feelings

You know feelings.. like pain. Pain is the feeling I have at present. Pain in my leg and periodically a pain in my ass, but the latter can't really be blamed on my running. I had a re x-ray of the broken leg that is no longer broken. Yay for small victories. Bones do heal. Even mine. So the doc sent me for the x-ray . I might add that the dep was the driving force behind the x-ray in the first place.  Anyway doc sent me for the repeat of the repeat of the repeat xray to see what there was to see inside my flesh. I hope that radiation doesn't harm your bones or cause some morphing at the cellular level because I might be becoming the Hulk or something. Hey wait.. that might improve my running. Hm.

 Well the result of the x-ray was a waste of two hours that I could have been running but never the less, good to have the knowledge I guess that my leg is healed and looks fine despite continued pain. I'm asking myself now... why am I worried about this little pain when I ran for three weeks on  a broken fibula? t=The simple answer is, well... simple. I ran for three weeks on a broken fibula. I don't want to re-break my leg. I ran for three weeks in complete denial and ended up with something a lot worse than just a little stress fracture. So lesson learned is.. denial is not a river in Egypt. It IS rather, a place where I like to frequent, especially as it pertains to my running. So I did the only sensible thing. I read my own x-ray, cause I'm moonlighting as a radiologist,  and then came home and ran an easy four miles.

My run today was sluggish. I don't know if this is because I'm feeling the five pounds that I need to lose (or maybe 10) or if my legs are just tired from not running for a few days. I'm feeling generally tight in my hips and calves and kind of irritable about not being able to just hit the ground running so to speak.  It could just as easily be attributed to my morale issues as I am becoming increasing frustrated with the Nike + whose accuracy I doubt. Oh it would be easy enough to just run to my 70% RPE )rate of perceived exertion) but then how would I know my pace for training and ultimately improving time. I mean my first order of business for the SF marathon is to cross the finish line alive, after that it would be to do it in some time frame that is at least predictable. Now I  might predict that it's going to take me 7 hours but at least I can know if I'm on target to finish in the predicted 7 hours. In any case, it's more of a case of me just being generally irritable that something isn't working like it should. I tried to calibrate to thing again at 400 meters and it told me that the distance I ran didn't match 400 meters. The only explanation I have for that is 1. I'm just so fast it thinks I'm flying or 2. (the more likely scenario) I'm so slow it thinks I'm crawling. Insulting. I mean is a 10 minute mile THAT slow? OK it is. I know but I'm trying to teach the thing to recognize MY marathon pace not my sisters sprinter pace. Ugh. Technology. Blessing and frustration. This would be one of those times I'd call on the software engineers I know and say, fix it. Please.

The good news is that I'll be buying myself a Garmin before you know it. I'm going to lose 10 pounds. Just cause I want to see what happens. Maybe my stomach will magically melt away in ten more pounds. Probably not but I think I'd better lose it just to be sure. And my 'trainer' who might also be known as my husband has devised a little reward program. For everyday on track with my weight loss and training routine, in to the jar goes $5. At some point soon I'll be implementing the Garmin and then we'll know just what the Nike+ is made of.

LSD

No, not the hallucinogen. The run. THE run. The long slow distance run. In running jargon this is the run that is done at what is known as a "conversational pace", which very simply means you should be able to have a conversation while running. Not a dissertation or a debate, just a conversation. This is a hard concept for new runners to wrap their mind around. In fact it's probably a hard concept for anyone to wrap their minds around. The idea is that you have to be deliberate in your running. There is no "as fast as you can" no push beyond the limit of your fastest. This is not how the LSD works. Instead the LSD should be a pace that you could sustain for, oh, about 26.2 miles or so. Maybe 26.2 miles sounds like a distance that might as well read: to the moon and back. Maybe, if you're an ultramarathoner, 26.2 miles might as well read: stroll in the park. For me, it's the former. So, the problem that presents itself is this, if you've never run a marathon, how do you know what pace to run at? Well you could operate at 60-70% of you MHR if you know what your MHR is, if you even know WHAT a MHR is. Or you could i-rate your exertion scale and run at a 6-7 on a scale of 1-10. Or you could just run with someone else and have a conversation. 

