 It’s almost the end of the year, and that brings up one question: What’s your yearly mileage look like?
Runners set all kinds of goals every year – from joining a group run to signing up for a race to hitting a certain number of miles by Dec. 31. Setting a goal is important – you need something to work for, even if it’s just to get outside for a little bit every day. But it can also feel oppressive when you’re staring at your shoes and it’s solid ice outside. Or you’ve been working a ton and just want to spend Saturday morning watching TV with the kids. (My 6-year-old and I love watching vapid tween shows together, I confess.) Or you just need a break from always having to do something – fold laundry, buy groceries, get a run in. Friends, it’s going to be OK. It’s the holiday season, and everyone’s calendar fills with more, more, more. More sweet treats, more holiday parties, more eggnog, more stuff, more eggnog lattes, more eggnog with adult beverages in it, more adult beverages. If getting out for a run or meeting friends for miles followed by coffee is your salvation this season, then by all means, get out there. But if you find yourself dreading it, and spending every footstep obsessing over your to-do list, then I’m here to tell you to give yourself a break. Your world will not end if you take a day off. You will not be shunned by the running community. You will not suddenly go from couch-to-5K to 5K-to-cinnamon rolls. You’re still a runner. Even on your day off. Especially then. Ask any coach (hey Grant and Jacqui, we’re talking to you!), and they’ll tell you that time off matters as much as time on. That’s true for any kind of training. For me, I used to start to panic if I didn’t hit a weekly mileage goal (or race time, or whatever). And then, a few years ago I told myself that I was going to take time off between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. It’s a little odd – lots of folks choose that time to build a streak: Run every day from Thanksgiving to the end of the year – as a way to beat the stress of the season. I took a different approach. Fall usually means a race, and because so many longer races happen when the weather cools down, it usually meant a goal race of a certain distance (hey there, marathon). After that, there’s the usual sort of letdown, the ‘what now’ as you recover. And then I would just feel rudderless yet compelled to cram in the miles. I mean, I was already doing long runs, shouldn’t I keep doing them? What would happen if I took time off from weekly mileage goals? I had worked so hard! It would become a loop of anxiety as the pressures of the holidays would build. And that isn’t why I came to running. I came to relax. Unwind. Decompress. Look at the trees and the sky. Not to hate myself. And the first year I told myself it was OK to slow down, it turns out I didn’t slow down that much, and I didn’t skip that many miles. It was barely noticeable. But if I felt like taking a spin class or yoga or just going for a walk, I went ahead and did that, and I didn’t feel bad. More often than not, I made up the miles by just running more on fewer days. It wasn’t intentional – it just happened. It isn’t that I didn’t run – it’s just that I didn’t have to do anything. Normally don’t get out of bed for anything less than 6 miles? Not this season. A sweet 2-mile run followed by a dog walk sounds glorious. Or, better yet, spending that hour drinking coffee and reading a book while the rest of the house is asleep. Swoon. If you’re someone who loves to streak at the end of the year, that’s awesome – and I want to hear about it. But if you’re like me, and you just need permission sometimes to step away from training and keeping a log and obsessing, then that’s awesome, too. Happy running. (Or reading. Or watching every episode of “The Crown” in one weekend. Or eggnog-drinking. Or whatever you’re doing this month that keeps you sane.) Jacqueline Palfy is a longtime runner, reader and writer, marathoner, mom and board member of the nonprofit Sioux Falls Area Running Club. Her contributions to the 605 Running Co. blog will appear each Tuesday. You can follow her on Twitter @runnerJPK or reach her at [email protected]. Story ideas are encouraged.
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 Howdy, friends. Ready to run the Jingle Bell run this year? In honor of the 10th year of the fundraiser for the Arthritis Foundation, I sat down with Darci Hustrulid, executive director of the foundation in South Dakota, to talk about changes this year. Here here are 10 things to know.
Jacqueline Palfy is a longtime runner, reader and writer, marathoner, mom and board member of the nonprofit Sioux Falls Area Running Club. Her contributions to the 605 Running Co. blog will appear each Tuesday. You can follow her on Twitter @runnerJPK or reach her at [email protected]. Story ideas are encouraged. What: Jingle Bell Run When: Saturday, Nov. 26 at Fawick Park Time: Day-of registration is at 8 a.m., and the race begins at 9. Packet pick-up: 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at Sanford Wellness, 49th and Oxbow Distances: Runners will do a 3.81-mile loop route, and walkers will do an out-and-back on the bike path for 1.5 miles. Parking: The Avera lots near Fawick are available for runners. Downtown parking also is free on weekends on the street and in the ramps. Website: https://www.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=1160015   Most people like holidays. Most runners like them because aside from whatever you might be celebrating, you also likely get a day off work. And a day off work means one thing: More time to run. Thirteen years ago, Sioux Falls Area Running Club members Rob Sevold and Jeff Schmitt decided to take the traditional Thanksgiving Day run and move it to The Banquet, invite anyone who wanted to come, and give any donations to the nonprofit feeding ministry. Since then, thousands of runners have made the Run for Food an annual tradition – and runners have raised more than $65,000 in the process. “If you’ve been to The Banquet, you see exactly where your donation went -- just to put food on the table for hungry folks,” said Tamera Jerke-Liesinger, executive director. “When you think that the average cost of a single meal is $2.50, that $65,000 has fed a lot of hungry people.” The run is the same every year – loops of 1, 3 and 6 miles, no clock, no registration, no T-shirt and no medal. Every penny raised goes directly to The Banquet. While turnout has always been good, some years are better than other because of weather. This year, The