My training with John started out with a 20 day rest. Really. I was totally burned out, so 20 days off, no cross training, nothing. Then I started the build up, now beginning my fourth week, my longest run is up to 1 hour 40minutes, (8:30-8:40 pace) mid week medium run 80 minutes and some shorter runs with weight trainings. I just start my quality work this week which brings me to today.

John coaches Tuesday workouts at 6:30am in Central Park. I didn’t know if I could do it; with dog duty and getting to work in time it would be a stretch. Plus, I was intimidated knowing the kind of runners I would be following. But I fear aside, got up at 4:30am to exercise the dogs, fed them and jumped in a cab. The subway is too infrequent to get me there in time. I felt it is stupid to hire a coach and not go to all the quality workouts, there are two a week, the one on Tuesday and one on Saturday.

Originally my schedule read; 70mins total, 15min warm up , then 3mins on ( 7.20 pace), 2mins off ( 8.40 pace) x 8. I was worried I would not have anyone to run a 7:20 pace with, it is slow for them. But the workout was changed to 10 x Cat Hill, a quarter mile run up hard, jog down hill in Central Park. I was much more excited to run the hills, even though I have not run them since last summer. Oh man, I really have not run hills in a while. I only had the rest of the team to measure myself against and, well, I was like a pig stuck in molasses.  On the 7th repeat John said I can stop at 8, which quite frankly was on my mind. When I got to the top of the hill on the 8th repeat I started walking over to John to watch the rest of the folks finish, but before I got to him they reached the top. I thought they were on number nine, but they were done with all 10. I was a full two repeats behind them!  I think it was after the second of third repeat John assured me there are slower runners, (like me) but that today I was with all the speedies.  I knew he had fast runners, that is why I want to run with him. I laugh and I appreciated his concern for my mortified feelings, but honestly I can suck it up and be last. The funny thing is the first day I ever ran with Front Runners back in 2007, it was the exact same workout, I don’t remember how many repeats but I do remember being dead last, yet last Saturday night I received an award for scoring the most racing points of any woman age 40-49, placing 1st within the team in my age group every race. So there will come a time that I am not dead last in John’s group as well. I hope! And I will be right back out there next Tuesday morning.

On this last day of 2011, I put on my shorts, ran 5.11 miles along the East River Park. It was 50 degrees with a light sprinkle of rain. It was gorgeous.  Not only was 2011 completely injury free, it was packed with an awesome PR in the 1/2,  phenomenal runs at the Venice Biennale, a bunch of metals,  piles of mountain trail running, great new running buddies, and a great time being in D.C. to see Nancy run a huge PR in the Marine Corp Marathon and Patrick run his first marathon.

On this last day of 2011 the year was one huge celebration and I love you guys like crazy.

Tomorrow let’s make plans for 2012! But until then, I am going out to see Sandra Bernhart and party!

It is not exactly deep survival driving 814 miles with dogs to spend a few charged holidays with the family, but the trip  requires some risk management.  Deep Survival is far more extreme,  it looks at who lives, who dies and why,  in various outdoor adrenalin induced adventures. For anyone who loves to read about the wilderness, adventure and life altering decisions it is a fascinating read.

Next I am into the first 100 pages of Running the Edge by Adam Goucher and Tim Catalano who were University of Colorado running teammates. You may have read reviews that it is unlike any other running book and it is. It is self-help, motivation, spiritual guidance, deep reflection all rolled into one. But what stands out is the runners common thread to reject the idea of living a normal or average life. It  talks about one’s biggest fear being wasted potential. Wow this book is for me, especially right now in my cross roads of mid-life but always wanting more.

I have always had the philosophy, the fear, and the determination to not have regrets on my deathbed. Growing up, my father  talked about how much he hated his job. We would get in discussions of,  “Why do something that you hate so much?”  I vowed then to never be in that position, that I would never do something that would make me profoundly unhappy. He said he did it,  “because of you kids”  to support us and send us to college. I must be really selfish because there is no way I would “waste” my life doing something that I hated, maybe that is why I also vowed to never have kids.  I am not sure why he hated his job but what was tough to see is how it affected his entire life.   I learned some big lessons from those talks, mostly I never want to feel like I perceived  he felt.

