Flying Pirate Half Marathon 4/22/2012

When I planned out my races for the beginning of this year, this race was not included. In fact, I only intended to do two this spring. However, when I got an e-mail from my friend Laura's weight loss group leader about participating in this race since it would be Laura's first half marathon, I decided I had to be there to support her. And since I did not just want to be on the sidelines, I decided to make this one of my long distance runs in preparation for my half in May.

Thank goodness I decided that it was only going to be a long distance. Earlier this week, I got the news from Laura and Joanna that it was going to rain...100% chance of rain! Yikes!!! And I also for some reason when doing yard work determined that I needed to drop a brick on my foot. Ouch! What in the world was I thinking! My poor foot has been killing me all week! Since Jason had already taken off time for vacation and we had already paid for the hotel and the race, there was no backing out. And have I mentioned that my youngest nephew, Trent, chose this medal as his own! So, come rain or shine, pain or injury, this race was going down in the books as finished. Trent needs his medal!

I did my best to prepare for rain. I tried to prepare for blisters since I have been having issues lately on my longer runs. I got new socks to try which were a bit more cushioned. I even put moleskin on the areas that I have had problems with. I went to bed very early only to be awakened by some arguing bikers in the next door room. Joy! Thank goodness they either resolved their issues or the phone call to the front desk put a stop to it.

I got up a little after 4 a.m. and got started getting ready. With breakfast eaten, phone in a plastic bag, iPod in a plastic bag and everything else ready to go, I headed out to pick Laura up about 5:15. We headed over to parking and then got on the very first shuttle to the start line.

The shuttle to the start line let us out within short walking distance to the start. We headed over in the rain and hit the port-a-potty lines (okay, so with the rain there were no lines!) Then we headed to the covered building to wait for the corrals to line up. We got into our corral and waited for the race to start. It was still raining and I was pretty damp.

I wished Laura luck as we started out. With my foot already bothering me where I dropped a brick on it, I had made the decision to walk before we started. So, I headed out at a pretty good pace. Somewhere around mile 2 both of my feet started giving me issues. I knew it was my toes and I knew it was likely blister issues. I was trying to stick it out but at mile 3, I stopped at the medical station with the intention of checking the foot that was giving me less problems. When I pulled the shoe and sock off, I knew I was in trouble. I had blood and not just a little. The blister had popped and was bleeding. I got a bandaid on it and some moleskin and decided to check the other foot. It was much, much worse. We got it cleaned up as well and I put both shoes back on and headed back out on the course because the lady at the medical tent said she didn't think it was TOO bad.

So, I got back on the course and decided to slow my pace quite a bit more to lessen the intensity of the pain. I also decided that I needed a good distraction. So, I found two fun people to enjoy the lovely torrential downpours with! I really enjoyed Jennifer and Chantelle. Chantelle was originally from South Africa and her husband had told her that a half was only 10 miles, so she didn't train for her first half. She was pretty ticked by mile 10 and had come up with many ways to torture him for it! LOL. Jennifer was on her fourth half. We chatted and complained about the non-ending rain for quite awhile.

Little did I know that we would enter the neverending forest for the longest 4 miles of my life! It was a creepy little area and we were certain there were serial killers lurking about around there. Definitely should not have been at the end of the race! I would have preferred starting there than finishing there for sure!

The continuous rain and puddles were not a great comfort to my very sore toes. Every time I hit a puddle the toes that had blisters stung so that was not helpful at all. I continued on and prayed for the end of the forest multiple times. I grew irritated at the volunteers on the course who gave tons of misinformation about mileage and water stations and medical tents. Mostly, I was seriously drenched, no drowned, by the rain and I was tired and I was ready to get off my feet and take the shoes off!

But I soldiered on, helping Jennifer and Chantelle along. They were definitely a comfort to me in that I would have been way more focused on the pain had I not found them! So, when it came to the point we were finally finishing, I had gotten a little bit farther ahead and I stopped, turned around and waited for them to catch up to me, so we could cross the finish line together. After 10 miles together, we ran very slowly our finish line.

