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Sometimes Goals Change – And That’s OK

March 11, 2014 By

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At the beginning of this year, I had some lofty plans. I was going to either launch a freelance business or become gainfully employed. I was going to run three half-marathons in addition to my first 30K. I was going to clean up my eating, once and for all. I was going to find ways to become happier, more fulfilled, and better at being me.

We are two months into the year, and so far, none of my goals are shaping up quite the way I wanted. Although I have been looking for and applying to work opportunities, my heart hasn’t really been in it. I’ve been feeling a little adrift, not really knowing what direction is the right one. In addition, as hard as it’s been financially, there is one aspect of my unemployment that I’ve been enjoying: having time to be a mom. I love being here to get my children ready for school, and I love being here when they get home. At some point, unless I can get enough freelance work to keep the wheels turning, I will have to give that up.

My running goals haven’t been panning out, either, largely because of the winter we have had. Months ago, I registered for the Around The Bay 30K race, which happens on March 30th, and I promised myself that I would set my mind to my training. It has been a lot easier said than done. To be fair to myself, I have tried hard, but the Polar Vortex had other plans for me. Because of the ice storms, excessive snow and unbelievably cold temperatures, I have been forced off the road and onto the treadmill. The few runs that I have managed outside have been challenging – running through snow, running through icy puddles of melting slush, falling on ice and hurting myself.

A couple of weekends ago, while I was heading to the gym for yet another long run on the lab rat machine, I suddenly asked myself how much I cared about doing this 30K race at the end of the month. On the one hand, I hate registering for races and not doing them. But on the other hand, how wise would it be for me to attempt a new distance right after the worst winter I’ve ever experienced?

As I did that run on the treadmill, I pondered the idea of bailing on the Around The Bay race and instead going for the Midsummer Night’s Run – also a 30K event – that happens in August. I mentally experimented with this notion, and discovered that I felt surprisingly comfortable with it. Not only does it feel comfortable, it feels right.

And so I found another runner to take my spot at the Around The Bay race and I transferred my registration to him. As soon as I received payment from him, I signed up for the Midsummer Night’s Run. Now I can comfortably ease myself into outdoor training, and I will have an entire summer to train for this new distance. It means that I will only be running two half-marathons this year instead of three, but that’s OK.

And that is really the whole point of this post – that there is no shame in changing a goal. This time last year, I would have been horrified at the thought of not running Around The Bay. I would have berated myself for deciding to cut a half-marathon from my schedule. I would have thought of myself as a failure, as a person who gives up. But something in me has changed in the last year. Maybe I’m just getting older and wiser, or maybe I’m getting more realistic. Or maybe I’m simply realising that I deserve to give myself a bit of a break.

I still have some things to work on – like sorting out some kind of regular income, and developing eating habits that are consistently healthy. But I feel that in accepting and embracing changes to what I want to accomplish, I am at least moving closer to being happier with who I am.

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

Filed Under: 2014 Goals, Acceptance, Change, life, running, Work Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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2013: Memorable Moments

December 26, 2013 By

With just a few days left in 2013, this seems like a good time for me to take a look at some highlights of the last twelve months. The word “highlights” is a bit of a misnomer, though – a large portion of the year was filled with the most mind-bending stress. To be completely honest, I am ready for the year to be done. I am ready to wake up on January 1, 2014 looking forward to a year of new beginnings.

Not a lot happened in the first three months of the year. I was working overtime on a massive project, so for a while I didn’t really have a life. From time to time I went running, and that was going great until the day I gave myself an injury by doing a long run at race pace on icy sidewalks. As far as common sense goes, that was not one of my shining moments. I had to pull out of a half-marathon that I had registered for – not the greatest start to my season.

In April I ran a ten-mile race that can only be described as my worst race ever. It took place on a golf course, which was very scenic but had a scary number of hills. If the weather had been nice it might not have been so bad, but it was cold and windy, and it was raining. Instead of feeling down about my dismal finishing time, though, I was surprisingly upbeat. I had run this brutally hard race in terrible weather, and I had crossed the finish line. It was a testament to my determination. The hard-earned finisher’s medal I got that day is one of my favourites, just because of how hard I had to work to earn it.

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In May, my life kind of spiralled out of control a little. Things were going reasonably well at the time: my running was back on track and my big project was a whisker away from being closed after a successful implementation. A few days from the end of that month, I got the shock of my life when I was called into a little office in the HR department and informed that I no longer had a job. I had seen it coming – much change was afoot at my place of work and they had been downsizing people for a while.

