Amy Reinink

My Christmas gift to you is this incredible six-part series from The New York Times about the avalanche at Tunnel Creek. Even if you’re not a skier, the gorgeous, vivid writing will make you understand why those of us who love it are so passionate about it.

And hopefully, Santa’s Christmas gift to me, and to all skiers everywhere, is snow!

Last week, I had multiple deadlines and a slew of interviews to conduct in a limited amount of time, and it seemed as though I literally didn’t have a spare minute between each item on my to-do list.

Naturally, when I finally got a day off on Saturday, I woke up at 5 a.m. in order to spend the day standing around on a patch of manmade snow, holding a clipboard and watching this year’s crop of Outdoor Emergency Care (OEC, or ski-patrol medical training) students for Whitetail and Liberty’s joint class assess and treat practice patients during their final exam. And I can tell you with complete honesty that there’s nowhere I would have rather been.

This year’s OEC students assess and treat “patients” at Liberty.

I was among a couple dozen ski patrollers to show up to the first 2012 OEC class last April with the goal of becoming an instructor. I figured it would be impossible to achieve this year, given my constant back-and-forth between D.C. and Virginia Beach, and given the various family emergencies drawing me to Florida and Colorado. But after I went to a few classes, I found that despite my geographical challenges, and despite the fact that the classes ate up each one of my Friday nights over the summer, and despite the fact that I probably should have been laying low and healing rather than taking on new challenges, getting involved with those classes simply made my heart happy. So I kept going, and nine months later, I was among six Whitetail patrollers to become full instructors.

It can be tough to sync your heart and your daily schedule. Too often, we train for races we no longer care about because we don’t want to lose our registration fee; spend time with people who no longer nourish our souls out of guilt or a sense of obligation; and try to conform our lives, careers, diets and free time to meet societal expectations that actually never made sense for us. The only way I know to do better is to pay attention to what makes my heart happy, and to try to do more of those things, hoping that the rest of my life and schedule will follow suit. Sometimes, as in the case of the OEC class, that actually works out.

What’s motivating you this week?

On Wednesday morning, I laced up my shoes to run, and felt a twinge. Or, to put it more accurately, I felt a whole mess of twinges—in my right peroneal tendon, in my left glute, in both my hip flexors. The twinges, plus the snaps, crackles and pops I heard when I stood up, clued me in that it might be best to skip the run.

But it wasn’t a rest-day kind of sore so much as a “how can I work this out?” kind of sore. My brain cycled through my options: Swimming? NONONONONOTOOCOLD. Riding the stationary bike? Boring. So boring. Too boring. Yoga? Yeahhhh …

I’m in DC for the week, so I looked at my schedule, looked at Willow Street Yoga’s schedule, and high-tailed it over there for a class.

It was the last class of the season, so the instructor worked on restorative yoga, a passive, relaxing form of the practice. We worked on joint mobility in our hips, eased tightness out of our hamstrings and self-massaged with tennis balls. I tried to keep my mind blank and my focus clear, but kept thinking: Why do I not self-massage with tennis balls all the time? And: Is my foam-roller going to get jealous that I’m cheating on it?

After the class, I felt like someone had given me a new body. I walked down the street to City Sports and bought myself a can of tennis balls.

What’s your favorite self-massage tool? (If you don’t have one, check out this Runner’s World feature on the topic).

There’s something inherently romantic about a cabin all on its own, surrounded by miles of wilderness. From Abe Lincoln’s log cabin to Henry David Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond, cabins  are a part of our national lore—and with a little pre-planning, they can also be part of a killer backpacking trip, mountain bike journey or a backcountry ski trip that’s wild from start to finish. These 10 backcountry cabins (and huts, and bunkrooms and fire towers) are all out there—remote and rugged enough to appeal to hardcore woodspeople, yet comfortable enough to keep tenderfeet coming back for more. Here, a look at the top backcountry cabins:

Doyles River Cabin in Shenandoah National Park is one of many backcountry cabins we’ve stayed in.

Finish reading this story on The Active Times.

