? How do you account for the mothers who feel so overwhelmed and lost that they either abandon their children or surrender them to social services? What about the people who lose their homes, families and jobs because they feel that they can drown their problems in drugs or alcohol?

God only gives special children to special people?

The implication here is that autism and other disabilities are some kind of reward. What kind of God would do that?

“This person is so great and so awesome and so special that I am going to give their child a disability that slows down their speech, slows down their learning, reduces their chances of independence, and makes them scream in frustration when they cannot express themselves.”

Call me crazy, but that’s one messed-up reward system.

Here’s the reality: there’s nothing special about me. Yes, I’m a good mom. I provide my kids with the necessities of life, I shower them with love, I advocate for them, I try to instil them with confidence…

But I also get overwhelmed. I have days when I yell at them too much. Sometimes I let them watch as much TV as they want because I’m too tired and fraught to entertain them myself. Occasionally I’ll buy them junk food because I don’t want to cook. There are times when I get impatient with my son’s autistic behaviour even though it’s not his fault.

In other words, I am just like 99.99999% of other moms: I do the best I can with what I’ve got, and I accept that I will have my good parenting days and my bad parenting days. I’m not any better – or more “special” – than anyone else.

I didn’t get my child with autism as a result of God deciding that I was special. I got my child with autism through an accident of genetics.

I love my son more than life itself. Whenever I see the look absolute desperation in his eyes when he’s having a meltdown, my heart breaks for him. I ache inside when I think of the fact that he doesn’t have friends because he doesn’t know how to, and I constantly worry about whether he will be OK in the future.

I don’t believe in God, but if I did, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t make a child go through life with a disability just because the child’s parents were “special”.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle.

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Race Report: Toronto Women’s 10K

TO Womens 10K 2013

The night before the Toronto Women’s 10K, I realized that I did not have a strategy for the race, nor did I have any kind of goal. And since I had just carbo-loaded on beer and chicken wings at the pub down the road, I didn’t feel motivated to give my race-day plan any thought. I laid out my outfit, set my alarm clock and went to bed. As I drove to the race the following morning, feeling a little the worse for wear, I decided that my strategy would be to simply finish the race. If I could come in somewhere under the 1:05:00 mark, which would put me at my average training pace, then so much the better.

I got to start area, picked up my race kit and got myself organized. I checked my bag, and with half an hour to go before the gun, I impulsively decided to warm up. This was a giant departure from my usual pre-race routine. Usually I arrive at the start area in a mad flap and spend half an hour in the Porta-Potty lineup before rushing to the start line as the gun is going off. The concept of taking the time to warm up is a novel one.

I ran a slow 2km, and then lined up at the start line with ten minutes to spare. The warm-up appeared to have worked, because when the race started I felt nicely loosened up. I didn’t have to spend time finding my rhythm. However, as usual, I went out too fast for the first three kilometres or so.

My usual strategy would have been to just keep running at a faster-than-wise pace until running out of steam, and then to huff and puff like the Big Bad Wolf for the last two or three kilometres. I have a pattern of maintaining a fabulous pace for the first three-quarters of a race and then letting it all fall apart at the end.

This time, I deliberately slowed down a little for the fourth and fifth kilometres. That gave me the opportunity to catch my breath and pick up the pace again for the second half of the race. I was able to keep up a good pace throughout, and even managed a big smile for the firemen who were manning the aid stations. When I started to feel rough during the 9th kilometre, I kept my mind on the prize. Not the finisher’s medal (although I was looking forward to that too), but the chocolate that was waiting for me on the other side of the finish line.

Passing the final kilometre marker in a race is always a boost for me. I know that at that point, with just one kilometre to go, I only have a few more minutes of running left. I usually have a great finishing kick, probably because I know that the faster I go, the sooner I can stop. The end of this race was even better than most. I ran the last kilometre in less than six minutes, finishing in a time of 1:02:13.

Considering my choice of beverage the previous night, I was very happy with this. After collecting my finisher’s medal, I happily sat on the grass enjoying my post-race snack.

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This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle.

Photo credits:
Kirsten Doyle approaching finish line: Ryder Photography
Chocolate shot: Kirsten Doyle

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Back To School Musings Of An Autism Mom

George writing words

A week from now, the kids will be going back to school, and I’m not sure whether to jump for joy or quiver with worry.

On the one hand, the kids being back in school will mean more time for me. Being home with them for the summer was a circumstance that I found myself in due to my unexpected unemployment, and it’s been quite a revelation. I have enjoyed it, but I do have new respect for stay-at-home moms – especially those who homeschool their kids. I am looking forward to being able to spend time by myself to focus on my job search efforts.

On the other hand, back-to-school time is always a bit of an ordeal for my older son George. After two months at home, his school routine has gone completely out the window. He has to relearn the whole process of getting up at a certain time, getting onto a school bus and being expected to spend each day in the classroom. For most kids – like my younger son – this represents a resumption of an already known routine. But for kids with autism, it’s like starting a whole new routine all over again.

Autism and new routines go together about as well as tuna and chocolate syrup. In addition to the daytime disruptions, George goes through insomnia while he’s adjusting to the transition. Which means we’re in for about six weeks of not sleeping.

With George going into 5th grade, this is old hat to us. We do whatever preparation we can. We use social stories, drive through the school parking lot from time to time throughout the month of August, and start easing into school-like morning routines during the last two weeks of the holidays. And then, when school resumes, we just brace ourselves and deal with it as best we can.

We go through the transition with the attitude that “this too shall pass”. Because it always does. We won’t necessarily see things get easier from one day to the next, but one morning George will wake up and be completely OK with going to school. He will get dressed and stay in his clothes instead of changing back into his pyjamas at the last minute. He will calmly get onto the bus and fasten his own seatbelt. When he comes home in the afternoon, he will be happy. That night, he will sleep. For the whole night.

Once George gets over the bump of going back to school each year, he does quite well. His brain is like a sponge, and although progress on his speech and social skills is oh-so-slow, it is definitely there.

I am nervous about the start of the school year, but I am excited to see what the year will bring for George.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit to the author.