Category Archives: Updates

Much too Young to Feel This Damn Old

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Yesterday I ran ten miles.

Wait, let me rephrase that.

Yesterday I “ran” ten miles.

I say “ran” because in all actuality, I RAN seven miles, I jogged mile 8, and I SUFFERED through miles 9 and 10.

Hey, hip flexor, how YOU doin’?

You want to know how much this freaks me out? A lot this freaks me out. Why? Because right now I am physically prepared to run a half marathon in five weeks.

I have two half marathons in the next four.

Well, fuck. That math just doesn’t add up.

Part of the freak out comes from the fact that in my first half marathon, miles 8 and 9 were where I hit my block, where my mind and body started rebelling. And that was after ACTUALLY training!

So, yeah, not feeling so confident about this whole RACE thing. I mean, I’m going to fucking do it. Of course I’m going to fucking do it. I’m just kind of worried about how my brain will process the whole thing.

Yesterday I also printed off my waiver form for the Rock N Roll half, which showed me having registered with an expected completion time of 1:50:00. Aaaaaaahahahahahaha.

At this point, honestly, I’ll be happy to finish sub-2:10. Granted, this time I’ll have a support system at more places than miles 2 and 13 (hi mama, I love that you and baby sister were there!), being that hopefully GCB will be feeding me beer at mile 9. And really, I ran a 5k (yes, I know a half marathon is like 4-something 5ks) the other day and felt…well, perfect after actually.

Granted, today my hip flexor is still angry, I’m still limping, and now I have a week and a half to talk myself into going balls-to-the-wall for 13.1 miles.

Psh, no big deal, right?

Ten

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It is already October. How in the hell is it already October?

Only ten months into 2012 and I feel like this has been the best year of my life. Already. Between signing up for a marathon and running Ragnar and meeting GCB and moving into a new role at work/getting a raise and settling into an incredible routine with some of the best friends a girl could ask for, things are, and have been, pretty amazing.

And things are just looking to get better.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be running a 5k with April and some other friends, going to the final Cardinals game of the season, going to see Les Miserables with my mama, running two half marathons, taking a trip to Arizona with GCB, celebrating my birthday, and continuing to run many, many miles on a weekly basis. And that just gets me into the first week of November.

It seems like life is just flying by at an ever-increasing speed, and some days knowing there is so much great stuff ahead, it’s difficult to just STOP and look around me. This is something I work on every day.

Because this time IS so incredible. Just this week I will get to see my young cousin’s first ever varsity volleyball game, go and spend time with GCB’s sister, bro-in-law, and two ADORABLE nieces, go to the baseball game, have a dinner date with my closest friends, and hopefully see a friend of mine who’s in town from Texas. Such a great week’s worth of plans.

Have I mentioned that life is awesome lately? Because it totally is.

Stronger

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Over the last few weeks, multiple times I have opened up my dashboard to actually write something here. Sometimes I’ll get a title, some days a couple sentences, but more often than not (obviously) I close out the draft and delete it.

Some days I feel like I have run out of words.

Yesterday I went running. Seven and a half miles, officially the longest distance I’ve put myself through since Ragnar. I found a few words when I was done.

OH HOLY FUCKING SHIT BALLS THAT FUCKING HURTS OW.

However, those words actually made me feel better.

You see, the ow comes from a sore hip. Not my lungs, not my muscles. That means big things to me.

It means I’m getting stronger.

I’d imagine that you could tell with the lack of any sort of blogging (besides the vomitous sunshine and rainbows about GCB) that this round of training has been anything but ideal. Throughout the entirety of August as well as a big chunk of September, I hated it. Hated. The weather was abysmal, my muscles weren’t remembering what they were trained to do fast enough, I wasn’t improving, I was slow, I was miserable. My workout schedule from those months is rather depressing, given how many days I would highlight the content and hit “delete.” I honestly did not fucking care. Didn’t care about my desired PR or about the fact that my next two half marathons are both less than (at this point) 40 days away. I didn’t care that I was severely handicapping myself by NOT caring. It got to the point that GCB was incredibly worried about me. He’d never seen me struggle so badly with something I loved so much.

And then last week happened. Two weekends ago the weather changed. It went from blisteringly hot and suffocatingly humid to sunny, breezy, 70F, and beautiful. It became running weather.

