Stone Feathers

EDIT: If this post is a mess, it's because I just basically hurled my feelings at the wall and wrote whatever stuck. It's raw and real that way. So...there.

I had a good 5K run today. I've improved 4:04 minutes since the Classic last June!

I'm excited to do it again this year. In the past couple of weeks, running outdoors has become a mainstay. I can run longer, take hills easier, and I even have to pick up my speed at times because I realize I'm running gently, breathing easy. Run hard. That's all.

One day, my fitness goal is to run 5K in under half an hour. Until then, I have a couple of races to keep me on my toes, and to give me something to fight for. One being the Waterloo Classic, and the second one, being a run for a good cause: the Pride and Remembrance Run 5K. (GAYS AND RUNNING? SIGN ME UP!...Oh. Wait. I totally already did dat.)

It's the Saturday before Pride Parade Sunday and donations this year are going to LGBT Youth Line (which I already volunteer for as a blogger) and HALCO. It's really a worthy cause and I'm thrilled to be a part of it. In fact, I'm already looking forward to having a good dash! If you're in the Toronto area and you want to sign up or want more info, you can check out details: here.

And if you're interested in contributing, I'm accepting pledges here...every little bit helps.

My motto for this run is Give Them Hope. It's kind of become a mini campaign in my head. In my daydreams, I see big change and customized t-shirts and video entries and guest bloggers. I know that I'm one person, and that maybe this dream or this micro-crusade of mine never gets off of the ground, but I know that if nothing else, I'll be running. I'll be doing my part.

I'm running for myself: When I run, I shatter the barriers of my own expectations. When I look at where I'm going and the miles that I have come to be where I am, I'm on wings. Lifted, when I used to be carved of heavy stone, threatening to crumble into nothing. I stop using the words 'I can't' and instead say, 'I will.' I've earned EVERY SINGLE STEP that I've taken across hard ground, across the sidewalks in my neighborhood, and across finish lines. When I run-- I am more than I have ever imagined I could be. The pain and the speed and the aches and the tears are worth the power and the animal joy that comes when I find myself exhausted, but gunning to the finish. When I'm out of life and motive, but I get up the next day, run again, and keep on living. I'm romanticizing it hard, yeah but... shit. It's true. All of it. It's my hope.

I'm running for others: Harvey Milk said it best. Without hope, the us's give up. I talk about him here time and time again, because he's right. It is SO important that people understand their power is their potential. Participating in the run also supports the gay community in Toronto and the idea that we are here to take care of each other. Love one another. Potential as power is crucial, but it is even more important, I think, to feel like part of something, part of a community. A community is power, and potential, and it's all based off of love. When I run on June 30th, I'm going to be putting out every step because of love. Because I want to spread the love, open my heart to the world and send a message across the globe. You're not alone. You're beautiful and you're loved. I'm not the only one who feels this way. And when you spread that love and you give them hope, you turn stone to feathers, and chains to wings.

....That's all I'd want for someone else, too.

Part of Your World

There are few things more annoying to me than protocol for the sake of itself. Last week (or the week before) or whenever we had that freakadelic stint of amazing weather, it was guaranteed that 1/10 every Starbucks customer I saw asked my why we didn't have the patio furniture out. Clearly, these people are not experts on clause 5.7 of Murphy's Law, that the second you take advantage of freakishly out of season 26 degree weather, take the snow tires off your car, retire your winter jacket, bust out the patio, it's going to plummet back into freezing temperatures.

We took the patio furniture out. In fact, every Starbucks in the district did. Now I'm sitting, looking outside to grey, 1 degree weather, with a chance of flurries tomorrow. World, I blame you for this. Back to bundling up to go for runs it is. That being said, I ran almost 5K yesterday and it felt EASY. Difficult, maybe, but I could have run farther. I could have even run faster if I felt so inclined. POWERRRRRR.

That being said, the running song of the week is this: Sunrise by Childish Gambino

IN OTHER NEWS:
Recently, a friend of mine who I met through NaNoWriMo moved to England, specifically, Liverpool. This relocation has had us talking pretty much every day, and he's been tweeting me all these neat pictures of the new place where he lives. And me, seeing all this cool stuff, hearing about all these new things, am pretty much like this:

I WANT MOOOOORE (Source... also check the Tumblr. It's sick as in zero-cool.)

