Why I felt Great Here

Jason is doing a contest on his blog site My Angle. The instructions are to find a picture of yourself where you felt amazing and then explain why. I believe this is an excellent idea; and really doesn't need to be a contest! But, here is my submission.


This is a photo of my family taken on Thanksgiving Day 2007.





This photo is important because at this time, we were all together and had finally made big strides towards healing and feeling like a complete family once again.


To explain, in August of 2001, my oldest son died. The unexpected tragedy and trauma scarred all of us in the family.


For me, I lost myself in work and gained weight for the first time in my life. My husband and I felt guilt over the uncontrollable and were at odds for some time. Our daughter, who was 2 years younger than her brother, lost herself in schoolwork, overachieving and losing weight.


Our middle son was 8 at the time and had idolized his older brother. He began to experience severe panic attacks whenever any of us were out of his sight. Our youngest was a only 4 at the time, and had the least immediate reaction.

It took us years to take our lives back one step at a time. I finally decided to make big strides in that regard in June of 2006. I left a job that was killing me and returned to my old lower-paying job, which I loved. I joined WW and lost 40 pounds. And, I began a running program. In this photo, I am about 2 weeks away from running my first 5K.


My daughter was home from college for a break and had learned to ease up on herself a bit. Our now oldest son, had worked very hard to overcome separation anxiety, and had made it to a point of not needing medication anymore. Our youngest son was a normal kid again. My husband and I had forgiven ourselves for things we could not begin to foresee or control, and were more solid than ever in our marriage.


This photo is so important to me because it shows an entire family that worked hard to become a family again.

The Marathon

One phrase I never want to hear again as long as I live is this – “Keep going!!! You’re almost there!!!” I’ll admit I am challenged in many ways, but not when it comes to math. I know, for example, that when I pass the 16-mile mark, I have 10.2 miles left to go. And, that is in no way “almost there”.

But, to the marathon….

I was up at 3AM after not sleeping well at all. This turned out to give me plenty of time to eat a light breakfast, get ready, and get out of the house by 4:45. I was able to drive to the designated shuttle stop and catch a 5AM shuttle over to the starting area of the marathon.

The Runner’s Village was very nice. There were plenty of Port-a-potties and even port-a-sinks! There were tents with fruit, bagels, and water as well. And many bag check areas and First Aid areas. I could have just stayed there all day!

Anyway, at 6:45 they lined us up by color group and escorted us out to line up at the start. Jesse (who had decided yesterday to run the marathon) and I went back to the last group. The 6 and 7 hour pacers were there, along with many of my friends.

Weather this morning was overcast with misting rain. 62 degrees and 96% humidity. Waiting for the start

After a nice vocal rendition of our National Anthem, the cannon shot, and we were off. Well, sort of. It actually took us 4 min to get up to the Start Line. Even before we got that far, Pam already had led the Moonrunners out in front of the 6 hour pacers! She was up with the 5:30 pacer. I mentioned to her that the 6 hour pacer was far behind us. She said, “Oh, they’ll catch up”.

I turned to Jesse and said, “I can see where this is going; slow down.” Jayne was also there with us. TJ decided to stay with Pam. The 1st three miles were up and over the Intercostal bridge. This is a non-pedestrian bridge. So, I had never attempted to run it before. It is not a drawbridge, so it is quite high and steep. And, long. I ran these three miles at my ½ marathon pace of 13:30. By mile 3, I was tired. 4 weeks of not running had left me with a big loss of stamina. This was my first moment of the day wondering if I would be able to make the whole distance.

By mile 4, the rain stopped and the wind picked up. I could start to see blue sky through the breaks in the clouds. Ordinarily, I welcome any and all sunshine. Today, not so much.

At mile 5, we turned onto the beach and headed North for the next 3 miles. By then the wind had really picked up and was coming directly out of the North. So, we were running into the wind. It was a strong wind that was ferociously attacking us with sand. This felt like needles hitting us on all exposed skin. At mile 6, the half-marathoners turned off the Beach and headed back. Jayne had fallen behind us and decided to just do the half. Many others did the same. For those of us who pressed on, those three beach miles were tough.

At mile 8, we were back up on dry land, thankfully, and made the 1st port-a-potty stop of the day. I had at this point stopped caring about time. My only goal was to finish. By now all clouds were gone, and we were running in brilliant sunlight. And, it was getting warm.

At mile 11, the outside of my left knee began to hurt. ITB? Meniscus tear? Who knows? It was hurting. The knee brace helped some, as did slowing down even more. By the time I crossed the half-marathon timing pads, I was really wishing I had opted to run the half. My knee was yelling at me by this time.