My goal for the Surf-n-Santa 10-Miler on Saturday was to have fun and run strong, hoping that such a race would purge from my emotional system the darkness and chaos of the Philly Half in November. I toed the start line no better trained than I was for Philly (I assumed that 13.1-miler would count as my last long run of the training cycle; I assumed wrong), but still, this was a drastically different race.

I stopped to pose for a picture when I saw Steve on the course. SO happy.

I promised myself I’d be disciplined enough to run slow, easy, 10-minute miles until the last 5K of the race to avoid a physical blowout, and I adopted a race plan borrowed from, of all places, a handout about surviving the holidays I received from hospice (check out my race-plan post from last week.)

Here’s how it worked out for me:

I ran perfect 10-minute miles from the start until about the four-mile marker, feeling chill and happy and strong. Then, I spotted two of my running buddies, and ran along with them for a bit. They seemed to be running 9- or 9:30-minute-mile paces—would that be so bad, I wondered? I remembered my No. 1 goal—know your limits, and pace yourself accordingly—and repeated it to myself as I let them run on ahead of me, explaining that I was trying hard to stick to 10-minute miles.

For the next couple miles, every time I looked at my Garmin, it said, stubbornly, that I was running 9:30-minute-mile pace. After the first few times, I heard my dad’s voice: “SLOW down.” He’d usually say this after watching me bump into the corner of a table or stub my toe on a curb while in a rush, infuriating me even as I knew he was right.

Then, another memory of my dad surfaced. We are sitting in the basement, he with his guitar, me with a young-adult book about a camping trip gone wrong. It’s a rainy Saturday, and my mom is out running errands. The basement feels dim and cozy, and the guitar chords my dad plays hang softly in the air. I look up from my book and watch him, smiling, as I recognize the opening chords of one of his favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs, 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy):

Slow down, you move too fast.
You’ve got to make the morning last

I hang back, letting a few runners pass me.

Life, I love you,
All is groovy.

Once that mental picture occupied my mind, the rest of the race was a piece of cake, mentally. “Don’t argue with reality,” I told myself at the six-mile mark, when I started feeling twangs of pain in unfamiliar spots. My left glute? My right calf? What? Whatever. This is my current reality. Slow down a bit more.

I was hurtin’ toward the end of the race. But I was still smiling, and my homemade Grinch legwarmers still rocked!

“I will do what I know is best for me, not what others have told me to do, or what I think others want me to do,” I whispered out loud to myself as I started wondering what my running buddies would think of my slow time (as if they’d judge, or care!). The race that was best for me involved high-fiving a spectator in a gorilla suit; stopping to hug and high-five Steve every time I saw him on the course (except for the last time, when I merely grunted at him and wheezed: “I hurt.”); walking through water stops; and making sure every course photographer caught me smiling and giving a thumbs-up. It had nothing to do with time, but everything to do with love, and strength, and happiness, and all sorts of other schmoopy things you can’t put a number on.

Posing with friends pre-race.

Posing with friends post-race.

I’m not going to lie: Schmoopy or not, the last three miles really hurt. I’m not going to dissect my training plan and remind myself of all the runs I missed while I was busy doing pre-ski strength, agility and plyo workouts, but am instead going to accept that while it wasn’t my prettiest race, it was one of my happiest. Plus, no matter how much I hurt as I crossed the finish line (I may have actually been limping a little bit at that point), I managed to smile as I did so.

It’s race-day eve for the Surf-n-Santa 10-Miler, and all forecasts suggest that race day will dawn warm and humid, with a chance of rain—everyone’s favorite weather for distance running in December! (Shudder).

I probably won’t feel this way tomorrow if the forecast holds, but at this moment, I’m kind of grateful for the icky weather, as it will basically force me to honor my race plan of chilling out, slowing down and enjoying the atmosphere of race day without any pace expectations.

I found my other last-minute race-day guidance from an unlikely source: A handout about surviving the holidays I received from a grief counselor at the hospice that helped my dad. Stick with me—I promise this is good stuff.

As I scanned the handout looking for explicit permission to skip sending out holiday cards this year (if you don’t receive one, it’s because I found that permission—sorry! See you in 2013!), I was struck by how the advice could apply to just about anything in life, including a 10-mile race. Some tips I plan to keep in mind tomorrow:

Know your limits/boundaries and pace yourself accordingly. I’ve done most of my long runs at a relaxed, happy 10-minute mile pace. So it’s kind of silly to start a race at 8:30-minute mile pace, because it feels good at that moment in time (I’m looking at you, Philly Half!).

