Sunday Check-In

On Wednesday morning, I decided that I would not weigh myself in 2013 (catch up HERE).  So after five short days I thought I would give you an update.  I'd like to actually give you an update every Sunday and pepper some other fun running stuff throughout the week.

After five days, I'm feeling good.  I've been running short distances - last week was a week of mainly a mile a time.  There were a few longer runs.  I had a longer run planned for today, but bailed on it at the last minute because my hip is super tight.  It's time for some pigeon pose.




I didn't really face any challenges this week.  But when I'm not tied to the number on scale, the challenges are less.  I've committed to drinking more water, which has been surprisingly easy.  I usually drink water, but over the holidays I fell off the water wagon.   I've been working on incorporating more fruits and vegetables into my meals.  Apples, oranges, spinach, squash, bananas, grapes.   Things that have been on-hand and easily available.  Expect more vegetables to enter the mix in the upcoming weeks.  I need to grocery shopping and I'm not really a fan.  What are your favorite vegetables?

The company I work for provides unlimited snacks for employees.  It includes, fruit, granola bars, chips, cookies, string cheese and carrots, etc...  They also provide breakfast items.  Pop Tarts, bagels, hot and cold cereal and yogurt etc... We also have lunch catered every Friday.  My plan is to pack my lunch Monday - Thursday, supplementing it with fruit, and vegetables at the office and I'm eating the catered lunch on Friday.  

Today I was thinking about the changes and gaging them by my clothes.  There are those jeans I'd like to be wearing by this summer...  And then I thought, what if I take a picture every Sunday?  Week to week, the changes will be minor.  But between today and the last Sunday in December of this year, we should see something interesting.

So while, I'm not happy about the picture in the interest of being real, this is me, tonight.  On a side note, I think I need better lighting in my bedroom.  The shorts will return each week.  While I can't guarantee the exact same sports bra, I'll be in a sports bra.

Not exactly the body of a runner. Sigh...  But I'll get there.

This was my Daily Mile Recap for this week.  That makes me happy!  

Weighing in on 2013

If I calculated, I could determine how many miles I ran in 2012.  Well, that's not exactly true.  I would have had to have done a better job of logging my runs and activities on one of the various site I've used in the past to track my miles etc... but I didn't.  There is no calculation needed to tell you that 2012 was the lowest mileage year since I started running regularly in 2005.

2012 was a challenge for me.  After a tough end to 2011, which included walking off a marathon course at mile 22 (on my birthday, no less), not making it to the starting line of another marathon, thinking I would be able to run a half in December (not) and begging Disney to let me defer my race to 2013, I thought 2012 would be a spectacular year.  I was running in January, but my ankle wasn't really feeling any better.  

In February I went to a foot and ankle specialist and on March 8th I had ankle surgery.  During my recovery of no running, I gained about 10 lbs.  

I started running again and thought things were back on track.  Until the inside of the same ankle started hurting.  Which required a second surgery (the problem was not the same and unrelated to the first surgery).

Recovery again and another 10ish lbs.

I'm running again, but being my mileage is still low.  I'm building it up and feeling good about my progress, although it's slow-going.

On January 1st, I met up with some friend and we ran together.  Followed by breakfast which was more calories than we burned, I'm sure.  

On January 2nd, I got up for work, made coffee and as I got ready to take a shower I thought I should weigh myself.  I was afraid to see what the number was and decided against it.  

While I was in a shower, I was thinking - don't the best ideas come to us in the shower? - I wondered what it would be like if I didn't weigh myself for the entire year?  

I decided that it could be fantastic or a fantastic disaster.  Meaning I could either turn this into an awesome year of fitness or by next January 1st, I could weigh 600 lbs.  But I think it's certainly worth a try.   

I have no idea what I weigh right now (other than more than I should).  I have no idea what I should weigh.  I believe the BMI is crap.  I'm 5' 2" and have a decent amount of muscle.  The number the BMI  tells me I should weigh isn't right for me.  

So this year, I'm going to try something different.  I'm going to base my goals not by a number on a scale, which quite frankly, makes me mental. Instead I'm going to go by my overall fitness level.  I'm going to go by the way my clothes fit.  I have a goal to get back into some of the jeans in my closet.  

My closet looks like an Old Navy with all the same jeans in many different sizes?  It's true and it's ridiculous.  

What if I have to go to the doctor?  They always weigh you when you go to the doctor.  I'll ask them to not say the number out loud and I'll stand on the scale backwards.  Boom!  

What about food? 

I'm making careful choices (i.e. not a lot of junk, if any) and not eating too much.

Exercise? 

• Running, of course.  While being mindful of how my ankle feels.  
• Core Work
• Biking on the Training
• Strength Training (as soon as my pectoral pain goes away - again)

Stick around for the journey and see how it goes. I think it's going to be fantastic.

Encouragement

My Daughter, the infamous Cha Cha, said something to me the other day that has stuck with me.

She was talking about her cross country coach.  She said that he didn't really talk to the slower runners. He claps for the entire team at the meets, but at practice and at school, he's really only interested in the faster runners.   I get what it's like to be competitive,  but I'm not dealing with an entire team of middle school kids.

Cha Cha is a runner.  She's not the fastest, but she's not the slowest either.  I've seen her at her meets and I've run with her.  She's tenacious and tough.  She walks sometimes, but she's 11.  She hasn't learned how to fight past the mental aspect of running, but she will.  She ran a 5K in October and took first place in her age group.  I think she's pretty awesome.

It bothers me that she feels like the coach ignores her because she's not super fast (yet).  Regardless of if  he actually does ignore the slower runners or not, it's her perception that he does.  That's sad.

