Running Adventures | Race Report: Franklin Mountains 27k

SPEAKERS

Sheri Davidson

S

Sheri Davidson 00:18

Hello friends welcome back. Or if this is your first time to listen, welcome to the wellness inspired podcast. I'm your host, Sheri Davidson, and Happy New Year. I hope your holidays were fantastic and you are ready to jump into 2022. You know, I really enjoy the holidays, but by the end, I'm ready to get back to my regular routine. And here we are. This is episode four. Running my teacher race report, Franklin Mountains 27k. But before we jump in some quick thoughts. If you missed the episode was Soledad tanner on financial wellness, please check it out. So dad had some great jewels of advice that will get you thinking about your financial wellness for 2022. And let me know what you think. Also get excited for episode number five, I am passionate about wellness and helping others. That's one of the reasons why I started this podcast and this episode, I am diving in deep to the art of self preservation, aka self care. You know, I really believe the philosophy that wellness is an act of pursuit, you don't get well and stay well. It's an everyday choice. So I'm super excited about this episode, I think you will get a lot out of it. So I hope you join us and that will post in a couple of weeks. If you want to join the wellness inspired community to get updates on new episodes and wellness inspiration in your inbox. Go to the wellness inspired podcast website to sign up. And again, I'll put the link in the shownotes if you like what you hear, please give me a rating and review. Wherever you listen to your podcasts. It helps others find me if you're in the Houston area or visiting Houston and interested in acupuncture, herbal medicine, cupping dry needling therapy, contact us, you can find out more on the website element five o m.com. If you're interested in health and wellness coaching, we can connect in the clinic or on Zoom, reach out, and we'll get you on the schedule. Last but not least, I would like to share two events with you I'm hosting next month. The first one is yin yoga, it's with Georgia, it will be on Zoom Saturday, January the 29th at 10am. Yoga is amazing. It is a passive style of yoga that you will lay in poses somewhere between three and five minutes, most of the poses are done on the floor. So I think it's great for every age group. But you lay in these poses and you get this really deep release of the muscles and the sinews and the fascia. And it even has some roots in Chinese medicine, that you're opening up the meridians of the body. So you might have poses that are more focused on the bladder meridian are the lung meridian or the heart meridian. But it helps open these meridians up so you have a free flow of circulation. I love yen, I think it's amazing. Most yoga styles are more engaging, where you will engage your quad muscles to lift the kneecap, you might sweat a little bit you might get moving a little bit. Yin Yoga is completely the opposite. It is more of a