I was greeted by Jason and Laura. We headed over to the tables and picked up post-race snacks and then headed to the car to get out of the rain! I have never been so happy to put on warm, dry clothing in my life! And taking the shoes off was awesome, but my poor feet are so sore and so torn up right now, I think I will likely be off of them for awhile!

I was happy with the course right up until the forest. Since I am not a trail runner and not a huge fan of trail running, that made me pretty miserable. However I am so super proud of Laura for finishing her very first half marathon and doing it in under 3 hours. She did amazing and I am glad that I was able to be here with her!

As for me, I am calling for at least a week of rest and recovery for me and my feet and then I will be back out to get some more mileage in to get ready for Myrtle Beach next month!

Update on the Wrist

As some of you know, I had a triangular fibrocartilage tear in my left wrist which was caused by my ulna in that same wrist being too long and it degeneratively moved over tearing cartilage and causing me quite a bit of pain!!! So, Dr. Ekman, who I think is pretty AMAZING!, decided to do a scope of my wrist to repair the tear and clean up and debride the area. I had the procedure done on November 18th.

The surgery was perhaps the easy part. I decided to go with the nerve block in my arm to help with the pain after surgery and they gave me general anesthesia because I absolutely refuse to be awake or have the possibility of waking up during a procedure! The interesting thing about the surgery is that they had given me the impression that the nerve block would wear off within 10-12 hours. This did not happen to be the case. They put me in a sling because they were afraid I might damage my wrist or arm because it had no feeling from the shoulder down. This was indeed a strange sensation. It took closer to 24 hours for the feeling to return and during that time I often forgot that I was unable to use it and at some point I actually recovered partial use and ended up forgetting in the midst of it and slapping myself in the face with my own hand...it was quite laughable and happened twice!! The weekend passed pretty quickly with not a lot of sleep but not much pain since I was pretty good about taking the meds when I needed them and keeping ice on it regularly.

This recovery has not been as easy as I would have expected. I admit, I might have jumped the gun just a bit by returning to work a little earlier than I should have. I only took two days off and when I returned to work the first day, I had the great pleasure of throwing up everything I had eaten and my pain meds. Of course, then I was terrified to even try to put anything back on my stomach including food and pain meds! So, that started a pretty difficult week. I chose to wear the sling while I was at work because I wanted to make sure that customers knew I had had surgery and was unable to lift with that arm. It was a good plan and for the most part kept me from using the wrist too much. I had the stitches removed on the Wednesday after surgery. Then I was down to using steri-strips to keep the incisions closed and healing and wrapping it in an ace bandage to keep from using it too much.

That went pretty well for only a short while. However, that same day, I ended up getting headbutted by an overzealous and friendly old English bulldog directly on my left wrist. Talk about painful! Ouch!!! I ended up having to go back to being on pain meds during the day as well and back to icing because it had begun to swell again. This definitely slowed the healing process a little. And work did not help the wrist too much because I still had to try to do what I could at work and with the extra pain, I have had a difficult couple of weeks.

All of this also kept me out of the gym for the past few weeks. And that has been horribly difficult. The first week I knew I could not hit the gym. Week 2, I had intended to head back to the gym but I was exhausted and still taking pain meds. And work was intense, so I did not make it in at all. I knew I would not be lifting upper body and would likely do either cardio or just lower body, but between not feeling well and a stressful week, I just did not make it to the gym.

Today, however, I made it back to the gym and had a pretty great workout. I got a good leg workout in and it was exhausting but necessary! I am certain I will be feeling it for a few days too! I am not sure when I can include upper body in again, but I will definitely be waiting to hear back from the surgeon with more information about my restrictions and activities and even expectations. I had no idea how much strength I had lost in my lower body since I had not been doing legs lately. Tripp had injured his knee and we had not been doing legs together and I had not had an opportunity to get in by myself and do a leg workout, so it has been awhile. The good thing is that my legs recover quickly and I will be back to my regular weights soon!