It's a missed opportunity for him. I understand that this particular team is one of the biggest in the county and there are more than 100 kids who run (how cool is that?) and he can't be BFFs with everyone.  But it hurts my heart, that she feels like she's not as good or not a favorite because she's not as fast.  No one should feel like that.  Especially an 11 year old.

Imagine if every kid got a high five, if every kid felt like they were an awesome runner.  Imagine if the slower kids felt like they were important to the coach.  Imagine if the coach spent just a little time encouraging these kids that aren't the fastest.   There could be a hidden superstar just waiting to emerge.

Sometimes all it takes is a little encouragement.

Encourage those around you, share your positivity (running and otherwise) Let people know they're special.

Square One

Recovery is officially done.

After a difficult time with the incision healing, which included the stitches staying in for an extra week, and round of antibiotics and a full round of physical therapy, I have been cleared to run.

Not run like you're thinking.  A combo of walking a minute and running a minute for up to 15 minutes and move on from there.

Honestly, it sounds a little dreadful.  Remember when you started running and it was hard?  That's where I am.  I haven't run in months.  I am truly starting at square one.

There is a long road ahead of me.  And exactly eight weeks until I race again.  I have selected the Mt. Dora 5K on December 16th.  Time to get steppin'!

I'm slightly afraid to register, but I have some time before the price increase.  Man, starting over sucks, but I'm more appreciative that you can ever know that I can still run!

Tomorrow the running begins.  I'm excited to get back to it!

One Year Ago Today

Last year, on August 27th I had a 20 miler scheduled.  I found the Midsummer Night Marathon and Half Marathon in Cocoa.  The race was a series of out and backs so I emailed the race director and asked him if I could run three sections which would be about 20 miles.  He replied and said I could run as many or as few miles as I wanted.

This was going to be great!  I could get my miles in and have some company along the way.  I wasn't crazy about the 4PM start time in late August, but I decided that the benefit of running with others far outweighed the heat.

I drove to Cocoa alone, and as I got closer the sky opened up.  I was worried about running in the rain at this point, but by the time I arrived, there was a drastic temperature drop and the skies had cleared.  It couldn't be any better!

I ran the first out and back and it was uneventful.  On my second out and back it was heating up.  I slowed some.  I saw a man walking to his house from his car with a 12 pack of beer.  I seriously considered asking him for one.  There were few water stops - it was a free race (optional donations were accepted) and I should have thought to carry my own water.

I headed out for my third out and back.  I was a little more than a mile in, probably just before 14 miles and my left foot locked up.  Like it didn't want to bend back.  I walked for a bit.  I ran.  It hurt, I walked, I ran a little more.  I decided to turn back.  I ran / walked / hobbled back and ended the day with 16.07 miles.

Today is the one year anniversary of the beginning of the ankle saga.  On this anniversary I was at my ankle doctor's office for a pre-op appointment for my second ankle surgery in less than six months.  I never could have ever predicted a year later I'd still be messing with ankle pain. Wow.

I'm hopeful surgery on Thursday is the last chapter in the saga.  I'm hopeful I'll be running again soon.  I'm hopeful I'll come back and be stronger and faster.

I'm hopeful.

An Update - The Saga Continues...

A few weeks ago my ankle started hurting.  I got a cortisone shot a wrap and doctor's orders were to take two weeks off. If you missed it, you can read about it here.  Monday, with two days left to go until I was "cleared" to run, I knew it wasn't going to be a possibility.  I went back to the doctor.

I had spent time on my feet over the weekend.  Cleaning the house and vacuuming.  More than just sitting at my desk like I do during the week, but nothing out of the ordinary.

He said that he thought it was a problem with the  tendon but he really couldn't say what the problem was until we had an MRI.  He gave me an order and sent me on my way.

I was able to schedule an MRI for Wednesday night at 9:30 PM.  I was happy to not have to miss work for the MRI, but still think a 9:30 PM appointment is crazy!

The maddening thing about the MRI is that you don't know anything right away.  I don't even bother asking the techs what they see because they'll never say anything.  It needs to go to the radiologist and then it gets read and then the results get sent to my doctor for review and then I get a call for a follow up appointment.

I hope I get a call for the doctor this week and can get in to see him.

The plans I made for racing this fall are slipping away.  I think Disney is mathamatically impossible from a training standpoint.

I have gotten a lot of support from the online running community and for that I am grateful.  Lots of we hope it's nothing major.  Right now, my point of view is:  I hope the doctor can look at the MRI report and say, this is what it is and this is how we can fix it.  I'm looking for a clear issue and a definitive solution, regardless of what it is.

I would like to run.  That's all.  I'm hoping the doctor can make that happen.

28 Day Get Healthy Challenge

Sometimes worlds collide.

People I know professionally turn out to be runners. Or runners I know pop up in professional situations.  One of my favorite examples of this is when @neilbearse (formerly @ninjarunner) replied to a tweet from @djwaldow.  I knew Neil as runner.  I didn't know he was a digital marketer too!

I knew DJ professionally first and then found out he was also a runner.  I had the pleasure of running with DJ in Miami a few years ago.  Good times!

From time to time DJ organizes a challenge of some sort.  Last year there was a core and crunches challenge and there have been a few additional challenges that I haven't participated in.

Starting Monday, August 13th DJ has a new challenge kicking off.  The 28 Day Get Healthy Challenge.  The goal of this challenge is simply to get people involved and to make steps toward getting healthy.

Read DJ's blog post  and find out what it's all about!

My goals for this challenge is to continue to lose the weight I found as a part of my ongoing ankle saga, use this time to build my base and to re-focus on my core work.

I'm in!  And I invite you to join the challenge too!