Not what I expected. Definitely NOT what I hoped for!

Just to warn you now, this could be a PG 13 blog entry.  BEWARE! 

We had the most amazing speaker at class tonite.  She was funny, knowledgeable, interesting.  Had lots of good things to say, things for me to ponder.  She talked about committing to something and the difference between being involved and committed.  I know what some of you are probably thinking....I SHOULD be committed!  LOL  (I haven't lost my sense of humor yet, it can't be THAT bad.)

And I thought to myself, I'm committed to this class, and to running the schedule and to improving/benefiting my body, mind and spirit, to taking better care of my health.  So I ask you.....What is a person to do when they're committed mind and heart to something. but the body is failing you?  (As I sit here, writing this, with ice on my left shin...AGAIN!)

Now....every piece of literature they've given me at this class has the same recurring message...."Listen to your body."  Maybe I should've left the Ipod in the car....how can I be listening to my body when I'm listening to Donna Summer?  Or Faith Hill? 

And then a revelation......my "Aha" moment if you will.
 
My body has not been my friend for years now, why would we have a decent enough relationship to communicate?  I think the only things I've said to my body in the last 14 years has been, "Jesus you're getting fat." or "It's jiggling!" or "I wish I had insurance for that hail damage," as I look at my backside in the mirror. 

My best friend (and fellow runner) Lori tells me I have the perfect body for a runner.  She says, "You have those muscular athletic legs, you're built for it."  Really?  I mean Really?  The women that run tend more toward being tiny and ultra lean.  With the exception of my sister, whose built more like me only thinner with smaller boobs, I don't see women that run that look like me.  Of course......maybe they did at first?    Hmm.....that's a thought.  No....I still don't see lots of women built like me running. 

I have all these muscles from gymnastics years ago and they like to cramp when I pull them out of storage and use them.  And of course.....like everything else I do in life....I do it with gusto! 

Now, I am a few weeks behind everyone else in the class due to the shin splints and the dental emergency, but I really believed I could keep up.  I wanted to run the full 20 minutes, 30 seconds of running, 30 seconds of walking.  OOPS!  My mistake....check your schedule Roni.....tonight is 25 minutes total of 1 minute running and 1 minute walking!

Still.....overconfident, dressed, water bottle in hand, Ipod on the waist, ponytail swinging, I'm ready to go.  I certainly look the part.  :)  I believed I could do the full 25 minutes at this pace.  I do need to be committed....to the Looney Bin!  What WAS I thinking?  I haven't even ran a full 25 minutes yet on my own!

Sure enough.....1/3 of the way through the run....I feel the pull of my left shin muscle.....OH SHIT!....now it's really cramping.  What happened to my philosophy of taking it easy, and that it's not a race? 

I look down at my left leg and I can see the cramped muscle bulging from my shin.  So I stop and stretch for about a minute, a Volunteer comes by and asks if I'm ok, I tell her yes, thank you, then start walking again.....then I think, "It feels better to run."  So I run....wait...Deja Vu!  Anyone remember a previous blog with something really similar?  DUH!!

So I stop and stretch again.  I use my water bottle as a rolling pin to try and loosen that muscle. 

Another Volunteer comes by and asks if I'm ok, I tell her it's my shin, she looks down, sees the muscle bulging, gets on her knees, tells me to give her my leg and let her take the weight and she starts to massage the cramp and try to work it out.  What a sweet woman, damn...I wish I'd shaved my stubbly legs.  Poor thing....she probably has whisker burn. 
She told me to walk the rest of the way and when my group was on it's way back to join them, no more running, not to push it. 

Needless to say.....I walked a little further....the cramp in my shin worked it's way up my thigh to my butt!  Ok....I'm done.  All I want to do is get to my car, grab my bottle of Ice, half water now, and ice this leg before it gets so bad I'm out of running for days.  So I turn around and go back.  As I get closer to Southwest High School, people are passing me.  Volunteers are getting to the end and standing on the curve high fiveing people  as they go by, saying, "
Great Job!"  I felt like a fake.  I know that I'm not really fake....just enthusiastic and now....frustrated and in pain. 

I guess I just want you all to know, and think about this;  How is your relationship with your body?  Is it good enough for you to communicate nicely and for you to listen to what it's telling you? 

Please be smarter than I was tonite.  I think alot of it had to do with hydration.  I thought I was pretty hydrated but they did mention that if I want to run Friday, I need to spend Thursday hydrating myself because muscles are built to work in a fluid environment and work best that way.  I probably didn't drink enough water to accomodate.  So I probably had double whammy, overdoing it and underhydrated. 

I will learn from this lesson!  I will not quit!!!  Ice, elevation, rest and ibuprofen will be my good friends tonite and tomorrow and hopefully, I'll be running again on Friday.  I really enjoy running.  I think I do it better alone than with buddies.  That way I don't push myself to keep up with anyone else.  It's just me! 

Two in a Row!! Whoo Hoo!

