Howdy.
Here I am, delinquent again. Things have been insane around here this fall. Since the marathon I've worked a lot, begun my reconstruction, traveled a lot, and hardly run at all.
The first step of my reconstructive surgery was on 10/25. Briefly, the doctor placed tissue expanders under the pectoralis major muscle on each side, which also required "releasing" part of the muscle from its attachment to my chest wall. This was not an overly pleasant process. Those expanders had 50cc of saline in them, and I've been going back approximately weekly to have 30cc more injected. Those injections involve finding the metal port in each expander with a magnet, inserting a needle (which I'm sure is scary, but have thus far managed to avoid looking at), and slowly injecting the fluid. I feel sore for a few days after each fill, kind of like I've done too many pushups, but since about 2 weeks after the initial surgery it hasn't felt bad. At this point I don't even need Advil after the fills, though I did need vicodin and valium quite regularly after the initial surgery. Once my expanders are full and my muscles have had time to adapt, I'll have a second surgery to swap out the expanders for permanent implants. Then it'll be a few more weeks of recovery and I should be back to normal.
Travel has involved trips to NC and PA which left me feeling like I'd been traveling continuously for 2 weeks, and if I have to travel more I might consider setting up a campsite in Chicago O'Hare. After all, I seem to be delayed for several hours every time I fly through there.
Running has been low by necessity. After my surgery I was expecting to be off running for about 6 weeks. Two weeks in, the doctor told me I was healing very well and could try running if I wanted to. I didn't feel right about it so I waited, but the following weekend stress was taking its toll and I just had to try. It didn't feel so great...really, you don't realize how much you use a muscle until it's sore. I waited a bit longer, and then tried again on Thanksgiving day. This time the only thing that hurt was my stomach from all the food I'd eaten earlier that day. The next day I ran again....and then there was another week of travel during which I didn't run at all.
So, I'm back to the blog in an attempt to hold myself accountable to something. Running will still be hit and miss, I think, until I get through this process and start to feel more like myself again. I'll do it some, though. Really I just need to be more consistent with getting in any exercise at all, so I'm making it a goal to get out for a real walk, not just a stroll, 4 times this week. I'm also going to try yoga, but to be quite honest I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it yet. For this week, I'll just make it a goal to try once and see how it goes.
So there we go. This week, 4 walks and 1 attempt at yoga, plus hopefully some running. And more travel, this time to see Doug's family in Illinois.
Happy running.
Showing posts with label recovery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recovery. Show all posts
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
2011 Race for the Cure
This was my third Race for the Cure since being diagnosed 2 years ago (on 4/20/09). The first year I was only 6 days post-diagnosis and I was a mental wreck. Last year, a few days past my one-year anniversary, I went out with the intention of running a PR and winning the Survivor division. I met one of the goals – to win the division – and ran about 50 seconds off my PR. Not bad really, for just being a few months back into running, and running in such an emotional race.
This year, for a while, I had hoped to maybe finally get that new PR. My current one is from 11/08 and has been begging for a shellacking for a while now. I did great training all summer – 400m repeats at <6:30 pace, regular daily runs around 8 min...
And then life hit. Comprehensive exams, teaching two classes a semester (and taking my own), trying to write a dissertation. Running all but came to a screeching halt – now I’m doing well if I run a 20-mile week. So, my PR goal went out the window.
Until last week when I ran 3.3 at a 7:45 pace (a few seconds/mile faster than my PR).
So then, this little voice in the back of my head started saying I could do it. I finally registered for the darn thing on Tuesday but spent the whole week waffling between having and not having a time goal. Somewhere in there I even considered running slowly on purpose. By the end of the week I had decided to just try my best and see what happened. If my Zen approach didn’t work, I figured I’d recruit one of my sports psych friends to do an intervention.
Fast forward to this morning. I woke up, looked up through the blinds, and saw that the sun was actually out! Then I heard the wind howling. When I took Kona out, I found it was snowing. The wind gusts were strong enough to push my skinny butt all over the sidewalk. Kona wobbled when she squatted to pee. That couldn’t be a good sign.
The race was at 2:00 so I tried to spend the morning doing schoolwork. Yeah, right. Finally it was time to get ready and Doug and I headed downtown, all bundled up. We got to the race a few minutes before the survivor stroll, but then at the last minute I decided I didn’t want to do it – it’s just too emotional. I warmed up a bit on my own then ran into a friend and warmed up some with her. Finally I made my way back to Doug, took off all my warm-ups (which made me feel very serious), and got in line. Once in line I found one of the coaches from my running club, who is also an oncology nurse, and she gave me a hug and a little pep talk. Then finally, we were off.
As with any big fundraising event, this was a crowded race. It felt like it took forever to cross the line but according to the official results it was only 15 seconds or so. For the first three blocks it was windy, but not bad. Then we turned right.
A huge gust kicked up and I actually saw everyone around me shift to the left. This continued for the whole race and even though it’s run downtown, most of the race is not between tall buildings so a lot of the time there wasn’t any shelter at all. I’d be following along behind someone, a big gust would come up, and one or both of us would get blown so we’d run into each other.
Mile 1: 7:52
At one point during the second mile I was feeling particularly bad for myself when a strong headwind came along and I decided to stop and walk. It was so much harder to walk that I only lasted a couple seconds before deciding anything was better than being out in that and the sooner I finished, the sooner I could put clothes back on. Shortly after that I considered quitting (we were only about a block from the start at that point) but decided I would really feel bad about myself if I dropped out of a 5k – especially THAT 5k. So I continued on.
Mile 2: 8:17
Please, someone, for the love of all that is holy, TURN OFF THE WIND!
Mile 3.1: 9:14 (8:23 pace)
Final time: 25:24
The first mile felt awesome – I could have kept up that pace forever if it hadn’t been for the wind. My current 5k PR was at a 7:52 pace. I have it. I freaking HAD it. Michigan in spring…
Anyway.
After the race I found Doug, put my warm-ups back on again (initially putting my pants on backwards), and got water and a banana. We wandered over to where the results were being posted and found that I’d gotten third in the survivor division. I decided that was good enough – esp. since the winner got me by about 3 min. Just then, another woman who had been standing there turned around and exclaimed, “You were here last year!” It was A, my once-a-year friend. She was diagnosed about 6 months before me and we chatted some before the race last year. Then she wound up coming in second, about a minute behind me, so we chatted some more. This year she was right behind me again and bummed that she’d just missed placing.
Shortly before they were going to do the awards ceremony, the announcer called out the name of the person who had placed second in our division. Announcer-man said they needed to verify information about one of the finishers (that person) and would have to delay the awards for a few minutes. Great because you know, it wasn’t cold at all. Fortunately A heard that announcement and decided to stick around a little while longer to see if she would get bumped up. Eventually they were ready, and called out the first place woman. I got bumped to second, and A got bumped to third!
I’ll be two years out on Wednesday and I’d like to say I feel fortunate to be here and able to run and all that, but honestly I’m still grumpy about the whole thing. It’s not that I think I’m NOT fortunate, I know I am…but I’m not grateful for cancer. One of my best friends says that she is, now. She’s a year ahead of me…maybe I’ll get there. But I’m not there yet.
Even so, it’s nice to kick its ass a little now and then.
Thanks for reading!
This year, for a while, I had hoped to maybe finally get that new PR. My current one is from 11/08 and has been begging for a shellacking for a while now. I did great training all summer – 400m repeats at <6:30 pace, regular daily runs around 8 min...
And then life hit. Comprehensive exams, teaching two classes a semester (and taking my own), trying to write a dissertation. Running all but came to a screeching halt – now I’m doing well if I run a 20-mile week. So, my PR goal went out the window.
Until last week when I ran 3.3 at a 7:45 pace (a few seconds/mile faster than my PR).
So then, this little voice in the back of my head started saying I could do it. I finally registered for the darn thing on Tuesday but spent the whole week waffling between having and not having a time goal. Somewhere in there I even considered running slowly on purpose. By the end of the week I had decided to just try my best and see what happened. If my Zen approach didn’t work, I figured I’d recruit one of my sports psych friends to do an intervention.
