Why I am running … week one

On Thursday the 18th of January in the year 1940 Joe and Doris MacNeil welcomed into the world a 8 lb 10 oz baby girl named Margaret Leone into the world. Actually Joe wasn’t pacing the hospital corridors, nervously waiting to meet his sweet little girl. Like most young men of his generation Joe was gone to Europe to fight a terrible war.

She came into this world full of promise and potential. I have a 5 year diary that she kept as a teenager and it is full of sweetness and sharp sense of humour. It is the writing of a girl with a long a full life ahead of her. She worried about school and making her parents happy. She cried when James Dean died.  She liked ice cream and boys with an edge, a flaw she carried her entire life and passed along to her only daughter.  😉  She talked about playing spin the bottle and hitching into town.  She kept letters he little sister wrote he while she was away at summer camp.

She had a tumultuous relationship with her Father, who was a stranger to when he came home after the war. She adored her godfather and uncle John McPhee.  She had hopes and dreams as wide as oceans and as high as mountains. No where in her words is there a glimmer of fear that her life would be cut so short. In her last entry she is twenty years old, fresh out of nursing school; she never thought about her own body betraying her. Cancer wasn’t even a whisper at the back of her mind, it had not yet claimed her own parents.  It hadn’t started to grow and change inside her. She was still just a kid starting out in the world. She had no way of knowing that her adventures would have to take a back seat to surgeries and treatments. She could not predict that she only had twenty four years left to cram it all in.

So on October the 6th 2013 I am running for the little girl with the green eyes and freckles who got the mumps when she was 15 and was happy because it meant she didn’t have to write exams.  If you would like to help with my fundraising effort you can click HERE.

Race Season Cometh!

Yesterday we finished week 5 on my re-learn to run. 4:1 was great, SO much better than 3:1, SO much better!

With race season starting for me next week I don’t really feel ready for my first 5k but I will do my best and that is all I need to do. I am proud that I am back up and running after all that has happened in the past few months, hell I am proud I put a pair sneakers and even TRIED to run. Go Me!

Yesterday Mrs. Coach and I went a seminar put on by Sole Sisters, it was amazing, such a great energy in the room all those women, different ages, races, sizes. It was wonderful. I can’t wait for the actual race day.

But first I have to get through Benny’s Bulldog next weekend and Bluenose in 3 weeks. I don’t care about timing or speed I just want to cross that finish line!

Tuesday we start 5:1 and I am psyched to be half way to my end goal and if I can count on my past experiences the running actually gets easier.

 

Week Three – Sum Up

 

What is it with week three?? Last go around week three was when Lulu passed away. This time around I am feeling lost in a mud puddle of emotional turmoil.  I don’t know if it is the cold that just won’t end, Grammy dying or the complete cluster fuck that has become my employment situation, in all likelihood it is some combination of all the above. But Whatever the cause I spent the week trying to run out my feelings.  

We are back up to 2:1 and it was good, it felt like I was finally hitting a decent pace and more of a challenge. My first two runs were decent, we had a new route. Mrs. Coach and I seemed to be in good synch, Even the weather was mostly cooperative. 

But today… urg today I feel rough! A combination of really poor sleep and terrible eating for a few days, plus a really cold morning made me sluggish and cranky. My muscles in my legs were stiff and protesting, I needed an extra walk break for sure. And while I can usually bury my feelings beneath my running shoes, today I just kept feeling mentally worse and worse. My head cold picked this morning as well so I just decided to admit defeat, climb into my mud puddle and wallow. 

But I ran, and that counts for something, right?

Week one sum up!

Well it’s official I am back. Week one is now under my belt  Three runs of 2k, doing 2:1. It was really pretty easy and it felt great! My ankle bothered me a little of course but I expected that.  The first run it hurt about a quarter of the way in. The second run it was more like three quarters of the way before it started to twinge. And today it didn’t start to ache until after the run was over. I am calling that a victory!

 

 

The Fat Girl Flies Again!!

