I earned my purple belt virtually on June 6, taking my test virtually in my “home dojo.”
I have to say, I’m very thankful that the school was able to adapt to zoom and work so diligently to make sure we could all continue training during COVID-19.
During gold belt, I’ve worked particularly hard on shuto blocks, which were a large part of my kata: Pinan Shodan.
They still need work, but I’m getting better.
But here’s the bigger milestone: I’ve now been training in karate for a full year.
What I had fun with: Karate in general has been a bright spot during this pandemic.
What I need to work on: Two words: body mechanics. I want to use the motion of one move to flow into the next move.
With all the uncertainty going on in the world during this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it felt very strange to plunk down registration fees for a race. But when it comes to RunDisney races, if you don’t jump on it right when registration opens, you lose the opportunity.
So fine, RunDisney. The parks haven’t even reopened to visitors yet, but take my money. I have so many questions!
Will I have to run in a mask?
Will they cancel?
If they cancel it, should I expect a quick refund?
What will the race experience be like in this new world?
If it does happen, it’ll be the return of the 2017 Star Wars Half Marathon Weekend crew with Jason and I running the full marathon and Taylor and Kelly running the half marathon.
Every single one of us was on the fence on whether or not to register, depending on the day. We’re all a little unsure. However, there was probably one big thing that helped us decide.
Motivation.
It’s been hard lately. I’m glad to look forward to something. I think the registration will help with the following:
Glacier Half Cancellation | As expected, what would have been my 20th Half marathon was canceled. That was a huge disappointment and killed my motivation.. even though my current injury probably makes it a lucky break. Which brings me to my next point.
Proper Injury Recovery |Shin splints since February, repeated problems, returning pain even after 2 weeks off… time to get serious. It’s a probable stress fracture and I need to listen to my physical therapist. The treatment? Rest. It’ll take a long time to heal and I’ll need to follow advice to the letter if I want to be successful and able to finish a marathon 8 months from now.
Nutrition Tracking Success | The idea that I’d be running Glacier, followed by WDW marathon got me back to nutrition tracking. I’ve lost 20 pounds since January, getting back toward a healthier weight. Signing up for such a big race gives me a continued external motivation to maintain healthier eating patterns when I can’t work out as hard and maintaining a lower weight will even help with injury.
Hope | Continued social distancing is just draining. There are a lot of uncertainties in everyone’s life. It’s impossible to think or plan very far in the future at all. I don’t know what life will be like, but for now, I can dream.
I suppose for me, all of that is worth the cost of registration.
If you’re a runner, you may have watched as all of your races were canceled.
If you practice martial arts, you may have sadly stopped attending classes at your dojo.
And like many around the world, you may have been taken aback at how quickly life changed as the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated.
I’m certainly there myself. But despite working from home and being stuck in my house, I’m still trying to stay active.
Running
A lot of people are escaping the confines of their home during this time by going on a run. Unfortunately, I told myself I needed to take 2 weeks off to try to heal my shin splints just about the same time we all ended up indoors.
But I finally did get out! And ran right into a rain/hail downpour.
Why does it have to be so wet?
I actually met up with my brother… we ran six feet apart at all times and did a lot of waving, but despite the rain/hail, it was good to get out.
I still feel like my shin is pretty questionable, but I got through the three miles without run-ending pain, so that was encouraging.
My brother and I had a target of getting a good 10K time at the Cinco De Mayo run, but like so many other events this spring, it was canceled.
But I appreciate all the creative race directors out there. I’m usually ambivalent towards virtual runs, especially those that feel like just like a “pay for the medal” transaction. But now that large organized races are out there, I think these are some exciting virtual opportunities to build motivation and community.
Seriously, check out their website. It’s good for a laugh, for sure!
And then there’s there’s the Stay Home Run put on by “Staycation Races” (aka Vacation Races).
Their entire site feels like a parody of their normal destination races schtick, which is pretty funny. At this point, I’m still hoping that the Glacier Half will so go on, but can’t say I’d be surprised if Vacation Races cancels it.
Karate
I guess I train in my house now?