Fast forward to this morning. I woke up, looked up through the blinds, and saw that the sun was actually out! Then I heard the wind howling. When I took Kona out, I found it was snowing. The wind gusts were strong enough to push my skinny butt all over the sidewalk. Kona wobbled when she squatted to pee. That couldn’t be a good sign.
The race was at 2:00 so I tried to spend the morning doing schoolwork. Yeah, right. Finally it was time to get ready and Doug and I headed downtown, all bundled up. We got to the race a few minutes before the survivor stroll, but then at the last minute I decided I didn’t want to do it – it’s just too emotional. I warmed up a bit on my own then ran into a friend and warmed up some with her. Finally I made my way back to Doug, took off all my warm-ups (which made me feel very serious), and got in line. Once in line I found one of the coaches from my running club, who is also an oncology nurse, and she gave me a hug and a little pep talk. Then finally, we were off.
As with any big fundraising event, this was a crowded race. It felt like it took forever to cross the line but according to the official results it was only 15 seconds or so. For the first three blocks it was windy, but not bad. Then we turned right.
A huge gust kicked up and I actually saw everyone around me shift to the left. This continued for the whole race and even though it’s run downtown, most of the race is not between tall buildings so a lot of the time there wasn’t any shelter at all. I’d be following along behind someone, a big gust would come up, and one or both of us would get blown so we’d run into each other.
Mile 1: 7:52
At one point during the second mile I was feeling particularly bad for myself when a strong headwind came along and I decided to stop and walk. It was so much harder to walk that I only lasted a couple seconds before deciding anything was better than being out in that and the sooner I finished, the sooner I could put clothes back on. Shortly after that I considered quitting (we were only about a block from the start at that point) but decided I would really feel bad about myself if I dropped out of a 5k – especially THAT 5k. So I continued on.
Mile 2: 8:17
Please, someone, for the love of all that is holy, TURN OFF THE WIND!
Mile 3.1: 9:14 (8:23 pace)
Final time: 25:24
The first mile felt awesome – I could have kept up that pace forever if it hadn’t been for the wind. My current 5k PR was at a 7:52 pace. I have it. I freaking HAD it. Michigan in spring…
Anyway.
After the race I found Doug, put my warm-ups back on again (initially putting my pants on backwards), and got water and a banana. We wandered over to where the results were being posted and found that I’d gotten third in the survivor division. I decided that was good enough – esp. since the winner got me by about 3 min. Just then, another woman who had been standing there turned around and exclaimed, “You were here last year!” It was A, my once-a-year friend. She was diagnosed about 6 months before me and we chatted some before the race last year. Then she wound up coming in second, about a minute behind me, so we chatted some more. This year she was right behind me again and bummed that she’d just missed placing.
Shortly before they were going to do the awards ceremony, the announcer called out the name of the person who had placed second in our division. Announcer-man said they needed to verify information about one of the finishers (that person) and would have to delay the awards for a few minutes. Great because you know, it wasn’t cold at all. Fortunately A heard that announcement and decided to stick around a little while longer to see if she would get bumped up. Eventually they were ready, and called out the first place woman. I got bumped to second, and A got bumped to third!
I’ll be two years out on Wednesday and I’d like to say I feel fortunate to be here and able to run and all that, but honestly I’m still grumpy about the whole thing. It’s not that I think I’m NOT fortunate, I know I am…but I’m not grateful for cancer. One of my best friends says that she is, now. She’s a year ahead of me…maybe I’ll get there. But I’m not there yet.
Even so, it’s nice to kick its ass a little now and then.
Thanks for reading!
Monday, April 26, 2010
2010 Race for the Cure Report
Wow, I really don’t know where to begin with this report. There’s not going to be a short version, y’all are just going to have to read.
This past Tuesday, April 20, was the first anniversary of my diagnosis.Seems like a strange day to celebrate to me. Regardless, it’s been a year. A year full of doctor’s appointments, surgeries, scary drugs, fatigue…and stubbornness.I ran through the first 4 rounds of chemo and biked through 6 of the 8. The joint pain from Taxol was too much to keep running and then my hemoglobin and hematocrit tanked so that I couldn’t even bike the two miles to school. That was a sad, sad day. But stubborn as I am, I gave my body two weeks after the last chemo to work out that joint pain, and started running again on Nov 1.
For the past year, I’ve been looking ahead to this race and wanting to make a statement. A lot of that time I didn’t know if they statement would just be finishing at all, or if it would be finishing strong. I hoped for a PR and I hoped to win the survivor division. Anyone who knows anything about setting good goals would tell you that my goal of winning the division was a terrible one, and it was basically entirely out of my hands.
In January, I joined a running group organized by the local running store with the intention of slowly training for a July half marathon. It went much better than expected, and in a moment of weakness after a perfect 10 mile run, L talked me into signing up for the Riverbank Run 25k on 5/8. With that in mind, my long run mileage increased more quickly than I had planned. Talk about competing goals. In February, I ran a snowy, slippery, hilly 5k in 25:59, so I thought maybe I could beat my PR of 24:25, if I got some speed work in and everything went perfectly on race day. I did speed work exactly twice leading up to this race. With every single one of those 400s, I caught myself thinking “Seriously, I’m supposed to keep this up for 3 miles???” Negative self-talk is probably my biggest weakness, and this time around was no different. As a result, I really didn’t know what to expect today.
So, going into the race, my goals were:
A)7:30s, which would get me a very nice PR
B)7:45s, which would still get me a (smaller) PR
C)8:00s, which I decided was respectable and doable
And then of course there was the poor, totally-out-of-my-hands goal of winning the division.
Race day: The race was at 2 PM, a genuinely strange time for a race. I got up a bit before 9 this morning with the intention of working on this paper I’m supposed to be writing. Yeah, right. I practically bounced off the walls all morning. Ate some breakfast, drank some coffee, played some solitaire, and bounced bounced bounced. Finally, we left the house a bit after noon. I wanted to spend some time at the Survivor’s Tent and see if I could find the ladies from my exercise class, and also stop by the cancer center’s tent to see my nurses.
It. Was. Cold. Temps in the low 50s, wind, and threatening to rain the whole time. It was a lot of time to be standing around before the race, but that’s ok, I got to see some of the people I wanted to see. My friend M arrived around 1, and I lined up for the survivor stroll at 1:15. That was rough. Why must they play tear-jerker music for these things? I walked to the Capitol steps with the other 1-year survivors and then stood there at the top of the steps watching so many women in pink shirts walking towards me. There was one 40-year survivor. Freaking incredible. Somehow I didn’t cry, and when it was over I made my way down the steps, checked my bag, and found Doug and M. After a little trip to the porta-potties, M and I headed off for a warm-up, and then the three of us lined up way too far back in the mass of people.
Ok I know, I know. Wrap it up.
The race finally started and we were off. M said she’d follow me, so we started off weaving through an unbelievable number of people. I knew this wasn’t good, but seriously, it’s a great psychological boost to pass people like that when you’re as nervous as I was. The first mile was basically all passing people. I couldn’t focus on anything except not tripping over the curb or running smack into people. Occasionally I saw a pink survivor shirt it front of me and tried to focus on picking those off one by one. I almost ran right over the first mile marker that was right in the middle of the road.
Mile 1: 7:49. PERFECT.
In the second mile we didn’t do as much passing as in the first, and my head started to play mean games with me. M was my personal sports psychologist here – reminding me to relax, breaking the run up into segments, helping me pick people to catch. She was awesome, but I was genuinely hurting.
Mile 2: 7:55. Ugh.
The third mile sucked, that’s really all I can say. This course plays tricks on you because it sends you right behind the Capitol and then you have to turn away from it again. You can see people coming around the block and headed to the finish and you know it’s right on the other side of the building, but you can’t get there. The line of people behind us was insane, too. Just pink and white everywhere. I tried to distract myself here and M kept reminding me of all those things, but it wasn’t working out so well. Oh, if only I were better about speed work.