For me not having a family of my own is my best choice, I can do what I want and I have. I traveled all over the world, almost all of it paid for by an arts organization, the government, or another country’s cultural department. I have lived  in mountain huts, beach shacks, super deluxe houses, monster apartments and single rooms.  I gave talks and had exhibitions worldwide. I am a tenured professor and I am the chairman of a university department.  I have a second home in another state that I get to go to in the summer. I am making the best choices for me, for who I am. That looks great on the checklist of accomplishments but it is no big deal to anyone who has some passion and a little persistence. It is time for something more.  Enters “Running the Edge.”

Running the Edge is about more, better, and never settling, in ones’ running, education, career, friendships, family, and passion. Running, that is easy to never settle to always chase a new PR. Education that is easy too I love to learn and constantly take new classes.  Career is not so clear. I am an artist, I am  a professor. I am not totally keen on where I teach and I want to make it a better and more competitive department with stronger students and better studios. Or is it that I want to move to a place with stronger students and better studios?  Or maybe I want to leave all together and do something new and different or take the risk of only making art? Or maybe as a money job, I don’t “work” in art anymore and I work in physiology, exercise testing? Then at the end of the day I can go to my studio and make art without having to dump the frustration of teaching art to people I believe are less motivated than they should be? Not making the decisions is passive and I find myself passively waiting for a new opportunity to come through the email to point me in a new direction. Wow that is hard to admit, if I had a friend doing that I would scold them up and down to get their ass out there and make a change and tell them how pathetic they are for not being pro-active. Hilary, you are pathetic, get your ass out there and make a decision to change what you feel is not the very best.

Now I feel better.  I am eager to continue reading Running the Edge. I love the stories that are recounted by  Goucher and Catalano, they make perfect sense to me, the risk and the reward.   What a great end of year reading to move into the better, faster, stronger, smarter me next year. Just the planning of it gets me excited.

So this year in talking with my dad who retired over 10 years ago but immediately went right back to work as a part-timer at the very same job he hated tells me, “Sure I still get mad at my job and I work more hours that I should, but it gives me something to do, some place to go, it keeps me active and thinking and engaging with people.” I will still wonder why that place is not what I would think of as more appealing but maybe it is what is appealing to him, plus it is not my life, it is his.   Now the job is on his terms and he is calling the shots. That is where we all need to be, calling our own shots, making everything what we want it to be and doing what we want to do.

Happy New Year to all the Distance Mavens and here is enjoying a relentless pursuit of excellence in everything.

To my surprise he brought me an orange rectangular ceramic box filled with homemade cookies. Those cookies are the best I have had in as along as I can remember. I tried to make them last but they were so good I ate them all. Now I keep my special objects in the box for safe keeping.

&rew got to work very quickly. He had made a digital image of flowers, flowers that grew in his front yard,  and reduced the shapes down to simplified black and white. We used saral paper to transfer them onto the lino block. Then &rew got to work carving. It was his first time carving a block and his precision was amazing. He made each  cut come alive as the leaves formed and stretched out over the plate. In no time he was done.

We inked up the block and I had a stack of  nice Japanese Hosho paper to print with. I pulled print after print but they were uneven, they wrinkled, it was really frustrating. After about 2 hours of trying to get a good print I offered to take the block to work and pull the edition. Sure enough at my LIU studio I was able to pull an edition of 16 in less than 25 minutes, all perfect.

Today I met up with &rew to sign, number and date the prints. When I met him at my front door, he was wearing a bright red wool baseball type hat and red plaid scarf. It was a wonderful sight from all the drab black and grey on everyone especially this time of year.

My dogs were thrilled to see &rew again, Conrad throwing himself at &rew and Homer jumping like a mad jumping bean. Fortunately they settled down as he signed the 16 prints. They are really beautiful.

I highly recommend you check out Andrew Borloz on Facebook. I know you will be wildly surprised at his photographs of New York. I have never seen a person with a more keen eye. One day we were walking along 42 street coming from Pfizer where I had an exhibition and &rew was checking out ever cornice,  windowsill, building edge and showing me things I have never thought about. He also walks the entire city, everywhere he goes.  You think I run a lot but &rew  walks across town, from uptown to downtown, from midtown to DUMBO. He walks everywhere, to stay slim he said, but I really think it is to see everything possible. His enthusiasm for art, design, every day visual moments is phenomenal and it shines in his photos  cataloged on his FB pages. By looking at his photos one may think the entire city is one big beautiful holiday decoration every day of the year.

So as it goes will all PrintSocial prints, I always  sell two of  my three prints and always for $35 to keep funding this project of inviting people over to socialize, make art, and have a really positive experience. Thank you &rew for joining me.