COVID-19 rapidly made holding group karate classes untenable. One day I’m testing for my new gold belt, and the next I’m not in classes at all. But luckily, I train with a wonderful group of people with very supportive sensei.
After just a week without classes, I was ecstatic when they announced they would be providing live zoom classes for students.
Happy dance.
So now, I still go to regular classes! It’s been very nice to have the routine. In addition, keeping in contact with everyone has been very motivating. It’s better than I could have hoped.
Hope everyone else is finding ways to stay active during this difficult time!
The colors may look similar, but I’ve moved up to 7th Kyu with a brand-new gold belt to match.
Stance pattern, demonstrating a hammer fist strike in side stance.
I was confident going into this tests. I had completed two challenges during December, January and February (earning patches) that had given me lots of daily kata practice, so the basic moves of my primary kata, Pinan Nidan, were almost second nature. I had even just started learning Pinan Shodan, getting a bit of head start going into gold belt.
Pinan Nidan begins with a hammer fist strike in cat stance.
Testing isn’t just kata— there’s a basics portion, an aerobic test, self defense demo, and combinations to show as well.
During basics, doing some side kicks. Just looking at this picture, I know I’m improving, even if it feels like a slow process. My kicks have a lot better range.
But except for two mistakes in my secondary kata (I know the first punches are high punches… I just don’t do them as high punches apparently), I felt good about my overall performance.
Definitely ready for to wear my gold belt!
What I had fun with: Testing always feels great because of the camaraderie. Everyone is supportive and genuinely excited for people.
What I need to work on: Overthinking and getting flustered because of it. I knew my secondary kata (Fukugata Dai Ni) by heart, but I froze during the middle of demonstrating it and my mind went blank. I couldn’t think of what I was supposed to do next until I stopped thinking.
I was in Palo Alto, CA for 5 days and it was sunny during my entire stay. I had to take advantage of the weather!
My training runs lately have mostly been at night after work. It’s been cold, dark and wet. The weather leading up to my trip was atrocious— pouring rain every day.
But when I’m working remotely, I often go running at lunchtime! Out of the 5 days I was in the Bay Area, I went running on 3 of them. The weather was perfect… with one exception.
I did a 4 mile run in Byxbee Park with Jason. The scenery was gorgeous, but it was extraordinary windy!
I could barely hear my run timer through my earbuds with all that wind!
The wind blew so hard, I was weaving pack and forth the entire time and in some places it was blowing waves of water over the path that I had to dodge.
I’ve never run in such crazy conditions and I hope I never end up having to race in such windy weather!
In addition to our training runs, I also watched Jason at an All-Comers Track Meet, where he ran the 1500m. Track is kinda new to him, so this was fun to watch. Always be trying new things!
Sadly, it’s back to more wintry running conditions at home, but training for the Glacier Half Marathon is going really well so far!
I spent a whole week hoping it would snow in the valley, but mostly got very cold rain, so come the weekend, I was desperate to see some real snow!
I convinced Taylor to join me cross-country skiing and we drove up to the mountain on Sunday for our favorite route— Trillium Lake Ski Loop.
I did my best to plot the loop on CalTopo, an amazing tool I primarily use for backcountry mapping.
The weather was amazing— after a week of stormy weather it was clear and sunny. Of course, the beautiful weather brought out the crowds, especially the snowshoers.
Why hike when you can glide? I definitely think skiing is more fun than snowshoeing. I own my skis, but if you’re looking to rent, Otto’s Ski Shop in Sandy, OR is a wonderful— knowledgeable and affordable.
Once we walked down the steep initial hill to the trail junction (neither of us trusted ourselves to have the coordination to avoid so many people), we took the right fork toward Summit Meadow. It seemed the bulk of the crowds bore right, the shortest distance to the lake.
Time to choose a direction!
We enjoyed being away from the crowds and remembering how to ski after being off them for a season or two. Once that initial hill is avoided, the loop is good for beginners without too many hills. It’s a great opportunity for casual skiing, so it’s a favorite route for me.
Just when we felt like we needed a break, we reached the dam. The clear weather gave us a beautiful view of Mt. Hood and we found the rest of the crowds, all stopped to take photos.