I’ll admit it. I was terrified to go running. What if my runs were STILL just as bad as they had been? Would I be as slow or as incompetent? Would my mental blocks stand firm? Would the burnout from before Ragnar carry into now?

It didn’t. Oh my goodness, it didn’t. Last week’s six miles were THE best miles I have run since the second leg of Ragnar (you know, the one at 330 in the morning). I was exhilarated. Ecstatic. ALIVE. Every single step, every breath that I took reminded me of just how much I love doing this, how much this is a part of WHO I AM.

It gave me hope. It made me feel SEXY, even through the sweat and running eyeliner and bug carcasses that were stuck my skin (gnats = plankton, as far as I’m concerned).

I went straight to GCB’s house afterwards, and I know I was grinning like a maniac for a few hours after. It was the best runner’s high I’d had in a while.

Which of course leads me to last night.

I texted GCB about being sore, but then I got home, walked up my stairs, and realized it was just my hip. My hip that has more to do with my joint and the fact that I could probably use new running shoes rather than my muscles not being strong.

I am stronger than I have been in a while. My muscles are REMEMBERING what they were made to do, REMEMBERING how good this feels. I feel like I have reclaimed my motivation, my desire to get that PR, to FINISH THAT FUCKING MARATHON.

Progress.

I have missed this.

Crazy Beautiful Life

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You guys, life is CRAZY. I’m sure you’ve realized this, as it’s been weeks since I’ve posted. My apologies. So let’s update you! Bullet-point style.

  • First off, I have a brand new nephew! He was born 530am yesterday morning, and was a teensy 7.0lbs, 18.5 inches long. My sister is a freaking rock star as she labored with him for TWO DAYS and still delivered him unmedicated. She’s exhausted still, but both she and the baby (who is at last check still nameless Edit: I just got a text message from my mom. His name is Thomas.) are doing wonderfully. The kiddo has LOTS of blond hair, and I cannot wait to meet him in (hopefully) six weeks.
  • On the work front, I’ve recently been moved into a (what my boss calls) utility player role. This has kept me super busy both in the lab and doing the quality management stuff, but it’s been great to learn new stuff and stay busy at the same time.
  • So a couple weekends ago, I noticed a slight crack in my living room ceiling. That weekend it rained like crazy, and by that Monday, my ceiling was split basically into quadrants and looked like it was going to come crashing down on me at any moment. There were bits of ceiling on my floor, which is the exact opposite location of where they should be. Last Tuesday they called and told me they were going to completely replace my ceiling, which meant I had to move everything out of my living room and gather enough stuff to last me for a week. I have yet to get back into my apartment, but it’s supposed to be done today. It’s been kind of fun living with GCB, and even though we spend nearly every day together as it is, it will be nice to have the option of going home. However, what I wasn’t expecting was what happened as I moved stuff. I went through my bookcase to try to pare down what books I owned. After two monstrous piles of books to donate as well as books that I’ve borrowed and never read, I am at a point where I’m ready to THROW AWAY ALL THE THINGS. The amount of extraneous crap lying about my apartment is kind of unreal, and I plan on fixing that post haste. This afternoon my intent is to go through at least a closet and two sets of drawers and get rid of everything I don’t need. This will be a large amount of stuff. I’m kind of looking forward to it.
  • Marathon training is….going. I’m going to be incredibly honest and tell you that the entire month of August made me hate running. A dread type hate, where I didn’t even want to walk out my front door. My runs were abysmal, I felt no ounce of progress, and it’s incredibly disheartening/demotivating to feel that EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Luckily last week I had two REALLY good runs, and it was such a boost. It is officially less than four months til the big race, with two half marathons looming just a few weeks from now. It’s terrifying, and I’m really hoping the joy that I normally feel running makes its return before I end up in a serious race situation. I’m just under 5 weeks until the Rock and Roll half. I have five weeks to get my ass in gear. This should be interesting.
  • Things with the boyfriend are phenomenal still. Moreso than I could ever have imagined. He’s pretty damn fantastic.
  • As for what I’ve been doing besides that? Everything. Baseball games and dinners and weekends with friends/family/the boyfriend. Four-wheeling and fantasy football and mourning the NHL lockout. Starting to write for a different hockey place (details when I actually publish my first piece) and just enjoying things. A friend of mine commented recently that I’ve been quite scarce from the Twitter world. I realized that instead of commenting on life there, I’m living it. Living it well.

