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2020 is a year we will never forget. It reminds me of the opening lines in Charles Dickens’ novel A Tale of Two Cities:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

We have weathered a global pandemic, racial unrest, national division, and a economic downturn. These tragedies affect us all in different ways and we each have different perspectives which makes our experiences deeply personal.

2020 has also brought us closer together and has opened our eyes to what’s most important.

For me, I spent the year painstakingly creating community for my children. Once I made sure we were physically healthy, I created a network of friends to help protect their socio-emotional health.

When the pandemic hit, I looked more closely at this team on Arete that we have worked so hard to create for the last 5 years, and I feared our dreams were slipping away. But then I saw the opposite. Our running dreams would be redefined with a true sense of community support. 

As I was pouring my heart into creating community for my own family, it opened my eyes to how important community is for our team of women. I hope that your BQ chasing, your postpartum return, your sunrise run, your breakup survival routine is not done in isolation. My hope is that you feel the support and strength of community the same way my kids have felt the support of the families who lift them up this year.

On the eve of a new year, I believe we are in the season of hope and a time of light.

If 2020 was our season of despair, then let’s go into 2021 with the momentous opportunity to seize new beginnings.

My invitation and commitment to you in 2021 is to feel the authentic support of our team as you chase your goals. We have proven that we can weather the worst of times and keep going, stronger than before. We will come through this–I am sure of it.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to our teammates and leaders for believing in our community. I can’t imagine a better group of women to tackle challenges and move into a new year.

Cheers to 2021 and onward.

You are setting out for a hard workout. It’s a key workout for the buildup to a goal race. Everything has been going well up until this point. Mileage has been steadily increasing over the weeks. You have been eating well and resting properly, and you’ve been nervously looking forward to this weekend’s workout. It’s a long run with the last 8 miles at goal marathon pace. The morning of the workout, you wake up early, text your teammates to check in on the plan and head out to meet up. You start the run, and you feel good the first ten easy miles. You all chat about the week. You tick away the miles, running a little faster than you thought for the first part, but it’s okay because you still feel comfortable. You are about to start the GMP section and you take a gel and a sip of water and set off. You start wth a strong rhythm and two miles into GMP you realize you are going way faster than planned– 30 seconds per mile. Slowly you notice your legs are starting to stick to the ground a little longer at each stride. Your pace has slowed to slower than goal pace. But you try not to panic. You keep moving forward. Another couple minutes in, and you scan your body and everything hurts. Your breathing is labored, your hip flexers ache. You tell yourself this is it, and you can’t go further. You immediately decide to throw in the towel, and you start walking, frustrated with yourself, and you wallow in the pain.

Does this sound familiar? 

I have felt this pain countless times the last 7 months, but not during workouts, instead while coping with the challenges of 2020. Most recently, as my kids have begun distance learning, and I walk past them on their computers staring at their class, I get pangs of sadness thinking of everything they are missing. I then go into a spiral of everything in my mental and physical surroundings and feel a sense of anxious helplessness. This is where I wallow and start the negative loop and get stuck in the “this isn’t how it’s supposed to be” mindset. This is where I throw in the towel and start walking. This is when I give up. I am just coping.

As I realize this strategy doesn’t feel productive or sustainable, I’m making a hard mental shift this Fall, and I invite you to join me if you have similar feelings. Instead of throwing in the towel, I am committing to adapting. Adapting does not mean I am going to accept that life will be this way forever, and it doesn’t mean I am ignoring the hardships within and around me; it’s putting life back in my control and giving me proactive engagement in any given situation to accept that it is as it is. For me this means I am going to take a positive orientation (whenever humanly possible) to the challenges in front of me and adapting to that situation rather than giving up. With distance learning as an example, instead of wallowing in a situation outside my control, I’m going to start self talk: reminding myself this is extra time with my kids who grow up so fast and that they now have more flexibility in their schedule to go on afternoon adventures. I am going to actively see opportunities in the weeds every single day. It’s going to be exhausting, but mostly because it’s a shift from what I’ve been doing.