At mile 15, my knee gave out. Really. It locked up as I ran, and almost took me down. But, I was not going to give up. I tightened the brace to numb my whole knee, and did a combination of running/walking/limping for the next 11.2 miles.

I had a meltdown from miles 18 to 21 where I wanted to quit with every fiber of my being. Also, by mile 21, my hands had swollen twice their normal size and my lower back was really hurting. I was afraid of possible kidney failure, so made another Port-a-potty stop. Everything was OK, but it took a while. More time lost.

At mile 22, I was heading for the bridge. Jesse had fallen back a bit; but, I had to keep going. They were already picking up people who were behind us and driving them over the bridge. I refused to become one of those people.

I started up the bridge and was on it for the next three miles. It was rough. I ran it anyway, and passed everyone who was still on the bridge at that time.
:-)

FINALLY, I rounded the corner and made it in. A little over 7 hours. And, honestly, considering injury, time off running, and illness, I am perfectly fine with that time.

Now, I have a cool medal and bragging rights. And, a really bad sunburn. Oh, and everything hurts. Overall, I am happy I did it. The jury’s out on whether I will ever do it again.

Proust Questionnaire

This is a version of a famous questionnaire once asked of Marcel Proust, and is posted on La Moretta's blog.


1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
I can't answer this. Many things make me happy.

2. What is your greatest fear?
Alzheimer's.

3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Grudge holding.

4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Dishonesty.

5. Which living person do you most admire?
Donna Deegan (the 26.2 with Donna, Donna)

6. What is your greatest extravagance?
New running shoes, tech shirts, running skirts, Garmin...
I'll just call it "Running Paraphernalia".

7. What is your current state of mind?
OK ... just OK.

8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
I don't think any of the Virtues (and there are many lists of Virtues) are overrated. Most are underrated.

9. On what occasion do you lie?
In bed? Like lying down? Seriously, I make every attempt not to. I do not want to have to keep track of everything I've said.

10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
I don't know.

11. Which living person do you most despise?
That's a tough one. I don't think I really despise anyone. I do, however, dislike the actions of a few people I know.

12. What is the quality you most like in a man?
Fidelity.

13. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Fidelity.

14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Seriously.

15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Family.

16. When and where were you happiest?
I can't say. Not that I won't; I can't. There have been many happy occasions in my life.

17. Which talent would you most like to have?
To play the violin.

18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Run faster.

19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Getting through another day. Just kidding. I really don't know.

20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
A sea creature.

21. Where would you most like to live?
At the beach ... so close to the Ocean to be misted with sea spray.

22. What is your most treasured possession?
My wedding ring. It's just a very simple gold band, but it means so much.

23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Hopelessness.

24. What is your favorite occupation?
Does this mean "pastime"? If so, I have many: reading, running, playing with my children, laughing with my friends, etc.

25. What is your most marked characteristic?
Sarcasm laced with humor.

26. What do you most value in your friends?
Honesty.

27. Who are your favorite writers?
Sylvia Plath, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Bronte sisters, Pat Conroy, Louisa May Alcott, L. Frank Baum, Philip K Dick, etc.

28. Who is your hero of fiction?
How about Science Fiction? Then it would be Spock.

29. Which historical figure do you most identify with?
This is something I have never thought about.

30. Who are your heroes in real life?
There are many. They give without thought of reciprocity.
I am continually humbled by them.

31. What are your favorite names?
Julia and Michael

32. What is it that you most dislike?
Cheating and lying.

33. What is your greatest regret?
That I said, "OK" to one trip to Atlanta.

34. How would you like to die?
In my sleep.

35. What is your motto?
I'm glad I got out before the roof fell in!

Almost there ...

Finally, in spite of myself, I am starting to look forward to the marathon this Sunday.

Everything has been lining up against my looking forward to it:

Injury (ITB, lateral meniscus tear, Achilles tendon strain)

Illness (community acquired pneumonia)

Weather (warm with rain all day)

But, today is the first day of the Expo. That is exciting in itself.

As to the rest? I have a brace for my knee and antibiotics for the pneumonia.

The weather? I can't do anything about that. At least the rain will keep it cooler on the run.

And, I have friends who will be running as well. That will help keep me sane.

Countdown to the Marathon

That is how I was originally feeling heading towards the marathon. I had anxiety over EVERYTHING concerning it.



I am a little better now. I am feeling more like this:






I still have anxiety, but it's melting. There are still 2 things causing me stress:


1. Can I really make it 26.2 miles?

2. Will my IT band take me down or let me finish?


Only time will tell on these two.

Finding Balance

Not running for these past couple of weeks has made me painfully aware of something.


Running has taken over my life. At least the part of my life spent not working. It happened slowly and insidiously as the miles increased. And, as I transitioned from running alone into group running, it took over my social time as well.