Mile 3.1: 9:25 (8:34 pace). Yeah….that was painful
At the finish I was sure I was going to throw up. I think that’s the first thing I said when we crossed the line, right before I picked out the spot where I was going to have my heart attack. But I neither threw up nor had a heart attack, and M and I headed off for water and the bag check. Got my bag and my camera, and headed back to cheer Doug in. He came in 2 minutes ahead of his goal and more than 4 minutes faster than last year!
M had to head home and get back to work shortly after the race, but I wanted to stay for the awards, or at least until results were posted. I had caught and passed all the pink survivor shirts I saw ahead of me. While it was possible that there were women out there without pink shirts on, or far enough ahead that I didn’t see them, I figured I had a shot. That was a cold 45 min or so standing out there, but it was worth it. Once they announced that the results were up, Doug and I walked over to check them out. I was hoping for third, knowing that my time was not so fast and would have been good for third last year. Well apparently last year’s fast women didn’t come out today, because I won!!! Take THAT, cancer.
Of course at that point we had to hang around for the awards. They did all of the fundraising awards first, and then the awards for the survivor division. The third place winner turned out to be a woman I had chatted with some before the race – she just got back from a bike tour in WV where she did over 26,000 feet of climbing – she had been hoping to make it in under 30 minutes and instead ran 26 and change for third place! It was so cool to hear them call my name and go up there and get my trophy. About 1,000 flash bulbs went off and I have no idea what the dude said to me. We also had a picture of the top 3 survivors taken.
A friend of mine took first woman overall, so we stayed for that and the two of us had our picture taken together. Then it was straight home for a hot shower and warm clothes!
Thanks for reading!!
This past Tuesday, April 20, was the first anniversary of my diagnosis.Seems like a strange day to celebrate to me. Regardless, it’s been a year. A year full of doctor’s appointments, surgeries, scary drugs, fatigue…and stubbornness.I ran through the first 4 rounds of chemo and biked through 6 of the 8. The joint pain from Taxol was too much to keep running and then my hemoglobin and hematocrit tanked so that I couldn’t even bike the two miles to school. That was a sad, sad day. But stubborn as I am, I gave my body two weeks after the last chemo to work out that joint pain, and started running again on Nov 1.
For the past year, I’ve been looking ahead to this race and wanting to make a statement. A lot of that time I didn’t know if they statement would just be finishing at all, or if it would be finishing strong. I hoped for a PR and I hoped to win the survivor division. Anyone who knows anything about setting good goals would tell you that my goal of winning the division was a terrible one, and it was basically entirely out of my hands.
In January, I joined a running group organized by the local running store with the intention of slowly training for a July half marathon. It went much better than expected, and in a moment of weakness after a perfect 10 mile run, L talked me into signing up for the Riverbank Run 25k on 5/8. With that in mind, my long run mileage increased more quickly than I had planned. Talk about competing goals. In February, I ran a snowy, slippery, hilly 5k in 25:59, so I thought maybe I could beat my PR of 24:25, if I got some speed work in and everything went perfectly on race day. I did speed work exactly twice leading up to this race. With every single one of those 400s, I caught myself thinking “Seriously, I’m supposed to keep this up for 3 miles???” Negative self-talk is probably my biggest weakness, and this time around was no different. As a result, I really didn’t know what to expect today.
So, going into the race, my goals were:
A)7:30s, which would get me a very nice PR
B)7:45s, which would still get me a (smaller) PR
C)8:00s, which I decided was respectable and doable
And then of course there was the poor, totally-out-of-my-hands goal of winning the division.
Race day: The race was at 2 PM, a genuinely strange time for a race. I got up a bit before 9 this morning with the intention of working on this paper I’m supposed to be writing. Yeah, right. I practically bounced off the walls all morning. Ate some breakfast, drank some coffee, played some solitaire, and bounced bounced bounced. Finally, we left the house a bit after noon. I wanted to spend some time at the Survivor’s Tent and see if I could find the ladies from my exercise class, and also stop by the cancer center’s tent to see my nurses.
It. Was. Cold. Temps in the low 50s, wind, and threatening to rain the whole time. It was a lot of time to be standing around before the race, but that’s ok, I got to see some of the people I wanted to see. My friend M arrived around 1, and I lined up for the survivor stroll at 1:15. That was rough. Why must they play tear-jerker music for these things? I walked to the Capitol steps with the other 1-year survivors and then stood there at the top of the steps watching so many women in pink shirts walking towards me. There was one 40-year survivor. Freaking incredible. Somehow I didn’t cry, and when it was over I made my way down the steps, checked my bag, and found Doug and M. After a little trip to the porta-potties, M and I headed off for a warm-up, and then the three of us lined up way too far back in the mass of people.
Ok I know, I know. Wrap it up.
The race finally started and we were off. M said she’d follow me, so we started off weaving through an unbelievable number of people. I knew this wasn’t good, but seriously, it’s a great psychological boost to pass people like that when you’re as nervous as I was. The first mile was basically all passing people. I couldn’t focus on anything except not tripping over the curb or running smack into people. Occasionally I saw a pink survivor shirt it front of me and tried to focus on picking those off one by one. I almost ran right over the first mile marker that was right in the middle of the road.
Mile 1: 7:49. PERFECT.
In the second mile we didn’t do as much passing as in the first, and my head started to play mean games with me. M was my personal sports psychologist here – reminding me to relax, breaking the run up into segments, helping me pick people to catch. She was awesome, but I was genuinely hurting.
Mile 2: 7:55. Ugh.
The third mile sucked, that’s really all I can say. This course plays tricks on you because it sends you right behind the Capitol and then you have to turn away from it again. You can see people coming around the block and headed to the finish and you know it’s right on the other side of the building, but you can’t get there. The line of people behind us was insane, too. Just pink and white everywhere. I tried to distract myself here and M kept reminding me of all those things, but it wasn’t working out so well. Oh, if only I were better about speed work.
Mile 3.1: 9:25 (8:34 pace). Yeah….that was painful
At the finish I was sure I was going to throw up. I think that’s the first thing I said when we crossed the line, right before I picked out the spot where I was going to have my heart attack. But I neither threw up nor had a heart attack, and M and I headed off for water and the bag check. Got my bag and my camera, and headed back to cheer Doug in. He came in 2 minutes ahead of his goal and more than 4 minutes faster than last year!
M had to head home and get back to work shortly after the race, but I wanted to stay for the awards, or at least until results were posted. I had caught and passed all the pink survivor shirts I saw ahead of me. While it was possible that there were women out there without pink shirts on, or far enough ahead that I didn’t see them, I figured I had a shot. That was a cold 45 min or so standing out there, but it was worth it. Once they announced that the results were up, Doug and I walked over to check them out. I was hoping for third, knowing that my time was not so fast and would have been good for third last year. Well apparently last year’s fast women didn’t come out today, because I won!!! Take THAT, cancer.
Of course at that point we had to hang around for the awards. They did all of the fundraising awards first, and then the awards for the survivor division. The third place winner turned out to be a woman I had chatted with some before the race – she just got back from a bike tour in WV where she did over 26,000 feet of climbing – she had been hoping to make it in under 30 minutes and instead ran 26 and change for third place! It was so cool to hear them call my name and go up there and get my trophy. About 1,000 flash bulbs went off and I have no idea what the dude said to me. We also had a picture of the top 3 survivors taken.
A friend of mine took first woman overall, so we stayed for that and the two of us had our picture taken together. Then it was straight home for a hot shower and warm clothes!
Thanks for reading!!
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Looking Back and Daydreaming
Howdy.
I promised I would report back with my March summary and an update of how April has been going. It's nearly time for my April summary, it seems, but we'll go with it.
There's something else I need to do first, though. Tuesday, April 20th will mark one year since I was diagnosed with cancer. My surgeon tells me that they count years of survival from the date of diagnosis, so there we go. I'm two days shy of being one year out, and 5 days shy of being 6 months out from chemo. The Race for the Cure is one week from today, and I guess I've decided to wear the pink shirt. I wasn't sure I would want the attention and recognition...I'm still not sure I want to walk in the "survivor parade"and maybe I won't, but I'm going to run in the pink shirt. Maybe it will have a positive effect on someone. Heck, maybe it will have a positive effect on me.