Something else happened in May that shook my foundations quite badly. One of my best friends, who I had known for seventeen years, passed away after a lifelong battle with Cystic Fibrosis. Fran was just shy of her 41st birthday when she died, and years of knowing that I would in all likelihood lose her did not make it easier when it happened. I have so memories that include Fran, including her first race and my wedding. Seven months on, I’m still having trouble adapting to a world that she no longer inhabits.

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In June, my family and I went away to Niagara Falls for a few days. It was a break I desperately needed, and it included the Niagara Falls Women’s Half-Marathon. I had a fantastic race – although it was not my best-ever performance, my finishing time was respectable enough. The race was a perfect opportunity for me to run off a bit of stress.

July kind of passed without me noticing. I was worn out from stress and grief, and I was fighting what felt like a losing battle with depression. I applied for jobs without getting any responses, and my spirits sank lower and lower with each passing day. Ultimately, what got me through was running.

August started off on a note of terrible tragedy, when a friend’s seven-year-old son drowned in a river. He hung on in hospital for a couple of days, but in the end, his mother had to make the heartbreaking decision to let him go. I felt the kind of sadness that threatens to engulf you, like a heavy blanket that suffocates. I started worrying a lot – about my kids, about the twists and turns of fate that we have no control over, about friendship and whether I was doing enough for the people in my life, including the bereaved mother.

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In September, I was supposed to travel to Ottawa to take part in the Army Run, a majestic half-marathon in the nation’s capital city. Due to illness and circumstance, the trip had to be canceled at the last minute. The disappointment was excruciating. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t a big deal, especially when looked at beside all of the other stuff that had been going on, but at that point my coping skills had been eroded to the point of nothingness. I turned to my trusty method of stress relief and threw myself into my running.

A month later, my training paid off when I ran my main race of the season: the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront half-marathon. For the fifth consecutive year, I ran the race to raise funds for the Geneva Centre for Autism. Inspired by my son George, I ran my way to a personal best time. It was a truly fantastic race, and that day marks the point at which I finally started to claw my way back from the terrible depression that I had been going through.

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In November I signed up for a novel-writing challenge called NaNoWriMo. I decided that what I really needed was a goal, and writing a book in thirty days seemed like a reasonable one. Every day when I woke up, I sat at my laptop and hammered out two thousand words, and by the time the end of November rolled around, I had a completed manuscript of almost 60,000 words. It was a first draft, meaning I would need to do a whole lot of work to make it fit for public consumption, but I had done it. That achievement did wonders for my confidence.

December has, for the most part, been kind to me. Yes, we had a pesky ice storm that cut out power for a few days and left a mess of fallen trees and broken branches all over the neighbourhood, but we got through it. Although there was the obligatory family drama, we enjoyed Christmas. We even got a picture of Santa that involved a lot of fun and no autism meltdowns.

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Over the next few days, I will be setting some goals for 2014. I have lofty plans that include running a 30K race and getting my book published. For now, though, I am enjoying time with my family, and in spite of the more stressful things that have happened this year, I am feeling grateful for what I have.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit for the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Half-marathon picture: www.marathon-photos.com. Photo credit for all other images: Kirsten Doyle.

 

Filed Under: 2013 Year In Review, Christmas, Death, Depression, family, Friendship, Job Loss, running, Stress, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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If I Could Do Anything…

April 5, 2013 By

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Imagine for a moment that we live in a world where anything is possible. Money is no object, there are no stupid politics to get in the way, and logistics are never an issue.

If I could do anything…

… all children with autism would receive autism intervention therapy, be it IBI, Floortime, or any other methodology.

… all children with autism would have IEP’s that truly address their goals, and teachers who actively help the child work towards those goals.

… all siblings of children with autism would have access to programs and activities just for them, so that they could have fun with other kids who understand what it’s like.

… all autism families would get to go on vacations to autism-friendly places, where the parents could get an occasional break.

… children and teens with autism would never be bullied.

… every kid with autism would have easy access to sensory equipment, like swings and weighted blankets.

… every kid with autism would have a dog.

… big box stores like Wal-Mart would have “quiet” shopping areas, where the fluorescent lighting is less harsh, there are fewer people and the checkout areas aren’t so intimidating.

… ditto for airports, which would also provide special boarding for autism families.