restorative yoga. And it is the Yin, which in Chinese medicine is the passive, the quiet. The nurturing side of the Yin Yang, you have young, which is very active, and bright and warm and extroverted and Yin, you begin to retreat a little bit into into the night. So I really love yen, I am a runner. I think it's a great complementary exercise to do with my running because running is so engaging, that I really think that I benefit from from yoga a lot. And I think everybody would, you know, we're always on, always on and sometimes you just need to turn it off and relax. So I hope you join us again, it's Saturday, January the 29th. It'll be at 10am in the morning. To register. You can go to the events page on the element five acupuncture and wellness website. I'll put the notes or I'll put the link in the show notes. Also, once a month I host a mindful meditation class by me. It's an introductory class. I call it my couch to mindfulness, kind of like the couch to 5k and we we do intervals it is a very introductory class. So if you've never meditated before, it is not intimidating at all. We will meditate for seven minutes we come out we talk about it. We go back in and meditate for seven more minutes we come We do that four times. And I really enjoy it, especially if you're new because it gives you a chance to ask questions, talk about your experiences with other people. And then you can go off and you can do it on your own. There are a couple of different types of meditation. There's a formal practice and an informal practice, I tend to like more of the informal practice, I do sit sometimes for periods, but I tend to do more mindfulness throughout my day. And I feel like I'd benefit most from that. So you have to figure out what works for you. You know, I read an article pretty recently. And I really like it as a health coach, because you design your meditation around the Myer Briggs tests, right? So if you're an extrovert, that maybe classes are better for you, if you're an introvert, you might choose to do a solo practice go a little bit deeper, stay a little bit longer. So I really like the idea of the highly individualized practices that they were suggesting, because I think we're all different. And meditation can be very intimidating if you're new to it. So I really liked this class. But we can talk more about that. So I hope you join us. The next class will be Saturday, January the 22nd. Again at 10am. I'll put the link in the show notes register on the events page, element five. Oh, m.com. All right. Well, I think that covers everything. So let's get started. I came up with the idea to do a series of race reports to promote a physically active lifestyle. It is essential to health and wellness. This includes cardiovascular health, stress reduction, build social connections, it's a great mood enhancer, and it can foster physical and mental resiliency. This is all well researched and documented. Movement and exercise is the number one best thing you can do for your health. I'm going to talk about running, because it just happens to be my jam. If it's not for you. That's okay. The point is to find something you enjoy doing. Maybe you like to run, but you don't really care about doing distance. That's okay. If being active is going for a brisk walk in the park with a loved one, or riding bikes with your kids. Perfect. The idea is to find something that gives back to you is the only way you're going to stick with them. And make sure you're getting enough exercise. And don't forget to add some strengthening exercises to your routine, I plan on doing an episode on Exercise and Movement in the future. So stay tuned. But here are some general guidelines, I got the guidelines from healthy.gov. I will put the link in the show notes, as always, but I'll just read them to you here. These are very general guidelines for adults. So for adults, for substantial benefits, you must engage in physical activity of two hours and 30 minutes to five hours a week of moderate intensity. Or you can do one hour and 15 minutes to two hours, 30 minutes a week of vigorous intensity aerobic activity. And you should take that time limit spread it throughout the week. So you don't want to do two hours and 15 minutes in one sitting and say okay, I'm done for the week, you really want to to, to spread that out over the week. So again, let me just say it for adults for substantial health benefits, you want to do two and a half hours to five hours a week of moderate intensity, or one hour and 15 minutes to two hours and 30 minutes a week of vigorous intensity. If you want additional health benefits, these are for the people that want to go above and beyond. You need to engage in aerobic activity be on the five hour of moderate intensity physical physical activity a week. And then you want to add