I've got a couple goals in mind for the race, but I'm going to keep them to myself for right now.
So, March:
Week 1:
Run - 15.6 miles (4 runs)
Yoga - zippo (I think?)
I ran a new route from the house over to the bike path that includes a couple good hills. Important training for the races I have planned, but not something my legs were used to. That left me sore for quite a bit longer than I expected. If I remember correctly, this was also the week it started warming up a little and I finally got to wear my new capri tights. They're every bit as wonderful as I thought they would be ;)
Week 2:
Run - 16.2 miles (4 runs)
Yoga - 1 hr
The snow melt and a good bit of rain finally flooded the river and low-lying areas, meaning that the trails along the river were also flooded and we were re-routed for our group long run. Two hilly loops through the cemetery meant I ran just 6.2 miles but felt good about it with the added intensity. Also an hour of power yoga at home, after the time change gave me a good excuse to sleep in on Sunday morning.
Week 3:
Run - 18.1 (4 runs)
Yoga - 1 hr
The week of the perfect 10 mile run. Ahhh, it was heavenly. See the post about the run if you really wanna know ;)
Week 4:
Run - 22.8 miles (5 runs)
Yoga - 1 hr
What a difference 5 runs makes. This week I slept through my long run - woke up at 7:58 and knew I wouldn't make it to the shop by 8, so I went back to sleep. It was a rough week, or a rough month really, at school and I think my body was just wiped out. Without running with the group I couldn't wrap my head around a 10-12 mile run alone, so I broke it up into 8.3 on Saturday and 6.0 with Mike on Sunday. Worked out well.
Week 4.5: (pesky when months don't work out to be just 4 weeks)
Run - 3.2 miles (1 run on the 31st)
Total:
Run - 76 miles (18 runs)
Yoga - 3 hours
A good month!
The Daydreaming:
The semester is coming to an end and while there's a ton of work ahead of me between now and then, and while I'll be spending the summer studying for comps, there are several things I'm looking forward to. In no particular order:
Sun
Sundresses
Gardening
Sleeping
Camping trips
Pete & Carrie's wedding
Seeing some NC friends
Growing my hair
Dying my hair
Swimming
Biking
Dinners outside
Walks with Kona
ACSM in Baltimore
NOT HAVING CLASS
Come on, Summer!
I promised I would report back with my March summary and an update of how April has been going. It's nearly time for my April summary, it seems, but we'll go with it.
There's something else I need to do first, though. Tuesday, April 20th will mark one year since I was diagnosed with cancer. My surgeon tells me that they count years of survival from the date of diagnosis, so there we go. I'm two days shy of being one year out, and 5 days shy of being 6 months out from chemo. The Race for the Cure is one week from today, and I guess I've decided to wear the pink shirt. I wasn't sure I would want the attention and recognition...I'm still not sure I want to walk in the "survivor parade"and maybe I won't, but I'm going to run in the pink shirt. Maybe it will have a positive effect on someone. Heck, maybe it will have a positive effect on me.
I've got a couple goals in mind for the race, but I'm going to keep them to myself for right now.
So, March:
Week 1:
Run - 15.6 miles (4 runs)
Yoga - zippo (I think?)
I ran a new route from the house over to the bike path that includes a couple good hills. Important training for the races I have planned, but not something my legs were used to. That left me sore for quite a bit longer than I expected. If I remember correctly, this was also the week it started warming up a little and I finally got to wear my new capri tights. They're every bit as wonderful as I thought they would be ;)
Week 2:
Run - 16.2 miles (4 runs)
Yoga - 1 hr
The snow melt and a good bit of rain finally flooded the river and low-lying areas, meaning that the trails along the river were also flooded and we were re-routed for our group long run. Two hilly loops through the cemetery meant I ran just 6.2 miles but felt good about it with the added intensity. Also an hour of power yoga at home, after the time change gave me a good excuse to sleep in on Sunday morning.
Week 3:
Run - 18.1 (4 runs)
Yoga - 1 hr
The week of the perfect 10 mile run. Ahhh, it was heavenly. See the post about the run if you really wanna know ;)
Week 4:
Run - 22.8 miles (5 runs)
Yoga - 1 hr
What a difference 5 runs makes. This week I slept through my long run - woke up at 7:58 and knew I wouldn't make it to the shop by 8, so I went back to sleep. It was a rough week, or a rough month really, at school and I think my body was just wiped out. Without running with the group I couldn't wrap my head around a 10-12 mile run alone, so I broke it up into 8.3 on Saturday and 6.0 with Mike on Sunday. Worked out well.
Week 4.5: (pesky when months don't work out to be just 4 weeks)
Run - 3.2 miles (1 run on the 31st)
Total:
Run - 76 miles (18 runs)
Yoga - 3 hours
A good month!
The Daydreaming:
The semester is coming to an end and while there's a ton of work ahead of me between now and then, and while I'll be spending the summer studying for comps, there are several things I'm looking forward to. In no particular order:
Sun
Sundresses
Gardening
Sleeping
Camping trips
Pete & Carrie's wedding
Seeing some NC friends
Growing my hair
Dying my hair
Swimming
Biking
Dinners outside
Walks with Kona
ACSM in Baltimore
NOT HAVING CLASS
Come on, Summer!
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Some Runs are Perfect
And sometimes, you really don't expect it when you start.
I slept horribly last night. Awake at 1, 2, 3...you get the idea. When the alarm went off at 6:30, I was sure it had just been 3:00 five minutes before. Hit snooze a couple times and then begrudgingly got out of bed. I moped around while I drank coffee and ate some breakfast, and then headed out.
Of course it's been in the 60s and sunny all week and when I walked out this morning it was cold. I was wearing capri tights, a short sleeved shirt, and a jacket (because I did know it might rain) but decided to run back in and add a long sleeved shirt and mittens. Good thinking...should have added long tights, too. Pulled out of the driveway and noticed little droplets on the windshield. Fabulous. Pulled into the parking lot at the running store and noticed....
Snowflakes.
Did you know today is the first day of spring? Yeah.
So I went in the store, moping moping moping, and stood around until they sent us off. Starting out I was right behind a group of women who were going slower than I had intended and I thought about passing them. Then, Smart Emily appeared and I remembered that I've really been doing my longs runs too fast, so I asked that group if I could join in. They were aiming for an 11 min pace which was slower than what I thought we were doing, but I decided to hang with them and just enjoy being comfortable. They were heading out for 13 and I was planning 8, so I knew I'd still have a lot of time to myself.
The four mile mark was drawing near and I felt really good, so I decided to do 10. Good thing Smart Emily came out today, because Notsosmart Emily had been considering just staying with that group to do 13. The 5 mile mark came in 53:04 - a 10:37 pace, so I was right that we were going a little faster. Smart Emily bid the ladies farewell and turned around.
I knew I had a lot left in the tank and figured it was fine to pick it up for the second half. The first 3 - 3.5 I ran alone, but kept a pretty even gap with the woman in front of me so I figured we were going about the same place. By the time we hit the aid station with somewhere between 1.5 and 2 miles left to go, I was physically fine but mentally struggling a bit. I asked if I could run along with her, and we set off for the shop. We chatted, but the whole time we were running along I kept thinking she was going faster than I thought, really pushing me, and I might have to slow back down. Later I found out she was thinking the same thing! Funny how two people can push each other like that without even realizing it. We were pumped by the time we made it back to the shop - what a way to end a run! Total time for the second half was 44:47 - an 8:57 pace! What's best about it is how great I felt.
R, the woman I ran those last couple miles with, kept commenting what a great day it was to run and how she hadn't expected that at all. I have to agree! I was so grumpy this morning and then the snow just took the cake. Through that whole run, I watched the ground get whiter and whiter as my lower legs got colder and colder. Even so, I ran so strong today.
Just. Perfect.
I slept horribly last night. Awake at 1, 2, 3...you get the idea. When the alarm went off at 6:30, I was sure it had just been 3:00 five minutes before. Hit snooze a couple times and then begrudgingly got out of bed. I moped around while I drank coffee and ate some breakfast, and then headed out.