So, the wrist is doing well. I still have a couple weeks before I see the surgeon again for another post op check. Hopefully, he will be happy with my progress. I am still trying to take it slowly and carefully, so we'll see.

And my hiatus from running is coming to an end. This week I will be hitting the elliptical a lot and getting some short runs in. It is time to get back to my love/hate relationship with running :)

Myrtle Beach Mini Marathon 10-23-2011

Thought I would give you all a recap of the Myrtle Beach Mini. I really like this race because it's nice and flat. I had a crazy couple of weeks before the race with lots of stress and not much time to train, so I was kind of nervous about how all that was going to impact me on race day. And I was a bit nervous about what all of that would do to my body since I went into shock a day after the last race and it took me longer to recover. So, the week before the race, I was hitting electrolytes and potassium pretty hard to see if I could prevent the horrible muscle cramping in my legs. And I was mentally preparing myself as well because losing a couple weeks of training is never a part of the recipe for success.

I didn't get much sleep the night before the race thanks to the bad positioning of our room and a wedding party that was liquored up and partying in the stairwell. It was unnerving to get so little sleep before the race, but I sucked it up and got myself together in the morning. Cathy and I made sure we had late checkouts and then went to get Tripp (my trainer) who was our chauffeur/photographer/cheerleader :) It was quite chilly out Sunday morning. We were all bundled up pretty well since we knew Tripp could take our extra jackets with him.

Of course, we did the correct protocol...hit the port-a-potties first :) After that, we did a couple pictures and I got in some light stretching. My hip was aching...not sure if it was the weather or what was going on. They did their pre-race jousting with the people from Medieval Times and then it was time to start. I was still very sore between the hip and the wrist feeling the cold, I was not sure how this race was going to do me.

I started out pretty well. The first few miles were pretty smooth and uneventful. I was keeping a very steady pace. I resisted the urge to make a friend or even talk to anyone for the first ten miles. By mile 10, I just hurt...everywhere. My hip was starting to drag and my pace was slowing. At this point, I ended up walking for a while with another woman who was having some hip issues. So, we stuck it out together for the last 3 miles. I didn't want my pace to slow but by this point the bottoms of my feet were SO sore too! When the finish line was finally in sight, I was so relieved and so happy and so ready to be done with this race. Luckily, I was able to pull the last of my strength and energy together and make a very slow run to the finish line.

When I got to the very end, I knew I didn't want to stop because it was just going to hurt but I also wanted to just lay down. I got my medal, my water and bagels and headed back to the car with Cathy, Tripp, and Jason. I was happy to get back to the hotel and get showered up because everything hurt. The ride back to Columbia was a bit uncomfortable because my legs started cramping in the car. (Which is way better than during the race!)

Recovery has gone pretty smoothly. I have not overdone it this week. I got my electrolytes and potassium balanced on Sunday afternoon. Most of the lactic acid has worked its way out of my system. Mostly, I am just tired.

And here's my update on the wrist...I saw Dr. Ekman last week and he actually asked me if dwarfism ran in my family, followed by "clearly, you are not a dwarf." LOL...no dwarfs in my family, but apparently the bones in my wrist are moving in a degenerative pattern similar to what happens in dwarfs. And he mentioned multiple times how abnormal my wrist is. Then, he sprung the bad news...if we don't go in and fix the issues he is currently seeing, then I won't be using my wrist much by the time I am 60. So, I am scheduled for an MRI tomorrow and then meeting with Ekman next Monday to review what else he finds and likely scheduling surgery.

Other than that, I am looking forward to Savannah on November 5th! My last half marathon for the year and then I am scheduling a break from races until March. I plan to do the NC Half Marathon in Charlotte in March and the Divas Half Marathon in Myrtle Beach in May. Other than that, I have not made any other plans. And Savannah is my 10th half marathon....hard to believe, but true!! And it will be 6 half marathons total for the year.

