Cats and dogs – RunningWell

Hi Everyone!

Wow, what a weekend in New York! We had a such a great crew down there running AND cheering! I love so much how this team goes and supports each other in these huge accomplishments. Racing and doing SO well on such a tough course we had: Elizabeth Gladney (BQ and 2nd Canadian in AG!), Madalyn Marcus (BQ and really sent it! 2nd Canadian in AG), Laura Gage (BQ and so flippin steady!!), Samantha Farrell (BQ and also steady eddy! Feel like you could’ve handled another few kms 😉 ), Amanda Bugatto (awesome run with a questionable hip – grittiest runner out there), Jordan Stewart (PB!! On that course!! And 3rd Canadian in AG), Carol McFarlane (BQ and SO strong! Winner of the happiest runner out there), Carolyn Steele Gray (BQ and 3rd Canadian in AG!) Way to go all. That was huge. Take two weeks off and then listen to your bodies about coming back.

Speaking about bodies, that’s what I’ve been thinking about recently. Our bodies, how we inhabit them, and our relationships to them as we age. I love this passage by Ursula K Le Guin on how cats and dogs understand their bodies:

“Dogs don’t know what they look like. Dogs don’t even know what size they are. No doubt it’s our fault, for breeding them into such weird shapes and sizes. My brother’s dachshund, standing tall at eight inches, would attack a Great Dane in the full conviction that she could tear it apart. When a little dog is assaulting its ankles the big dog often stands there looking confused — “Should I eat it? Will it eat me? I am bigger than it, aren’t I?” But then the Great Dane will come and try to sit in your lap and mash you flat, under the impression that it is a Peke-a-poo.

Cats know exactly where they begin and end. When they walk slowly out the door that you are holding open for them, and pause, leaving their tail just an inch or two inside the door, they know it. They know you have to keep holding the door open. That is why their tail is there. It is a cat’s way of maintaining a relationship.

Housecats know that they are small, and that it matters. When a cat meets a threatening dog and can’t make either a horizontal or a vertical escape, it’ll suddenly triple its size, inflating itself into a sort of weird fur blowfish,and it may work, because the dog gets confused again — “I thought that was a cat. Aren’t I bigger than cats? Will it eat me?” “

Le Guin notes that many of us humans are like dogs – having no idea where our bodies begin and end in space and time. When we are children, we inhabit our bodies like cats – we ARE our bodies. But when we go through adolescence with so many changes, we can lose sense of who we are and there is a disconnect between what we see in the mirror and how we feel. Then she says this change happens again as we age.

When I think about this I think about how grateful I am that I am an athlete. Athletes inhabit our bodies like cats. We have learned to become aware of ourselves, and what we can do. We experience the world through the movement of our bodies. We are right there inhabiting them through all our changes and adaptations – as we grow and as we break down. Many people view their bodies as external casings – to be shaped and perfected and beautified and controlled.They are separate from their bodies and I think therefore can be pretty hard on them. As an athlete, my body is home. It is me. I really took this in the other day as I ran down a ravine path, navigating around all the walkers, feeling the heat being generated by my body juxtaposed against the cool air hitting my skin. That is when I feel like me – experiencing all the sensations that come with movement. My body looks the way it looks because it reflects the patterns of my life. Massage therapists can still tell which hip I carried my babies on when they were little because my body formed around them on one side. I’m not encouraging wrinkles, but I accept them as signs of “having been there”. I move differently now than I did in my 20’s – not always slower, but the patterns are different. It’s a different pace with the emphasis in different areas. I am working with my body and its needs – not fighting it. I don’t think you can intellectualize your way into thinking of yourself like this. I think you have to really experience inhabiting your body as an athlete does. That’s why I will continue to move and think and train like an athlete even as I age into an old lady. So I don’t suddenly feel like a stranger to myself, and like a large dog,one day try to curl up in a box that is half my size.

On to tomorrow’s workout! Back to hills! Pottery Rd for Western East-enders, Beaches for Beachers.

These will be the bread and butter of our base season. Lots of great strength building and we can just go the pace that our bodies are feeling at the time. Tomorrow is going to be cold, so we should start out gently. Let’s do up to 6 long and 4 short. Up to = you can do less!

I will aim to be at Pottery around 6:15. Just a reminder – if you’re in the Beach you can meet up with that crew, and if Pottery is your closest hill just start doing them when you get there – we don’t have an official start time for these.

See you in the am!

Seanna