On Sunday at the NYRR Pete McArdle Cross Country Classic a funny thing happened. When I crossed the finish line the marshal told me to go to the women’s award table where I was handed a 3rd place metal. I felt a bit disappointed but more curious as to who the other women were since I did not see the main person who usually beats me. After I walked away a marshal came running up to ask me my age and when I told him he said, “you were first” handed me a new metal and  my photo was immediately taken, you can see my exuberance here. The next day I checked the results and saw I  got 2nd place but this first place Rosa Victor was very suspicious. A 49 year old female ran a 1:06 and has  never run a NYRR race before.  Rosa ran a 7:12 pace which super good for 15k XC. The time was so inconsistent with the other female runners that I thought I should reverse the name and look up Victor Rosa. Sure enough Victor has run 13 NYRR races, all cross country and all between a 6:30 and 7:30 pace. So dear NYRR you need to move Rosa Victor, female to Victor Rosa, male. He will unfortunately go down to 7th place, but I get to be the official first place winner in my AG. I have claim it when I get it.

Back to memorizing  while my rested body goes into beta oxidation and converts  my free fatty acids to multiple acetyl-C0A-molecules though I would much rather be in glycolysis, way more fun.

And now I will try my very best to rest, to not run until January 1, only stretching and maybe some swimming. A big success is that I did not get hurt this year, but I guess getting hurt served the purpose of making me rest. I am thrilled to be healthy, albeit overtrained, but healthy.  Oh man this means I have to eat less, now that is hard.

But I have a plan. I am my own worse enemy, not planning well enough, running too much, too hard, not taking breaks. So I am enlisting the help of a professional. I am looking forward to the beginning of year because I feel a whole new level of running coming my way. So look out my fellow age groupers I feel some PR’s coming on.

While being rounded up in the corrals I saw Julie, Races like a Girl, Threlkeld. She was only two people in front of me, but I knew once we got out of the corral I would never see her again.  I had to  harass her over our latest FB antics while I had the chance. She ran super awesome today, coming in 5th with a PR, out of 186. I on the other hand got kicked down to 19th! Well at least I didn’t totally fall apart and puke all over like the guy next to me. He puked 3x at the finish.

Honestly I didn’t know what to expect. I eroded my aerobic system with way too much anaerobic work and just too much running from June-October.  Since Nov 1  I have done minimal running.  Then two days ago I joined Five Points Academy. It is a Muay Thai fight gym with awesome strength and conditioning classes every hour. Being the high achiever low thinker that I am, I took 2 kettlebell classes in two days just prior to the race and a core/abs conditioning class on top of that. I started the race with an ass of steel, or maybe it was  an ass of cement. I felt like I was trying to move solid stumps. Ah, so I got kicked out of the top 10. Just wait, after 10-12 weeks of aerobic work coupled with kettlebell class, if I can’t kick some ass I am throwing in the towel or finding a coach that will keep me in line, fit but not over trained. I am so sad that Coach Roy Benson retired.

David and I cooled down with a 4 + mile run back to the East Village where we went to our respective homes and made hot chocolate. yummmmmm.

Hawk with Squirrel Linoleum Print (shot with phone camera)

Two days ago I posted to my FB status “Name an object and I will draw, carve and print your top 10 image suggestions!” The first suggestion was from my friend  Audra Farrell  of a hawk with a squirrel in it’s clutches. I drew it, carved it, and printed it onto this beautiful hand made sepia toned mulberry paper. The edition is open, all are signed and dated. It is completely hand printed.  I am putting one in the mail as a gift to Audra and making a special deal to friends. If you want a hawk print, send me $40 via paypal and I will mail it to you on Monday. I am not about to print 100 of these, so tell me this weekend if you want one, then the deal closes and is over forever. An original hand printed artwork would make a way better holiday gift than a crappy  sweater.

Image size 8.5″ x 5.5″ paper size 10.25″ x 8″

You don’t like hawks? No problem, the next print is a canoe followed by a naughty dog, a child that actually eats his food and listens to his dads, chickens, pointe shoes, an elephant, the golden lion from the Venice flag, a Welsh dragon, a Mexican wolf, and fairy penguins (they live in Tasmania and yes they are real).

All my prints for the forseeable future will be of subjects  suggested only by my FB friends. Each will all be available for $40 that includes shipping and a free print to the suggester.