Philadelphia Half Marathon 9-18-2011

Here it is...finally, my race report. Wasn't sure it was going to get done until later in the week, but here you go....

So, before I give you my race report, I will give you an update on life for me lately. It's been an interesting year. It's hard to believe that I only have 2 more half marathons to complete before I can stick my tongue out at the naysayers who said I was crazy for doing 6 in one year. Yeah, I won't lie, it is part of my motivation :) As usual before I do any race, I somehow manage to injure myself or have some kind of crazy issue...I think that is normal for me. So, right now, I am under the care of the orthopedic surgeon again....Dr. Ekman is taking care of my left wrist. It has been bothering me for about 5-6 weeks and I was finally able to get in to see him yesterday. He believes that it has been injured in the past, though I am unaware of any injuries and so is my mother. In addition to it being completely abnormal (so were my hips! LOL!), arthritis has set in and made lifting and little tasks like opening bottles, driving, etc. painful. So, I am now in a wrist support brace for the next 30 days to try and get it back to normal and I am on anti-inflammatories!! I had gone to see a chiropractor that I could get in to see earlier than Dr. Ekman and found out that they couldn't do anything for my wrist but my back and neck are way out of alignment. So, now I am on the chiropractic route and in a wait and see pattern about the wrist.

So, that is what's going on with me prior to flying out to Philly on Friday. We got into Philly and were able to get our rental car and get to the Expo. And I shopped...found lots of fun stuff...like the perfect shirt for me that says "I Run So I Don't Kill People" and it has the chalk outline. Yeah, I couldn't resist :) The expo was fun. We headed to what Food Network says is the best place for philly cheesesteaks only to find out that no one agrees who makes the best. It was a pretty fabulous philly though! The day before race day, poor hubby forgot that a walking tour would be a bad plan and walked me to death which agitated my hip and legs and back. So, on race morning after standing in the forever long port-a-potty line (and I forgot to stuff my bra! Bad morning). I headed over to join in my corral.

I started off with a pretty good run pace. And then I spotted my kindred spirit. Deanna is a runner who also does the run/walk program and she was injured. She was doing this half marathon with a broken foot. She was only 6 weeks out from the break and was determined to finish. Luckily, she did not require surgery. So, I made Deanna my best friend and decided to do the smart thing and stick with her as she walked it since she was doing about the pace that I wanted at that point. I figured that my neck and back would be helped greatly if I took it a bit easier this early in to therapy. Deanna was a rockstar...we talked the entire time distracting each other from any possible pain. And yes, we finished and finished strong. I had fun. And I remembered my dear friend and ironman, Taz, telling me that I needed to stop pressuring myself and have fun. I never even thought about the time for a second. It was great. Beautiful course. It ended near the steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art where Rocky ran the steps :)

All in all it was a great race. My post race recovery though was not up to standard. I did not factor in a recovery day, so we rushed back to the hotel, got me a shower and packed up and then had lunch and headed to the airport. We managed to fly out standby and got back in earlier than expected. I did not get much sleep Sunday night due to a neighbor whose car decided to have the alarm go off for 4 hours...yes, 4 hours. It was insane and kept me up most of the night. Then, I had to get up early and head out to see Dr. Ekman and then off to the chiropractor. Stop for a quick lunch where I forgot to eat a sufficient amount of carbs and then off to work for 6 hours. Work was fun...I have half marathon brain :) Then I headed to grab dinner quickly and got a post race massage. When I got off the massage table, my body started shaking uncontrollably. I went in to shock. I was able to get the shaking to stop and then headed home where my hubby and my friend helped me in. I got a shower, warmed up and my body began the uncontrollable shaking. I was also fighting a headache all day that wouldn't go away. After trying to go to sleep, I gave up and decided since I was now unbelievably hot to check my temperature and had a nice temp of 101.9. The fever finally broke around 2:30. And of course, after very little sleep, I was up early to get in to work today. It's going to be a really fun week of recovery!! I fully intend to listen to my body and go to bed when I get off work tonight...promise.