Today was my first LSD since my break. Well it was technically my first LSD at all considering that to this point, every long run I did was at a pace where I felt like I would essentially die at any minute. Who wants to feel like they are going to die for 26.2 miles? Not me. So I should run my LSD at my "marathon"pace, which based on some formulas should be like 12-13 minutes a mile. But I don't know my marathon pace so I just took the dep with me and talked with him. It translated into a 11:12 average pace (Or so says the nike+ but I don't know if that can be relied upon for 100% accuracy). It's hard to run with the dep for a couple of reasons. 1. He runs 3 miles. I mean that is his run. His running focus is ALWAYS qualifying in his mile and a half PT test. He doesn't run 5 miles and he doesn't think in terms of longevity. It's balls to the wall so to speak, and that is how he operates. That's funny because he is not a "balls to the wall" type of guy. Not in the slightest. The #2 reason he's hard to run with is that he is 6ish feet tall. This means that his legs are basically the same length os my entire body. His one step = my four. (ok not four but at least two). SO this causes frustration for me. I'm a self admitted easily frustrated person. I've never participated in team sports so my concept of coaching is "just do it".  In fact, my concept of most things in life is "just do it". It works in some circumstances, some not so much. The last time we ran together I was so frustrated with his "coaching" that I told his to just be quiet. I appreciate that he is trying to motivate and he could make me run faster but then he doesn't really get the concept that I'm not trying to be faster.

So.. that brings me to the point of this post. The LSD. Today was my LSD run. 5.44 miles. 1:01. Average pace 11:12/mile. And? Pain. No. Breathlessness. No. Exhaustion. No. Success. Yes. 

i've been thinking...

and I've been afraid to say it outloud. I was looking at my Nike+ run history and it's undeniable... my longest run was the day I broke my leg. Oh, I imagine that the leg was probably on the verge of breaking for a month before I actually broke it but the day I broke 4 miles was the day the it, in fact, broke. So that was many moons ago. Well not that many really, only like 3 but still, not yesterday. On November 19th I hit the road again. I had tried to run and failed. I tried a couple of times to run from the car to the front door of the gym or from the store to the car, to no avail. But that day, that blessed day, November 19th, I ran 3.59 miles at a 10:56 average pace (hovering really around the 10 ish mark if you deduct warm up and cool down pace). Now it's do or die. Shit or get off the proverbial pot time.

 Big Sur is coming soon. OK not that soon, like 18 weeks, but still. I have to make the decision if I'm going to run the 10.6 or shoot the moon and try the full. I'm leaning toward the 10.6 mostly because I don't want my first marathon to be a disaster and I think trying to train for a marathon on a mostly still not completely healed leg (how's that for vague) is not the best idea. So the 10.6 it will probably be and San Fran will be my marathon debut. This is a big decision in a runners life. If you're considering being a marathoner, you probably want your first marathon to be memorable and mostly finishable. I think SF might fit the bill. It's far enough away that I'll have a good solid year of real running under my belt and still close enough to look forward to. Plus it's San Francisco so how can you really go wrong with that. Now for the choice of training.

I have John Bingham's book Marathoning for Mortals  and I like it. Mostly because it's written for people like me, real people, who don't worry about VO2 and all that jazz but also because he's got programs for half and fulls with every level from walk the whole thing to run the whole thing. Now I'd never set out to WALK a marathon. Good God people who wants to walk 26.2 miles? Ick. But I like that he's realistic and that he recognizes that people come to running with all different fitness levels from "I can run to the end of my driveway" to "How much do you run? I run 50 miles a week." (50 miles a week is a lot). John's programs are time realistic as well. 14 weeks for the 1/2 and 18 for the full. My only real issue is that the half schedule calls for far less running then I'm already doing. The first week has runs of 2 and 3 miles and the  long  run in only 3. Not a crisis I guess but either way. Maybe what I should do is the marathon training but then only run the 10.6'er. A couple of the miles on that course are just straight uphill. Ouch. The marathon training might be a better prep anyway.  

Well either way, my point was to say, I'm ready. I'm ready to get back in the saddle. And p.s. I'm scared. I wouldn't freely admit that to anyone (so it's a good damn thing no on reads this blog) but I am. I am just absolutely TERRIFIED that I am going to break something or wound some other part of me. There is that little part of my brain that screams "SEE you were never meant to be an athlete, otherwise your stupid leg wouldn't have broken just from the act of running on pavement." And then there's that other part of my brain (I think it's a little bigger) that says "Listen here missy... you cannot let the years and years of being told you were smart and not athletic stop you from running a mother fricking 100 miles if you want to do it. You have a heart and lungs. You have feet and legs and aside from that, what more do you need? So shut up, put on your Sauchonys and go outside fool. Hit the road and run. Listen to your body, but run. Just run"

sleep is not....

to be underestimated. Truly. I was taking a long, hot soak tonight thinking about sleep. Mostly about how I don't get enough of it probably. It's pandemic I know. The average adult needs somewhere between 6-8 hours of sleep daily. Right? Why you ask? Here's why. It's not revolutionary. We don't need to beat a dead horse. But read this anyway. That shit will just depress the hell out of a night shift worker such as your truly. Me. Faithful and trusted Registered Nurse. 

