Amy Reinink

Near the end of our time in Jacksonville, Fla., where we lived for four years before moving to Silver Spring, Steve and I had established an awesome and comforting routine.

We’d always run together a couple days a week. But I’d gotten into open-water swimming while he was on his second deployment, and when he came home, our desire to not be apart, like, ever, led him to tag along on my swims. A few days a week, we had “swim dates” at a pool on a Navy base near us. Watching Steve, who’s the first to admit he’s not a swimmer, muscle through his requisite mile of breaststroke, is by far my biggest swimming motivation.

So when we moved to Silver Spring last November, finding a good pool was among the first tasks on our to-do list. When we found a beautiful pool at the National Naval Medical Center-Bethesda, maybe a 10-minute drive from our apartment, we felt like we’d truly made our new address home. Our swim dates there are now part of a lovely routine that includes a stop at our favorite farm stand, Norman’s Farm Market, which happens to be right on our way.

This is all a long preamble to sharing the horrifying news we got yesterday, when we went to our beloved pool for the first time in about a month: As of Oct. 19, the pool will be closed. Like, forever. The entire base is closing to merge with Walter Reed, and apparently, there will be a period of three years or so — roughly the period of time we’re slated to live here — when the whole place will be pool-less.

How the Base Realignment and Closure committee failed to consider my swimming schedule when mulling this change is beyond me, I joked with Steve on my car ride home.

But as we joked, we decided this really is a pretty crappy move. The closest military facility with a pool is all the way across town (not that I’ve ruled that option out), meaning all the people who crowd the pool at Bethesda on weeknights are simply going to have to pay for gym memberships. I’m willing to bet a lot of people will just stop, which makes me sad.

The news was even harder to take considering the fact that, even though I’d been out of the pool for a month (read my letter apologizing to swimming here), I had a wonderful workout, a nice 3,200-yarder that included 3 X 400 IMs and a lot of easy freestyle with a pull buoy. It was like I’d gotten all gussied up for a hot date with swimming, only to have swimming tell me on the cab ride home that he’s seeing someone else.

I’m committed to finding us a good, affordable pool to continue our swim dates. Because without my swimming buddy, it’s unclear how I’ll motivate myself to train for the Great Chesapeake Bay Swim next year.

But first, today and tomorrow, most of my procrastination time is going to be taken up by planning two very important pieces of my marathon training: My route and playlist for my 20-miler on Saturday. Orchestrating the details has made me realize that, even though the long run will likely take up a single morning, the net loss of time is much, much greater.

If you’ve got any last-minute playlist suggestions, make ’em here!

Dear swimming:

Heeeey! How ARE you? It’s been a while! (Laughs nervously).

Yeah, I know. I’ve been so busy! You know, we were gone all of August — have I sent you my Monterey pictures? You’d love it there.

What’s that? No, we’ve been around in September. But, you know, Steve just started classes again, so we don’t have our Monday swim dates. No, I guess I don’t *need* him with me to swim. And yeah, there’s Wednesday. And Friday.

But here’s the thing: I’ve been training for this marathon, and man! Does that ever take a lot of time! So on my cross-training days, I’ve just kind of been putting in 30 to 45 minutes on the stationary bike in my little mini-gym downstairs.

Fun? No, the stationary bike sucks. But it’s quick and easy. It just takes so much time to drive to the pool to meet up with you, then put in the time to actually swim, then dechlorinate, then drive home. If you weren’t so high-maintenance …

I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I was angry, and wanted to hurt you. You always make me feel so good, like each stroke and kick is tailor-made to work out sore spots from my run the day before. And you keep me so healthy, with your low-impact, full-body workout. And you boost my ego, because, you know, we ARE pretty good together, don’t you think?

I’m sorry. I’ll meet you at the pool today. Just do me a favor: Don’t go too hard on me?

Love,

Amy

A couple years ago, when I was working on a series of stories and multimedia features previewing the Five Points of Life

Only 33 days to go until the Marine Corps Marathon!

Marathon in Gainesville as a reporter for The Gainesville Sun, I wrote a story about what Runner’s World calls “the monster month,” when marathon training gets into the longest of the long runs, the toughest speedwork and the highest chance of burnout.

I’m coming into the monster month leading up to the Marine Corps Marathon just about now, but I’m thinking of things a bit differently this training cycle.

Rather than looking at the last 33 days before the marathon as a monstrous jumble of physical exertion to be gotten through, I’m going to see it as a chance to really take care of my body, fueling it with fruits and veggies and whole grains, strengthening it with my lineup of core and hip exercises, repairing it with ice baths and stretching and generally preparing it to cross the finish line of a 26.2-mile race — an accomplishment I’m absolutely not taking for granted.

I’m also going to focus on appreciating each remaining long run for the awesome journey that it is, whether it’s a journey filled with pain and humiliation or warm fuzzies and ego boosts. Sure, I wouldn’t be running 20 miles next weekend if not for the impending 26.2, but I don’t want to see it merely as a means to an end.

I’m preparing myself to have a similar attitude about my finishing time. Since I’ve completed one marathon and run several halves, it’s hard not to have a fairly rigid goal time in mind. But I’m starting to realize that being too rigid about it might take away from the joy I ought to feel about just being able to run 26.2 miles. I’m not saying I won’t be disappointed with a time that’s way slower than what I have in mind. I’m just saying, I want to maintain my sense of awe and respect for this distance.

With all that in mind, I’m going to view the next four weeks as the home stretch — a sort of mini pre-marathon running spa — rather than the monster month.