Friends, things are good great. I’m happy. Very, very happy.

Work Hard, Play Hard

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It’s official. Marathon training has begun. FULL marathon training.

Scary.

Really scary.

Five months from Monday is the Disney Marathon in Orlando, FL. I had a mild panic attack the other day realizing that it’s less than half a year away.

Then I had another teeny one yesterday after I tried running on a treadmill and thought I was going to die. I have a lot of work to do, a lot of ground to make up from my two months off.

I am bracing myself for the constant soreness, for ALWAYS having at least one part of my body hurting. Right now it’s my traps and my inner thighs. Tomorrow will probably be my hamstrings and abs.

There are just over two months until my two half marathons in three weekends jaunt.

There are miles upon miles that I am getting ready to run.

There is the knowledge that I’m going to have my footsies covered in blisters in no time.

There’s the fear, the apprehension. What if I can’t do this?

There will be the routine that I sidle into, between time in the gym and time out on the open road.

There will be sweat and pain and roadblocks, both mental and physical, and then the bull-headed attempts to refocus my motivation, which I’m sure will wander from time to time.

There’s a lot of work ahead of me.

Here we go.

Up in the Gym Just Workin’ on my Fitness

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I hurt.

Today was the first workout I’ve done since Ragnar, and I’m going to be totally honest. While I was driving to the gym, I could feel my muscles start to get concerned, saying, “Wait a minute, didn’t we just get put through all sorts of torture? What is she DOING to us?!”

Interrobang.

Being that the few weeks before Ragnar were, um….less than stellar with the motivation, I’ve not lifted in a month. A MONTH. Knowing this, I intentionally dropped my weights on everything.

It’s a good thing I did.

Realizing that you’ve fallen a long way from where you were in just a few short weeks absolutely blows. I was better off on my arms than I thought I’d be, but damn, it still sucks to feel like you’re lifting baby weights compared to where you were just a month ago.

My legs? That’s a totally different story. My legs are apparently still REALLY MOTHERFUCKING TIRED. I cut my weight to just over half of what I normally do. It hurt. And then I had to do jump squats. The post-jump-squat shoulder lift reminded me FAR too much of my last leg of Ragnar. Boiling hot, sweat dripping down my face, chest, back, everywhere, hardly a breeze to find, legs shaking, and trying not to throw up while tasting way too clearly the Clif’s Shot Blocks I’d eaten earlier.

I make lifting sound so sexy and appealing, don’t I?

So now I just have to get back in my rhythm, my schedule, back to what I had lost motivation to do a few weeks back. It did feel great to get back into the gym, to sweat, to feel like I was doing something to move my body FORWARD instead of devouring a BACON-BACON mac and cheese from Cheeseology and taking a nap. Not to say that wasn’t glorious, but still.

My sights now are set on January. I’ve finished a Ragnar. I’ve finished a few half marathons. I’ve got 5ks, 10ks, a 4k (with beer!) completed and to look forward to. I’ll spend the summer taking things relatively easy and making sure my body stays healthy and fit.

And then the training starts again.

I am actually really fucking excited to start. But not until September.

The Distance

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Well, we did it. Team One Hand Party Stand ran 198.3 miles in 30 hours, 44 minutes, and 25 seconds.

Wow. Let’s break it down.

Thursday I left St Louis right around 1pm, thinking that I would be able to get into Chicago before the major rush hour traffic hit. This would have been logical and all had I taken into account the potential construction traffic on the way up. I did not, thus I was stuck in construction traffic and then rush hour traffic. Gross. However, I got there right around when everyone else did, so it was ok. We loaded the suburbans and headed out to good ole Madison, WI, stopping at a Red Robin for dinner. Because monstrous burgers, unlimited fries, and a couple beers is the perfect pre-race meal, right? Right.

Getting to the hotel and getting things situated took a while, so unfortunately we didn’t get to bed until nearly midnight. That was less than ideal.

At this point, it’s easier going by times.