Of course it's been in the 60s and sunny all week and when I walked out this morning it was cold. I was wearing capri tights, a short sleeved shirt, and a jacket (because I did know it might rain) but decided to run back in and add a long sleeved shirt and mittens. Good thinking...should have added long tights, too. Pulled out of the driveway and noticed little droplets on the windshield. Fabulous. Pulled into the parking lot at the running store and noticed....
Snowflakes.
Did you know today is the first day of spring? Yeah.
So I went in the store, moping moping moping, and stood around until they sent us off. Starting out I was right behind a group of women who were going slower than I had intended and I thought about passing them. Then, Smart Emily appeared and I remembered that I've really been doing my longs runs too fast, so I asked that group if I could join in. They were aiming for an 11 min pace which was slower than what I thought we were doing, but I decided to hang with them and just enjoy being comfortable. They were heading out for 13 and I was planning 8, so I knew I'd still have a lot of time to myself.
The four mile mark was drawing near and I felt really good, so I decided to do 10. Good thing Smart Emily came out today, because Notsosmart Emily had been considering just staying with that group to do 13. The 5 mile mark came in 53:04 - a 10:37 pace, so I was right that we were going a little faster. Smart Emily bid the ladies farewell and turned around.
I knew I had a lot left in the tank and figured it was fine to pick it up for the second half. The first 3 - 3.5 I ran alone, but kept a pretty even gap with the woman in front of me so I figured we were going about the same place. By the time we hit the aid station with somewhere between 1.5 and 2 miles left to go, I was physically fine but mentally struggling a bit. I asked if I could run along with her, and we set off for the shop. We chatted, but the whole time we were running along I kept thinking she was going faster than I thought, really pushing me, and I might have to slow back down. Later I found out she was thinking the same thing! Funny how two people can push each other like that without even realizing it. We were pumped by the time we made it back to the shop - what a way to end a run! Total time for the second half was 44:47 - an 8:57 pace! What's best about it is how great I felt.
R, the woman I ran those last couple miles with, kept commenting what a great day it was to run and how she hadn't expected that at all. I have to agree! I was so grumpy this morning and then the snow just took the cake. Through that whole run, I watched the ground get whiter and whiter as my lower legs got colder and colder. Even so, I ran so strong today.
Just. Perfect.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
February Wrap-up
Howdy, Friends!
I know, I know. I'm late with the February wrap-up. I was busy! And then it was spring break and I was enjoying that, as I should. So. Now that break is almost over I have some school work I'd rather not work on, so what better time to update the blog?
February was a decent month, if a busy one. I was a bit under the weather at the beginning of the month and that slowed me down a bit for a couple weeks but did not stop me from running a good 5k on the 20th. I also got my long run up to 8 miles, but have since dropped back to 6-7 while I increase my overall weekly mileage. Skiing was sporadic - sometimes we had snow, sometimes we didn't.
Week 1: (two days out of town at a conference)
Run - 13.6 miles (3 runs)
Ski - 6.5 miles (2 outings)
Yoga - 1 hr
Week 2: the week of the winter crud
Run - 11.0 miles (3 runs)
Ski - 13.2 miles (3 outings)
Shortened my long run to 5 miles and skipped yoga
Week 3: race week
Run - 9.5 miles (3 runs)
Ski - zippo
Raced a 5k that Saturday, watch time was 25:59. We never got official times due to a timing system malfunction. Incidentally, in March of 2008 I ran my first sub-30 5k, at 25:53. It's a nice feeling to be "back there" only 4 months after finishing chemotherapy. Travel at the end of the week and sickness at the beginning shot my mileage and kept me from skiing.
Week 4:
Run - 15.2 miles (4 runs)
Ski - somewhere between 6-8 miles (1 outing)
Yoga - 1 hr
Felt much better and bumped up the running mileage since I didn't ski as much.
Total:
Run - 49.2 miles
Ski - 26ish miles
Yoga - 2 hrs (hmm. seemed like more than that)
This month my weekly mileage is inching up now that the snow is all gone. The sun this week has been nice, but I have to admit that I'll be sad if I don't get to ski again this winter. After all, I just got racing skis! Stay tuned til next winter for adventures in XC ski racing...
I know, I know. I'm late with the February wrap-up. I was busy! And then it was spring break and I was enjoying that, as I should. So. Now that break is almost over I have some school work I'd rather not work on, so what better time to update the blog?
February was a decent month, if a busy one. I was a bit under the weather at the beginning of the month and that slowed me down a bit for a couple weeks but did not stop me from running a good 5k on the 20th. I also got my long run up to 8 miles, but have since dropped back to 6-7 while I increase my overall weekly mileage. Skiing was sporadic - sometimes we had snow, sometimes we didn't.
Week 1: (two days out of town at a conference)
Run - 13.6 miles (3 runs)
Ski - 6.5 miles (2 outings)
Yoga - 1 hr
Week 2: the week of the winter crud
Run - 11.0 miles (3 runs)
Ski - 13.2 miles (3 outings)
Shortened my long run to 5 miles and skipped yoga
Week 3: race week
Run - 9.5 miles (3 runs)
Ski - zippo
Raced a 5k that Saturday, watch time was 25:59. We never got official times due to a timing system malfunction. Incidentally, in March of 2008 I ran my first sub-30 5k, at 25:53. It's a nice feeling to be "back there" only 4 months after finishing chemotherapy. Travel at the end of the week and sickness at the beginning shot my mileage and kept me from skiing.
Week 4:
Run - 15.2 miles (4 runs)
Ski - somewhere between 6-8 miles (1 outing)
Yoga - 1 hr
Felt much better and bumped up the running mileage since I didn't ski as much.
Total:
Run - 49.2 miles
Ski - 26ish miles
Yoga - 2 hrs (hmm. seemed like more than that)
This month my weekly mileage is inching up now that the snow is all gone. The sun this week has been nice, but I have to admit that I'll be sad if I don't get to ski again this winter. After all, I just got racing skis! Stay tuned til next winter for adventures in XC ski racing...
Friday, February 26, 2010
Frosty 5k - Madison, WI
Short version: Been sick for two weeks, ran hard, sounded all wheezy, slid around on slushy snow, got my ass kicked by some hills. Had a tentative time goal but threw it out the window when I saw the hills. Watch time was 25:59 (8:22 pace). I’m reasonably happy.
Extremely Long version:
So, everyone knows what the last year has been like for me. Through chemo my only zero-mile month was October, but I only ran two miles each in August and September, and started back to running on 11/1. I was really conservative for the first couple months, starting with 1 min run/1 min walk and building up the run 30 sec at a time for several weeks. I’ve been running 30+ min continuously since near the end of December and am now up to a 7-mile long run, averaging 10-15 mpw in 2010. I’ve also been doing quite a bit of cross-country skiing, some weeks 15 miles in addition to running. My fitness has improved by leaps and bounds this winter, and I think most of that credit goes to skiing – there’s no way I’d be able to do the volume I’ve been doing if I was only running, my bones and joints aren’t ready for that yet.
My tentative time goal was mostly a curiosity thing. Training runs have been going really well – easy effort well under a 9 min pace for short runs, easy long runs around 9:30. Depending on how things go I’d like to try for a fairly significant PR this spring/early summer, but it’s very difficult for me to mentally commit to a tough goal right now. Mike and I have talked about it some, and decided it would be reasonable to try for 8 min miles for this race. And you know, I knew Wisconsin was hillier than Michigan. Somehow I forgot that. We drove into town and I decided 8 min miles were not in the cards – some of you wouldn’t think much of those hills, but it looked like a lot to me!
By the time the 5k started I was totally frozen and it was snowing hard. The roads were randomly clear, then snow-covered, then incredibly slushy. I was pretty cautious for the first mile, dodging people and running gingerly through the slushy spots, down hills (a lot of down, oh was that depressing), and around corners. It was discouraging to feel as tired as I did from the very first step and my head was kind of out of it during the first mile.
