20 hours trapped

We are brave… or stupid? I think I’ll go with brave. 

We like a challenge. So here we go! 

From Syracuse, NY to Lakeland, Florida with two little ones in the back seat.

Week-recap

So last post was my 40th!! My husband recognized it as a mile stone right away and made this:

In the shape of a shoe!

What's the point?

Lets get back to the purpose of this blog...insert long pause. As I contemplate the meaning of that sentence, I realize everything that I've written about so far is EXACTLY the purpose of this blog. My intentions were to write about running and strength training and the journey to fitness. The struggles of greatness. I feel like so far I've been more focused on my injury, then my illness, rather than my running success. As I write this, I realize if the path was easy than everyone would do it.

I think my success is: not ever giving up; even better I never even thought of giving up.I've always thought how can I get past this and get back to running? How can I optimize my schedule to get more out of my day, my week, my month? What else can I read? Who can I talk to about running? (it turns out EVERYONE) What can I do to be the best?

So I think it's time to reflect on my successes over the year despite these setbacks:

Fastest 5k

24:28 7:46/mile

The devil in my stomach and its set backs

I've had a rough couple of weeks. My stomach issues are becoming more prominent and unrelenting. I guess it all started back in August when I felt the need to indulge in a little fried food. You know the late night hunger devil, cheese sticks, onion ring kinda sampler. Well, I paid for it by awakening with some cold sweats, angry stomach pains and ending with vomiting up all the deliciousness. This happened again the following night, although I don't really remember what I ate. This does happen sometimes, I do have a sensitive stomach when it comes some things and I consider myself a decent puker...this certainly doesn't make it any better. Well it happened again a couple weeks later, this time burger king, again I don't typically eat that type of food and am definitely paying for it. Lesson learned.
Hmmmm, more and more 2am is the witching hour and its really getting annoying. I like my sleep, who doesn't? My breaking point was the night before the Niagara Falls Marathon. This time I ate salad with a piece of grilled salmon on top. Certainly not anything bad. Jeepers, 2am strikes again! This time I didn't get up I didn't want to waist my precious food energy, for I have a race in the am. After about a 1/2 hour of pain I finally fell back asleep. This was followed by daily vague nausea with the occasional right upper abdominal fist sized pain under my ribs. I called my GI doc and got in right away. He says he thinks its my gall bladder and order up some tests. Unfortunately these weren't going to be completed til 3 weeks later. In the meantime I might wither away and die (super dramatic, I know). I complained to my medical director at the hospital and he got me in at the end of the week. Sometimes who you know DOES make a huge difference. The right upper quadrant ultrasound was normal and the Hida scan which tests function was also normal. Not the gall ladder = no surgery which makes me relieved. So now what? I'm not eating right. I'm sticking to the food groups of soup, tea, bread, and veggies.

This blurry week

Now that I'm getting back into the running scene, I'm learning to ease back in. I was pretty sore after that half marathon so I called Sarah right away for a massage. By Wednesday I felt ready to run again. I'm very fearful that I'll  re-injure myself so I held off. I met with Brent and he worked on strengthening my hips some more. He gave me some homework and I'm ready for the challenge. My plan is to work up 20 miles/week and start training for my training...I get so excited.

I met up with my friend Tracie who is an awesome long distance runner. We caught up while we ran 8 miles with an over all 8:40 pace.