muscle strengthening activities of moderate or greater intensity to all major muscle groups two days or more a week. So those are just some general guidelines. And we can get into that in another podcast. But I wanted to give you that because I think it's a good place to start for people if you want to gain substantial health benefits. Okay. Well, let's do this. How I started running. I think it's appropriate to give some of my history here. I have been running for 16 years. Wow. I had no idea. I had been running for 16 years, until I sat down to write the content for this podcast. That is a long journey of running. And I think it's always nice to have a little backstory of someone's long journey to see what motivated them to start. Secondly, what motivates them to keep going On that journey, and thirdly, to be transparent of the journey, there are always ups and downs of a person story. It's never picture perfect. The flawless picture can be discouraging and stop us in our track. When we see the final product, we missed the most important part of the story, the struggles and sacrifices that got them there. So I would like to share with you some of my history, I'm going to share my story on how I started running. I have played sports all my life as a child, I was dancing, cheerleading, the shift to sports happened in middle school and sixth grade. I forgot to turn in all my paperwork for cheerleading tryouts because my birthday party was on the same day. I was super excited about my party. What was I going to do? Definitely was not cheerleading the next year, so I decided to join athletics story over, I never went back to cheerleading. I have been an athlete most of my life now. I played volleyball and basketball, I kickboxing for 16 years. Three of those years was competitive kickboxing. I spent my summers wakeboarding. And for a while I was into triathlons. And now I have settled on just running. However, I have never thought of myself as a runner. And definitely not an endurance athlete. In fact, a hated running. I have never been fast. Not even in middle school or high school, I was always falling behind in the mile run compared to my friends and track the coaches put me in the long distance events. I guess there's some foreshadowing there. My sports in school were volleyball and basketball, track them down for me, but it was part of the package and signing up for athletics. So if you told me back then I would be running anything over three miles, or doing any endurance sports, I would have laughed, whatever. I did not enjoy running at all. You know, many people say I can run three miles playing basketball, soccer. But the thought of running three miles was daunting to me. It was boring and miserable. So how did I get here? What changed? Well, a lot. The catalyst was a divorce. I lived in Austin, Texas, while going through the emotional challenges of a divorce. I kept feeling like my body wanted to get up and run. It was the craziest thing. It was a visceral reaction to what I was going through. I didn't know what to do. Running didn't sound like fun. I procrastinated starting because three miles sounded like torture. And I knew I could not run continuously around the lake for three miles. That mindset stopped me until I started talking to a friend that had just started running. She suggested getting a watch that had interval capabilities. I went to Academy and purchased a Timex watch that did intervals. I was off to experiment I headed downtown Austin set my watch for animals 321 run for three minutes walk for one, I went for three miles. I remembered it felt so good. I was surrounded by the trees, the water, the sound and the cool air. I started in the fall probably a good choice. It was the best I had felt in a while. Not only was I surrounded by the beauty of nature, but it was an accomplishment. It felt like an activity that would get me through my circumstances. One night, I tried to drink my sorrows away. But that was a big negative and lesson learned. Not only did I feel awful the next morning, but everything was still there. And I had to manage my situation and emotions with a hangover. Also, it was not a great confidence builder. Yeah, running felt a lot better on so many different levels. And that's how it all started. Kind of like Forrest Gump. If he remember the part where him and Ginny broke up. He went for a long run. Except I haven't stopped yet. And I don't think I've had quite as many great ideas on my runs as he did. Eventually, I moved back to Houston and I headed to Memorial Park to continue my three mile run. After about two years of being back a patient of mine connected me to now a friend who started bond the Brian own Mills running club. It was a fitness fun and philanthropy

social Run Club. We would run three miles a three mile loop around Rice University and head back to Brian O'Neill's restaurant for a beer and dinner. Also, we would have fun fundraising events for charity a couple of times a year like the green dress run for undies for everyone or the hot undies run for Girls on the Run. I found a community of like minded people. So many friendships have come out of this choice I made to join and be engaged in this club 13 years ago, and during this time, I started doing a lot of five ks 10k races. I did not have the confidence to sign up for a half marathon or a full I didn't even believe it yet. One day A friend called me out of the blue. A week before the Houston half marathon, she signed up for it and asked if I wanted her bid because she couldn't run it. This is not allowed and racist. So I do not suggest that you do this. I'm not encouraging this at all. But I said yes. And I took her number. I was not trained for 13.1 miles, but I knew I could do six miles. Well, if I'm halfway there in distance, I can always walk. But of course, I pushed myself mile by mile and ran my first half marathon and two hours and 17 minutes, oh my gosh, the feeling I could hardly walk the next couple of days. But I did it. It was a huge accomplishment to be able to push to the times I wanted to stop. And I have to say there's something about pushing through difficult times, you come out a winner. And it was in that moment, I had a personal when I pushed beyond what I thought I could ever do, and gained a little more confidence in myself. And I thought I can get through other hard times just like that. And that mindset felt good. As time went on my time at the Run Club introduced me to Ironman triathlons, there were quite a few athletes participating in Iron Man's that would come to the club. And I just remember thinking, wow, that is so amazing. And if you don't know, an Ironman triathlon is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and a 26.2 mile run. And I thought, oh my gosh, I want to do it. But again, I was not a believer, I could do this yet. And around the same time I was dating a guy, it didn't go anywhere. And I felt very discouraged in the dating world. So I told one of my best friends, I was done dating, and instead I'm going to train for an Ironman. So I started on my journey. Obviously I was