First up: Truly savoring this morning’s run through my parents’ subdivision in New Port Richey, Fla., where I’m staying through Tuesday. I’m heading out early, before the state turns into a giant, sunny sauna, and before the demands of the day start weighing on me. How easy it is to forget that running is my reward! I hope I can keep that in mind both this morning and on race day.

I asked for your best trail-running stories for a chance to win a pair of Saucony ProGrid Xodus Trail-Running shoes. You seriously, seriously delivered, and there were so many well-written, thoughtful stories, I had to resort to a random drawing among an only slightly narrowed-down list to choose a winner.

If these quotes, excerpts of the entries I got to read all week, don’t inspire you to get trail-running, you might want to check your pulse:

“Running breakneck through the forest made me feel like a kid again. I had no direction, no mileage goal, devoid of time constraints, I just ran wherever the trail went. Perhaps it wasn’t childhood I was revisiting but rather something more primal – the fight or flight of being chased by or pursuing something.”

“I love the calmness, noncompetitiveness and camaraderie that comes with trail running.”

“From the “mellow” attitude of the runners to the homemade banana bread offered at the finish I was in love with the trails.”

You told me about encounters with bones and Amish guys. You ‘fessed up to peeing in bushes and falling, gloriously, in a variety of places (clumsy runners: You are my brothers and sisters!). There were tales of trail-runners so hard-core, they vomited from exhaustion, then kept going to finish the race — and to PR. There was a Sun Valley trip that inspired what will likely be years of trail-running in DC. Maybe even more touching, there were trail races in which people became runners again. Is there any better feeling than going for the kind of run that makes you feel like announcing: “I’M BACK!”

There was a shout-out to the Park Ranger who told an entrant at mile six of a trail race “that the REAL hills were starting then.”

Another entrant confessed a plan to net a cute trail-running chick for her single firefighter friend by tripping a fellow runner, then letting her friend rush in to provide medical attention.

Yet another said she recovered from a heartbreak by training for a half-marathon by running in the Santa Monica Mountains on a “pretty lonely and pretty steep trail.” Steep lonely trails DO heal all wounds, don’t they?

And are those any more wonderful than the entrant who said the trail-runners would inspire her to sign up for a 5K, or the one training for her first half-marathon on trails frequented by the likes of Shalane Flanagan?

So. You see my dilemma. You all were too good. I narrowed it down, and narrowed it down, and then narrowed again, but I still couldn’t single out one story as being the best. I could only whittle my list to 13.

Personal circumstances put me in Florida this weekend. My dad, a former ski patroller and serious outdoors enthusiast, helped me choose the winner. I asked him to choose a number between one and 13. He chose 12. I counted down to the 12th name on my whittled list, convinced I’d be going back to flip a coin … until I saw this lovely post from an ultra-runner named Kirstin.

Let me start with a confession: I wasn’t expecting much from Saucony’s ProGrid Xodus Trail-Running Shoes. Sauconys tend to fit my long, narrow feet awkwardly, leaving me with blisters and a host of sore spots that linger long after I’ve shed the shoes (Sorry, Saucony: It’s not you, it’s me).

It’s hard to express just how pleasantly surprised I was by these great trail-runners, and not just because of their fabulous Vibram outsoles.

My favorite trail run requires about two miles of road-running to get to and from the trailhead. I didn’t think about the shoes once while pounding the pavement, a testament to just how lightweight and cushy they feel despite being so stiff and stable. When I finally hit the dirt, I was so immediately enchanted by the stickiness of the soles, I let out a long, reverent, “Oooh.”

I appreciated the soles even more once I hit the downhills, which are riddled with roots, rocks and other obstacles I usually gingerly tiptoe around. This time, I plowed through them, enjoying the tight grip apparently created by a complicated network of lugs in the soles.

My only complaints: My orthotics immediately rendered the shoes uncomfortable to the point of being unwearable, so I opted to run without them. For me, this is akin to driving without a seat belt — not a guarantee of immediate injury or death, but also not a risk I’m willing to take on a regular basis. Also, I did have to make some adjustments to prevent what I refer to as the Saucony slide: The way my heels tend to flop around willy-nilly in Sauconys even when the shoes as a whole fit snugly.

But a couple lacing adjustments and a thick pair of socks later, and I was sold. When I’m in the market for trail-runners, I’ll certainly be looking for Vibram outsoles, whether or not they’re on these shoes in particular.

Bottom line: If you’re a fan of Sauconys, you’ll likely love these shoes. And if you’re a fan of Vibram in general, these soles will rock your world.

Convinced? Lucky you! You’ve got a chance to win a pair! Here’s how to enter my first official contest:

1. Share your favorite trail-running story in a comment below. It can be funny, embarrassing, heartbreaking or any other adjective I’m failing to think of currently. To get things going, I’ll share my own trail-running timeline:
Grew up running on trails in high-school cross country; spent college running through the Flatirons in Boulder, Colo.; moved to sad, trail-deprived Florida and forgot about my true love; twisted my ankle in Rock Creek Park in December, leading to a long, ugly divorce from trail-running. Six months and lots of balance/agility training later, I consider myself a born-again trail runner, with Rock Creek Park serving as my personal playground.

Not a trail-runner? Just tell me a story. I’m not too picky.

2. Want extra-credit? Follow me on Twitter, and share the link to this blog post there.

If any trail-running stories truly stand out from the pack in my humble opinion, I’ll choose you. If there are a bunch of stories of equal merit, I’ll resort to a random giveaway. You’ve got a week to enter. Good luck!

Oh, and in other news: I completed a gloriously rain-free 17.15-mile in 2:43. That’s 9:30 minute-mile pace! And get this: My last mile, I ran in more like 8:30. Stay tuned for details!