125 days!

17 weeks!

4 months, 5 days!

That’s how long it has been since my last real run. Until TODAY! Oh yeah, I am back! 

Coach, Mrs. Coach and I are starting back from the beginning. We are rebuilding my running and my leg muscles from scratch. We are doing a private Learn to Run. I didn’t want a new coach and I think they secretly kind of like torturing me. We have 1.5 other runners so I basically get one on one everything which is AWESOME. 

Tonight we started, in the mind numbing cold, with 2 & 1’s. Run one minute, walk two.  I remember the first time I did this interval is was SO hard. When I was done it was the hardest thing that I had ever done. Tonight was a totally different beast. The running really wasn’t so bad. Each minute interval was pretty easy. My lungs burned but I think that was primarily due to the stupidly cold air. My legs felt good but I could tell that my ankle was stiff.  About half way through I could feel the muscle fatigue start to kick in. I was deliberately picking my leg up to move it forward. It didn’t hurt it was just… uncomfortable. 

Tonight it has felt fine, I mean sore but fine. No limp, a little swelling but nothing awful. I might throw a little ice on it, take a little advil. Mostly I feel… victorious. I got back on that  horse. Honestly I felt nervous but I really wanted this. I like having runner as a part of my identity, it really makes me feel good, mentally, physically. 

I’m a runner baby!

End(ish) of January Update

Well boys and girls thing are moving along! Physio and doing my homework like a good girl is really starting to pay off. I don’t have to wear my walking cast around the house and when my ankle is warm and limber there is only minimal limp. This morning I didn’t want to wake up Gil because he isn’t feeling well so I took the pups out for a pee. I didn’t feel like putting my cast on and off so I put a shoe on EACH foot (Big time!) and I took them out. When it is cold Gil says I walk like Tim Conway. LOL

I do 10 minutes on the exercise bike everyday plus a series of exercises that Julie has given me. I am being SUPER good because I am dying to get back into action. My range of motion is coming along nicely and I ALMOST point my toes, when I can do THAT I will likely be able to drive. I am so excited!  

Pretty soon I will be going for walks and after that it will be a jog and after that? RUNNING!

Status Check – Yup, I’m still here

Well there is no running in my immediate future but I don’t want this blog to atrophy like my poor skinny right calf, so I am going to just use this space for some general health updates.

Physio:  Well I would be a liar if I said that physio was my favorite part of the week. I like the therapist just fine, she is a lovely young lady. (Yeah, ’cause I am now so old I refer to people that way, HA!) but the process it’s self is not pleasant.  Let me be clear, I don’t find it painful but it is  certainly very uncomfortable. More importantly I find it frustrating; 10 mins. on an exercise bike at zero resistance should not be hard, but it is when you haven’t moved your muscles in two months. The simplest exercise, like a towel crunch, get me so vexed because I am so uncomfortable and because it should be so easy, and also because I know that if I can’t scrunch a damn towel with my toe I definitely cannot drive. Oh lord how I miss driving.  Anyway, I am doing it and I will do the work and the homework because I want to get better, I want to run and this is how I get there.

Yoga:  Yesterday was my first day back to a yoga class since the incident. Maybe I should not have gone right after an hour of physio but I was desperate to get back at it.  Dawn was all ready for my return with a chair routine pretty well thought out. It was good to be moving my body, I really needed it but again, I would be lying if I said it was easy.  There wasn’t one area of my body that felt limber enough for the task at hand, that being said the stretching was just what the yogi ordered. Aside from the general stiffness I found it hard to get into the positions, even with the chair. The thing is that my boot BIG and it doesn’t bend, which is of course the point but it makes it totally unwieldy so even something as basic as Child’s Pose is uncomfortable and needs adjusting. See how her feet touch the floor?  I can’t DO that.  But what really got me frustrated and made me nearly quit several times was the counter weight issue. The boot weighs roughly a metric ass ton. I would be trying to hold my leg up in a pose and gravity would very quickly make me it’s bitch. I came seriously close to losing my temper at one point.  That is NOT how yoga is meant to make you feel.  But like I said I was already feeling sore and tired from physio and mentally drained from saying good bye to my brother. I will go back and take another kick at it next Monday. I am nothing if not persistent.