Mile 1 split: 8:35
The second mile was definitely the flattest of the three. By this time I was a little surer of my footing and we were back on roads that were open to traffic, so they were a little clearer. I picked women ahead of me in the pack and picked them off one at a time, wheezing all the way and working hard but feeling pretty confident in my ability to maintain the pace for a while.
Mile 2 split: 7:26 Yeeeeeeehaw.
I was hurting at the end of that second mile but it was a manageable kind of hurt until I rounded a corner and suddenly remember all that time we spent running downhill, as a monster of a hill loomed up ahead of me. I counted 3 blocks of utter hell, Doug said he heard someone say it was 6 blocks long. We might have had a block or two of gradual hill before the wall, but I was too busy trying to talk myself into pushing up that thing to notice. It sucked, that’s all I can say. Now of course I wish I had gutted it out more, but man did it hurt at the time. I think the only hill I’ve been more relieved to have behind me was Becky’s Bluff at TA. My saving grace was that I could see the capitol dome at the top of the hill, so I knew I had to be almost there. This is where it’s tough not knowing the town – we (finally) reached the top of the hill, and I figured I had to round two corners and then the finish would be in the middle of the next block. Rounded corner one, slid, regained my balance, and tried to pick up the pace. Rounded corner two, looked ahead….no finish. Cursed the race directors for moving the finish line. Rounded corner three, finally saw the finish line, ran as hard as my little legs could go, and finally crossed the finish line.
Mile 3.1 split: 9:56 (9:05 pace) Booooo
I stood there wheezing with my hands on my knees while a volunteer cut my chip off my shoe, and then made my way over to where Doug was waiting. I leaned against him for 30 seconds or so, finally stopped wheezing, stood up, and said “They moved the fu…” And then I looked around and realized no, they didn’t move the finish line. We came up the hill on a different side of the square, 3 blocks away from the finish. Oops.
Doug and Kona also did the dog jog that took place before the 5k. Not technically a race since it wasn’t timed, but we told Kona it was her racing debut. They secured a top 10 finish!
Saturday, February 06, 2010
On to February!
Well, so far it doesn't look like my updates will be too frequent, but I'll try to get on more than every couple weeks.
January turned out to be a pretty good month, running-wise. As I mentioned in my last post, I've joined a half marathon/marathon training group organized by the local running store. Today was the 4th group run, but I missed last week's since we went to Chicago to celebrate my birthday (last one in my 20s!). So far I'm really enjoying it and I like the weekly accountability and companionship. They also offer yoga classes on Sunday mornings - tomorrow will be my second. The first was great, so I'm really looking forward to it.
Looking back on the month, the thing that sticks out at me the most is how much my pace has dropped - it's quite a bit lower than I was expecting for this point on my comeback tour. I ran about 51 miles in January (not sure of the decimal, my log rounds off and I'm just that lazy) and cross-country skied between 25 and 30. I would have liked to ski more, but there's not much I can do about the utter lack of snow fall. Unfortunately I can't say I've been any better about core work in the past couple weeks, but I do think yoga and skiing are helping in that area, so at least there's that.
Otherwise, not much has changed. I have enough hair to get some really crazy hat head after nice sweaty runs and I'm still having trouble focusing and motivating to get my school work done.
There are a couple things that are still bothering me with my health. When I start to drift off to sleep, I get this feeling that I'm falling but don't jerk back awake like you would normally expect - I just keep falling. It's disturbing and it's starting to cause anxiety and interfere with ever actually falling asleep, so my oncologist referred me to a neurologist. That appointment should be sometime in the next couple weeks. I'm also having pain and tightness in my right arm (cancer side) that seems consistent with Axillary Web Syndrome (though fortunately not as serious as in that picture), so I'll also be setting up a physical therapy appointment. I'm not really sure how that's going to effect yoga tomorrow morning, as it started last week when I didn't attend yoga, so I'll just have to pay close attention to my arm and make sure not to aggravate it. I'm obviously frustrated by both of these things and would really, really love to just move on already, but apparently my body isn't ready for that yet.
And on that note, I read a great NYT Well Blog entry on recuperating vs. recovering - of all the things I've read, this comes closest to describing where I am right now....and will be for a while, I guess:
January turned out to be a pretty good month, running-wise. As I mentioned in my last post, I've joined a half marathon/marathon training group organized by the local running store. Today was the 4th group run, but I missed last week's since we went to Chicago to celebrate my birthday (last one in my 20s!). So far I'm really enjoying it and I like the weekly accountability and companionship. They also offer yoga classes on Sunday mornings - tomorrow will be my second. The first was great, so I'm really looking forward to it.
Looking back on the month, the thing that sticks out at me the most is how much my pace has dropped - it's quite a bit lower than I was expecting for this point on my comeback tour. I ran about 51 miles in January (not sure of the decimal, my log rounds off and I'm just that lazy) and cross-country skied between 25 and 30. I would have liked to ski more, but there's not much I can do about the utter lack of snow fall. Unfortunately I can't say I've been any better about core work in the past couple weeks, but I do think yoga and skiing are helping in that area, so at least there's that.
Otherwise, not much has changed. I have enough hair to get some really crazy hat head after nice sweaty runs and I'm still having trouble focusing and motivating to get my school work done.
There are a couple things that are still bothering me with my health. When I start to drift off to sleep, I get this feeling that I'm falling but don't jerk back awake like you would normally expect - I just keep falling. It's disturbing and it's starting to cause anxiety and interfere with ever actually falling asleep, so my oncologist referred me to a neurologist. That appointment should be sometime in the next couple weeks. I'm also having pain and tightness in my right arm (cancer side) that seems consistent with Axillary Web Syndrome (though fortunately not as serious as in that picture), so I'll also be setting up a physical therapy appointment. I'm not really sure how that's going to effect yoga tomorrow morning, as it started last week when I didn't attend yoga, so I'll just have to pay close attention to my arm and make sure not to aggravate it. I'm obviously frustrated by both of these things and would really, really love to just move on already, but apparently my body isn't ready for that yet.
And on that note, I read a great NYT Well Blog entry on recuperating vs. recovering - of all the things I've read, this comes closest to describing where I am right now....and will be for a while, I guess:
After surgery and treatment, my 21st-century synapses and neurons wanted to believe that the cancer had been no more than a bump in the road toward a bright future — just a particularly nasty frost heave.
But the deepest analog part of me understood that having cancer was a life-changing event. As much as I thought I wanted to forge ahead, surge into the whirlwind of dailiness, I needed to slow way down.
The scar on my gut might have faded a bit — I had indeed recuperated — but I still needed to recover.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
First Two Weeks
So far the year is getting off to a good start. As previously mentioned, I've been trying to figure out exactly what I want to aim for this year and what the best way to approach my training is. After much hemming and hawing over the cost and the training load, I decided to join a training group run by the local running store, Playmakers. They have two groups: a 5k/10k group and a half marathon/marathon group. I went back and forth over which group would be better for me and while I was leaning towards the half/marathon group, that wound up being the only option because one of my classes meets during the other group's training time. I think the longer distance group is a better fit for me, anyway, as my long run was already up to 5 miles before the training sessions began, and I'm not sure that the shorter group would have met my goals.
So, long distance group it is. I won't be running the goal race since it is the same day as the wedding of two good friends, and actually I think that fits very well into my plan for this year. It's important that I spend a large portion of the year rebuilding my endurance and strength. As much as I enjoy racing and find that somewhat frequent racing helps keep me motivated, I need to be careful not to stress my body too much and wind up going backwards. Sometimes it's difficult to remember that I'm not just recovering from an injury - my body was poisoned, repeatedly, for months. This is going to take some time. As a result, I'm using this training session as an opportunity to rebuild my base with some built-in support and peer pressure to get out there and get the miles in. It will also be a great way for me to meet new people in the area and start branching out into new social circles that are not related to school.
This is turning into more of a rambling post than I had intended, so I'll try to rein it in. Here's a summary of the first couple weeks of January:
Week of 1/4 - 1/10:
Monday: Rest day!
Tuesday: Doug's birthday - we went skiing to celebrate. Skied a total of 4.2 miles and then ran 2 miles with Kona on snowy, slippery sidewalks. Very tired legs.