Friday

6am: Not my ideal wake-up time, but unavoidable as all the other girls were up and moving about, plus the nerves and adrenaline were starting to kick in. Got ready, got the suburbans loaded, ate breakfast, tried to not freak out. The usual.

930am: When we should have been at the starting line. Unfortunately, we went to the first exchange instead. Oops.

Team One Hand Party Stand

10am: When our team should have been starting. Instead, the second vehicle (runners 7-12, aka the Dude Van, named as such due to the fact that there were two girls out of eight people) watched as the 10am wave left without runner 1.

1030am: Ragnar BEGIN!!

Runner one is in the orange tank top.

11am: The Dude Van found a Jamba Juice and roamed around downtown Madison for a while, then headed to major exchange six, where we noticed that our suburban was leaking what looked like power steering fluid. Not so good, but ignore it and it goes away, right?

1130am-4pm: Laziness. Our van had a picnic. We wandered around. We laid in the grass. We waited. We waited for what felt like FOREVER. All of us were overly anxious, just ready to get out and DO something. Waiting for a race like that to start made each of us incredibly fidgety.

Lunch!

4pm: Dude Van starts!! Finally. But still there was more waiting for me as I was runner 9.

545pm: My first leg starts.

Our baton was definitely a slap bracelet.

Let’s chat about my first leg. On the Ragnar website, it told me that the first leg I’d run was a Very Hard 8.2 miles. Looking at the elevation chart, I figured that the reason it was labeled Very Hard was because of the distance. Um. No. The first nearly four miles were through ROLLING Wisconsin farmland. Lots of long, steep hills. It was 85 degrees out with no cloud cover. Brutal. That was a HARD run. I mean REALLY hard. It took quite a bit out of me, to be honest, and I train on hills! The last half or so was on a trail, which was shaded and actually quite lovely, so my second half I really pushed it, and my mile splits dropped significantly. The odd thing is that on this trail, it allowed the teams to spread out, so for quite a while I was running by myself. Not a person in sight. No mile markers except for one telling me when I was one mile from the end of my run. Slightly disconcerting, yet pretty awesome at the same time.

7pm: Finished my first leg.

Dead

730pm: Notice that the suburban’s engine is overheating. Realize leak is not just power steering fluid. Try to keep panic at bay. Found coolant, refilled the engine with it, and crossed our fingers.

940pm: Dude van finishes the first stint. Our team begins the second third of the race.

11pm: Tried to sleep. Succeeded for not even 45 minutes.

1130pm: Left exchange 12 to go pick up our volunteer who’d been at a water station. Get there to find two things. One, the vehicle was overheating again. That leak was not messing around. Two, learned that one of the runners from another team was lost. Somewhere on the 7 mile long, VERY DARK 12th leg (don’t worry, they were eventually found).

Saturday

1215am: Filled the engine with water, booked it to exchange 18.

1am: Came to the realization that we had to figure out a plan because stopping to give runners water and at every exchange was not going to work for this suburban as it was leaking too fast. Van one arrived, and it was decided that the original Dude Van was then going to be the major exchange van while the other was to get the active runners between exchanges. This required unpacking both suburbans and repacking them with the opposite group’s stuff.

2am: Runner six finishes, runner seven goes. Our team is half way done with the race. Van one heads to major exchange 24, and the Dude Van gets going again.

330am: My second leg (5.3 miles) starts. This was by far the best leg of my individual race. It was cool out, my path was through a wildlife preserve type thing in Racine, WI, the moon was super bright, it was a great distance, and I just cruised. I passed a few people and was able to nearly sprint into the exchange. The shot of adrenaline that run gave me was unreal, and I was JACKED after that. Couldn’t have fallen asleep if I’d wanted to.

5am: During leg 23. Sunrise over Lake Michigan.

515am: Get a text from our runner. She needs Bio-Freeze, which is similar to Icy Hot. This is not good. First a broken suburban, then a broken runner? As she pulled around the corner right next to where I took this picture, another teammate got Bio-Freeze on her IT band. IT band stuff SUCKS to say the least. She needed someone to help push her mentally, so I ran with her for about a mile, then traded off with one of our other guys for a mile or so. They get to where we’re parked, and she tells us she’s out, she can’t go anymore. Here’s the fun part. With a mixed team, 18 of the 36 legs HAVE to be completed by women. If a woman comes out of the race, a woman goes in for her. Since I was the only other female in the Dude Van, I took over the last mile and a half of her leg. The plan from then was for me to finish my final leg as well as hers later that day, which would add another 4.4 miles to my total.