… all autism parents would have the financial means to attend conferences and parent training and information sessions.

… autism parents would stop bickering over the causes of autism and judging each others’ vaccination and nutritional choices.

… the general public would have easy access to information about autism that is realistic and devoid of sensationalism.

… people with autism wouldn’t wander off and later be found dead – everyone would be safe, always.

… people with autism would have the same opportunities as anyone else to reach their full potential, whatever that might be.

… autism parents would be able to grow old without constantly worrying about the future, because they would know that their kids would be taken care of.

… no-one would believe that ridiculous myth that people with autism are incapable of emotion – everyone would be hugged by someone with autism at least once in their lifetime, and they would cry from the absolute beauty of it.

Filed Under: autism, Health Activist Writers Month Challenge Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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Ten Running Questions

November 1, 2012 By

Several months ago, I became a part of the WEGO Health network – a group of people advocating for health, either for themselves or for a loved one. My health advocacy serves a treble purpose. First, I want to do my part for the autism community on behalf of my son George. Second, I want to share how running helps my physical and mental health. Third, I am tentatively starting to talk about my own mental health, sharing stories from my past, in hope of removing the stigma surrounding depression and other mental illnesses.

Recently the folks at WEGO Health announced that November is National Health Blog Posting Month, and they issued a challenge for bloggers to publish a post every day for the month of November. I am never one to shy away from a blogging challenge, so here I am! Some days I will go with the suggested prompt, other days I will just follow the lead of my writer’s instinct. I will even have a couple of guest posts along the way.

Some time ago, my friend Phaedra tagged me in a post on her own blog. Phaedra is the kind of runner other runners want to be like, and she coached me through a phenomenal running season, in which I clocked up no fewer than five personal bests. In her post, Phaedra gives the answers to ten questions, which she then passes on to fellow runners. Phaedra’s answers can be found here. My answers are below, and I invite all runners to post their own responses and leave a link in the comments below.

1. Best run ever? In August, I did the Midsummer Nights Run 15K. For some reason 15K has always been a challenging distance for me – far harder than the half-marathon, which is six kilometres longer. The Midsummer Nights Run is on a course that I have tackled a couple of times before, and I have never done well on it. I was dreading this race because I had such big mental issues with the course. This time, though, I found my zone early on in the race. I hit the runner’s equivalent of the “sweet spot” golfers are always on about. I well and truly conquered the course, beating my previous personal best by a whopping 13 minutes and with energy still in the tank.

2. Three words that describe your running? Determined, focused, stress-relieving.

3. Your go-to running outfit? In the summer, I wear one of two pairs of running shorts – the leg-hugging kind, so my thighs don’t chafe. I pair that with either my Energizer Night Race T-shirt or one of my Geneva Centre for Autism shirts. In the fall, I replace the shorts with a pair of longer lightweight tights, and in the winter I wear whatever will prevent bits of me from freezing off in the cold.

4. Quirky habit while running? When I turn onto my street at the end of a long run, I pretend to be an elite athlete from Kenya. I sprint down the final stretch and fantasize about having run the entire distance like that, and when I step over the line dividing the road from my driveway, I raise both arms in a victory salute and pretend I am breaking the tape at the finish line of a race. It will probably never happen for real, but a girl can dream, right?

5. Morning, midday, evening? In general, I am an early morning runner. In the winter, though, a lunchtime run in the crisp cold air can be a purely magical way to get a break from the chaos of the workday.

6. I won’t run outside when: there’s lightning. There are a lot of trees in my neighbourhood, and I would worry about being struck, because that would just be my luck. I also tend to avoid the wind. I don’t mind running in rain, snow and sleet, but I absolutely detest strong wind. For some reason, it makes me anxious and edgy, often to the point of a panic attack.

7. Worst injury and how I got over it: Almost three years ago, an appointment with a chiropractor went dreadfully wrong – a result of pure bad luck rather than any fault on the part of the chiropractor – and I ended up with a pinched nerve in my neck. My left arm was in absolute agony, and the fingers on my left hand were numb. I had to go to the emergency room twice, and for the next six weeks I cried myself to sleep while I was waiting for the Percocet to kick in. Physiotherapy ultimately sorted me out, and to this day, I have numb fingertips.

8. I felt like a most badass mother runner when: I spent virtually all of the Good Friday Ten-Miler neck and neck with an older but much fitter gentleman who issued a friendly challenge to me, and then near the end of the race, I tore away from him and beat him to the finish line.

