Boring - Read at your own Risk

Boring Day One: While my training friends got up early to go to the 1/2 marathon race, I got up early to go to church. Both are spiritual in nature - one takes a few hours, the other just shy of an hour. I prayed for my friends to do well and I prayed that I would heal soon and begin to join them again.

At home, I worked on putting new road-type tires on my mountain bike to make it more commuter-like. Then I cleaned that bike and my tri bike as well. Seems the Heed drink I use drips on my tri bike and is difficult to clean off - well, the cleaner I was using wouldn't get it, but plain ole water did. So I have clean bikes.

Then I planted some elephant ears in my garden and did a little weeding - got really dirty and muddy - add that to the bike grease and I'm one big mess.

Eating habits not too bad today - breakfast was a light english muffin with cheese, egg beaters, and turkey bacon. Also had some pink grapefruit. Lunch was two light hot dogs with bread, some light chips and some reduced fat chocolate chip cookies. I had a snack of mixed nuts and a banana in the afternoon and then fish, rice, salad and 1/2 ear corn for dinner. Dessert was some South Beach pudding - it's pretty good.

Here's something new I'm trying in my weight loss effort - Satiatrim - 50 calories and supposed to help you feel satisfied for 3-4 hours. It does taste pretty good - not sure that the appetitie suppression is all that good. But, I'll keep trying.

My friends had a decent race but neither got the time they were shooting for - the weather was outstanding here today. Actually saw one of my friends finish the race in a sports clip on the local news. I recorded it for her.

Today's workout - hopefully, some stretching and how about some upper body strength work? That's my plan.

Giving up the Ghost

Yesterday I volunteered at packet pick-up for the Go!St. Louis Marathon. You know, the race (1/2 marathon) that I was going to do this Sunday pre-injury. I picked up all my friends packets. And in my attempt to start thinking "green" I took our local mass transit - Metrolink. Not thinking, I went through the Expo picking up free samples of stuff for my friends bags (and mine too of course!). But then I realized, I would have to lug all this stuff back with me to the train. The station was only about 1/2 mile away - so it really wasn't all that bad.

Before I left though, it was important for me to turn in my chip - $30 fine if you didn't turn it in one way or the other. This however became the final moment, the moment at which the realization came that indeed there was no turning back, the race was not to be for me.

So that was it - with one toss, I threw the chip in the bin and the game was over. No race, no finisher's medal no finisher's hat - I really wanted that hat - no glory as I cross the finish line. Pretty dramatic stuff huh! Pretty stupid to whine about a very minor injury - after all, I can still ride my bike and swim. I can still do weights and yoga. I've gained two lbs sitting on my butt whining! This must stop!

So tomorrow while my friends are beginning their race, I will still be lying around in bed and then I will be getting my grip. I will try to run again either today or tomorrow because I don't feel too bad today. I didn't hurt too bad yesterday. I have an appointment on Monday again with the chiropractor - he really does wonders - and I don't even believe in chiropractors.

So tomorrow - it is a new day. I will begin again on my journey to lose 5 stubborn lbs (plus two more that I gained sitting around at my pity party). I will begin my journey to adapt my workouts until by old body is ready to run again.

Here's the other bummer that I'm having to deal with. There is another athlete in my age group that I've been trying to beat. I was hoping to get her last year at the Lake St. Louis triathlon (she beat me the year before), but she didn't race! She is, however, signed up to race the duathlon that I will be doing, hopefully, next Sunday. I would really like to beat her, but she is a much better runner than me and I think she might be better than me on the bike. So, without my normal running legs, I doubt I will even get close to her - which drives me crazy! But you never know, I will go out to try the best that I can with what I have - which on a good day, isn't very much.

Ok - so back to the weight loss issue. I'm going to use this journal, I am pledging to myself to use this journal to get focused again on losing some weight. I will write my progress up every day no matter how boring - anyone who stumbles upon this journal will just have to deal with it or bypass it.

I can do this if I really want to, so come on Terri, do it this time!

Today I Get to Run

April 2,2008
Yeah - a successful visit to the chiropractor and he says today I should try to run. I've been feeling pretty good and have been anxious to try it. The weather was awesome - just slightly under 60 and my training plan called for a 45 minute easy bike followed by an easy 15 minute run. Perfect! My bike ride was great - a little windy and a little cold on my face, but I couldn't wait to try running.