6am: Handed off to runner 12. Officially have had less than 45 minutes of sleep in 24 hours while still running sixteen miles.

640am: Get to exchange 24 and switch the cargo between the suburbans again. Send runner one off to start the last third of our race. Find our first real meal in nearly 24 hours.

9am: Tried to sleep again. Got maybe half an hour. Stood up and realized that I had a sore left knee and a REALLYANGRY right hip. At this point the temperature was already at 80 degrees and was climbing steadily.

11am: One of our teammate’s parents brought us a mini-van so we moved whatever we could do the van and sent the suburban on its way home.

12pm: Dude Van finally takes off for our last stint. We brought one of the other girls with us, as my body had made it very clear that it would not be willing to take on an extra 4.4 miles.

2pm: My final leg starts. I don’t think it requires saying, but I’m going to anyway. I did not want to run at this point. It was above 90 degrees, I hurt all over, I was exhausted from having barely slept in two days, and I couldn’t even imagine putting my shoes back on and willingly running another 4.8 miles. But I did it. It was the most difficult 4.8 miles I have ever run in my life. Ever. Finished it anyway, and totaled out my mileage at just over 20.

515pm: Team One Hand Party Stand crosses the finish line at Montrose Beach in Chicago, IL.

This race was BY FAR the most physically and mentally trying race of my entire life, yet also the most unique and incredible experience. It took everything I could possibly give and then asked for more. I didn’t get to bed til after 1030 Saturday night and had to promptly drive back to St Louis early the next morning. I limped for two solid days afterwards and ate Advil like it was candy. Sunday I was smacked really hard with the dehydration, and I still feel physically worn out. My legs are achy, and I have refused to walk into a gym until next week.

I would do it all again. Without question.

Dude Van-er, One Hand Party Stander, Ragnarian for life.

Crazy Train

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So yesterday’s mini-freak out turned into a full blown meltdown. Like leaving work early to fight off a panic attack, sobbing into GCB’s shoulder, unable to eat anything almost all day meltdown.

It was not fun.

The biggest and most heart-felt kudos to GCB in general for just how well he handled it by just letting me vent, letting me cry, hugging me, and telling me it was going to be ok. There wasn’t even a trace of that “holy shit, she’s crazy” in his eyes, just a steadiness that really helped calm me down. Good job, boyfriend, on the perfect reaction!

That being said, today was a better day. I suppose making it through a full day of work and actually being productive counts as better, but in general I FEEL better. I’m still a bit psyched out on the race bit, but there is quite literally nothing more I can do about it.

I should have gone running yesterday. I didn’t. I COULD have gone running today. I didn’t. Instead I went back to the thing that I tend to turn to when I get super stressed out.

I cleaned. Oh fuck did I clean. Wiping off my window sills and vacuuming and windexing my bathroom mirror and doing every single bit of laundry I had and guaranteeing that the only dirty dish left in my apartment is the glass filled with milk that’s sitting in my fridge for GCB (who really, REALLY loves milk).

This is the same type thing I used to do in college before a huge test that would freak me out. I’d clean the entire apartment, whether I was the one who messed it up or not. My roommates loved that about me. It helps my brain to be calm when I’m in an organized space. So I cleaned. And then I set up little tiny piles of clothes for every single day starting tomorrow until I leave Chicago on Sunday. There are littler piles for the clothes I’ll be wearing for each leg of the Ragnar. Hell, there’s a pile of clothes sitting on top of my dresser for what I am going to wear tomorrow to work, as though I wouldn’t be able to just pull the stuff out of my dresser.

It’s funny. Piles of clean clothes and a running dishwasher and vacuum lines on my carpet have calmed me down more than nearly anything else.

All that’s left to do is….run.

That’s it. Just run.

Power of Love

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Ok, I’ll be honest. The title has NOTHING to do with anything, except for the fact that the stupid fucking song is in my head. I blame GCB, as this morning he made reference to the fact that I was his lady. OBVIOUSLY I went ahead and started singing at him….that’s right, Celine Dion before 7am…..and NOW the fucking song is STILL STUCK IN MY GODDAMNED HEAD.