Hey y'all,

I say that as if I'm from the South...lol.  Just got back from my run tonite.  15 minutes instead of 10 minutes that I did last night.  Slow, steady increases should get me back on track.  Here's my run tonite;  http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/39087498/
I just love Map My Run.  It makes documentation of what I'm doing so much easier.  My muscles were yelling tonite but not screaming.  That's an improvement.  Although, I don't recommend drinking a large glass of Moscato before your run....I felt like hurling halfway through.  :D  Drink your wine to celebrate afterward.  (I kinda felt like Goldie Hawn in "First Wives Club" when she said, "I run to burn off the alcohol.")   LOL

I felt great when I got back like I could've ran a few more blocks, but the literature that Lincoln Running Company gave me said not to push it.  This Wednesday at Beginner's Luck class, I'll run the full 20 minutes and then get back on track. 

I feel victorious!! 

I did it!

It felt great to be running again.  Calf muscles were screaming just a bit, even with stretching beforehand but no shin pain, or mouth pain.  http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/38934408/

It was a shorter run than I would normally do, but I didn't want to push it and the weather looked questionable and I didn't want to be caught in a rainstorm.  I will run again tomorrow.  Besides, this isn't a race I'm running, this is a life change I'm making. 

The best thing about it is, that as I was running, I was thinking of things, smells, feelings, things I wanted to remember to write about and I forgot I was running.  I was trying to think of relaxing my hands as I ran (I have a tendency to clench) and to hold my arms out just a little to improve my posture.   That's when I realized I ran almost 2 blocks without walking!  The endurance I was just beginning to build hasn't decreased.  yay!!

And I have to say as someone who spent the majority of her life with really short hair, I love the way my ponytail swings back and forth as my feet hit the pavement.  That seems like such a small thing, but one more enjoyable thing about running for me.  I spent so much of my life disliking the idea of running that I'm relieved to know that I still like it after being layed up for awhile. 

Looking forward to tomorrow.

Roni

Getting back on the horse today!

Hi everyone, if you're my Facebook friend you know that besides shin splints from gardening, I had a dental emergency last week.  :)  I wish I could make a smiley face without one tooth.  ha ha

The oral surgeon who pulled my tooth Wednesday told me not to run or lift anything heavy for a few days so I figure, it's Sunday....plenty of time has passed! 

It's been a 1 1/2 weeks since I've ran so today is a perfect day to get back on the horse so to speak. 

I'll post after, (if I'm still alive) hee hee.

Victorius to Frustrated...UGH!

Friday's run went really well.  My hubby ran with me and I mapped out my run using www.mapmyrun.com.  I was able to run 30 seconds then walk 30 seconds the entire 1.5 miles which was 20 minutes with one exception.  The big hill going north on 70th street from Eldora LN to Vine street.  I had to walk 1 full minute there to recover but then it was back on the plan.  I was really proud of hubby for making it the whole way with me. Even if he was 5+ feet behind me.  It seems to be getting a little easier for me. :)

Saturday I was planning on running with my friend Lori at 1pm but she had a family emergency come up so I planned on running by myself.  (Running alone makes me nervous because who will hold me accountable?  Who would know if I walked more than ran?)  I planned on running in the evening and finished planting my garden with my afternoon.  The Garden kicked my butt so I delayed my run until Saturday.  I had been in the garden barefoot and could feel the strain in my shins that evening.  Not good. 

Sunday afternoon, Lori and I got together and ran at 1:30.  I surprised myself by doing pretty well.  I could feel the shin pain from the day before but I kept pushing thinking it would work itself out.  NOT!  At 1/2 mile we turned back and walked home not wanting to risk injury.  That's ok I thought, we still got a mile in.  I spent the evening taking Ibuprofen and icing the shins.

Monday evening after work, I went for my run while hubby biked alongside me.  My shins had felt pretty good so we headed out.  I surprised myself by running for 45+ seconds before needing to walk to recover.  Whoo Hoo!!  But about 4 blocks into the run, I could feel my left shin starting to scream at me.  I plugged along anyway.  At 1/2 mile the shin pain grew and it caused a cramp that wrapped down into my foot on the lateral side.  I had to stop, sit, remove my left shoe and rub my foot and try to stretch it out.  Stupidly, I thought I could keep going, got up and ran about 50 yards before the cramp traveled into my thigh too.  It felt better when I was running than walking so I turned around and started running home.  There was a point I thought hubby was going to have to bike home and get the truck and come pick me up but I walked it off and still, ran 2 of the 4 blocks back home.  Medicated myself and iced the shins.

Everything I've read today on the internet, and consulting with my sister who is the Marathon runner says, "Rest it, don't run for several days and it will heal unless it's a stress fracture."  CRAP!!  I'm not happy about this, I was starting to get this running thing down. 

I'm open to any ideas to keep a fitness level up while I'm resting this darn thing.  Any tips for a newbie runner?  Maybe I'll do some yoga. 

P.S.  I really need to blog every day I run so it's not so long.  :-)

The Beginning

This is the beginning of my journey for renewal, but ironically, it's the day AFTER it all started. 

For those of you that know me, you know that I'm not the runner in the family, my sister Jenn is.  Aerobics, weight training, biking, hiking...those are my sports but I'm not always consistent with them.  I've battled weight and have lost and gained several teenage children.  LOL  The point is, it's too many pounds to count.  I'm a smoker and have quit dozens of times but always started back up. 