Post bike - change my shoes and walk down a long hill in preparation for a flat smooth trail run. I start off running and it's not bad but as I continue on, it feels like I have a bowling ball inside my leg - heavy and knotty feeling. But I keep running - I ran for twenty minutes and although it wasn't painful, it also wasn't pain free -- it was pained. My question is - is this OK? Will I need to run through a certain amount of pain before I'm back to normal - OR is is wrong to run with any pain.

Being that I'm almost 55, pretty much everything I do causes some sort of discomfort followed by some pain later and the next day -but it's that good kind of pain that says, I worked those muscles pretty good today.

DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME. After I got home, I put an ice pack inside my bike shorts for 10 minutes. It was so cold that it felt like it was burning - you know what, I think it was burning!! Here's a helpful hint - don't put one of those freezer packs on your bare skin. I ate dinner and didn't really feel too bad - so that was sounding good. After sitting around working on my laptop, I stood up and the pain was just as bad as it had ever been. I had difficulty sleeping because everytime I turned - no matter which direction - it hurt!

April 3, 2008
I limped around all day today - this is not good. I think I'm back to where I was with the original injury and only ran 20 minutes! There's no way I could do a half marathon this Sunday - glad I decided that I wouldn't do it - I would've been severely disappointed.

Later in the evening, the pain has begun to dissipate somewhat - maybe it's not as bad as it originally was - maybe I'm a little better - we'll see. I really hate this!

And the Pain Goes On, the Pain Goes On

Eight days later and really no improvement. Saw the wizard chiropractor who says he can get me "fixed" for the 1/2 marathon this Sunday - that would now be 5 days away. He said I could run, he said it would probably hurt, he said I might not finish - but I could try. At first, I was elated with this news but as I reflected last night and pondered and worried, I decided that I needed to make a decision (can you decide to decide?). But I couldn't get beyond the pondering on my own, so I emailed my coach. I hardly ever have questions, but lately, I've been pretty annoying. So I asked him his opinion and he said not to risk it.

So, probably for the first time this year, I'm listening to my coach and have decided not to run this Sunday. Done - decision made - no turning back on this one. Rationalization - coach says no, don't want to risk the entire season on one "C" priority race, there will be other races.

So you know what, now I feel better. Maybe releasing the stress of trying to figure out how I would pull off this 1/2 marathon in my current condition, was actually making it worse.

I still don't know how I would deal with a lingering injury or one where your activity would be really limited - at least I can still bike and swim for now. The worse part is, I'm such a whiner about it. There are people who are in way worse shape than I am and yet I'm just concerned with me. I should be happy that I'm not severely impacted - and so I will be. Happy that I've made a decision to heal for a little while longer and be thankful that I should heal fairly soon.

Pain in the Hip

I am so fortunate to be able to train and compete at my age without serious injury. In fact, I've rarely had an injury that keeps me from my training. Is it because I don't push the envelope?

Well, last week I was pushing to do some outstanding intervals on my fartlek run. I have a half marathon coming up in 2 weeks (yikes!) and although it's not an A race, I would like to run a PR. Is it important - I say No, but inside I say Yes. So in trying so hard, I have hurt my right hip. I don't know why - but it made me cry. And now I'm worried that I won't recover in time to run/finish the half marathon in 2, count them 2 weeks.

What do you do? Since I never really have to cope with an injury - how do you cope with an injury? If it hadn't hurt so bad, there is no way I would've been sitting in my house on a sunny 65 degree day - but I couldn't really move - that's how bad it hurt.

I've been really motivated by other athletes' blogs - where they are taking it to the next level, finding the wizard, breaking through.... I don't think I've really worked very hard at hitting those types of levels because honestly, I really hate pain. But, I really am competitive enough to try to improve every race and not improving actually is a different kind of pain that might be worse than the physical.

For me, every workout provides some type of pain. At 54 years, getting out of bed causes some discomfort. Hell, laying in bed causes some discomfort - but it's not the kind of pain that you worry about. I didn't really feel like I was pushing all that hard when running - but I became injured nonetheless. So how do you find that happy medium? What is the secret?