meghan.k.carey

writer :: yogi :: runner :: veggie lover


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Professional goal accomplished, now life returns to normal

I’m not one to get sweaty palms.

Usually just a blotchy face and neck.

And I always thought I could concentrate when life called for it.

But when I sat at a generic testing center with a lot of rules last Thursday night to take a 200 multiple choice question certification exam, my normal functions seemed to disappear. I needed to reread the first sentence of the questions before I went on to the subsequent sentences that made up each question. Occasionally on the fourth read of the first sentence, I’d absorb the meaning for the first time.  Maybe because something in the upper left hand corner of the screen caught my eye the first three times, distracting my brain into what if scenarios. For moments at a time, I’d get lost in the dread of hitting submit and subsequently finding out I did not pass. Of having to go to work the next day, put my ego aside, and tell my boss and peers that I was not PMP certified. Then I’d reel myself back to the question. Remind myself to go question by question and not think about the end. To ignore that ticking clock until it said something threatening. By the time I was ready to submit – 4 hours and 19 minutes elapsed; 11 minutes ticking down – my palms were slipping off the mouse. My upper body clenched in expectation. I hit submit and had to watch the computer think. Was this computer from 1992? After some computer system thought, complete with the old school sound effects, it asked to confirm that I wanted to submit…then it thought again…then prompted me to take a survey.  Somewhere during the duration of those nine questions, I detached from the consequences and became ready to accept whatever the end result of my efforts were. I could not regret my preparation, which included sacrificing the things I love to do – running, yoga, blogging and preparing/eating great meals – to fit in study time. For three weeks, we ate quick meals, then I went to the office until 10pm. Friends came to visit, and I sat quietly stressing out in the corner. I’d done flash cards at red lights and broken done the studying into daily assignments that kept me from sleep if I missed a self-imposed deadline. I hadn’t passed a mock exam. So I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that I passed. And better yet, the test didn’t reveal a score, so there’s no way to dwell on how much or how little I passed by. I went home filled with adrenaline and unable to sleep, which I realized was also the result of my 4pm study latte – oops.

Life didn’t quite stop then. After a full workday Friday and celebration dinner at my favorite local restaurant, we headed out at 6am Saturday morning for the man’s hometown. I love visiting with my future family and going to weddings – we had one Saturday night – but traveling is tough on the body. A three day weekend almost always throws me out of whack.

Never mind weeks without a routine.

So I’m sitting on the plane home now, filled with adrenaline again. But this time my anticipation is of a normal day tomorrow. Like go for a run kind of normal. Like buy enough groceries for more than a day or two kind of normal. Like cook dinner at home and settle in for a relaxing evening with the man kind of normal. I haven’t had much of that for close to a month. The long days leading up to now were stressful, but fulfilling. My determination led to positive results that will help my career. And though I’m all about advocating fitting in exercise and other self-care, finding a balance is also important. Knowing what to prioritize is something that I can continue to work on. Perhaps I could have gotten out of bed in the mornings to fit in a few more workouts. Maybe I could have called it quits before 10pm a couple nights in an effort to clear my mind and sleep better when I hit the sheets. But oh well. No regrets. I passed. And now I get one of those fresh starts that I so love. When it feels like from this day forward, anything is possible and I am working toward a healthier body and life. Bring it on!


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Taking a quiet moment

River running trails

River running trails

The man made me realize just how much I was still in a daze last night because of Monday’s events. Sometimes, I’m just in need of some quiet time to absorb things and to really identify my feelings. Though I went home with intentions of just sitting quietly for a while, I got absorbed in making dinner and cleaning up the house.

There are so many different ways to meditate, one of which is to spend time in nature. On Monday morning, I ran to my friend’s house to get ready for the Red Sox game and marathon. The route to her house, where I also lived for two years, brought me along riverside trails that I really miss. I remember thinking that I would be able to get out of bed to run in the morning more often if I were still close to such calming trails. So, given that writing was the closest I got to mediating on what happened Monday, I knew I had to get to those trails this morning even if it meant driving over to fit in a run before work.

So worth it.

What do you do relax with your thoughts? Have you tried walking or running meditation?


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My Boston thoughts

Marathon Monday is one of my favorite days of the year.  As a teenager, it was the day my track friends and I were allowed into the city on our own to cheer for the runners. In my adult years, it’s become an ode to Boston and an ode to spring. My best friend thinks of it as Christmas and often is too excited to sleep the night before. We go to the Red Sox game together, which begins at 11am and finishes around the time the elite runners come through Kenmore Square (home of Fenway Park) on their way to the finish.

We saw an exciting win yesterday and then were walking toward the finish by the Mile 25 marker when intuition told my friend something was wrong. She saw someone crying and pulled out her phone to find a slew of missed texts and voicemails. I immediately did the same, which prompted us to turn around and walk back to the Fenway area away since it is set back  from the course. It was such an odd and frightening feeling to be so close to the terror, but to not really know what was going on. I was somehow able to get a quick call through to my mom to tell her that I was alright. At the time, I’m not even sure I knew what I was safe from and I didn’t take the time to ask about the news reports because phones weren’t really working. We could text, but not place or receive a call. Google and other news-related apps wouldn’t load. Texts came through that bombs went off at the finish and we had no idea if there would be more….if they would detonate near us. So we stood between two larger buildings, about a block back from the course, hopeful they would block another attack. After about 30 minutes, police came to clear the area. Calm and collected officers agreed with us that the best way home was to walk, crossing a bridge further west than necessary to stay away from the finish area.  I felt so thankful when we crossed the river into Cambridge and I started to feel safe…whatever that really meant.