Wednesday: Unscheduled rest day. Wasn't feeling well at all - guess that's still going to happen sometimes.
Thursday: Ran 3.03 with Kona in the middle of the snowstorm. Ours were the first tracks on the path - perfect. Also 45 min of strength/core on Wii fit.
Friday: Skied 3.2 miles with Doug
Saturday: Skied 2.4 miles with a friend
Sunday: Skied ~ 5 miles with Kona. She was a very well-behaved pup! Only pulled me over once.
Total: 5.03 miles running, 14.8 miles skiing. That's a lot of skiing.
Week of 1/11 - 1/17:
Monday: 30 min/3 miles around town with my friend Mike. I was sluggish from a full day on campus (that still really wears me out) and it had been snowing all day, which made for some really slick surfaces.
Tuesday: Rest day!
Wednesay: Cross country skied ~ 3 miles with the pup, not great snow but that's ok. A bit over half way through our loop two deer ran not 15 yards in front of us. So cool and fortunately, Kona listened to me when I growled at her to stay. I'll stick a picture of the deer at the bottom of this post.
Thursday: Ran 3.0 with Kona. A few degrees warmer (no jacket!) and mostly clear sidewalks.
Friday: skied about 7k in Muskegon. That was interesting. To say that Muskegon is hillier than Lansing would be an understatement, and the recent warmer weather meant slushy and sometimes icy trails. Lots of fun regardless.
Saturday: First group long run: 5.0 in 49:10. That's a 9:50 pace, ladies and gents.
Sunday: A nice, sunny, warm 3.4 with Kona; 9:00 pace. What a difference clear sidewalks make!
Total: 14.4 miles running and about 12k skiing. Clearly I totally skipped out on core work, that's something I need to make more of an effort on.
This week has been a mixed bag so far. My stomach has been just kind of off for about a week now. I've been able to function fine, but yesterday added a headache and more general ickiness to the mix, so today I stayed home sick and have felt even worse. I switched today's planned 3 miles with tomorrow's planned rest day, but if I'm not feeling better I'll just have to take an extra rest day this week. No biggie except that I'm ready to kick whatever this bug is!
And oh yes, school has started. Boo hiss.
So, long distance group it is. I won't be running the goal race since it is the same day as the wedding of two good friends, and actually I think that fits very well into my plan for this year. It's important that I spend a large portion of the year rebuilding my endurance and strength. As much as I enjoy racing and find that somewhat frequent racing helps keep me motivated, I need to be careful not to stress my body too much and wind up going backwards. Sometimes it's difficult to remember that I'm not just recovering from an injury - my body was poisoned, repeatedly, for months. This is going to take some time. As a result, I'm using this training session as an opportunity to rebuild my base with some built-in support and peer pressure to get out there and get the miles in. It will also be a great way for me to meet new people in the area and start branching out into new social circles that are not related to school.
This is turning into more of a rambling post than I had intended, so I'll try to rein it in. Here's a summary of the first couple weeks of January:
Week of 1/4 - 1/10:
Monday: Rest day!
Tuesday: Doug's birthday - we went skiing to celebrate. Skied a total of 4.2 miles and then ran 2 miles with Kona on snowy, slippery sidewalks. Very tired legs.
Wednesday: Unscheduled rest day. Wasn't feeling well at all - guess that's still going to happen sometimes.
Thursday: Ran 3.03 with Kona in the middle of the snowstorm. Ours were the first tracks on the path - perfect. Also 45 min of strength/core on Wii fit.
Friday: Skied 3.2 miles with Doug
Saturday: Skied 2.4 miles with a friend
Sunday: Skied ~ 5 miles with Kona. She was a very well-behaved pup! Only pulled me over once.
Total: 5.03 miles running, 14.8 miles skiing. That's a lot of skiing.
Week of 1/11 - 1/17:
Tuesday: Rest day!
Wednesay: Cross country skied ~ 3 miles with the pup, not great snow but that's ok. A bit over half way through our loop two deer ran not 15 yards in front of us. So cool and fortunately, Kona listened to me when I growled at her to stay. I'll stick a picture of the deer at the bottom of this post.
Thursday: Ran 3.0 with Kona. A few degrees warmer (no jacket!) and mostly clear sidewalks.
Friday: skied about 7k in Muskegon. That was interesting. To say that Muskegon is hillier than Lansing would be an understatement, and the recent warmer weather meant slushy and sometimes icy trails. Lots of fun regardless.
Saturday: First group long run: 5.0 in 49:10. That's a 9:50 pace, ladies and gents.
Sunday: A nice, sunny, warm 3.4 with Kona; 9:00 pace. What a difference clear sidewalks make!
Total: 14.4 miles running and about 12k skiing. Clearly I totally skipped out on core work, that's something I need to make more of an effort on.
This week has been a mixed bag so far. My stomach has been just kind of off for about a week now. I've been able to function fine, but yesterday added a headache and more general ickiness to the mix, so today I stayed home sick and have felt even worse. I switched today's planned 3 miles with tomorrow's planned rest day, but if I'm not feeling better I'll just have to take an extra rest day this week. No biggie except that I'm ready to kick whatever this bug is!
And oh yes, school has started. Boo hiss.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Refocusing...Again
Howdy.
Obviously it's been a long time since I last posted on this blog. In the past few months I've gone back and forth over whether I should explain or just let it go since this blog isn't private. I keep coming back to this part of this post, still waffling over what to say. So, I'll just spit it out in the hopes that maybe sometime, somewhere, this blog can help someone like me.
On April 20, 2009, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I found a lump in the shower in March, had ultrasounds and mammograms and biopsies, was diagnosed in April, had surgery in May, started chemo in July, and finished chemo in October. The important thing is that I'm fine now and my body tolerated chemo very well, compared to what other people sometimes go through. I didn't have to take time off school and although I didn't accomplish everything I wanted to this semester I actually was pretty productive, thinking back on it.
For the most part, I was able to run through treatment, but my motivation took a big hit. Finally, in August, chemo just got to me and I couldn't run anymore. I did manage to continue bike commuting until mid-October, which is something I'm proud of (and looking forward to getting back to, when the snow and ice is gone).
There. Now you're up to speed and we can move on.
Thinking back, this blog has really been a few different blogs under one address. When I first started writing, I didn't really have a direction and just sort of wrote about whatever came to mind. Then, I decided to really focus on improving my running and the blog became somewhat of a journal about that with other random information thrown in as well. Now we're moving into version 3, I guess. Starting over, almost from scratch.
I ended 2008 with a post reviewing the year. I'm not going to do exactly that this year, but here's a short review of my running in 2009:
Goals for the year, at the beginning of the year:
-- run 1200 miles
--sub-22 min 5k in the summer
--my first full marathon in Detroit in October.
January:
Snow, snow, and more snow. The consistency I developed in 2008 started to suffer as my body learned to deal with running on snow. Near the beginning of the month I started having what I thought was piriformis pain that turned out to be a minor disc injury at L3 and possibly S1. I also found out that I have a minor leg-length discrepancy and started running with a OTC cushioning insole in my left shoe to even things out. That turned out not to be a good idea. Anyway. I took a good bit of time off at the beginning of the month trying to deal with all that.
Total: 45.4 miles
February:
The snow continued and we got out to cross-country ski a few times. I so love that sport and cannot wait to get started again! My back acted up off and on, but for the most part this was a relatively healthy month. On February 13th I did a VO2max test in my nutrition class, maxing out at about 47 ml/kg/min. An improvement over the previous summer, but I sort of wish I had known what it was in November of 2008.
Total: 59.6 miles
March:
Started the month off sick (running logs are so helpful - I don't remember any of this!). This was seriously the sinus infection from hell. I spent the second week of the month in NC on Spring Break - it was fabulous, except that I was sick the whole time. I only ran 3 times from 3/1 - 3/14 and was finally able to start back up in earnest on 3/15. The stress of my medical issues started to hit at the end of the month and just spiraled downhill from there.
