Lullwater

This is where I’ll be running the Kids Chance 5K tomorrow morning, God willing. And I think I’m going to need God on this one. My heart is faltering a bit more than I’d like. Despite the new shoes my shins were really hurting after Thursday’s workout which was a pretty simple circuit routine since it was Bring a Friend Day so hardly any pavement running at all. And emotionally my heart feels very defeated. Hardly an ideal frame of mind. But when I searched for images of the park and saw this one I felt somewhat reassured. Perhaps I’ll be able to let go of some of the angst that has been gripping so tight when I’m steeped in a place of such beauty. And history. This park is right behind my old high school. And behind the VA Hospital where I volunteered as a teenager. And behind, on the other side, the primate research facility where I worked one summer in college. I have spent a lot of time in that park. Skipping school and crossing the railroad tracks to burst into the freedom of the sheltering forest. Shyly walking hand in hand with boys I liked, or simply coveting their attention amongst a larger group. Striding with defiance, alone, rejecting the “establishment” of my family and my school for the wild ache of adolescence. Ambling in quiet, yet strident contemplation of my place in the world during that summer of college, feeling like surely no one before me had ever felt things as deeply as I did.

It has been at least 15 years since I have set foot in that park. My connections with those earlier iterations of me are becoming more tenuous. But they are still there. And I can say with some confidence that I don’t ever think I could have imagined myself running a race in those woods at the ancient age of 35. I’m certain I didn’t anticipate that at such a thoroughly adult age I would still feel lost so much of the time.

In retrospect, I hope I do connect with that still malleable younger me. She had a lot of things right in terms of priorities. Things which have gotten muddled in the years of racing to meet goals and responsibilities since. If I find her, if she travels with me for a spell on this race, I think I’ll do ok.

Passing through Between

I missed bootcamp again yesterday morning. I initially went to sleep Monday night but something woke me after only an hour and I began to mentally and emotionally freak out over various issues in my life. I was borderline panic attack for half the night. I kept counseling myself to breathe and to focus on what IS good in my life but it was a very long and challenging night. I finally dropped off just a bit before my bootcamp alarm clock went off. I was scheduled to spend the day assisting my boss and it would have been very very bad for me to have dozed off during all the sitting and listening that my day would involve. So I opted to get the extra two hours of sleep. I don’t think that was the wrong decision but I kept having this nagging feeling that I had forgotten something all day. And I hated feeling so subject to the whims of my night terrors, irrational or rational.

My day involved a trip to Monroe, GA. To get to Monroe, I had to drive through a town called Between. I passed the Between Grocery. The Between Baptist Church. Ho Hum Hollow Rd. I wondered what it was like to live in Between. Do people actually settle in Between? How do they cope with living in Between? Don’t they worry that they should be further up the road . . . or further back down the other way? Are they trying to avoid rocks and other assorted hard places?

Perhaps I should move there. I live in a constant state of Between. Between things I’m fleeing and things I’m running toward. Will I ever get THERE, wherever THERE is? Even if I do, I suspect I’ll still feel in Between, because there is always something further away that I want. Am I simply a wanderer, in a good way, who thrives on the next personal project, the next goal? Or am I actually lost in a place called Between? Incapable of finding fulfillment where I am? Perhaps there’s more to appreciate on Ho Hum Hollow Rd. in Between than I realized.

Last night I slept like the dead. And was wide awake by 5:05 am and on my way. Part of me secretly still expects me to give up on this particular journey. Its always a relief, and a bit of a surprise, especially after a stumble or a step back, to thwart that expectation.

And now for some shoes

Here are my "old" (purchased September 9, the afternoon before Bootcamp started at a big box sporting goods store) shoes.

And here is one of my new shoes (which I was too lazy to actually remove from my foot).




The other thing my Dr. said I must do for my shins was get new shoes. So I have a new pair of Asics Gel 1120s to correct my overpronation and provide me with lots of cushioning. I wore them all weekend and ran in them for the first time this morning and I give them a big thumbs up. I had virtually no pain while running although my shins were sore again after I cooled down. Clint doesn't think they are as cute as my "old" shoes but they FEEL extra cute so I'm cool with that!

Choking on the silver lining

So, I debated blogging about this at all, and it is part of what kept me from blogging all weekend. On Thursday I went to the Dr. so she could take a look at my shins. I've suffered with shin splints pretty much constantly since about halfway through September. In the NOVA Marathon Challenge two of the runners had shin splints. They both got checked out. One runner was cleared to train with some modifications and the other runner had stress fractures and had to stop. It wasn't at all clear to me how their symptoms were different so it made me a little worried that I wasn't attending to my own pain as well as I should.

Turns out she doesn't think I have stress fractures. I need to ice more consistently, take anti inflammatories more consistently, do some special stretches and give myself breaks periodically. Up until that point it was a fun appointment. I was last there in August with lower back pain because my back was too weak to carry my freakishly proportioned torso. She prescribed physical therapy. I really had a hard time accepting that, at the age of 34, I needed to see a physical therapist for something that was not so much injury related as it was sitting on my ass for decades related. Shortly thereafter the bootcamp opportunity came up and I jumped on it. My Dr. was so excited that I had taken her advice several steps further. She was so complementary and seemed so genuinely happy for me. I almost got out scott free. And then, she glanced at my chart and remembered something else about my August appointment. My blood pressure had been high. Which is wierd because I have a family history of low blood pressure.