Let me show you what Thanksgiving week looked like for me. I was scheduled to work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Monday we were overstaffed so they called me off. I was grateful. I was tired and had homework to do. Tuesday I ran around like a chicken with my head forcibly removed all day. No nap. No rest. No feet up. Zero. Zip. Nada. At 1715 (or 5:15 pm) I went to work. We were busy. And by busy I mean busy. I think I took lunch at 0230. Maybe. My longest period of sitting was maybe 20 minutes. Home I came. Kids were at the in laws thankfully. The dep and I visited and I think ate breakfast. I went to bed at 0730. Tired. So tired. I opted out of a sleep aid (namely Ambien) and decided that since I had too much to do I would only sleep until my body woke up, whatever time that was and then get up to cook. Master plan: lay down in the afternoon before going back to work. 1000 and awake I am. 2.5 hours of sleep. I cooked all day and generally exhausted myself, never sitting. No time for nap and by 1600 I was dragging ass. Oh well, back to work. Wednesday night was a fun repeat of Tuesday and as an added bonus I had a benefit 5K to run at 0800 on Thursday. By 0700 Thanksgiving morn, my legs resembled some kind of shapeless, swollen blob. I ran and then came home and did the day. Aided mostly by champagne and white wine. By 0200 the NEXT morning I had had 2.5 hours of sleep in 68 hours and I had gained 3 pounds of water weight. At least.

Ok to be fair that's not a typical week. Typically I stay up all day my first day of work (like tomorrow). Maybe I'll sleep an hour or two in the afternoon if I can manage. The second day looks a lot like the first. I'll skip the gym usually, because I'm just too damn tired and swollen. I'll sleep part of that day. Maybe 3-4 hours or a very good day and then just lay around, too tired to do anything productive and not able to sleep, despite the aforementioned exhaustion. The third day looks remarkably like the second except I'll run or go tot he gym because I feel so incredibly shitty that I figure it can't get much worse. Maybe I'm SO tired I can sleep 4 hours. Maybe, but probably not. Work again that night and then come home the next morning, go to the gym and go through the day. Usually no sleep or a shortish nap of an hour or two because anything more than that and I feel guilty for sleeping the whole day away. Anyway on a typical week by the time my third day of work has elapsed  I have slept 6-8 hours in three days. Ew that even looks bad. 

People will say to me "how do you DO THAT?" The truth is this... I do not know. I just do not know. I feel like shit. That's fact. I look pretty bad. Also fact. My brain is certainly not 100%. Not a comforting fact. But I don't know. I know this though. Anyone who is sleeping on that kind of schedule can't be feeling too hot or healthy. Which brings me to my long awaited point. How can you expect to lose weight and be healthy when you consistently deprive yourself of the thing your body craves most, aside from water and food? The answer: You cannot. Diet on the night shift. Here and HA I might add. There is that eat to stay awake phenomenon. There's just no way to put in kindly. It stinks. It sucks. It sucks ass.

The dep says I should blog about sunflowers and happy thoughts. He doesn't have a blog. Clearly.

blog failure

I read somewhere recently that most bloggers want, in fact, to not be bloggers, but to be real true blue authors.... I think the person who made this astounding revelation must want to be an author, for I, in actuality, do not. I have a friend who told me I should be an author, but truth be told, this friend only said this because they are aware that I can write, in minutes, what it might take the average person hours to write. It's really not a compliment. In fact, I think it could be a hidden insult. Hm... there's something to ponder. I don't think quantity a good author makes. If it did, I'd have that shit in the bag.