"Not running" has made me really look at this, and evaluate just how big a part of my life I want running to be from this point forward.



I enjoy the friendships made through running and plan to keep them. But, there are other friendships (of the non-running kind) that I have put on hold for a while. I am re-establishing those now. I am meeting up with a group this week for dinner and a movie. We used to get together once a month. This past Fall, we only met once. Why? I was too busy.... running.



My family too has not had the best of me these past few months. The ever increasing long runs on Saturdays have left me too tired to do much of anything with them the rest of the weekend. And, the injuries have left me out of sorts.

I plan on continuing running for a long time to come. But, the focus is shifting. Running is not my life, just a part of it.

The Art of Not Running

Or ... "Now What do I do on Saturday morning?"


I am not enjoying recovery at all.

I have learned this about myself - I have absolutely no patience with my own physical limitations.

I am counting the days until I can run again.



*big sigh*

Working out the pain

Today I bit the bullet and went for an hour of bodywork (a.k.a. deep tissue massage).

It was both painful and a relief at the same time. Or as Sherri, my massage therapist, said it is a "good hurt".

Afterwards, I was amazed at how easily and painlessly I could walk.

So much tension was gone from my body that I went home and slept for a few hours. She warned me I would be sore later. I am.

But, the achiness is of the good healing kind.

The Last Long Run

This morning's run was our last long run before the Marathon. It was 24 degrees when we got started on the Rail Trails. The Rail Trails are paved over railroad tracks which are in extreme NW Jacksonville. The whole trail runs from Jacksonville to Baldwin. It is really very rural. There are woods surrounding the trails in some places, and farmhouses also along the way. And a gun club.

We started before dawn in the extreme cold. There were very few runners present. Some had run the Disney Marathon last weekend and were not there due to that. Others? I guess the cold and distance (26 miles today) kept them in bed.

Coach Chris usually talks for a good 10 min before we start. This morning was so cold that he spoke very briefly. He only reminded us that a group of runners in Chicago training for our Marathon were taking off this morning in -7 degrees. Someone yelled, "they're idiots", and we were off.

I had already decided to run with Group 8 today. Due to ITB issues, I wanted to take it easy and run as far as I could. But, where were they? It turns out that just 4 of us showed up - Lauren, Nicki, Richanda, and me. No pace group leaders. But between the 4 of us, we had a Garmin and a watch so we set off.

It was cold, really, really cold. But, once we got moving it was just ... cold, really cold.

Around the 1 mile mark, a rooster crowed to signal the approach of Dawn. He was a bit early. We really didn't see much light until mile 4. When the sun finally came up (just light, no warmth really), we noticed that the ground off the trail was all white! Searching my memory banks to time spent in NC, I realized that the ground was covered with frost. Some in our group had never seen frost before. I'd like to never see it again.

I started having ITB friction pain at mile 2. I ignored it. At mile 10 we spotted a deer running through the woods. Also, by this point, my ITB was screaming at me. So, I changed things around and tried some ChiRunning. ChiRunning felt much better on my ITB. I guess the positional shift helped some. Soon we were at mile 13, our turn around point.

I continued the ChiRunning; but, the pain was increasing. At mile 15, we spotted a hunter in the woods. The pain was becoming unbearable, and I fleetingly thought of stopping; but put that thought away. After all, my walk minutes were still only a little painful.

But, after a few more miles, I could not walk on it anymore. I was done. TJ had quit at mile 17. She was having side stitch problems that wouldn't stop. Carol wasn't there. Her ITB started bothering her at the 23 mile run and she is in PT and out of the marathon.

So ... after Phil picked up TJ at 17, he picked me up. I could not stand on my left leg anymore. In addition to the ITB pain, I am also having Achilles tendon pain (also left leg). After sitting and recovering for an hour in ice wraps, I was ready to go home. I am disappointed that the longest distance I have run to date is 20 miles. I am also disappointed that I need to stop running completely for a minimum of 2 weeks.

Here is the really frustrating part ... mentally, cardio-vascularly, and everything else ... I felt good on that run. I could have made the whole 26 miles IF my stupid ITB hadn't derailed me. This just sucks.

I have been advised to consider not running at all until the marathon.

I have 2 weeks to think about it.

Speedwork

Rocks!!!

I was supposed to run 6 miles this morning with my group. The run site is about 40 min from my house. I got up this morning with every intention of going until I turned on the Weather Channel and heard that the temp was 37° with windchill in the low 30's. So ... I rationalized that I could run 6 miles on my own in the afternoon.

Of course, left to my own devices, I decided to change it up a bit and opted for some speedwork instead.

I ran 1 mile repeats at my 5K pace with .25 mile walks in between. I was able to get in 3 sets of this before the sun went down.

