November Coffee Date

Hello and welcome to the November edition of the Ultimate Coffee Date with Coco from Running With Perseverance and Deborah from Confessions of a Mother Runner.

I can’t believe I am writing “the November Edition” already. What happened to October? Please pull up a chair, pour a cup of coffee (I take mine decaffeinated and black) or tea, and relax as I fill you in on three things that happened in my life last month.

First, let me tell you, I have been getting my sprints in.

My six-year-old grandson recently learned to ride his bike without training wheels, or “stabilizers” as he calls them. (Where did that word come from?)

For his first forays into stabilizer-free bike riding, I jogged, then sprinted along behind him in case he wobbled. The more confident he was on the bike, the less concerned he was that I was trailing him. It took him about 10 minutes to ride up the street on his own.

Now he’s working on learning tricks.

I guess I will need to find another inspiration for doing sprints.

Next, I believe sisters Meranda and Lacey (who write the blog Fairytales and Fitness) and I must lead parallel lives.

Two summers ago, they wrote a post about finding money while running. In the post, they described a social media challenge they were initiating in which all participants would log the amount of money found while running that summer.

I had occasionally found nickles, dimes, and even quarters on the street while I ran, but up until that point, nothing substantial. (I do have an interesting story about finding money while running, but that is a topic for another post.)

The very same day I read their post and entered the challenge, I found the pile of coins pictured above (I think it was $1.89) at an intersection.

I lost the challenge, however, when one of the sisters found a $5 bill on one of her runs.

This summer, they published a post entitled “Murder on the Trail“.

The murder referenced in the post title referred to two animal skeletons they found while hiking on a wooded trail. They published photos of the skeletons.

That same day, I found this in my neighbor’s back yard while returning from my run:

I should tell you that this photo was not taken on the same day I found the skeleton. It was taken about a week later, after a certain amount of scattering occurred. When I first found the skeleton, it was much more intact.

I am scared and/or excited to see what these sisters write about next.

Photo credit: www.erki.ni

Finally, I recently came across this quote by Shalane Flanagan: “Over prepare, then go with the flow.“

I love that philosophy and try to adhere to it in running and in life. It represents a mixture of hard work and flexibility, a tremendous combination.

It has been a while since I really raced. When I did, I trained diligently before each season, running long runs, track intervals, tempo runs, and, of course, easy runs.  

I put in the hard work. I over-prepared.

When race day came, I wore, but never looked at my watch. I wanted to run my race, whatever that happened to be on race day. I didn’t want the pressure of artificial expectations.

I accepted whatever the day had in store for me. I went with the flow.

I hope I get to race again in the near future. I think most of us runners are tired of over-preparing with no in-person races to run.

We are ready to go with the flow.

You can find the places I link up here.