run this amazing day

1. After 2 pretty solid swims, I'm feeling a bit less blah.  Or, still blah, but my arms/chest/back are pleasantly exhausted so I have other things to bitch about.  I've been cycling - slowly - on the recumbent bike at the gym for 10 minutes a day, and today I stepped it up to 15 minutes for a whopping 3.25 miles.  Watch out, I'm a wild woman.  Tomorrow I might shoot for 20.  In general, my IT band feels mostly okay, but every once in a while it will seize and I'll get a hot flash of pain.  Ouch.  But the good news is, when I wake up in the morning, I am walking without a limp.  As I go through my day it deteriorates, but I'm calling every baby step progress.  Looking ahead to my next appointment on Tuesday, I am certain that there's no freaking way he'll clear me for running - and I actually don't want to be cleared, because just the thought of taking a jogging step makes me hurt in my dark places - but I'm hoping he'll be pleased with my progre

Guardian of the Healing Mama.  No one shall pass.

I have a pretty serious case of the blahs. I'm 100% sure that it's because of where I am in recovery and it will pass once I can do more than 10 minutes on the spin bike at a barely-moving pace and don't have to swim (or make an attempt to get to the pool) every day.  But for now, the blahs.  I've been absolutely maximizing the lifting that I am able to do, but I haven't had a really good hard long sweat since before surgery.   Last night I moped around, procrastinating going swimming.  Put my suit on then flopped on the bed.  Whined whined whined the whole time we were driving there.  And then, in the locker room, when I pulled my swim cap on, it exploded off my head.  And I leapt at the chance to let the universe tell me that I shouldn't get in the pool.  So we sat in the hot tub - recovering leg propped up on the side - and chatted for 10-15 minutes, then went to Sports Authority to buy a new cap and went home.   I actually don't even mind swimmi

How else to start a rainy Monday than with a giveaway? The awesome folks at Clif were kind enough to send me a box full of amazing to test and giveaway to you guys!  The very interesting product for me was the Shot Roks , which I had never tried.  Basically it's a little plastic package of chewy balls.  The entire package has 20g of protein in them, yikes!  These samples arrived right around the same time I was trying to pack my diet with more protein.  I found that the way I enjoyed them the most was as a mid-morning or pre-workout snack.  I would have 3-5 of the chewy balls (I'm going to snort every time I write chewy balls, just so you know) while working or driving.  They were pretty tasty!  I don't think I ever would have tried these on my own but now I love them.  The peanut butter flavor is, of course, my favorite. I also love love love the Shot Bloks .  They have become an important part of my bike nutrition - on long rides, I eat once an hour, and it's almo

1. I don't like carrying a purse. 2. I only buy cheap sunglasses.  Actually, I only buy cheap almost-everything in the clothing area. 3. I am a serial return-er.  I was overjoyed to learn that the poet is as well. 4. I am the opposite of a packrat.  I am horrified by Hoarders. 5. I am throwing away (or, more likely, donating) every single pair of my running shoes.  They are dripping in bad juju. 6. I like to be cold when I sleep.  Otherwise, I hate to be cold. 7. I have really bad road rage.  No, it's definitely worse than yours. 8. I hate running errands. 9. My favorite kind of hot tea is raspberry. 10. I really miss my bike.

1. I went to the ortho on Tuesday for my first post-op.  The "what can I do?" conversation was hilarious.   Dr. P: I'll see you in 2 weeks.  No exercise. Me: *face falls* Dr. P: Well, you can swim.  With a pull buoy.  But not a lot.  And that's it, nothing else. Me: Aquajog?  Cycling? Dr. P: No.  Well.  I guess you can lift weights.  Push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, all fine.  But no cycling. Me: Okay. Dr. P: You know what - you can swim without the pull buoy.  That's fine. Me: Well, maybe at first with it. Dr. P: No, it's fine, just swim. Me: Okay.  Sounds good. Dr. P: Well, actually, I guess you can cycle.  If you wake up and it feels good. Me: But it feels good now! Dr. P: When you can walk without a limp.  Then you can cycle.  But only indoors. Me: That makes sense.  I've had a few crashes this year. Dr. P: I guess you can go outside.  But be careful.  We'll talk about running in 2 weeks. I wonder if I had sat there for another 10 m

Helping.

Okay, NO ONE is surprised that I'm thinking about races already.   Disclaimer: I plan on taking things incredibly slow, despite the fact that I am itching to run, so you don't have to beat me over the head with "TAKE IT EASY" comments.  I will be the Queen of TakeItEasyVille. But I've still spent a lot of the weekend doing mental math.  Try to follow along...... If I can start run/walking in another 2-3 weeks, I could probably run/walk a Thanksgiving 5K.  That'd be about 6-7 weeks of PT and working up to the BIG MEAN 3.1.  Emphasis on run/WALK.  And if I can run/WALK a Thanksgiving 5K, I could probably run/WALK the Jingle All The Way 10K 2.5 weeks later, which is one of my FAVORITE DC races.  And if I can run/WALK a 10K, I could probably - slowly - run the 4-miler that I do every year on New Year's Eve.  Does that sound ridiculous?   If all that goes well, then I'd be hoping for a late spring/early summer half.  Which would probably give me the base