Don’t argue with reality—accept who/what/where you are at this moment in your life. I shudder to think about the time I’ve spent in races (and, let’s face it, in life) arguing with reality. The 2009 Marine Corps Marathon comes to mind—though I knew from the first step that something was off for me that day, and though it became clear fairly quickly that this was not my day to run a four-hour marathon, I treated every new pace group that passed me as a new and shocking affront, thinking: “Now, it’ll be even harder to catch up to the four-hour pace group! Nooo!” Imagine the time and heartache I would have saved had I accepted reality and readjusted!

Make this a basic principle underlying your plans: “I will do what I know is best for me, not what others have told me to do, or what I think others want me to do.” How many times have we (or maybe just I?) felt ashamed of perfectly good races based on what They will think? Whoever They is, Their opinion doesn’t matter, and only serves to subtract from my overall goal of running happy and strong. It’s much harder to listen to your own body, heart and soul and devise honest goals based on what you hear, but I’m pretty sure it’s the only path to peace.

Happy race-day eve to everyone running tomorrow. Look for me on the course—I’ll be the one whose costume theme is “Christmas threw up on me.” (Seriously—wait til you see how “well” my custom Santa hat from middle school and my maroon leg-warmers match!).

For years now, I’ve viewed every successful endurance event in which I’ve competed as a victory lap.

Sometimes, viewing a race as victory lap means treating race day as a celebration of several weeks of disciplined training in which I’ve pushed my mind and body to their absolute limits. But just as often, it means celebrating the fact that I kept running through difficult circumstances; that I was kind to myself when life seemed unkind; and that I worked hard not to compare myself to others—including my past, faster self—and simply focused on running the mile that I’m in right now.

That’s the spirit in which I prepare for the Surf-n-Santa 10-Miler on Saturday. I signed up for the race in part because I wanted to relieve any pressure I may have felt on Philadelphia Half Marathon race day on Nov. 18. I hadn’t been able to train for the race they way I wanted to, and If I wanted a speedy run, I figured, I should shoot for a slightly shorter run a few weeks after the half-marathon.

Posing with one of many costumed runners after the Wicked 10K.

The thing is, though, running fast just isn’t that important to me right now.

Here’s what is important to me right now: using running, and races, as a way to spend time with other fitness-minded friends and to honor my mental and physical health. I didn’t only sign up for this race to give myself a chance to test my speed, but because the race sounded like an absolute blast. The other J&A Racing event I participated in, the Wicked 10K, left me feeling excited and motivated to run more, and I wanted to feel that particular post-race high again. I also wanted another cool race T-shirt (a technical half-zip!), another serving of soup from the Baker’s Crust, and another post-run party with several thousand of my closest runner-friends, most of whom happen to be wearing costumes.

So this particular victory lap will be a celebration of the fact that I have managed to keep running through a difficult season, and have mostly (with a notable exception of mile 7 in Philadelphia) been kind and compassionate to myself as I ran through it.

My motivations for running on Saturday have shifted, so naturally, my race plan changed, too. My plan: Run the first 5K easy, likely around 10-minute miles, only running sub-9-minute miles if a mass murderer enters the course and chases me. Hold steady through mile 7, speeding up only if I feel good to the point of boredom at my current pace. If, and only if, I feel amazing, may I “race” the last 5K. If I’m already pretty tired when I pass the seven-mile marker, I simply hold steady and make it to the finish line however I can. My main goals: Feel strong. Have fun.

The headline on the New York Times Well blog was too provocative to ignore: Why women can’t do pull-ups. Though I count myself among the many women (and people!) in this world who find pull-ups more challenging than other movements that test strength and fitness, my defenses went up immediately. Says who? They can, too! I’ll show you some pull-ups!

But when I read the piece, I ended up feeling not defensive, but enlightened.

It’s based on a study from the University of Dayton in which researchers found 17 normal-weight women who could not do a single overhand pull-up. They trained the women for three days a week for three months, working to strengthen their biceps and latissimus dorsi muscles. From the story:

They lifted weights and used an incline to practice a modified pull-up, raising themselves up to a bar, over and over, in hopes of strengthening the muscles they would use to perform the real thing.