9. My next race is: the Tannenbaum 10K at The Beach in Toronto, on December 2nd.

10. Potential running goal for 2013: I’d like to see if this old body can handle three half-marathons in a single year. I’d also love to break an hour in a 10K race and beat 2:15 in a half-marathon.

 

Filed Under: blogging, Challenges, National Health Blog Post Month, running, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , ,
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January Goals: Laying The Foundation

January 9, 2012 By

launchpadSo, now that I have started 2012 off with a week of inspiration from guest bloggers, it is time for me to solidify my own goals for this year. In short, this year is going to be about me. That does not mean that I will ignore my children, refuse to cook dinner for my family, and let everyone go around in dirty clothes. It simply means that I will do a better job of taking care of myself.

Since becoming a mother, I have put the needs of my family first. Which is fine – the truth is that ultimately, everything I do is for my kids. The problem is that I have been taking care of everyone else at the expense of myself. This has led to me being overwhelmed, exhausted, and in many instances, frustrated and unhappy. In a way, I have allowed the essence of me to get lost, to be buried underneath all of the layers of responsibility that I have imposed upon myself.

And so, this year, I am going to find some balance. I am going to pursue some dreams that have been in the horizon of my mind for some time. I believe that being more balanced, less tired, and more in tune with myself will benefit everyone around me.

In 2012, I am aiming to make great strides in my running. With the help of my friend and coach Phaedra Kennedy, I am going to break 2:10:00 in my Run for Autism in October. I am going to make inroads in the world of writing. And come hell or high water, I am going to develop a positive relationship with food that allows me to build good nutritional habits. The old pattern of alternating binge eating with starving myself is going to come to an end. Sometimes I’m thin, sometimes I’m fat, sometimes I’m in between. I’m tired of the yo-yo, and it makes clothes shopping impossible.

My focus in January will be to lay the groundwork for success. This is my plan:

  • I will realign my sleeping habits to go to bed earlier, so I can wake up early in the mornings to run without feeling like I’ve been hit by a Mack truck. When I start my training program on January 30th, I will be used to getting up at five in the morning. My body will have already made that adjustment.
  • I will learn how to do the strength training exercises that Phaedra gave me, so I can incorporate them in my training program right off the bat.
  • I have ordered my Precision Nutrition kit (thanks, Phaedra, for the tip). When it arrives, I will not just dive into it like an overexcited puppy. I will take the time to look over it properly, learn how to use it, and plan appropriately.
  • I will contact a web designer about revamping my site to incorporate both my blog and a general writing component. That will make it easier for me to market myself as a freelance writer.
  • Since I already have a day job, I will start to use my commutes for writing. That’s exactly why Santa brought me this nifty little ’puter that I am writing this post on.

By the end of this month, I will have built myself a launch pad, and I will be able to spend the rest of the year in pursuit of my goals.

Hop on, it’s going to be a wild ride!

Filed Under: Dreams, Early Morning Running, family, goals, health, life, running, sleep, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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10 IEP Survival Tips For Parents Of Children With Autism

October 25, 2011 By

If you want an autism parent to break out in an instant sweat, just mention the initials IEP. The Individual Education Plan, which is theoretically in place to help children with autism and their families, can instead be one of the biggest sources of frustration. The IEP process, during which the child’s educational goals for the upcoming year are formulated, is about as much fun as a root canal. It is also just as essential. Without an IEP, our special needs kids would be eaten alive by a school system designed to teach “typical” kids who can do “typical” things.

Putting together an effective IEP requires collaboration between the parents and the school, and differing viewpoints can lead to difficulty. The school views the child as one of a number of students requiring IEP’s. They want to get the job done as quickly and efficiently as they can: the less interaction they have to have with parents, the better. From my experience, teachers like to draw up the IEP, send it home for parental signatures, and be done with it.  Parents, of course, view their child as a unique individual. They want their child’s IEP to be given care and consideration. They don’t want a cookie-cutter IEP; they want a plan that reflects their child’s needs. After all, the “I” in IEP stands for “Individual”.

It doesn’t have to this frustrating. There are things parents can do to derive real value from the IEP process. Today I want to share with you some tips that I have learned over the years, both from my own experiences, and from other people who have been through the IEP wringer. If you have tips of your own, please feel free to add them in the comments section.