My paypal email is hilary@hilarylorenz.com. Feel free to email me questions. I wish the digital image was better quality, I only had my phone to photograph it as I broke my camera!

Patrick Rogers post Philly Marathon

I am just bursting with happiness for my friend Patrick Rogers who ran his first marathon today in Philadelphia.

I met Patrick a year or so ago in the dog run, we became  running buddies and now great friends.

Patrick had not  run much before but knew he wanted to run and knew he wanted to run a marathon. He did not get in through the  lottery so he signed up for Philly. We ran together over the winter and spring as I prepared for my best  half marathon ever. But unfortunately Patrick came down with a nagging injury that kept him out of running most of the summer. But that was not until after my casual coaching of him lead him to  beat me in a 4 miler and a 10k race – drat!

I went to NM for the summer and Patrick took time off running. When I returned he was running 2-3 times a week just a few miles but he really wanted to run the Philly marathon. I urged him to run the half. With 6 weeks to  Philly he told me he really wanted to do it and felt he could. Certainly he was  mentally fit.  This was an excellent if not crazy challenge. Since getting my USATF coaching certification I have never formally coached anyone.  I am always good for advice – after all I am a teacher. So against all good judgement I made Patrick a 6 week marathon plan, to expand aerobic fitness, build strength, and not get injured.

I carefully placed long runs 15-18-15-20-12- giving him only minimal taper, threw in weekly striders and hills. Patrick had run 10 miles with me the week before he started this, but that was the longest all summer. Carefully monitoring, resting when needed, today he unleashed it like a pro.

I gave him the last minute advice 1. Patients 2. Find a mantra 3. When you get to mile 20 you only have 10k to go, evaluate and run a 10k  race 4. At mile 24 hammer it 5. Smile as you cross the finish line

Patrick ran the first  10k  slower than I thought he would run, 9:17, but at the 1/2 his average time dropped to 9:05, then at 30k his average pace dropped even more to 9:03 and he finished with an average pace of 9:06, 3:58:36 , sub 4:00.  I was so extremely proud of him and filled with pride for being able to get him safely, happily and quickly across the line. His face was pure bliss. The only ache was a left shoulder  and bicep from running a bit to stiff, it was not a surprise. I grabbed him shortly after the finish getting him to eat a banana, drink some water and rub some biofreeze into his painfully sore arm. Tim his wonderful and super supportive boyfriend found us on the bench by the massage tent. I have a super cute pic of Tim helping Patrick change his pants, socks and shoes, but I didn’t get a chance to ask him if I can post it, so perhaps it will come later. But what was really funny is that Patrick forgot his running socks and wore black cotton  dress socks. It was unbelievably no blisters. We helped him peel off his shirt and put a dry one on, I pulled his hat over his head. His lips were a little blue and he was in that post marathon dream state so I kept looking over at him to make sure hypothermia didn’t set in. We went to the Starbucks and got skinny cafe latte’s. Patrick and Tim caught the Amtrak and I got the Chinatown bus back to NYC. I am just beside myself with joy for him.

On a more somber note. I arrived at the marathon at 10:00am to see the 3:00 folks come in. The 3:10 pacer came in with a group, one of the guys dropped less than  1000 meters from the finish. Two runners from the group stopped right there and the medics rushed in. The medics voraciously performing CPR in a way that you knew, but did not want to think about the outcome. It must have been over 15 minutes before an ambulance showed up. The pacer took the group to the finish and returned to the scene still going on.  The little medic tractor vehicles showed up but still we saw no ambulance. I felt myself sweating and wanting to scream, “where is the fucking ambulance?” Perhaps it was already too late and that is why everything went so slow, but the runner died.  I can’t help but think he was after that Boston 3:10 Qualifier and was so close to the finished but never made it.  I am so deeply saddened for him for his family.

Lost baby calf on my front steps

Want to wake up to this? A baby calf found it’s way to my Abiquiu, NM house. My friends and current tenants Laura and Hondo took this photo from the front window.

This post nothing to do with running or art unless I tell you how awesome it is to train at 6200 ft.  and you could do that for the next six months from my house in NM. You would get so strong, then on the weekends you could snowshoe up to 13,161 ft for the added aerobic bonus.

I am posting because my rural stone house will be available from Dec. 1 to May 20 (approx). Here is the ad in Craiglists. Only $500 a month, now that is a super deal.

Abiquiu Stone House

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