concerned about the distance but out of the three sports, biking, swimming and running. I was most concerned about the 2.4 mile swim. And once again, a friend of mine introduced me to a coach that was magically having a swim clinic at a lake here in Houston. And that's how my triathlon day started. And since I have completed one full Ironman, I did Ironman Texas 140 miles, I've done six Half Ironman, and many, many many Sprint's and Olympic distances, and it was super fun. It really was my triathlon days were, were again, another great time of my life. And I met so many wonderful people on my team and I still talk to a lot of them today. But as my triathlon days came to an end, my attention was turning back to running. But this time, I was interested in Ultra running. And for those of you who don't know about ultra marathons, it is anything over 26.2 miles, so that could be a 50k, which would be a 3334 35. Sometimes depending on the race, you can do a 50 miler, you can do 100 miler, those are all considered Ultra distances. So yeah, it's an ultra distance is anything over 26.2 My first one I was looking
at was comrades marathon in South Africa. I'd had some friends that ran it a couple of years before. And I again, I thought that was such an amazing accomplishment. And not only that, you get to travel to these really cool places. And so this marathon is a 52 mile race. It is 100 years old. And how cool is that to be a part of 100 year old tradition. Amazing. This ultra race is on road and it's the only altar I know of that is on road most of the ultra distances are on trails, but comrades is on road, but there could be there could be some more out there. But the route is from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, or Pietermaritzburg, to Durban. So they alternate every other year, the start and the finish. If you start in Durban, which is what I did, and you run to Pietermaritzburg, it is an up here, and if you come, Pietermaritzburg, and finish in Durban, it's a down year, and I did the appear, but unfortunately, I didn't complete the race. It was a hard one to take. I made it 45 miles, and around 45 miles, I started having stomach issues, and I was already coming in the cut off time was 12 hours to do the 52 miles. And I had to stop. It was a hard one to swallow. I put in a year of training, and I just knew that I would complete that race. But that was not the outcome for me. And those are the lessons learned. I find the silver linings