What a great place for lunch. Gotta love our beautiful land!
We’re not immune either— the gorgeous view is part of the reason Trillium Lake is such a popular destination. We stopped for lunch and then left before we got too cold.
Be warned though, if you stop and take off your skis, be prepared to sink. When Taylor realized I was taking pictures of his predicament, he retaliated.
On the return part of our loop, we ran into a lot more crowds. This wasn’t too bad except for one particularly steep downhill section. Cross-country skis are harder to control on a descent than downhill skis, but you can still get going pretty fast. I had to shout a warning to the snowshoers as I flew past.
Profile of the route (again plotted through CalTopo) includes the steep hill at the beginning and end. The flat part around 2.5 miles represents the dam over the lake, where we stopped for lunch. Just before 4 miles, we flew down a steep hill.
If you’re new to cross-country, going the opposite direction than we did first will allow you to avoid steeper downhills. It was certainly an adrenaline rush, but before we knew it, we had reached the original junction again.
Fun in Mount Hood National Forest!
Climbing back up to the parking lot might have been the hardest part of the whole loop, actually. The snow was packed enough that it was easier and faster to hike up than ski, so we ended our ski trip that way.
All in all, it was great to get back on the skis. It’s truly my favorite winter sport.
It’s been about 11 months since my last long distance race (Lincoln City Half Marathon) and it’s been a well-needed break from all that running around and running.
BUT THE BREAK IS OVER!
When Jason and I started brainstorming about what kind of vacation we wanted to take this coming June, we talked about taking a backpacking trip. And then I saw an email for the Glacier Half Marathon.
Fun fact, we had actually signed up for the inaugural Glacier Half, but had to get a refund. Luckily, Vacation Races has one of the best refund/deferral policies I’ve seen. I’m excited to finally get to do it!
So we signed up! We’re hoping to do both the half marathon and then a backpacking trip at Glacier National Park this coming June. We’re also looking at the possibility of doing the Walt Disney World Marathon (another full?!) a year from now, but registration for that doesn’t open for a while, so we have time.
But regardless, it’s time for me to make a game plan:
Follow my training plan
Keep up karate work & focus for all of its many, many benefits
Start out easy to build back a fitness base and avoid injury during January/early February
Begin building mileage slowly in late February to race day
Build in hill work, starting in April/May
Stretches & core (nicely aligns with my karate goals too)
Start nutrition tracking again
Buy another pair of running shoes—my poor shoes have already been through a tri, and 4 half marathons…. and all the training for those!
It’s possible that I’ll end up doing a half before Glacier since I’ll be training again, but one thing is for sure, I’m on the road now to completing my 20th half marathon!
Karate classes continue weekly, so I don’t post about them much here, but I did have a particularly fun class this past Saturday practicing throws. This looks dramatic, but since we are taught how to fall, it can actually be quite fun. It’s all about leverage, so I can throw a much larger person than me.
We practiced many different types of throws and got practice in falling too, but someone captured these (yes, they’re reversing gifs):
I get to throw someone larger than me.
I get to be thrown.
The more I fall, the better I get at remembering to fall correctly. And getting thrown is a great way to understand how a throw works, which makes it awesome in a class setting.
I had fun with: I always have fun at karate, but this class was a blast and I was working with a great group of people who made getting thrown around fun.
I need to work on: A couple of times, an involuntary “wow!” of surprise would pop out of me when I was thrown. Falling is something that needs to be practiced until it’s instinctive… obviously I’m not going to be able to remember to fall in the moment, if I’m surprised even when I know a throw is coming.
I had mixed feelings going into this graduation. The kata I learned was much harder to remember than my white belt kata but I had finally felt like I was happy with my work, especially after realizing what I needed to work on after the karate tournament.
And now I’ve got to look forward to a whole set of new things to learn as a yellow belt!
A new yellow belt and my first certificate designating my current rank in American Shorin-Ryu Karate.
What I had fun with: There was a kick in this kata, that always looks cool! And it ends with double punches. I need to work on: I need to remember to “chamber” my other hand so each hand is always ready for the next movement.
Kallen in Motion 