1. Parents, educate yourselves. Find out the special ed laws in your area. Make sure you know what you as a parent are entitled to request on behalf of your child. Do research on the IEP process. If possible, try to get your hands on the IEP form if you haven’t already seen it. If you know what information the form calls for, you can be better prepared.

2. This is not a battle – or at least, it shouldn’t be. No matter how frustrated you are, avoid approaching your child’s teacher in a confrontational manner. You are not on opposite sides of the table. You are members of the same team, working together for the benefit of your child. If you adopt a collaborative attitude, chances are that the teacher will do the same. At the end of the day, your child will derive a lot more benefit from a cohesive team than from a roomful of bickering people.

3. There is another reason to play nice with your child’s teacher. The special ed community is fairly contained. There is a good possibility that the professional you are dealing with today will crop up in some other role in the special ed world at some point in the future. I’m not suggesting that you give in to what the teacher wants. I’m just saying, be nice. Treat all of the professionals you encounter with respect. Yelling at an uncooperative teacher may get you some short-term results, but it will also burn a bridge that you may need further down the line.

4. Be realistic. Your child’s goals should be formulated with reference to where they are today. A child who has not yet learned how to count to twenty is probably not going to be able to add triple-digit numbers.

5. Instead of requesting goals in absolute terms (“I want my child to be reading by the end of the year”), phrase them as an ongoing process (“The ability to read one- and two-syllable words, with a view to reading simple story-books.”)

6. Remember that kids don’t necessarily do the same things at school that they do at home. My son’s teacher, who is with him for the third year in a row, sent home an IEP draft that included the goal for him to rote-count to 100. I was initially perplexed, because he’s been counting to 100 since he was four, but it came out that this is not a skill he has demonstrated at school. Conversely, he has shown more promise in interactive play at school than he does at home.

7. Don’t be shy about writing comments on your child’s IEP. The IEP form does not allow a lot of space for comments – feel free to break out a separate sheet of paper, write your comments on that, and staple it to the form.

8. As a parent, you have the option to meet with the teacher, or to just add your comments to the IEP and sign it. I strongly recommend that you meet with the teacher. Even if it’s the same teacher for the second or third year, the goals will have evolved, and it can be very difficult to keep things in context without a face-to-face meeting.

9. If the IEP does not include a goal that you feel should be there, be persistent. You may need to compromise on the wording of the goal, but make sure it gets written into the IEP in some form.

10. Remember that the IEP is not cast in concrete. We don’t have crystal balls, and we cannot always say that the plan we come up with in October will still be valid in, say, February. If a strategy or goal that was written into the IEP is not working, talk to your child’s teacher about modifying it.

Filed Under: autism, Education, goals, IEP, School, Special Needs, Teacher Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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Is Finishing The Race A Good Enough Goal?

September 26, 2011 By

When I came back to running two and a half years ago, I came back from a zero-level of physical fitness. For several years my body had been completely devoted to growing babies and then nursing them. My mind had been devoted to trying to survive post-partum depression, the loss of my father, and my son’s autism diagnosis. With everything that I had going on, physical fitness just wasn’t on my list of priorities.

Therefore, when I started running again, speed was not an issue for me. My only goal was to simply get out there and complete whatever distance I was aiming for. Standing at the start line of my first half-marathon for autism, I was realistic enough to know that I wasn’t going to be a speed demon. I did not aim for any particular time. I just wanted to finish the race; I did not care how long it would take me.

Since that first half-marathon, I have run 12 more races. My approach to each of them has been the same: stumble across the finish line in whatever time I can manage. I have looked at my races not so much as competitive events, but as training runs with added zing.

Two weeks ago, though, I came to within a minute of my 10K PB (personal best) at the Energizer Night Race. This was a race run at night, on narrow park trails, with this weird headlight thing on my head. Most amazing of all, I actually had energy to spare when I crossed the finish line.

That race was a turning point for me in two ways. The first was that it made me re-evaluate the role of music in my runs. The second was that it made me ask the question: if I can put in a performance like that without really trying, what will I able to accomplish if I push myself beyond what I am used to?

I have been a somewhat complacent runner, being happy with just finishing the race. I still advocate that approach very strongly for beginner runners. But I am not really a beginner anymore. Perhaps it is time for me to start pushing the boundaries a little.

Tomorrow: read about how a change in race strategy this weekend worked out for me.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tdd/3524924669. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: Energizer Night Race, goals, pacing, Race, Race Strategy, running Tagged With: , , , , ,