Now, comes the restlessness right down to my bones. Now, the feelings of being trapped. In this completely-mostly-not-angsty-way I'm brimming with longing to get the hell out of my hometown. I've known for a long time I didn't 'belong' in Waterloo, not because I stand out or I'm too good for it or something, I've just felt this calling to get out, beyond the borders and have my feet take me down the streets of new places.

Whether this is in the context of moving to Montreal, or farther, or just finding some new way to express myself, find something else, I don't know. How I'm going to assuage these feelings is also up for debate, but it's all a matter of time before I am accepted/denied my entrance to university and then I can make all of my choices from there. The nice thing is, is that exploring all my options, seeing other people do it, and working sur mon francais is making me brave. It's possibly. It's the great WHY NOT? Why not? You only live once. (Past and future reincarnations not withstanding, if that's your thing.)

No outfit posts, because I've been going about my business buck naked. Ho hum.

Zero Cool

I'm trying to not use the word awesome, because awesome is an abused and often misused word...that I use:

alarming, astonishing, awe-inspiring, awful, beautiful, breathtaking, daunting, dreadful, exalted, fearful, fearsome, formidable, frantic, frightening, grand, hairy*, horrible, horrifying, imposing, impressive, intimidating, magnificent, majestic, mean, mind-blowing*, moving, nervous, overwhelming, real gone, shocking, something else, striking, stunning, stupefying, terrible, terrifying, wonderful, wondrous, zero cool

Would anyone be upset if I started using "zero cool"? I'm thinking, it's pretty freakin' rad.

The Running Song of the Week is: Montreal Calling by Mobile


The pre-chorus's punchy beat is REALLY good for setting a faster pace and shredding it right the hell up when the chorus finally comes into it's own.

In the Long Run...

I'm submitting this to Travis, but y'all deserve it here first. <3

Follow Up
Confession: I’ve been slacking in my training lately.

Confession: Because of this lack of motive to go on and on like a run on sentence, this running out of steam, I’ve never run 10 kilometers before today.

Confession: I did it anyway.

8AM arrives as early as anything when you’re equating the sound of the alarm clock screeching to the sound of the starting gun. Once it wakes you up, there’s no going back. Once you’re off, you can’t turn around or stop.

I dressed in my racing best, poked my head into my older sister’s room to make sure she was awake and went downstairs for breakfast. Scientifically, I had it mapped: carbs, protein and energy. While I ate half of a sandwich and sipped a bitter half a cup of coffee, I could feel buzzing in my veins. It was the cocktail of dread, nervous excitement, and great expectations humming in my blood. I pinned my number to the front of my shirt and laced up my shoes.

Confession: I remember thinking… “You don’t have to do this.” My sister and I headed to starting area and once again got a look at the ragtag family we’d adopted ourselves into. Old, young, gangly, stocky. Numbered like prisoners or cattle, and restless. There was an energy in the air that made everyone shift and move without ever being static… Or maybe they were trying to keep warm.

It was a cold morning, with the sun swathed and hidden behind grey clouds. Huddled masses, we waited for the starting gun. It started to rain in cold splotches. The wind blew in bursts, and I felt my muscles freezing and shrinking. 9:30, the official start time passed. No gun. 9:45, still no gun. Our anticipation burned away into impatience and anger and chattering teeth. When the air horn blew, everyone cheered. It was an optimistic start for a long road ahead.

I can’t summarize the experience of the run itself. Imagine the pull of gravity, the forces of nature and your pounding heart fighting for your attention simultaneously. The course was loaded with hills, and soon I was silently talking to myself. I talked to myself like a crazy person. Earn the downhill. Don’t ever stop. My new, personal mantra: One day I will be nothing, so right now I must be everything.

Confession: Based on my 5K time, and giving myself a little leeway for exhaustion, I set my goal for an hour and thirty minutes. I wasn’t going to set a time goal at all, because they say the first time you run a new distance, the achievement is to finish.

Time slipped by but the kilometers came on slow, and near the end, every step felt like it might have been the one to give up on. Every second tearing by felt like it was taking me further out to sea. When I saw the marker for 9 kilometers, I high fived it and burst out laughing on my way by. I probably scared a couple of the volunteers, but it didn’t matter.