It felt great! And, the best part is that my IT band did not hurt at all.

Cross-training revisited

Cross-training is something I have done consistently since I started running 19 months ago.

Always 3 days a week. Always. Until my ill-fated 18 mile run back in November. After that I went into "recovery mode". All I could think about was running and how I couldn't do as much of it as I'd like. AND, I stopped doing everything else.

I completely forgot about cross-training.

Well, last night I started back with it again. I pulled out one of my old DVDs, Sexy Arms with Dave Sinclair. Admittedly, Sinclair is kind of a big doofus; routinely interjecting phrases such as "Right On!" into the workout. But, the workout is sound and easy to follow. After I completed it, I felt pretty good.

And, I slept well. Better than I have in a long time.

Cross-training is now back as a part of my regular routine.

Maybe tomorrow I'll pull out one of my Neena & Veena DVDs.

1st Run of the New Year!!!

This morning's group run was 8 miles at the Beach. We ran at one of my favorite places to run - Atlantic Beach. At the start of the run it was 53°, 97% humidity, dewpoint of 53. So, yes, there was fog.

Fog at the Beach is heavy and beautiful. It quiets and calms. Well, that's the effect it has on me anyway.

Today was an unusual run. It was the annual "scavenger hunt" run. We collected assigned items (e.g., best lawn ornaments) with a camera. It was a bit goofy, but fun.

Group 8 - Marathoners and Half-Marathoners

Personally, the run was good. I did have some ITB friction pain, but not enough to stop me. It started at about mile 3 - nagging and annoying. I ran through it.
At around mile 6, I raced ahead of the Group so I could turn and take a photo of them running towards me through the fog.

OK, that hurt and probably wasn't very smart. But, the photo was good!!!

I made it the full 8 miles. I am very happy about that. I hope that means this is healing, because I want many more runs like this.

A few Scavenger Hunt photos with the clues beneath:

"Our Gracious Host"

"Runners' favorite Pit Stop" - Thanks, Miles!

"A Symbol of what we are running for"

The woods are lovely ...

... dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep. ~ Robert Frost

We started out this morning at 6AM on the Rail Trails into the woods. It was dark with a heavy wet fog. The fog was so dense that we were all damp before running the first step. Visibility was no more than a couple of feet. So we ran into a deep dark foggy morning unable to see where we were going or where we had been.

As the sun rose, the fog lingered leaving water droplets clinging to spider webs in the trees.

Two things I learned from this morning's run:

1). I am not a long distance runner. If I make it to and through this marathon, I will not run another. The half marathon will be my longest distance from then on.

2). The ITB compression wrap does not work. I need serious rest and recovery ... starting now.

Jacksonville Bank Half Marathon

This is a training run. This is a training run. This is a training run.

I kept repeating that to myself before the race. I still started out too fast. The 1st 3 miles were too fast. It was humid and warm. I knew when the sun came up it would be humid and hot. I wanted to be done before that happened.

I realized that wasn't going to happen, and I slowed down.

The run went OK until about mile 8. Jesse's knee was bothering him some. We slowed down some more.

By mile 11, my ITB started to ache; and, the heat was getting hard to deal with. I wanted to be done. Forever.


At about 12.6 miles the course took off across an open field and then off into the woods. It became a true Cross Country course - deep sand, rocks, branches, all things cross country. All I could think I that point was, "I can't run this - I don't have my trail runners on."

We came out of the woods to finish on the track.

This half marathon was not that much fun.

I'm glad it's over.

A short, cold run

This morning's run was only 7 miles. The half-marathoners in our group ran farther (9 miles) than we did. It was a COLD run! It was 32° this morning with a windchill of 30. I couldn't even feel my feet for most of the run.


Our head coach, Chris, and his 10 year-old son ran with us today. The run was by the River and across 2 bridges. Chris kept our usually fast Group 7 on pace.


After resting, stretching, icing, and rolling my IT band this week, I did not expect any problems with it. I was wrong. At about mile 4, it started to hurt. When we finished the 7 miles, it was really hurting. I am hoping that part of the problem is the cold weather.


We'll see.



Yes, that is the moon. It was up when we started running. The rest of the city was still asleep.

ITBS

ITBS (or iliotibial band syndrome) is bringing me down. This is one pain that I just can't run on. Well, that's not true. I have run with it. But, not for too long or too many miles. It kicked in at about mile 8 of my 20 mile run. I made to mile 15 before I felt like screaming. I did make it the full 20 miles ... slowly and painfully.

I went in search of a cure. A miracle drug or brace to take the pain away. I thought I had found it - something called an ITB compression wrap. I was advised against it. Something about how it really doesn't work.

So I bought an innocent looking white foam roller.

Rolling an ITB hurts. A lot. It better be working.