She checked it again and her face grew grave and concerned. Then she checked it again. Then she tried the other arm. Then she shook her head and looked worried. Then she sat down and apologized for having to tell me that, after almost 2 months of high intensity exercise and eating right my blood pressure was HIGHER than it was in August. She couldn't understand it. She stressed again that I was doing everything right and she wants me to continue. BUT, because I AM exercising regularly she couldn't let me leave without officially diagnosing me with hypertension and prescribing medication. So far I'm only on a diuretic. They did some bloodwork and I'll go back soon for additional testing.

I was really crushed by the diagnosis. And I know that there are MANY worse things I could have discovered at my Dr.'s office. And I know that MANY people successfully manage hypertension and live full lives and do great. But I also thought that I had gotten away with it. That I had been self-indulgent for all those years and escaped relatively unscathed. I had started turning things around just in time. Except I didn't. It caught up to me. I didn't start running soon enough.

The label on my medical records feels heavy. I'm dreading checking that box the next time I fill out a form that asks about health history. I'm scared of what else they may discover with the lab work.

If you have been watching my stats you'll see that I've lost a bit more weight. Most of it since Thursday when I started taking the diuretic. My body is shedding all of its excess water and I'm apparently getting lighter by the minute. So, I'll take that silver lining, it just doesn't taste as sweet as I thought it might.

Driving myself

I write this at my peril. I didn't even bring my logbook to bootcamp this morning because it seemed pointless. And I DID stay for "extra encouragement" but I avoided being "tsk tsk'd" by the instructors by staying on the downlow. I went TOTALLY off plan all weekend. I started out ok . . . avoiding the most amazing bread pudding with custard in the world at my firm's annual client seminar. But then I went to a friend's gallery opening and drank wine. And as the weekend took an emotional turn for the worse on Saturday I took a hard turn for the chocolate. And hot wings. And the half a box of snackwells. And the Bangors and Mash and Pims. Ok the last bit was prepared by our English neighbor in honor of Guy Fawkes day, and my South African husband was almost disturbingly excited about eating a big ol' beer soaked sausage on a bed of mash potatos swimming in gravy. And homemade (real butter) apple crisp with full cream ice cream. I feel like I'm describing illicit and delicious sex acts.

So the emotional crap bounced me right out of my wagon. My inner sabatour spoke up and convinced me I DESERVED chocolate and fat because I was feeling sad. WHY do I always conveniently forget that too much of those things makes me feel worse. Every time. Well, ok, I do get some initial pleasure in the eating. And in feeling sassy about it. But then the aftermath is feeling overfull and ick for hours.

So, I'm bruised and bleeding from bouncing on the hard packed earth but I've clambered back on. I just need to learn to do a better job of making a conscious decision to stop the wagon, step down carefully and gently explore the temptations along the way. I need to stop leaping out of the wagon when part of me isn't looking and trying to devour everything in site before I get caught. From here on out I need to drive this wagon. Not just hang on for dear life.

Marathons don't burn fat . . . say what?

Thanks to Pastaqueen’s (www.pastaqueen.com) heads up I watched NOVA’s Marathon Challenge special on PBS last week. You can watch it yourself online for free at the PBS website. It was a pretty cool one hour documentary about 12 sedentary individuals with varying history and ages and conditions who were trained to run the Boston Marathon in 9 short months. What I loved was all the cool CGI illustrations of how the training impacted and changed their muscles. It has been fun since I watched it to imagine the birth of new mitochondria in my leg muscles as I work out. Heretofore my entire understanding of mitochondria came from Madeline L’Engel. And really, who’s to say she was wrong? My mitochondria COULD be singing in harmony with the cosmos. That could explain the throbbing in my thighs at the end of a workout, its just the percussion section ramping up.

ANYWAY, I was also stunned to learn that distance running is not a great way to lose weight. In fact, one of the scientists overseeing the group said that the runners had achieved 90% of their fitness improvement by the time they ran 10 miles and anything beyond that was more about the mental goals than the fitness goals. A couple of the runners had weight to lose but the only one who did significantly reduce her body fat was one who ALSO did bootcamp while she was training for the marathon. Woohoo! Bootcamp ROCKS! So high intensity interval training is really the way to go in terms of losing fat and building muscle. But the mental challenge of distance running still really appeals to me. And emotionally I feel like there is so much in my life that I’d like to run from right now that I find running therapeutic. I can drop most of that stuff by the wayside while I run, and I feel more ready to pick it up again at the end. I got all choked up at the finish line scene when they actually finished the Boston Marathon and was sorely tempted to put on my shoes and hit the street right then at after 10 pm at night.

My only other comment about the special was that it felt WAY too short. I’m reality TV and blogosphere primed now. I want excruciating detail about each person’s journey through the process. I want back story and drama about obstacles overcome and those not cleared. I want to know WHY the one runner dyed his hair orange for the race day and WHY another runner completed the marathon with glass in her foot. I just have to wonder why she didn't take her shoes off to check what was causing the presumably sharp pains? But not knowing ANYTHING about it other than that she had glass in her foot at the finish line I don't feel that I'm in a position to suggest maybe she should have dealt with it some way other than continuing without checking first. This is how TV documentaries USED to be and it left me feeling like the whole thing was really unfinished and frustrating. I would LOVE to see a reality show that was all about getting fit rather than losing weight.

Clawing my way back to the keyboard . . .

Well, it’s been the better part of a week since I posted. There was a conspiracy of angry goblins working to keep me away from my computer. Really. And when I did have a moment I was in a dark and evil mood and it can be dangerous to blog from that swampy part of my mind. So, I’ll be posting more than once today to catch up and to keep my posts thematically oriented and therefore more searchable as all the good blog publishing FAQs recommend.