Banquet signed on sponsors to help out. “We kind of took a different mindset this year,” Jerke-Leisinger said. “It’s a great fundraiser for the us. … And we thought, ‘let’s amp it up a bit more, and get more money for The Banquet.’” Runners won’t see much different, except a banner with the Run for Food logo and the logos of the sponsors, including 605 Running Co. “When you do the sponsorships you get the word out even more, and they help promote the event, too,” Jerke-Leisinger said. Founding member Schmitt agrees. “That’s just fantastic with us,” he said. “We just want to continue to raise money and help people understand there is a great need in Sioux Falls.” Worried you have too much to do on Thanksgiving to try to cram in a run? That’s OK, you can also just go to the Banquet website and hit the donate button. Or, skip making your pies and let The Banquet do that for you, too. You can buy pumpkin and apple pies for $10 the morning of the race. Pre-orders are encouraged, but Jerke-Leisinger anticipates there will be some available that morning. “Get up on Thanksgiving morning, get your run in, and then go have the great holiday,” Jerke-Leisinger said. “All the money for this goes to support The Banquet. In 2015, we served 192,000 meals. The money that is raised makes a huge impact in people’s lives in our community. Without this kind of support, The Banquet wouldn’t be able to do what we do.” See you out there. Jacqueline Palfy is a longtime runner, reader and writer, marathoner, mom and board member of the nonprofit Sioux Falls Area Running Club. Her contributions to the 605 Running Co. blog will appear each Tuesday. You can reach her at [email protected]. Story ideas are encouraged. Details on the Run for Food WHAT: Run for Food WHEN: 8 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 24 WHERE: The Banquet, 900 E. 8th St., Sioux Falls COST: Suggested donation of $10/per runner BUY: Pumpkin and apple pies, $10 each. Preorder at 335-7066, or buy day of the run. MORE: https://thebanquetsf.org/news/run-for-food-on-thanksgiving-day   Howdy, friends. Not every running life is a straight line. Sure, some of us start in high school and then let it carry us through the rest of our lives, a thread of miles stretching behind and before us. For others, we stop and start, figure and reconfigure, but we always come back to it, somehow. That’s how it’s been for me. My dad asked that every one of his four daughters play a sport, and we did – track and field, cross-country. My older sister was a high school standout, record holder in two states, ran in college on a scholarship. I once won my heat. But it never mattered at our house – a runner was a runner was a runner, and we were. My first hiatus was when I was in college, where I replaced the running miles with chain-smoking and mountain biking. It was a life that went on for a while, with a few tries here and there to return to running, none of them sticking because we all know how hard it is to rebuild. But then one day shortly after I moved to Sioux Falls nearly 16 years ago, I was standing in a bookstore and realized that I wasn’t living the life I wanted to live. When I closed my eyes, I wasn’t standing where I thought I would be. And when I opened them, I saw a book – “The Non-Runners Marathon Trainer,” a textbook for a class at the University of Northern Iowa. The class? How to run a marathon. For anybody. For me, too. I bought it, took it home, was inspired by the stories of people who had started where I was and had ended at the finishing line of a marathon. At the time, I was working second shift, and I would run when I got off work – weaving through central Sioux Falls at midnight, in a pair of ill-fitting cheap running shoes. The first time I completed a 6-mile run, I cried. The book was good, the advice solid, and I believe the people who wrote it and the students who took the class were successful. It all depends on doing the work. And I did. For a while. Then I quit running a few weeks before the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon in 2001. But I stood at the starting line anyway, because I had nothing to lose. And six hours and 19 minutes later, I hobbled over the finish line, coming in last place, while they tore down the signs and I nearly lost my way. The volunteers clapped, stopped what they were doing, patted me on the back. I drank a warm beer, looked at my medal, laughed with a friend who had gone with me. Then I didn’t run for a year. Since then, I’ve built back up. Qualified for Boston twice. Run it once, the year of the bombing, where I then turned around and covered the event as a journalist. I’ve run dozens of half-marathons, stacks of 10Ks and 5Ks, an ultra. I’ve fallen in love with trail running. I’m not embarrassed about where I come from as a runner. I’m not afraid to say I took last place in my first marathon, and last place in my first 5K, where I smoked a cigarette behind the church before the start, and where a guy dressed as a cow on the course passed me. Somebody has to come in last, and sometimes it was me. When I first started training back in 2001, I would run from my apartment at 15th and Summit to the University of Sioux Falls sign – about a half-mile – and then walk home. And I was proud of it. It was the best I could do. Over the years the “best I could do” has changed – as the result of injuries, or pregnancy, or miscarriage or grief or scheduling, sadness, terrain, weather, training, whatever. Sometimes the best I could do was put on my shoes and go for a walk instead. Or sleep in and allow my body to rest. Sometimes the best I could do was feel like my feet took flight as I crested the hill north of Lincoln High School, made the turn toward the bike path and held on to the Saturday morning group as far as the falls. Sometimes it meant bursting into tears as I watched a finishing clock log a PR. There’s no constant. Except the mileage. Except the belief that running is a sport, a life, that’s open to everyone. All you need is a pair of shoes. A willingness to try and fail, try again. And then one step. Another. Another. See you on the trails. Jacqueline Palfy is a longtime runner, reader and writer, marathoner, mom and board member of the nonprofit Sioux Falls Area Running Club. Her contributions to the 605 Running Co. blog will appear each Tuesday. You can reach her at [email protected]. Story ideas are encouraged.  Roy Weber and Jacqueline Palfy run the Newton Hills 30K in late October. Palfy took second woman overall, after Eva Gillham. |
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