Back to the workout that didn’t go as planned. Let’s pause in that moment of giving up. Instead, how can you adapt? When you realize you lost control of the workout, pause. What can you do? Scan your body. Assess what’s going on. What is in your control. Okay, let’s slow down for a few strides. Do you feel better? Okay, maybe not. Let’s jog for 2 minutes and assess again. Can you make any other physical or mental adjustments? Can you relax your shoulders? Can you pull out your mantras? Maybe that is all you need. Or maybe you need to completely modify your workout. There is no rule that says you can’t do this. You decide you’re going to make a game day decision and shift. You are going to walk for 2 minutes and then instead of doing a tempo run, you are going to do a fartlek. You are going to focus on pace shifts and remember how important this is in racing as well. Your mental disposition is changed, and you feel like the workout is back in your control. You are back in the game.

We all have this ability—in workouts and life. We can choose to survive and cope or, with training, we can choose to thrive and adapt. I don’t like experiencing bad workouts and I especially don’t like so much of what 2020 has dealt us. However, I’m going to focus on my mental disposition and adapting to situations as they arise, so that no matter how bat shit crazy things get, I will find joy in daily life.

*Join us as we charge into 2021. Check back on our blog, social media, and guest speakers as we learn strategies to help us adapt and move into a new year with joy.

Gratitude is a word we hear thrown around often–in quotes, from wise elders, or from our favorite podcast. In theory I think most of us know how important gratitude is, and even though I’m not a naturally optimistic person, I’ve always acknowledged what I’m grateful for in my life. However, after diving deeper into the concept, I learned about the importance of the practice of gratitude. My favorite is a 2003 study by Emmons and McCullough where for 3 months participants wrote daily gratitude lists. The findings demonstrate that writing down what you’re grateful for improves your optimism and increases the amount of time participants exercised. 

Even though this study struck me, I carried on with my normal life, and hadn’t started a gratitude practice. Then the pandemic hit. Like many people, my anxieties about everything were through the roof. I started noticing San Francisco Arete Team Leader Heather had posted her gratitude lists each day on her instagram stories. Her list included the tiniest things, and I was moved by her ability to recognize so much good amidst so much struggle.

If something as simple as a daily gratitude list could reduce anxiety, increase gratitude, and lead to a calmer outlook during a stressful time, then I wanted to know more. So I asked Heather to share her practice with us, and how we might get started. Thank you for sharing, Heather.

Gratitude in the Time of Crisis

By Heather Rennie

Gratitude. While I have always been one to try to take the perspective of others, consider other viewpoints, and look for silver linings, I never consciously practiced gratitude before last fall. I had come across a variety of Instagram posts about gratitude, but usually scrolled through quickly without much thought about how I could use the concept in my own life. Sometime in the summer of 2019, I started to take interest in the gratitude lists posted by Amelia Boone, but it never really struck me as something that I could use to improve my own life. I kind of had the mentality that I was already “grateful enough” in my own ways, and didn’t need to make a list to prove it. 

 

Sometime in September, one of my good friends had the idea for us to begin a “runners’ book club”. For our first book, we settled on Deena Kastor’s Let Your Mind Run. Our first meet-up (remember pre-Zoom life?!) was scheduled for about a week after I had foot surgery. Side story – short version: this surgery which had been thoughtfully arranged to take place just five days after I completed the Chicago Marathon. The procedure was to correct a congenital bone problem that had been causing me pain inconsistently; the idea was to have the surgery then have enough recovery time to run my first Boston Marathon. Anyway, needless to say, the wheels were already turning on activities to stave off lack-of-run depression, and I was grateful to have a book club to look forward to.

Just reading this book began to totally transform my thinking and inspired me in ways I don’t remember ever feeling from… just reading a book. (10/10 recommend, if you have not read it!) However, I was not expecting to have such deep and thought-provoking discussion during our meet-up. We talked a lot about Deena’s steadfast positivity and gratitude throughout her book and in general how she carries out her life. It occurred to me that there was no better time for me to begin exploring what gratitude meant to me, and start my own daily gratitude lists. My friends and I agreed we would all give it a try and hold each other accountable by sharing them with each other. This seemed like an especially good idea for me personally as I knew I was going to have some mental and emotional struggles coming up, with not having my regular outlet of running available as I recovered from surgery.  

I decided too that I wanted to begin posting these gratitude lists on my Instagram stories (which is where the inspo from Amelia Boone came in), as I felt that it would provide another outlet and possible source of connection to others, either so that they could message me about things I had written, or inspire them to write their own lists. I also thought it would be a great way for me to focus on small signs of progress in my recovery from foot surgery. 