in my runs, whether they're good or bad, and these are the lessons I take from them. And I think that running is very much reflective of how life is. And running has probably been one of the most humbling sports I have ever done. And so is life. Life can be humbling. So if running my teacher race reports go well. I will do I'll do a race report on campus. Read marathon I had a lot to learn about that race and a lot of silver linings and a lot of wisdom in that race. To sum it all up comrades, marathon really set me in motion to do what I'm doing now. I have learned so much about life through my running. It is a great metaphor for life. I have learned about myself gained confidence and trust built resilience, manage stress and anxiety, I found community and I discovered a wise elder and running. And I guess, I guess that's why I still do it. And the greatest advice running has given to me, no matter how big or small, no matter how enjoyable or miserable, it always requires the same action, one foot in front of the other. It's your mindset, that makes all the difference. It's your mindset that changes your experience. Okay, Franklin Mountains 27k race report. I'll keep this short. Since I spent a lot of time talking about how I got into running, I don't want to exhaust you with too much running every race, especially the more challenging ones, the ones where I'm really pushing myself to go beyond my limits. There. There's always a concept, a word that comes up a theme that comes up. And these are the things that stand out the most to me. And the things that I either take silver linings from, or I take lessons from, or I learn something about myself, and that's what I want to share with you. But first, I'll give you a little information on Franklin Mountains, the Franklin Mountains of Texas. Yes, we have mountains and we also have two time zones in Texas. But the mountain range is small. And it's all way the West tip of Texas. So it is the furthest tip of Texas west. It is 23 miles long, three miles wide, and extends from El Paso and runs north to New Mexico. The race was held at the Franklin Mountain State Park in El Paso, the highest peak is 7192 feet. So we're a little bit under Colorado. But hey, we've got mountains, right. But the park is open year round for recreation. So you can run rock climb hiking, camping, biking, or just sightseeing. And it really is a beautiful place. That was my first time to go to El Paso. And the Franklin Mountains was gorgeous. We went in November. So it was an incredibly hot I don't think I would have liked to have done that race in the summer because there was absolutely no protection whatsoever. I think I saw maybe one tree I walked under. But yeah, it was a really beautiful, beautiful experience. And yeah, I would definitely go back. I don't know if I would do the race again. But I would definitely go back. But I signed up for this race with four other friends. And it was the last time chill racing over Texas was putting the event on. So my friends and I we packed our running shoes trekking poles hydration pack and headed to the mountains of Texas for this final party. I chose to do this 27k Because I thought it would be good training for my ultra in January the 50k. In Catalina Catalina Island. It's been a while since I've run at any elevation. And in retrospect, I'm glad I did. It was one of the most difficult races for me to complete. And what made it so difficult was the terrain. The trails for me were almost unreasonable due to the rocks and the trails. And most of my training is on the roads of Houston. I get out to the trails, sometimes sometimes on Sundays, but most of the training is on roads because it's more convenient. But I was not expecting all the rock and we climbed 5550 feet and I squared the first 12 Miles was all up and in some places it was taking us over an hour to go a mile. We climbed the Aztec cave trail and then climbed around the cave at the top. We grabbed a wristband to prove that we made it there and headed back down to the finish line. But what stood out the most in this race expectations. I went into that race with a set of expectations. And honestly it was 18 miles. I knew there was some elevation, but I thought we'll be done in four hours. No problem. Eight hours and 54 minutes later, we crossed the finish line I had to reevaluate and reset my expectations to get it done. And I remember the moment that that shifted, and we were running, I was with a friend, and we were running, we had met another guy on the trail. He had done the race before. But he had, I think he was struggling with an injury. And he got into a bad headspace. I both truly believe unintentionally, was being honest. But his honesty was not helping my mindset. But I think he was in a bad

mental space, and he was struggling. And I just remembered the shift. And my mindset was like, go. And I was done. I was like, I'm, this is I'm getting this done. I don't care what it takes, I will run where I need to run. And I will just keep going. And we did it. We finished an hour before cut off. But again, my expectations shifted, they had to shift for me to get that done. Because I was my spirit was being crushed out there. It's not just, oh, there's a mile difference. I mean, you're talking a four and a half hour difference. I had the expectations, we would get it done in about four hours. And it was almost Well, four and a half yet four and a half hours later, to add on to that four hours to do 18 miles. So that was that was a good learning experience for me. I now I'm going to try to go into races, without expectations and know that anything can happen. But I also think that that's life, right? Expectations, kind of mess things up. Sometimes we expect certain things we don't and I think expectations are good. But you have to allow for that flexibility, that flexibility to shift and turn and to adjust. Right. Flexibility is so important. That's the lesson. Be flexible. You can have expectations, but be flexible in those expectations. And that's the lesson guys. All right. Well, that's it. I promised I would keep it short. So we will wrap it up. That was my big takeaway from Franklin Mountains 27k. And I am excited to say it is right now, January the fourth. And this Friday, January the seventh I will be heading to Catalina Island with a friend. And we will be running the Avalon 50k which is about 33 miles 34 miles on Catalina Island. So it should be beautiful. I will have another race report to come back to and hopefully I will have some positive beautiful things to say I don't know how I couldn't it just seems I've never been but it seems really beautiful there. But hopefully the race goes well. I have been struggling with some bursitis in my knee. So hopefully that does not stop me from finishing the 50k. My goal is to go have fun, enjoy the views, and get it done. Alright guys, that's it. Thank you so much for listening. I really hope you enjoyed this. Please let me know I am open to suggestions. I'd love to hear your feedback. So I can adjust shift and pivot as I need to to bring you great content. Alright, well be well thanks again and I will see you next time. Bye