I was going home. I was going all the way. I was going, going, gone. For the final kilometer, I trotted along with a frosty, weary determination. Rounding a corner I saw the banner calling out to me and my legs of lead lifted one more time to finish it all off. What I started. Committed to. Sweat and suffered and puked for.

My sister, already finished, screamed and cheered with my mom and my best friend by her side, waiting for me. I launched straight into their arms and beat my goal time by 13 minutes, clocking in at 1:17!

In the wake of the rush of joy, I was laughing and fighting for breath, and a little moved by the power of the moment.

Confession: I’m already sure there’s going to be a next time. A next race. A follow up to this follow up.

Confession: If someone told me one day I’d run 10 kilometers in the freezing wind and rain, I would’ve told them to step off…. In so many words.

Confession: I’ll see you at the starting line.

Anticipation

I'm writing a little post before I go to bed because I won't have time to do it tomorrow in the morning before the race. THE FACKING RACE. Last time I had to run a roadrace (a measly 5k, PFF...Okay it was a HUGE deal at the time-- my first race ever) I was freaking out during my pre-blog and I wrote this.

Unfortunately my sense of humor has been burned away by nerves jangling as hard as piano keys, and left in it's smoking wake determination, ashes of fear and a sense of destiny. Yeah, I'm ridiculous, and yeah, I said it. Destiny. Tomorrow is huge character climax for me, whether positive or negative. It will end the 10K story arc. It's going to change me, and I can 't wait for it.

My goal for tomorrow is 1 hour 30 minutes. I'll try and get pictures. Otherwise, the next time I post it'll be from the other side of the finish line. <3

Here's hoping I don't puke.

Run With a View

...I'll have been running for a solid fourty minutes or so, dodging slower pedestrians, watching cars whoosh by, inhaling the exhaust and feeling every footfall come back at me from the hard pavement. City running. There are lots of small test-your-willpower hills in my running route too, so I'm soaked, nearing mental and physical exhaustion and hoping for a miracle. It's usually about 5K into the run when I get to my favourite view.

Suddenly, suburbia falls away and leaves me with sun soaked fields that rise and fall like the tide of the earth. Open roads and often, the breeze visits the salty sweat on my forehead, giving me a cool down. All my muscles and limbs seem to take in the air and relax and my pace slows, but my head turns on to take it all in as I muster the power to go on. It's awesome and the photos don't do it justice.

I biked out there today to snap a few pictures anyway, because I wanted to attempt to share it with y'all.

Countdown

Lately even though I feel like I haven't been doing much, there seems to be lots of different stuff going on in the near future, which will surely turn into blogs. For now, we're going to have to sit and wait for them to all unfold. Welcome to the FINAL COUNTDOWN post. [Insert Will Arnett dancing here.]

Waterloo 5K Classic Race: 2 days
Did I mention I'm running a 5 kilometer race on Sunday? Well here it is: I'm running (or trying to) a 5K race this Sunday! As part of my new fitness routine, I've signed myself up for it. My sisters and my mom have also signed up, so we're all in it together. This is the first road race I've ever run, EVER, so I'm hoping it's going to be good... Of course by good I mean that I finish with a reasonable time for myself, I don't fall down, burst into tears or puke anywhere... and I'd still like to enjoy the whole thing because I'm thinking about running a 10K in October.

My 21st Birthday: 4 days
I love clip art so much!

It's my champagne birthday (turning 21 on the 21st!) in four days! I don't really have any big plans, but I'm hoping whichever ones I do have involve cake and dancing.

New Tattoo: 8 days
On the 25th, I'm getting my 3rd tattoo done. I won't say what it is because I'm definitely going to take pictures and write a post about it, but I will say I am PUMPED about it! P.S. The picture is a hint, definitely.

PRIDE: 16 days
JULY 3rd is the PRIDE PARADE in Toronto! This year, instead of just watching, I'm volunteering at one of the Human Rights booths, informing people about rights (and violations of them) for homosexuals in countries around the world, and at home. Lots of my friends are big supporters of the movement so it's going to be a big colourful party!