Knowing that I was going to spend most of the following day puking, I had a giant burrito the night before surgery.  Yum. We showed up at the hospital around 7am.  I got checked in and then waited for the nurse to take me back.   We went through all the fun pre-op stuff, including letting Dr. P write on my leg (swoon!) and stabbing me with needles.  Ugh.   The poet tried to covertly take a bunch of pictures of Dr. P to tape on my mirror show you guys. I'm ready!  I'm a little scared.   He's actually doing a crossword puzzle.   He wears Crocs.  FLAWED. This one he actually posed for.   Once he was done, they wrapped me up like a little surgery burrito and whooshed me away. This is actually the same size as the burrito I ate the night before. Once they got me into the OR, I was HORRIFIED to discover that Katy Perry was playing over the speakers.  The studly Dr. P listens to teeny bopper music?  I asked the nurse if it was his music and they laughed hysterically.  W

So, today's post is that of a completely lame slacker high on Percocet.  I'll have a surgery report on Monday, but the short version is: it went really well and I'm in far less pain than I anticipated.  I'm also sleeping like a freakin' champ! For some of my newer readers, I've linked some posts that are either on subjects close to my heart or have a ridiculously high level of snark.  With a special treat at the end for the jokers that already know me.   In the style of one of my favorite TV shows of all time... The one where I talk about my giant ass for the first time The one where I talk about my tattoo The one where I talk about why I run The one with all the cute puppy pics The one where I run the run that takes down my IT band The one with the trainer The one that started random friday facts The one where we shave the puppy The one where I cook and eat tofu The one with little Katie The one where I do a triathlon The one where I PR The o

I wrote this post yesterday, so hopefully you're reading it just as I'm counting backwards from 10...9... 1. I decided to go for one last run yesterday morning.  I wanted to have one more really painful run, to remember why I'm going through with this.  My IT band faithfully began yanking on my knee at the 1-mile mark, and was pretty darn painful by the time I hit the stop button.  It's been hurting all day, and is tender to touch.  I won't forget.   Total: 2.62M/24:00/avg. pace 9:09  Like I said to many of you yesterday, by this time next year I will move that decimal point.  SO HELP ME GOD. 2. I had planned on a long ride Wednesday morning in lieu of the century I'd be missing, but I decided (cough slept in cough) to let Tuesday night's ride be my last.  It was gorgeous.  I rode up to Haines Point, plugged in my happiest breeziest tunes, and just let the miles unroll.  I didn't care about miles or pace or power, I just rode until I had to l

And I will get there again. 5K, Oct 2008   pre-Turkey Trot, 2008   Jingle All The Way 10K, 2008   Fairfax Four, 2008   massage therapy, 2009   training run, 2009   11M trick training run, 2009   5K, 2009   Training run, 2009   Fairfax Four, 2009   Undie Run, 2010   LTRYW 5K, 2010   LTRYW 5K, 2010   First 4M post stress-fracture, 2010   4 Courts 4, 2010   training run, 2010   First 7+M training run, 2010   Sprint Tri, 2010   108º 5K, 2010 5K PR, 2010 And finally, 2 days post-IT band surgery in 2006.   Kicking it in the ass. See you guys on the flip side.....

or, How The Universe Confirms That My Decisions Are The Right Ones Finally got in touch with the surgery scheduler this morning.  She had open: the day before my birthday, the poet's birthday, or, oops, hey, we had a cancellation this Thursday, can you do it then?  In two days? Me: FUCK YEAH.  Sign me up.  Let's get this show on the road. I expect tons of emails and tweets and half gallons of ice cream healthy snacks coming my way while I recover.  I guess I'm going to have to tell my PT.  Eeks. And, the support I got from everyone yesterday was phenomenal and I can't tell you guys how much it means to me.  Thank you.

There's a lot of happy crap I'd love to talk about this morning. I'd love to tell you about my solid Saturday long ride, and how I ate right and rode fairly well, even though my legs were wiped from stuffing a week's worth of riding in 4 days. I'd love to tell you about taking G to the pool and tossing him in the deep end and how fun it was, or great night we had, cooking out with friends and generally enjoying life, or even how the poet decided that night that instead of pacing Lauren in the second half of her 13.1, to run the entire thing with her and did amazingly well for not training at all or ever running even close to that distance ever in his life.  I'd even love to tell you about walk/running the last 2 miles of that race with them, telling loud stories about boyfriends that dumped me when I got my wisdom teeth out or boyfriends with huge dicks (everyone in a quarter-mile radius enjoyed that one) or boyfriends that did other ridiculous things to

Instead of just spouting random gibberish, I'm going to answer some of the questions from my giveaway post.  I love this idea and will freely admit to stealing it . 1. ...before you got into running, etc., what was your athletic background?  Did you play any sports in high school/college? In middle school and high school, I flirted with a lot of sports but never really stuck with anything.  I did a season of softball, a season of track, a season of tennis, but never really excelled at any of it.  I was in the marching band for four years - and I dare you to tell me it's not a sport - which meant running my ass off all over a football field for 4 months of the year.  I also did a lot of hiking, canoeing, etc with my family.  I became a runner in college - although I don't really know why - and ran with an intramural team, and I also played occasional fraternity (intramural) soccer and basketball.  I loved playing soccer and played most games throughout the fall (I was NOT