The thing I noticed most immediately when I began this process is that I was constantly looking for small positive moments throughout the day. Things like my husband moving the wet clothes to the dryer, him getting me a glass of water, etc. Using a tip from Let Your Mind Run, I also began to consider how to reframe less desirable or frustrating moments. One of my favorite examples Deena shares is she was out for a run in windy conditions, and instead of feeling frustrated by the wind and its impact on her workout, she thought of it as making her stronger and further building her fitness. I began to find myself using the same approach day-to-day: “the stoplight turned red -> oh well, now I have time to find my water bottle in my bag”; “it’s rainy for this long run-> it’s allowing me to practice gear and mental tricks in case my race is rainy, too”. The more I began to do this, the more I this thought pattern has become more natural to me. In turn, I began to find myself generally happier and less irritated in day-to-day life. 

A welcomed outcome of writing these gratitude lists is the unexpected number of people that have since reached out to me to share that they have started their own gratitude practice. Nothing has been so rewarding as to hear about how this simple practice positively impacted their lives as well!

Here are some tips to begin your own gratitude list:

• Start small, even just thinking of three things throughout the day is awesome! It also is amazing how much easier it gets over time (just like a muscle getting stronger ☺)
• See what works for you in terms of timing: some people enjoy starting their day with gratitude to set the tone, while others like to reflect on their days at the end
• Consider sharing daily with just one friend or family member so that you can hold each other accountable 
• Optional: buy yourself a pretty journal or pen
• Use an app on your phone or a sticky note at your desk so that you can quickly jot down a few things to add to your list when you go to write it (admittedly, I’ve not done this myself but I really should as I often find myself later remembering things I wish I had remembered to put on my list!) 
• If you’re having a tough day, think about little tangible things that you have or use every day, but maybe don’t consciously think about (i.e. having gas in your car, wearing a favorite pair of socks, the freezer keeping your food cold…get creative!) 
• Set a goal for writing X number of lists or X number of days in a row, then give yourself a little reward for doing so (again it does get easier as you go, so you probably won’t have to incentivize yourself for ever) 

This should be an obvious recommendation at this point, but READ DEENA’S BOOK! If anyone wants to borrow it from me, first dibs and I will mail it to you on loan ☺

Thank you, Heather! Follow along with Heather’s gratitude journey on Instagram at @hjrenn, start your own practice, and let us know how it goes.

What do we do when our dreams are crushed by a pandemic? For Louella Bañez Gilbert, a healthcare worker by day, who was ready to toe the line at Boston Marathon for the first time, she has shifted her focus while still keeping her marathon dreams alive. Since the Covid-19 outbreak, Louella has owned her heartbreak while simultaneously focusing on other outlets that bring her joy, knowing the skills she sharpens now, will prepare her for the challenges of future races.  Thank you for sharing your story, Louella.

 

Keeping Showing Up Series: Waiting for Boston

By Louella Bañez Gilbert

With packed bags and boarding passes, we board the plane eastbound proudly adorned in matching jackets. It’s a “right of passage” to this New England state around the 3rd Monday of April. I ready myself with humility for complete immersion in the presence of greatness. “Guess what?” I ask my husband. “We are running one of the most prestigious foot race in the world. This is the holy grail—THE Boston Marathon!”

 

I snap myself awake in the midst of a daydream. I feel robbed. My vision seemed so clear. On March 13, 2020 the Boston Athletic Association announced for the very first time in its 123 years of existence, that the Boston Marathon has been postponed. Selfishly I thought, can I please time travel 5 measly weeks and 3 days into the future without this dreadful reality? For three long years I’ve waited. Can I have a free pass just this once? Hell, can I sell myself to the devil? This would’ve been our firsts. 

 

“Patience is a minor form of despair disguised as a virtue.”

 

On March 4th and my 34th birthday, California’s Governor declared a State of Emergency. A nationwide emergency declaration followed, along with a series of unfortunate events. This can’t be real. We are now living in a worldwide pandemic. With a larger problem at hand, I tried to console myself. I’ve been personally afflicted, but so has everyone else in the world. Everyone experiences their own levels of affliction, but no matter how big or small, nothing should ever be dismissed or diminished. 

 

Everyday at work I am bombarded by new rules, protocols, schedules, and constant updates thanks to this novel Coronavirus. At the hospital there is no escaping its existence. Too many changes at once is overwhelming, and information overload is real. For my sanity’s sake, sometimes ignorance is bliss. 