Good thing he’s cute.

This picture makes me smile like an idiot

Today is supposed to be Wordless Wednesday. Right now, I am anything but wordless. Not for any bad reason or anything like that. I’m just FULL OF THOUGHTS.

Honestly, I’m always full of thoughts, but some of those are so random, so prime for making you all think I am a lunatic, that I usually keep most of those to myself. Not today.

Random jibberish commencing.

First of all, there’s this:

Awesome, right? My friend Andy has been creating these Faceless Facebook designs, and this is the one he did of me. It’s coming from this picture: 

I absolutely love it. Seriously. He blows me away on a regular basis with his talent.
Not too long ago, my friend Sarah (who works for the Girl Scouts) offered me a chance to get cookies for $1.50 a box. I got ten boxes of Thin Mints. They’re almost gone. Today is the rungriest day I’ve had in a while, and I am working my way through killing the last sleeve of them I have here. My boss thought it was a great idea to tell me that lean proteins would probably be better for me than the sugar. I had to hold myself back from stabbing him in the throat. Maybe it’s that lately my patience at work has been minimal, but for some reason this just bugs me. Like dude? I’m an athlete. I fucking KNOW that protein would be better for me. I also know that if I ate my lunch now, I would be STARVING by the time I got home, and I have a six mile run on my agenda. Being that hungry with that kind of run ahead never ends well. I also know that one sleeve of Thin Mints is not going to kill me. I ALSO know that I’m in better shape than any single person in my group, so I’m pretty sure I’m o-fucking-kay with this decision. Why this is grating on me, I’m not sure, but I’m all bristly about it. Maybe it’s the implication that I don’t fucking know what I’m doing. Because I guarantee you, I fucking know what I’m doing. That statement applies to work too. I’m trying really hard to not rant about work right now. It is difficult not to. Whatever.
Happier topic. This week I got my flight booked to go out to Portland to see my dad’s side of the family. I am pretty pumped. Granted, I don’t have my flight back yet (still waiting for prices to drop), so that could get entertaining. Not only will I get to see a good chunk of my family (immediate AND extended), but I am taking twelve days off work. TWELVE. I am REALLY looking forward to it.
And then there’s this whole Ann’s running a LOOOOOONG way in like a week. Guess who just took five days off from working out? This girl. Guess who’s just SO burnt out that she’s looking forward to the END of Ragnar? This girl. I am really excited about this race, truly, but at this point I cannot physically improve anymore. I cannot get into my own head about failure, because it’s not an option. I cannot do anything but push myself to the limits and beyond, experience the whole race, and then come home for a pedicure that finally WON’T get jacked up and a few days of doing absolutely nothing while staying guilt-free. I realized yesterday talking to GCB that I have been in training mode since last AUGUST. I need a fucking break. But until then?
Impossible is nothing
My motivation is gone today.
The end.

Dizzy

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Last night I went over to Ali’s for some friend time and some laundry time….and some whiskey time. Yes, by Tuesday it had already been that kind of week.

We were discussing upcoming weekends when it dawned on both of us just how busy this summer is shaping up to be. Let’s take a look, shall we?

This weekend contains a baseball game on Friday then a trip to Kansas City to see my roommate from my freshman year of college marry the guy she’s been with SINCE then. I’m pretty pumped.

Next weekend is a 10k race and a winery trip.

The weekend after is Ragnar.

Then I’m taking GCB to Jeff City to meet the parents and baby sister and brother. There has been talk of maybe going to a beer festival this same weekend and also possibly to GCB’s parents’ for Father’s Day.

Then I’ll be in KC for the Cards/Royals series at Kauffman and to see my awesome friend Jamie.

Then there’s a float trip possibility.

Then Portland (I hope…come on flight prices, drop a little bit!) to see my dad’s side of the family (complete with sister/bro-in-law/niece/nephew).

Two weeks later is a baseball game and a Pub Crawl.

Then the Tap N Run.

Then a free weekend (if you’ve kept up, this is the first weekend in August).

Then a trip to the lake.

That brings me to mid-August. When I start training again for the two half marathons (in October and November) and the full (in January).

No, I’m not busy, why do you ask?