Between Mile 25, where I briefly stood, and the horror that occurred at 26.2, are thousands of stories. I felt so close, but really I was so far removed from those who saw the blasts and those who lost limbs, lost their lives and lost their loved ones. But I felt the fear and continue to feel the stomachache as I realize the reality of this hateful act. I’ve heard stories from people who were there, who crossed the finish line a previous year or who walk through Copley Square regularly. We all reach for our connection to this place and this event to help us to grieve and to heal. Everyone has their own way of dealing and by sharing their experience, as I do in this entry, they – and I – get a step closer.

I woke up this morning and immediately knew that I must practice what I believe. I believe we can connect in our sorrow, but we must also connect in our love. Though it was difficult to hold onto as I sobbed while listening to people call into the radio station on my way to work, I knew I had to vow to let my light shine today. I may be shaken and I may be uneasy, but those are vulnerable states. I want to be resilient, as Obama so rightly described Bostonians. Let’s let our light outshine hatred. Let’s thrive in the good deeds instinctively performed, the heroes born and all these extra prayers said..and let those qualities live on long after the bombs at the Boston Marathon become the news of yesterday.


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Great Bay Half Marathon race recap

The Great Bay Half Marathon on Sunday was the most mentally challenging of the six half marathons under my belt…and I’d run it twice before. I did not enjoy the moments of this race. I wanted it over and not in the run-really-fast-to-the-finish-line-kind of way.

Here’s the play-by-play of my experience, mile-by-mile style:

The winds were around 20 mph, which I didn’t appropriately dress for, so I put on the race shirt (a family faux pas) between my tank top and light long sleeves. This really helped to protect my shoulders and chest from the wind. In fact, after the 20 minutes standing at the start, the wind didn’t bother me that much.

I tried to conjure happiness and confidence at the start by going out strong. My first two miles were at 7:44 pace and smiling for my cameraman.

Mile 1 of the Great Bay Half Marathon

Mile 1 of the Great Bay Half Marathon

Though starting out too strong is a cardinal sin of racing, I did it on purpose and I don’t regret it. I wanted to try to stay in front of the 8:00 minute mile pacer for as long as possible. I tend to average a pace right around there, and I thought that I would be more likely to try to keep up with it than to catch up to it.

When the 5k runners turned right around the 2.5 mile mark, I admit I was jealous. I wished that I could turn right and call it a day in 4 minutes. The half marathon course soon became a dirt road and the number of people cheering on runners dropped to zero in most spots. People started to pass me. My dread for how things would go kept creeping in.

I felt slightly revived after the first water station – proof that people cheering does keep runners going. I maintained an 8 minute pace for the next few miles. I could hear the 8:00 mile pacer behind me just before the mile 5 marker, so I turned things on for a bit to stay ahead of him. Luckily, the rolling hills were all downhills at that point. I found I felt stronger and faster when I  pumped my arms closer to my hips than my ribs. The pacer and I were together again at the mile 6 marker, but my watch said 63 minutes so I mentally brushed it off that he was just going too fast or something.

Just before the mile 7 marker, there was bile in my mouth. I didn’t cough. I might have mini burped. I’m not sure how it got there, but there were foul tasting chunks in my mouth. I spit them on the side of the road and tried not to think that I wasn’t even halfway there yet.

Since I know the course from the two other years (2010 – my first half – and 2012) I did this race, I knew that miles 7 through 10 are the toughest because of a series of uphills. On a sunny day, the difficulty of this part is offset by the stunning views of Great Bay. But with strong winds and cloudy skies, I didn’t spend much time looking at the water this year. I let the pacer by me and decided that if I took it easy on this stretch, I might be able to gain some time back when the course flattened out for the last 5k. Up the hills I went. No more bile. No obsessing over my watch and the math that suggested I wouldn’t reach my goal.

Just after the mile 10 marker, the course turns left and goes about a mile down a road, around a circle and back out. I ended up near an awesome older guy and together we cheered for the runners who were heading back out. I love doing this and I got a bit of a boost off it…but when I hit the next mile marker I realized that the boost only cut that mile time to 8:15. Now, I know that this is great and something that I could not have done years ago, but perspectives change and new goals are created! I tried to keep my head up and push through to the end. I finished in about 1:46 minutes (the gun time, chip time and my watch all read a little differently). The man was waiting at the finish line to give me a smile and take pictures. I knew that despite how mentally exhausting the race was that it went better than last year when my stomach hurt the whole time and I started crying when I saw him. He greeted me with the news that I had cut minutes off last year’s time. So while it wasn’t a PR, it was a solid run for the difficulty of the course and the time of year…and a PR for the Great Bay Half Marathon.

Great Bay Bib + Time

Great Bay Bib + Time

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