But next week, I am gearing up for Myrtle Beach in October. Then a nice recovery run in Savannah. Clearly even though I thought my body could handle what I was putting it through, it let me know otherwise which means I will plan for a much easier day after the race to recover better and much more sleep.

I loved the course in Philly and could absolutely see myself doing it again :)

Time Keeps on Ticking...

No new blog in over a month??? Really??? Seriously, a whole month has passed with no new blog. It is hard to believe that I have been that busy and not just my normal busy, but almost an insanely busy. I have spent the past month making some adjustments to my schedule. Now that I am working at Nutrition Warehouse (which I LOVE!), I seem to have less free time...imagine that :) LOL. I am working at balancing all the ins and outs of working almost full time again and household stuff with training.

Most people would think that this means I have less time to train. But since I have made training a priority, I decided that house cleaning would be less of a priority. Don't get me wrong, the laundry gets done and the dishes get washed, but they all may wait until I have a free moment. Caring for my body is more of a priority than keeping the cleanest house on the block! And I can very well live with that...it is by no means a pig pen, but it sure could use a good sweeping and a vacuuming! I decided to subscribe to the Scarlett O'Hara thought process about the house..."I will think about that tomorrow!"

As for my job, I truly enjoy it. I still have A LOT to learn. I wish there were more hours in the day and that I required less sleep so that when I come home at night, I had more energy to study up and more time to focus on ways to improve my performance and knowledge. I think what I enjoy about work is being able to talk to people about their health and wellness, being able to suggest products to them that will help them to reach their goals and my co-workers are pretty awesome too. Most days I come home tired after work but it is a good tired. In fact, my body is showing signs of the adjustment. I have been finding it difficult to remind myself to actually eat when I am there and often grab a protein shake to satisfy my hunger. So, I am having to learn to not only bring food but to remember to actually take the time to fuel my body. Some days I am so incredibly busy that even when I bring food, I forget to take a few minutes to eat. I am working on this because it is a very bad habit to get into. Also, my poor hamstrings and calves are super super tight from being on my feet all day and running around the store! LOL. Of course, you add in my runs and workouts and these legs and feet are so tired! Thank goodness I got a recent visit in to see the massage therapist! Perhaps I should work on that stretching thing again at night when I get home :)

Other than work and training, life is about the same. I am currently nursing an injury to my wrist. I would give you more detail but I don't really know what is going on. And I have a couple weeks to wait before I see the doctor regarding my problem. All I can tell you is that it is painful and has caused me tons of frustration. I am hoping when I see the doctor he can fix whatever it is with no too much difficulty. It does occasionally hinder a workout which really annoys me, but Tripp has been great about trying to find ways to work around the pain.

I took some time out a few weeks ago to see my favorite tattoo artist and have him pretty up my back piece for me. I LOVE what he did. We are still in the healing process, so it is very itchy right now but it is beautiful! It makes me very excited about seeing him again in December to get some more work on my half marathon tattoo. And it also makes me think about other tattoos or areas I might want to tattoo. I think I might be addicted to the pain and the ink :)

Probably the hardest thing about my new schedule is that I find I have a whole lot less time to hang out with family and friends. (And even less time for blogging and Facebook! Horrors!) So, once I get settled at my job, I am going to work on trying to find more time to just chill with family and friends. (Blogging and Facebook will eventually happen but they are less of a priority obviously!) It all will balance out once I get into a good regular routine and schedule. There have been a couple of bumps along the way, but we are ironing out all the kinks.

Anyways, time for another cup of coffee and a little bit more relaxation before my long day!!

Palmetto Half Marathon Race Report :)

Why is it that every race seems to include some type of injury for me beforehand or during that I have to overcome?? LOL...The Palmetto Half Marathon is no different than the others! On Thursday, I was getting something out of my pantry and had a Tupperware container of coffee filters fall from the top shelf onto my pinky toe on my left foot...and well, there we have a broken pinky. And because I couldn't be done with just one injury for this race, I managed to twist my right ankle, falling and scraping my shin and bruising the middle toe on my right foot as well. Yeah, it was all painful! But I had a race to run and couldn't let a few minor details keep me from it.