Weight:  So it is Tuesday which means it was time to step on the scale this morning and face the music. I have to admit I was feeling a bit grim, I had indulged a lot on the weekend. There was some serious comfort food going on, especially at my Brother’s goodbye dinner on Sunday night. Bread, cheese, meat oh boy!   Anyway I need not have worried so much, I was very very pleased to see the number gone down from the week before. In fact I lost 1.3lbs this week for a grand total of 31.5lbs !!  Yeah you can clap if you life. I am feeling pretty proud of myself right now! I am not really ready to share my start weight and I haven’t set my goal weight get but I feel like I am really DOING it this time.  I am happy, I am 30+ pounds lighter and I finally feel healthier.  🙂

52 Weeks

Well folks happy 2013!!  For those of you who haven’t heard I am still not up and running however I *am* in a walking cast until the end of January. However after 7 weeks I am MORE than ready get back to being active.  My amazing yoga teacher is prepping a chair routine so that I can come back to class and my girl friend Sara has a work out for me that we can do with some light weights and a mat. I am excited.  I am not making a new years resolution exactly but I am reaffirming my commitment to my health. I made great leaps in the last part of the year and I am very happy with my accomplishments. I can do things now I never dreamed before.  The last few days I have been eating crap and I can feel it my body is pissed off at what my mouth and brain have been up to but now it is time reign things in, get back on track.  I will be getting back to basics, measuring, weighing, tracking and moving.   I am not going to become militant, I am not going to never have another treat.  I want a healthy clean life style that is genuinely maintainable and allows me to continue my love of good food and cooking.  I am not on a diet. I don’t want a fad or a passing fancy. I want a healthy, well rounded life.   In 52 weeks I want to be stronger, sleeker and more energetic.  I want to feel healthy and happy.  These next few days are going to be a little rough,  there is a lot of treats in this house, left over from the holidays.  I have not been weighing or measuring, I haven’t been anything.  But I will get there, you just wait and see, I’m tenacious!

Week eight, run three …. this girl is grounded

Well 8:1 was going REALLY well.. right up until it wasn’t. Honestly I have no idea what happened I was running and then I was falling and then I was hurting…. A LOT.

I just got home from emerg.  Coach, who was amazing, drove me there and Gil met us. They took care of me really quickly.  I have a half cast on at the moment util they have a chance to get a better look at it. It might be broken it might just be a very bad sprain. Either way I am out for 4 to 6  weeks. I am on crutches and probably will need some physio. It totally sucks. I am in a lot of pain even with the Percocet. But worse then the pain is the disappointment.

But hear me now, I will be back!!! I mean it. My goal has not changed.  I WILL BE BACK!!

 

 

 

Running with Purpose

As you may have heard this New Years Eve I am starting a new tradition. I am going with Coach, Mrs. Coach and several hundred other people to participate in the 28th annual Resolution Run. This is a 5K event and I am super excited to finish 2012 on such a high note.  I am very proud of everything I have accomplished so far this year but my running, that is the icing on the whole cake.  Part of running these kind of events is fund raising. I know that moving into the holidays money gets tight, it certainly does for me but I wanted to let you know I am raising funds for  Feed Nova Scotia.

This is an organization that holds a dear place in my heart.  I think that the work that they do in our communities is amazing.  Please give if you can, either on my pledge page or through any of the various events coming in the next few weeks.

If you can’t don’t worry about it. There are lots of other ways to support Feed Nova Scotia and ME.  Your words of encouragement keep me going towards my goal of a marathon before I turn 40.   If you are looking for something fun to do early in the evening on NYE come meet me at the finish line, I will be the big girl with the even bigger smile.