By the end of the training program, the women had increased their upper-body strength by 36 percent and lowered their body fat by 2 percent. But on test day, the researchers were stunned when only 4 of the 17 women succeeded in performing a single pull-up.

Vanderburgh [a head researcher] said the study and other research has shown that performing a pull-up requires more than simple upper-body strength. … Men and women who can do them tend to have a combination of strength, low body fat and shorter stature.

Vanderburgh notes that some men struggle, too, particularly those who are taller or bigger generally or have long arms. This is related to an interesting phenomenon: if you compare a smaller athlete to an athlete who has the same exact build but is 30 percent bigger, the bigger athlete will be only about 20 percent stronger, even though he has to carry about 30 percent more weight.

“We’re a combination of levers; that’s how we move,” Vanderburgh said. “Generally speaking, the longer the limb, the more of a disadvantage in being able to do a pull-up.”

When I read this, the biggest light bulb went on in my head. It’s not a lack of upper-body strength, or a lack of grip strength, or anything except for my crazy-long monkey arms making pull-ups difficult!

How long are my crazy-long monkey arms, you ask? In middle-school science class, we did an experiment meant to show how symmetrical the human body is, comparing our height to our (supposedly equal) wingspan. No matter how many times my classmates measured me on the butcher paper, my wingspan was a good two or three inches longer than my height. Also in middle school, I always failed dress-code tests that mandated that your shorts or skirt were two inches longer than the bottom of your fingertips. My fingertips almost touch my knees, people! I can still remember poor Mr. Thorne judging the appropriateness of a pair of (totally tame) shorts using those standards, and instead narrowing his eyes in confusion at how long my arms extended down my legs.

That’s a long-winded way of saying that before you write yourself off for a certain activity, you should be aware that we all have these weird quirks that give us advantages or disadvantages depending on the activity, and that it’s less important to understand them than it is to simply accept them and work around them. For me, that means buying a pull-up band, which makes it possible to crank out more than one pull-up at a time on my extra-long pipe cleaners. It also means rejoicing in the fact that when I swim, I’ve got a few inches on the competition in each stroke—every cloud has a silver lining, right?

Are pull-ups a challenge for you, or are you one of those short, muscled powerhouses able to bang out 10 at a time?

[EDITOR’S NOTE: The editor is so sorry, but she really can’t bring herself to post a photo depicting her crazy-long monkey arms. You’ll just have to do a pull-up workout with her to see for yourself.]

I’m smiling because I have never, ever, ever been so happy to be done with a half-marathon:

As a CU student, I always took great pride and joy in the fact that my first ski day of the year came before Thanksgiving. Sure, it was usually a half-day spent getting my ski legs back on a handful of groomers the resort of my choice was actually able to open, but it was one of those small luxuries of living close to such excellent skiing.

When I moved back to the East Coast, I thought those days were gone.

But last year, I started a new tradition: the Thanksgiving-break ski day.

I’m smiling because I’m skiing before Thanksgiving. Whee! November 2011.

With family members still living in the Boulder-Denver area, we have good reason to head back that way for the holidays. So last year and this year both, I squeezed an early-season ski day into our already-rushed, overbooked holiday travel schedule. This year, that meant meeting up with our friend Lauren, who patrolled with us at Whitetail for the past two years, at her other patrol-home, Loveland. She introduced us to members of her Loveland Ski Patrol “family,”  waited patiently as we huffed and puffed up any slight incline (did I mention Loveland’s base elevation is more than 10,000 feet, with a summit elevation of more than 13,000 feet?), and reminded us how great it is to have our own patrol “family,” which now spans multiple states and resorts.

The super-chill, early-season ski day also left me super-motivated to continue my pre-ski-season workouts, which I’ve been doing for months. Though there’s not much a girl can do to prep her lungs for altitude changes or her feet and shins for ski boots, I’m proud to say that my TRX classes and strength/agility workouts left my legs feeling awesome all day.

Do you have an active Thanksgiving tradition—a ski day, turkey trot, family hike or other activity?