In addition to my injuries, my training prior to the race was extremely sporadic and sometimes non-existent. After the Did Not Finish during the Columbia Half, I was having a really rough time staying motivated and fighting the inner voice that kept telling me that walking off a course is going to be easier the second time than it was the first time. So, I was quite nervous and spazzing out. The only saving grace for me was that Cathy agreed to run the race with me at my pace. I felt pretty good that I could make it to the finish line with Cathy spurring me on!

I did contact my favorite trainer, Tripp, and let him know that I was having a difficult time pre-race and needed one of his pep talks. So, I got an awesome pep talk the night before the race from Tripp. He told me a lot of things that I needed to hear. He reminded me that the important thing to remember was to have fun and to finish. He said even if it took me 6 hours to finish that I had to stick with it and complete my race. I was so thankful that he took the time to encourage me and help me out before the race!

On race morning, I was doing pretty well. Other than being a bit tired and needing some caffeine, I was ready. Cathy and I searched for Ricky. We wanted to see Taz!!! I knew he was planning on running the half and we had really hoped to catch him before the race started. It was like playing a game of Where's Waldo! We were calling out for Ricky and searching the crowds. And then, Cathy spotted him!! It was great to see both Ricky and Kathy! We chatted for a few minutes before the start of the race.

Before the race began we were informed that if racing conditions became unsafe during the race that we were on our own and should get to somewhere safe! LOL...apparently there was no way for them to pick up the runners if the race was canceled because weather conditions became worse. At least we were prepared with ponchos in case it rained!

The race started pretty well. It was a bit chilly but not bad once we started moving and the rain seemed to be holding off. I jogged for awhile until my toe began to ache a little bit and I was worrying a little about making sure the hip was warmed up well before pushing it too hard. So, I decided to do some walking and I jogged when I was able to without pain. I kept reminding myself that this race was for fun. I was not concerned about my time. I was concerned about finishing my race. I was so thankful that Cathy was with me because I know there were a couple times early in the race that I thought I was certainly insane for doing this!

Around about mile 4, we picked up a new buddy, Ron. (That's right, even though I had a partner already for the race, I found another friend who was doing his first race and his buddies left him behind! That is apparently my normal race thing!) So, we befriended Ron and continued to encourage him and help him along the way. We had lots of laughs and jokes along the way. We especially enjoyed when the first downpour began, Cathy managed to get into her poncho with a bit of difficulty. However, I opted against it since I was already wet. Shortly after Cathy got her poncho on, the rain stopped and then she was jogging in her poncho and told us it was a bit warm! When she finally took it off, Ron and I were convinced it would start pouring again. And it did :) LOL

It was not the easiest of races. However, we persevered. We were wet, sore, and had sausage fingers, but we kept going! We sent Cathy ahead of us a little before mile 12 because she had a goal of finishing the race before the girl who was ahead of us most of the race (and she did!!!) Mile 12 seemed to be the longest mile ever. I didn't think it was going to ever end. It was a bit of torture because my feet and legs and hips were hurting and there was a short period of a torrential downpour on us. I just wanted to be done. I was tired, soaked and in desperate need of caffeine :) But then the finish line was finally in sight. And we made it. We finished the race and we had fun!!!

I did find this race to be a very well organized race. There were lots of volunteers and the course was marked very well. There was also a good amount of water/gatorade stations with fruit as well. I was very favorably impressed with the set up. I even liked the race shirt :) The course was a bit hilly but overall I felt it was a good course and I would consider running the race again.

So, now I am at home. I had a good post race massage that has helped to ease up the lactic acid in my muscles. And I am chilling with Advil in my system, an ice pack on my pinky toe and drinking lots of water. Tomorrow I know I will be sore but today I am happy. I finished my race and I survived! Ultimately, it was a great day. After some recovery, I will hit the floor running again to get ready for the race in May :)