About a month ago I had some pretty scary health issues.  My white blood cell count was low as I was diagnosed with Bronchitis (which should of made it high), I was extremely fatigued for like 3 weeks, I found large unaccounted for bruises on my arms, legs, abdomen, and back.  My muscles and joints ached terribly requiring hydrocodone and flexiril to manage the pain.  Needless to say, I don't remember much about those 3 weeks. 
The doctors were testing me for Lymphoma.  That was pretty scary.  One doctor listened to my lungs and thought maybe I had the beginnings of COPD.  At age 42? 
That was a wake up call.  I knew, I had to quit smoking and quite frankly, I was tired of spending my money on cigarettes.  I also knew from quitting many other times that there would be weight gain and I didn't want that.

Last year in May, 4 months after a Hysterectomy, 41 years old and at 218 pounds, I knew I needed to get a handle on this weight.  The older you get, the harder it is, and it's even harder after a hysterectomy so I started modifying my diet and was gardening, biking, and just being more active with the Spring/Summer months.  I lost 37 pounds between May and December and weighed in at 181.  I was jazzed, I felt great and only had 20 more pounds to go before I reached my goal.  I'm ok with weighing more than I did when I was in my 20's, because, I'm not 20 anymore.  I was shooting for a weight in which I felt healthy and looked good.  
 
Since January this year, I have gained back 21 pounds and am currently sitting at 202 pounds again.  I am happy that since last year, I still have 16 of those 37 pounds off but if I want to quit smoking, I don't want to gain any more weight. 

Again, I'm not a runner but in the last 2 weeks of May, I had 6 different people talking to me about running.  My sister Jenn, who is a Weightwatchers Leader and a Marathoner, my friend Rachelle who also runs and is a Weightwatchers Leader, and my friend Lori who couldn't gush enough about the mental, spiritual, emotional and physical benefits of running.  These are people who I'm close to and expect that kind of influence but God brought me a few more people to me that pushed me to this point.  Over Memorial Day weekend, I ran into an old friend I hadn't seen in over 9 years or so, Trish and her daughter Lexi at Branched Oak Lake where we were camping.  They were running with "Beginner's Luck" shirts on and talked to me about the class and that a new one was getting ready to start, and how they would never have thought of themselves as runners but now love it!  I thought to myself, 5 people in 2 weeks?  Hmmm..
The push over the edge came at my daughter Casey's graduation ceremony from High School.  I have an anxiety based depression that I have struggled with since 2003.  I can't just sit and do one thing, so when I went to the ceremony, I took my knitting with me.  Seating was limited and I ended up sitting next to this young gentleman who introduced himself as Brendan and we just started chatting.  He looked at me as I pulled out my knitting and I told him, I have anxiety, I can't just sit.  He told me he had anxiety too but he runs and that helps.  Now...this cannot be a coincidence.  6 people in 2 weeks that talked of the emotional, mental, and physical as well as spiritual benefits of running?  I said....Ok God...I get the message.
 
I signed up for the "Beginner's Luck 2011" running class and went down to The Lincoln Running Co. and got fitted for running shoes.  I've tried to run before but I would get shin splints that were painful and I'm a busty girl and hated the feeling of the girls bouncing, you know what I mean? 
The running shoes felt amazing!  Mizuno's  I couldn't believe that shoes could feel like this.  I've been told that shoes make the difference.....and after last night, I believe it.  I also spent $50 on a really good sports bra and I can attest to the fact that it worked, the girls didn't go anywhere.  :-) 

Last night was the first night of the 8 week class that meets once a week.  We had a phenomenal speaker.  I follow his blog now:  bendoeslife.com  Check him out on you tube.  His story is amazing.  I thought, if he could do it, I can too.  Of course I'm in the baby class which suggested run for 30 sec, then walk for 30 sec, and do that for 20 minutes.  There were volunteers who ran with us and kept time calling out when to run, and when to walk.  Ann, who started the class years ago, told us that if we needed to walk longer to recover, that was ok, the main thing is that we were moving. 
My goal was to do the run/walk as the volunteers were calling out the entire way.  I did it!  The full 20 minutes of 30 seconds of running, 30 seconds of walking!  I do confess that there were a few times where I was thinking, "Walk.....SAY WALK!!!" 
There were a few times where I got into this rhythm and my mind would go somewhere else and process things and I actually forgot I was exercising at all.  I am a little sore today in my thighs, calfs and arms but I feel good and NO shin splints!! 
I am definitely looking forward to tomorrow's morning run. Another 20 minutes of 30 sec. of running/30 sec, of walking.  Hubby is going to get up at 5:30 am. and bike while I run.  I'm looking forward to the endorphins that will help my mood, the stress relief, the spiritual journey that spending that quality time with myself and God brings, and the health benefits.  If I lose weight?  That'll be a plus.  My goal is not to gain anymore pounds.  People say the weight will just melt off, but it's the other benefits I'm hoping to experience.

I am starting to believe that there may be a runner inside me trying to get out!