run this amazing day

I hope you'll bear with me as I continue to stray from my usual schtick of complaining about running and pictures of my ass. I'm not sure where I begin telling this story, but I feel strongly that it is a story that needs to be told.  I could start it on Sunday morning, when Graham was fine, or Monday when he started throwing up or Tuesday when he stopped eating or Wednesday when he ended up having emergency surgery - actually five emergency surgeries - over the course of a very long night.  I could tell you about all the conversations we had when realized that these expenses would far exceed the  limit on our credit cards and the  depths of our savings account, already depleted by other financial hardship, and all the discussions we had about selling our cars and our bikes and even my wedding rings to keep our family alive.  I could repeat all the things the vet said about his lack of progress, the number of times she told us to prepare ourselves, when we realized that even

OK, internet people. This is Amy and Liz, friends of Katie's here in DC. We've hijacked her blog today to make a big ask of all of you.  As you probably know by now, Graham (Katie's first dog) had surgery for a blocked intestine on Wednesday night, and is continuing to need critical care. Katie and Thom are doing everything they can, but this stuff is expensive and his needs are fast outpacing what they can afford. Of course Graham is their baby, and we all love Katie, Thom, Graham, Molly and Sofie, so we're committed to pulling out all the stops to make sure that they can give him the care that he needs based on the vet's recommendation.  So, please help. Any donation of any size is appreciated and can be made through PayPal directly to Katie by using either katiemingram@gmail.com or runthisamazingday@gmail.com. Every penny will go directly to the vet bill, and any excess (if we're lucky enough to raise that much) will go to a golden retriever rescue in th

The before: The after: Details on everything in-between to come...

Dudes, I'm here.   I didn't feel like I was suffering from taper craziness in the earlier part of this week.  Looking back now, of course, I can see that was a bunch of crap, I was an emotional disaster.  We had a very long day of traveling yesterday, but for some reason, when I stepped off the (third) plane and out into the sunlight in Spokane, some most all of my crankiness just melted away. I'm so happy to be here. Last summer, for whatever reason, I felt a pull towards this race.  I talked about it when I signed up - I couldn't figure out why, but no other 140.6 interested me like this one did.  I thought about waiting another year or even a few months and signing up for a late 2012 race, but I just couldn't stop thinking about Coeur d'Alene.  I still have no idea why I feel this way, but here I am.   I'm so happy to be here. Not just physically here, but happy with the choices I've made to end up with my brain in this place.  I remem

1. Thanks to my ridiculously awesome training buddy Sarah, I was able to swap out my regular fancy Reynolds wheels for slightly deeper fancy Reynolds wheels.  I'm sure I just chopped an hour off my bike split because of 20mm.  Also, I think my bike is incredibly sexy.  You can judge me if you want to.  At least my helmet is on straight. 2. Ass shot with absolutely no purpose. Adorable picture of my dogs wearing clothes (they are sell-outs) with absolutely no purpose. 3. My third Thursday thing is something incredibly annoying that bloggers do when they have nothing else to say (you couldn't tell by #1 & #2?).  No, not a list of random facts or a stupid internet meme, but a repost.  This post (copied below, obviously) was written the second month I had a blog, and it was maybe the first post that had more than one comment on it (thanks, Julie!).  I re-read it the other day, and it blew my mind a little.  See, when I wrote it, I could envision going back, what that

The "puppies shitting rainbows" shirts showed up in mailboxes everywhere this week. Of course I can't let an event like this slide without taking a billion pictures and generally making a huge production out of it. Who am I kidding, I'm a blogger, everything I do requires a billion pictures and a huge production. My puppies - who, incidentally, do not shit rainbows - think the shirts are fabulous.   And while ten minutes of barefoot running in the backyard is not on my schedule for the week, I figured I could add this short session without worrying about destroying my race. It was worth it, I think you'll agree. A huge and endless outpouring of thanks to Jared at Kompetitive Edge  for putting this together in a really affordable way for me.  KE, you continue to rock my socks.  We have about....two spares laying around, if anyone belatedly wants one.  It costs extra if you want Graham to walk around in it for a while first. Happy Wedn

I decided, for no particular reason, to unplug myself this weekend.  I had such a lovely time living my life instead of talking about it on twitter that I extended my weekend into Monday, which is allowed when you are unemployed and tapering and therefore have very little to do.  I erased TwitBot and Facebook from my phone, shut my computer down and for the most part ignored my electronics completely.   It doesn't mean I did anything particularly special.  I've been living like a bit of a hermit for the past week, trying to avoid germs and anxiety and large objects falling from the sky and anything except pure relaxation.  I put all the good mental training books away so my brain can taper too, and spent Saturday afternoon hanging out poolside with a friend and filling my mind with garbage. I cooked (am exceptionally talented in the kitchen). Attempted to teach Graham how to rest so his injury can heal (the spaces between training are important, GRAHAM). Drank tea in