 

Running, the one thing that always resurrected me has become a reminder of unfulfilled dreams. With no definitive race schedule in sight, what always felt easy and fluid now feels like a hard, coarse, and conscious effort. Like my MRI patients, I feel a sense of claustrophobia. I have no escape. As time slowly passes, I know I’ve succumbed to my emotions and vulnerability long enough. I give myself no choice but to move on. I must put my mental clarity first. 

 

So, with most of the country with cabin (or covid) fever while under a shelter-in-place order, people are getting creative. “The time you enjoy wasting is not time wasted.” With that said, making memes and tiktoks isn’t really my cup of joe. After I stopped pouting is when I found the things I truly enjoy. I finally found an escape! Although nothing will ever replace the adrenaline rush of training and toeing the line of a marathon, desperate times call for desperate measures—measuring the dimensions for a new quilted blanket made with old race t-shirts, measuring how many yards of rope for a hanging macrame, or how much to water my new succulents and fiddle leaf tree. A new creation brings me peace and clarity. 

 

“The world is but a canvas to our imagination.” 

 

 As content as any introvert would be alone in their own little world, one thing is for sure—“happiness is only real when shared”. I miss my dawn patrol morning crew running into the sunrise. I miss our track jump shots and “runners not running” events. I miss chasing my fun, fast friends. I miss carelessly dancing with live music. I miss those race day jitters, toeing the line, crossing the finish, and post race celebrations. Most of all, I miss planning for the future whether it’s related to running, adventuring, or just friends and family life in general. As I try to live one day at a time, these memories help me remember that it can still and WILL happen again! I hope our times in quarantine not only allow reflection, but action—whether that motion is for yourself, someone else, or the rest of the world. Let your strength and optimism be more contagious than anything in the world. 

 

As I summit heartbreak hill and see the infamous CITGO sign, one more right on Hereford, and left on Boylston! My husband is standing there with open arms as he crossed his own finish line. I can feel the tears, as if at this point I haven’t cried enough already. “WE DID IT!” 

 

Until then, this dream lives on…

 

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How to make a quilted race t-shirt blanket:

• Gather materials:
  1. 20-25 t-shirts
  2. Sewing machine
  3. 2-3 yards of fleece fabric 
  4. 12” x 10 yards of embroidery stabilizer (fusible preferably)
  5. Push pins (200+)
  6. Cardboard 
  7. Iron (if using fusible stabilizer)
• Create

1. Cut cardboard into 12” x 12” squares
2. Arrange shirts to desired pattern (take a photo)
3. Cut shirts and embroidery stabilizer measured by cardboard + leave room for error (half inch)
4. Sew shirts across by rows first 
5. Sew rows together 
6. Cut fleece to the sewn quilt size
7. Sew 3 sides of fleece and quilt together (inside out) 
8. Flip it right side out
9. Sew all 4 sides. 

 

• How to make a hanging macrame
  

1. Find inspiration pattern (Pinterest.com)
2. Learn knots (I only used 3 types: lark’s head, square, and double half hitch) 
3. Gather materials
   1. Rope (I used a 220 yard 3mm natural cotton macrame rope for a 23” x 33” piece)
   2. Stick (I used driftwood)
   3. Scissors 
   4. Ruler (optional)
4. Use one string to tie both ends of driftwood for hanging. (Tip: hang as you work on your piece)
5. Do lark’s head knots around your drift wood and repeat with multiple strings until your desired length (Tip: It’s good to have an inspiration pattern, but you can use that as guidance, but use your own creativity according to your ability)
6.  **Warning: practice makes perfect. It’s a back breaking project. You’ll make mistakes and have to re-do multiple times. It takes a lot of patience. 

 

• Calligraphy on rocks:

1. Find smooth medium sized rocks
2. Wash thoroughly and brush sand/dirt off if necessary 
3. Go to dafont.com (Font generator) 
   1. Type a word, 
   2. choose a font
   3. Print and use as stencil or use as a guide and free draw. 
4. Use pencil to draw on rock 
5. Paint (I used Artistro metallic paint pens) 
6. Cover with Mod Podge (to make it waterproof or preserve paint longer)

After the tragic murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a couple things became clear: racism looms in our country and jogging is not an equitable activity. These realities are nothing new to people of color across the nation. With this knowledge, many white allies have asked, “What can we do?” 