Total: 37.75 miles
April:
Yeah, this month wasn't good. Running really can be such a mental sport sometimes and my mind just wasn't in it. I took a few days off after my biopsy but when the results came back, I dealt with it by running. At least at first. The day after I found out, I took Kona for a run on the trails at the lake and just pounded those miles out. By the end of that week I was overwhelmed and terrified and it showed when I ran the Race for the Cure a mere 6 days after diagnosis. Talk about a mental battle. That was my slowest 5k in two years at 28:34.
Total: 32.25 miles
I'm not even going to bother reviewing my running from May through October. During that time, I ran a total of 70.5 with at least 2.5 (yep, 2.5) every month except October, when I didn't run any. By the end of chemo my hemoglobin was down almost to the level where they would have tranfused a "non-athlete" (according to my PA) and the chemo drug I was on was causing a lot of joint pain. My last treatment was 10/23 and on Nov 1, I started running again. So:
November:
This was a difficult month to try to get back into it. How is it that every semester we manage to forget how hard those last 6 weeks or so are? During chemo I napped a lot. At the very least, I got a short nap nearly every day - some days I napped for 3-4 hours. When it was all over, I somehow expected to just be better. Immediately. Um, not exactly. But anyway, this is supposed to be about running.
I started back with a loose run/walk program, starting with 1 min running/1 min walking. Each day, I increased the run interval by 30 sec to 1 min, depending on how I felt I was progressing. The goal was to get out there every other day and sometimes that worked out. It became clear pretty quickly that full days on campus didn't leave me with enough energy to run well so I started doing most of my running on the days I could stay home from campus, and there weren't many of those.
Total: 29.2 miles
December:
It doesn't really seem fair to write about December since it isn't over yet, but that's ok. The first couple weeks were really tough and the amount of work I did really put that last, hellish semester of my masters to shame. Aside from the days that I just didn't have the energy to get out there, this has been a good month so far. At the beginning of the month I was up to 8:00 Run/1:00 walk. That run interval increased gradually until 12/16 when I felt great and decided to just keep going - for 2 miles in 19:33. That's the same day I found out that my hemoglobin is back up to normal (basically, 11.9) - placebo effect, anyone? Yesterday's run was an incredibly fun adventure on snowy trails with Kona - easily one of my favorite runs of all time.
Total (so far): 25.3 miles with about 2 weeks (OF VACATION!!!) to go.
So, bring on 2010. I'm ready to put 2009 behind me and to come back stronger. At the risk of sounding overly cheesy, I'm going to beat cancer by becoming stronger than I've ever been. Goals for 2010 are still being developed so there will be a post about those later, but at the very least I'm going to spend the winter getting my consistency back with my eye on the Dances With Dirt Half Marathon in July (in WI).
Obviously it's been a long time since I last posted on this blog. In the past few months I've gone back and forth over whether I should explain or just let it go since this blog isn't private. I keep coming back to this part of this post, still waffling over what to say. So, I'll just spit it out in the hopes that maybe sometime, somewhere, this blog can help someone like me.
On April 20, 2009, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I found a lump in the shower in March, had ultrasounds and mammograms and biopsies, was diagnosed in April, had surgery in May, started chemo in July, and finished chemo in October. The important thing is that I'm fine now and my body tolerated chemo very well, compared to what other people sometimes go through. I didn't have to take time off school and although I didn't accomplish everything I wanted to this semester I actually was pretty productive, thinking back on it.
For the most part, I was able to run through treatment, but my motivation took a big hit. Finally, in August, chemo just got to me and I couldn't run anymore. I did manage to continue bike commuting until mid-October, which is something I'm proud of (and looking forward to getting back to, when the snow and ice is gone).
There. Now you're up to speed and we can move on.
Thinking back, this blog has really been a few different blogs under one address. When I first started writing, I didn't really have a direction and just sort of wrote about whatever came to mind. Then, I decided to really focus on improving my running and the blog became somewhat of a journal about that with other random information thrown in as well. Now we're moving into version 3, I guess. Starting over, almost from scratch.
I ended 2008 with a post reviewing the year. I'm not going to do exactly that this year, but here's a short review of my running in 2009:
Goals for the year, at the beginning of the year:
-- run 1200 miles
--sub-22 min 5k in the summer
--my first full marathon in Detroit in October.
January:
Snow, snow, and more snow. The consistency I developed in 2008 started to suffer as my body learned to deal with running on snow. Near the beginning of the month I started having what I thought was piriformis pain that turned out to be a minor disc injury at L3 and possibly S1. I also found out that I have a minor leg-length discrepancy and started running with a OTC cushioning insole in my left shoe to even things out. That turned out not to be a good idea. Anyway. I took a good bit of time off at the beginning of the month trying to deal with all that.
Total: 45.4 miles
February:
The snow continued and we got out to cross-country ski a few times. I so love that sport and cannot wait to get started again! My back acted up off and on, but for the most part this was a relatively healthy month. On February 13th I did a VO2max test in my nutrition class, maxing out at about 47 ml/kg/min. An improvement over the previous summer, but I sort of wish I had known what it was in November of 2008.
Total: 59.6 miles
March:
Started the month off sick (running logs are so helpful - I don't remember any of this!). This was seriously the sinus infection from hell. I spent the second week of the month in NC on Spring Break - it was fabulous, except that I was sick the whole time. I only ran 3 times from 3/1 - 3/14 and was finally able to start back up in earnest on 3/15. The stress of my medical issues started to hit at the end of the month and just spiraled downhill from there.
Total: 37.75 miles
April:
Yeah, this month wasn't good. Running really can be such a mental sport sometimes and my mind just wasn't in it. I took a few days off after my biopsy but when the results came back, I dealt with it by running. At least at first. The day after I found out, I took Kona for a run on the trails at the lake and just pounded those miles out. By the end of that week I was overwhelmed and terrified and it showed when I ran the Race for the Cure a mere 6 days after diagnosis. Talk about a mental battle. That was my slowest 5k in two years at 28:34.
Total: 32.25 miles
I'm not even going to bother reviewing my running from May through October. During that time, I ran a total of 70.5 with at least 2.5 (yep, 2.5) every month except October, when I didn't run any. By the end of chemo my hemoglobin was down almost to the level where they would have tranfused a "non-athlete" (according to my PA) and the chemo drug I was on was causing a lot of joint pain. My last treatment was 10/23 and on Nov 1, I started running again. So:
November:
This was a difficult month to try to get back into it. How is it that every semester we manage to forget how hard those last 6 weeks or so are? During chemo I napped a lot. At the very least, I got a short nap nearly every day - some days I napped for 3-4 hours. When it was all over, I somehow expected to just be better. Immediately. Um, not exactly. But anyway, this is supposed to be about running.
I started back with a loose run/walk program, starting with 1 min running/1 min walking. Each day, I increased the run interval by 30 sec to 1 min, depending on how I felt I was progressing. The goal was to get out there every other day and sometimes that worked out. It became clear pretty quickly that full days on campus didn't leave me with enough energy to run well so I started doing most of my running on the days I could stay home from campus, and there weren't many of those.
Total: 29.2 miles
December:
It doesn't really seem fair to write about December since it isn't over yet, but that's ok. The first couple weeks were really tough and the amount of work I did really put that last, hellish semester of my masters to shame. Aside from the days that I just didn't have the energy to get out there, this has been a good month so far. At the beginning of the month I was up to 8:00 Run/1:00 walk. That run interval increased gradually until 12/16 when I felt great and decided to just keep going - for 2 miles in 19:33. That's the same day I found out that my hemoglobin is back up to normal (basically, 11.9) - placebo effect, anyone? Yesterday's run was an incredibly fun adventure on snowy trails with Kona - easily one of my favorite runs of all time.
Total (so far): 25.3 miles with about 2 weeks (OF VACATION!!!) to go.
So, bring on 2010. I'm ready to put 2009 behind me and to come back stronger. At the risk of sounding overly cheesy, I'm going to beat cancer by becoming stronger than I've ever been. Goals for 2010 are still being developed so there will be a post about those later, but at the very least I'm going to spend the winter getting my consistency back with my eye on the Dances With Dirt Half Marathon in July (in WI).
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