1. I have peed on my bike in a race, once.  It was disgusting and my ass has never been so chapped in my entire life.   2. I only like chocolate flavored protein powder/muscle milk. 3. The name of our wireless network is "that of a giant sloar."  If you don't know what that means, I'm not sure we can be friends. 4. No, I haven't started packing, or even thinking about packing. 5. My feet do not match each other. 6. Being unemployed is hell on my scented candle addiction.   7. Trying to speak another language - in high school, French - makes me feel super awkward for some reason.   8. I'm trying really hard to merge my work voice with my real voice.  It's not going well.   9. I have always hated running with things touching my head, but I started wearing a visor a few months ago and I really like it.  Plus I feel like I look extra serious.   10. Yesterday at the pool, the lifeguard was mopping the pool deck with a bleach solution.....and p

1. I don't have any taper crazies just yet because I still feel incredibly exhausted.  The fatigue has been pretty slow to drip away this time around.  However, the post-peak-training inflammation I was carrying around in the form of water weight has disappeared and I'm back to normal there.  I'm still carrying some deep muscle soreness but I can feel it getting better all the time.  And while I feel slow and sluggish, the clock is telling me that I'm close to normal, which is about the most bizarre thing yet.  It's the worst in the pool, I feel as if I'm swimming through mud and can't get a deep enough breath, but then when I pop up and eyeball the clock, it's right around normal for me.  I also have been sleeping really well, hard and all night long without waking up to pee, so I know that there is still some pretty deep healing going on.  I don't drink coffee (I know), but the past week or so I've felt like I could use some - I'm really gr

I'm not sure there's room for two of us in the house, but the poet has decided to defect from running marathons (briefly) to train for a sprint. It might get real ugly up in here, but at least I finally found a use for the enormous paddles .

The poet, he says I've changed. I'm not someone who likes change, who embraces it.  I like the safety of a routine, of creating a schedule, of knowing exactly what is coming and when.  But I have changed.  I look at myself a year ago, at a silly girl fussing with shoes and yogurt and mph averages, fussing fussing fussing.  Always comparing myself to everyone around me, never coming up good enough, strong enough, fast enough.  It's been such a process, training for this race, and so much of it hasn't been about the swimming, biking, or running.  It's been a process of working on my mind, my life.   Figuring out how to be more accepting of who I am right now.  Figuring out how to identify the things in my life that  are (and likewise, are not) important, because those are the things that are still here.  The things that matter.  And a lot of the rest has just fallen away. I almost don't want to talk about how I'm feeling right now (but I'm going to, ob

1. I had a little bit of hard running to do on Tuesday morning at the end of my long run and it seems to have woken up my pissed-off-posterior-chain .  My left hamstring has been sympathetic tight the last few days.  It calmed down yesterday after some nice easy swimming while the pool closet was on fire , but I took ten steps out the front door this morning and it woke right up again.  So I shut it down.  Taken directly from my not-panicked-at-all-email to Sonja: I'm not that worried about it, but I'd rather skip a short run now than be annoyed by it over the next two weeks.  I've been doing light stretching and foam rolling, but mostly I'm just trying to let it chill out.   2. I was thinking, in my head the way I do, about starting to put together my race plan for CdA.  Just like I've said a hundred billion times, I don't plan on creating goals for the race based on time.  I did this for Knoxville and I think it served me well, mentally, when I started puk

If you knew me a year ago, which most of you did, you'll remember that I hated rest days.  It's even documented all over the history of this blog: a controversy , a random friday fact , and a 3TT .  When I was just a runner, back in the early days before I had a blog so people could yell at me, I mostly ran every other day and did nothing on the days between.  Then I joined a gym, and went through PT a few times, and started lifting regularly to address the many bizarre imbalances in my body.  And to be honest, the amount of (stationary) biking and (treadmill) running I was doing was so little - roughly 30-40 minutes a day at a slow pace - that I didn't really ever need any recovery. But then I bought a bike, and joyously realized that I had finally found a way to be active for longer than 40 minutes without breaking all my bones and tearing all my muscles.  The rides started to get longer, and harder, but I still never really considered the fact that I might need rest.