Aware of the stark racial divide in running, but not sure how to act, we have been talking with Carolyn Su of Diverse We Run for the last few months. We had the pleasure of chatting with her recently, and we’re grateful for her truth. Please read our our interview with Carolyn, and join in the conversation and movement with us.

Arete: Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and the mission of Diverse We Run?

Carolyn: I’m a Chinese American woman from TX, a former Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist, and I currently live in Boston, MA and work on staff at my church as the Women’s Ministry Coordinator. I’m also a wife and a mom of two kids. Growing up in Houston, my family originally lived in a culturally- and ethnically-diverse suburb, but then we moved to a predominately White suburb once I started middle school to be in a “better school district.” 

The racism and discrimination against me, my family, or any of my non-white peers were sometimes overt (ie. being called racial slurs, mild physical assaults) and more often than not subtle and in the form of microaggressions — teachers not bothering to properly learn ethic names; anything “Asian” perpetually diminished to the same kind of kung-fu or nerd troupe; authorities automatically dismissive of adults whose English had heavy accents, etc. As a kid and teen, I didn’t have the social language to process the discrimination, and I spent most of my formative years trying my best to fit in and assimilate into the [White] societal norms.

While I had been a runner since college, it wasn’t until I started getting more active on social media and listening to more running podcasts that I started seeing the lack of diversity within the running community. Over and over, I was essentially seeing the same images, the same type of runner, and hearing the same story, and none of those images or stories reflected mine. Very rarely were there runners of brown/black skin, or stories that touched upon the challenges of cultural influences, financial constraints, or resource accessibility.

I knew the stories of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) runners existed; these runners just weren’t being acknowledged. I tried reaching out to some figures who were already established in the industry, to ask for more runners of diverse backgrounds to be featured, but the replies I received did not lead to much. 

So, I decided that if no one else was going to feature stories of POC (Persons of Color) runners, then I would. That is how @DiverseWeRun came into existence. 

Diverse We Run exists to show that the running world is multifaceted and comprised of people and stories from all backgrounds and cultures; I hope it also serves as a space for inclusivity and advocacy.

Arete: How do we move beyond a moment in time of solidarity (#irunwithmaud) and into a commitment of change?

Carolyn: We are in the work of running a marathon, not a sprint. Just as an athlete builds her strength and fortitude in the daily decisions to show up, train, and make sacrifices, creating the change to dismantle racism is also comprised of daily choices: “sacrificing” pride and being willing to humbly listen and learn; making the space to introspect hidden biases and to sit in the discomfort of how you might be benefiting from privilege and from existing power systems; growing in awareness of the people groups you interact with the most, whether in person, print, or media; proactively seeking resources for education and equipping; learning to identify inequities in the existing social constructs.

It’s through the regular practice of those actions that will, over time, sharpen and strengthen someone into an ally and effective advocate for change.

Arete: As white runners who want to be allies, where do we start and how do we continue?

Carolyn: First, and most importantly, educate yourself. There are numerous resources available now, via books, IG accounts, articles…etc. for learning. Google, “how to be a white ally,” and go from there. Follow IG accounts that educate on anti-racism, such as @teachandtransform, @rachel.cargle, and @theconsciouskid. (You can also tap the “suggested accounts” arrow and find more accounts similar to theirs.) 

Many books have been highlighted recently, including “White Fragility,” “Me and White Supremacy,” and “So You Want to Talk About Race?,” which are great places to start.

I do not recommend putting the burden of proving racism exists, explaining the lived experiences of POCs, or figuring out “how to help” on your POC friends, until you have done your share of research. There is emotional and mental weight that is entailed for POCs in essentially having to validate our existence through all the explaining, as well as re-living past traumas of discrimination. 

Arete: How do you recommend teams like Arete and other organizations who are currently majority white step up?

Carolyn: there isn’t necessarily a one-size-fits-all action step, but, if an organization is majority White, the first place to start is to ask why that’s the case and evaluate the organizational structure — who holds positions of power/influence, and how can you invite others into those positions? What needs to change, and how can all members (on all levels) be a part of that change?

Thank you for sharing, Carolyn. We have work to do and we are up for the task. To follow Carolyn’s mission of giving voice to diversity in running, follow her Instagram account @diversewerun and join in the conversation and mission.