Lately I've been pondering something else, I've been blogging on the "other" blog. The B blog. Well it really gets all the attention so it should be called the A blog. Anyway I've been trying to decide which blog ought to be the A blog and what the subject matter of said blog should be. I hate to always talk about weight loss. That's dull. I mean clearly it's a theme in the lives of about 50% of Americans but shit who wants to hear about it all the time? Not me. That's for damn sure. Recently I've been dealing with some religion issues but I don't want to blog about that because who wants to hear about religion? Not me. That's for damn sure. Hm. It wouldn't be totally unreasonable to talk about running. I spend at least 6 hours a week actually doing it and about 50% of the rest of the time thinking about it. How to be faster. How to run longer. What races I'm going to do this year. If my broken leg will ever be 100% again. Where I will run. When I will run. It's an exhaustive list really.  But then non-runners probably don't want to hear about my running. Well then I guess I don't really have any worries since no one reads my blog which is good because my dream to one day be a real author will never be realized. Darn. 

SO maybe I'll just blog what I've been blogging. Nothing. Random thoughts of zip. 

I went to the gym today. It's a torture chamber but I love it. I tanned. I don't like tanning per se. I don't want to age prematurely or have a bunch of wrinkles or look like Magda on Something About Mary but it's so f__ing dreary here. The fog and the overcast. Blech. If blech isn't a word, too bad. I just made it one. In any case I hit the bed because frankly I like I'm getting SAD. Not the traditional sad but the SAD kind. The kind of SAD you get when you live in a place like Washington state where is rains like 364 days of the year (I live in California in a place where it rains like 4 days a year but I have nothing against Washington. Thanks for the apples Washingtonians and btw I think I'd like to live there). Anyway a little tanning bed action for about 10 minutes, just enough to synthesize some vitamin D and then I hit the dreaded weight room. Dun dun dun. The men in there frighten me. There is a dude there whose  bicep is 18 inches. 18 inches. Seriously. Yikes. My thigh is 19 inches. And I think that's kind of big. Well anyway, the dep (aka hubbie) and I went in there together so he could tell me what to do and make sure I don't look like a man in the process. So far so good. Then some resistance work. Inner, outer thigh and the calves. My poor poor calves. The right one is a full 3/4 inch smaller than the the left so I did that machine. Ouch. I did some free weights and that will hurt tomorrow, then I drug him to the treadmill because we nurses believe in cardio. :) 15 minutes of running at 90-95% of MHR (which is too high btw just for those who wonder).

Let me tell you how I used to feel about the gym. I joined the gym a little of two years ago. I can't remember what possessed me to even walk in the door of the place but I joined and we went a bit, you know, typical gym behavior. Go a little while then stop. Then we used it periodically. I'll admit there were months where the $88 was completely wasted. Not one of us stepped one foot in the place. Then I started losing weight. I started running to boost the loss and the unthinkable happened. I discovered that I, perpetual shopper and hater of sweat, liked running. A lot. And then the second unthinkable happened. I broke my fibula. Running, no. Walking, barely. So that gym membership cam in right handy. It had been so long since I'd been in the gym that the guy at the front counter welcomed me as a new member. The elliptical and I became very good friends. Best buds you might say. I went and visited her 5 days a week sometimes 6 and started logging miles. Just hoping to keep the cardio up (you know we nurses believe in cardio). Then on November 19th it was sunny. I was feeling good. Things at home had been a little troublesome, I won't elaborate but I needed a release. I needed a workout and felt compelled to put on my shoes and try the road. I got out the nike+, my favorite running partner and just went. I ran 3.59 miles that day with an average pace of 10:56 , let me quantify that by saying this, in the day I broke my leg my average pace was 12:29. I had only broken the 12 minute mile barrier once before my injury. So there is something to be said for the elliptical. Oh it's not like the road. Not in the slightest. But, just the movement, the action of getting your heart beating and your body moving, was enough to help me shave almost two minutes off my mile time. My most recent run was a 10:26 pace and the day before that (when I wasn't hurting) 10:03 average. If I didn't warm up with the + running I'd break 9 minutes. Low 9. That's a good good thing.

OK now for the  disclaimer: the Nike+ is not 100% accurate. I mean from run to run it's accurate for me and it's not far off overall. The day I did the 5K the nike+ thought I ran 3.3 miles instead of 3.1. I'm not sure if the course was really 3.1 miles but provided it was then the accuracy is off by that small of an error. 0.1 miles per mile maybe. Not bad for a $30 gadget. I don't work for nike but if that thing even breaks I will absolutely cry. I love my Nike + almost as much as my Sauchony shoes and my champion sports bra (and I don't work for them either)

OK I suppose that will conclude today's installment and I'll be back tomorrow to talk about nothing some more.