Sunday, September 26, 2010

A weekend of running and blisters

The week got off to a rough start with more pain and more blood tests, blah, blah, blah. I mentally told myself that there was no I was not running the Run to Break the Silence for ovarian cancer. I had to walk my 3 miles on Tuesday but worked up to a wog on Thursday and made up for it this weekend.

Saturday was the Run to Break the Silence for ovarian cancer. I promised my girlfriend a year ago that I would do this with her as her Grandmother passed away from Ovarian Cancer and her Mother is a survivor. Also during this time I found out that a friend was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer and is currently undergoing chemo and showing cancer who wears the pants in the family! So yesterday I ran for two people who mean a great deal to me.

We arrived in Sacramento and the car said it was 98. We all know how I melt in the heat and run in the morning to avoid any sort of temperature over 75, so I knew it would be interesting.


We had about an hour until the start of the race so we sat on the grass int he shade and conserved energy. But I did brave the heat to go check out the start/finish line.


There were over 1000 registered runners/walkers and probably more that weren't registered. So the two of us that were running made our way to the front so we wouldn't have to try and squirm through walkers and strollers. I must say all of the walkers were really courteous about staying back to let the runners line up. And before I knew it we were off.  I knew it was hot as hot hair burned my throat and lungs, it was a very strange sensation but the bonus to the heat was my muscles needed no warming up everything felt great. As I approached the 1 mile marker frantically searching for the age station that was further down they were calling out times which was way cool! I don't typically check the time on my watch this earlier in but I was 10:49 so I was pleased to be in under 11 minutes. It was after this that it got hard. The water at the aid station was like drinking bath water, I decided the best bet was to just poor it down my shirt. The course was all flat and winded through the tree lined neighborhoods, thankfully providing spots of shade. It was the parts in the sun that were brutal. It seemed like it took forever to hit the 2 mile marker point and the next aid station with more bath water. Probably around the last 1/2 mile there were some sprinklers on watering the grass on the side of the road. This young boy decided to run through it, I thought it was brilliant and ran through it as well! I told him what a smart idea it was and that I had followed him because he seemed kind of embarrassed about it. Kid, it's 98 degrees there is no shame in running through a sprinkler! The best part was the approach to the finish line, I had pretty much nothing left but managed to pass 2 women, that's when I heard them calling names of the runners. Sure enough "Meredith Fox is crossing the finish line!" Oh well, at least they got my first name right. Cheering me on was Eric who had finished about 9 minutes ahead of me, it's always awesome to have someone cheer you in at the end.

And then I had time to go get my camera and get pics of Team Grammie crossing the finish line!


While my run time was slower than I had hoped for, I'd like to add that I did run with beads!!


I can't wait to do it again next year! NOCC is a fantastic organization, every woman should be aware of the symptoms of Ovarian Cancer, they can mimic so many things, but it is so important to campaign for own health and be aware of the symptoms! 

And because I had a long run scheduled today I HTFU and ran back to back to get my 4 miles in today. Thank you for Monday being a rest day of stretching!@

I almost forgot! I have a lovely blister on the inside of my right heel, I just got new shoes and I'm pissed! I've been wearing this brand and model of shoe for years and now I get a blister! 

Week end totals:

Run: 10.10 miles
Walk: 3 miles

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Week 1 in the books

It was much harder than I expected, especially given I've already been running this type of mileage. I think in general by body is just not happy and something may be slightly off that is causing all this difficulty. I've been waking up most mornings just not feeling rested and knowing that my body needs to get up and perform. I woke up this morning after a really rough night of sleep and feeling sick to my stomach (guess that means back to the doctor this week) I was not quitting today, I told myself even if I had to walk the entire 4 miles that is what I would be doing. The first mile really sucked, my legs hurt and I have new shoes so while I could tell my legs and knee appreciated it my feet needed that first mile to adjust to the new shoes. I ended up taking several very short walk breaks to drink some water. This seemed to work well and I managed to keep a good pace with the short breaks, although it kills me to have to walk because I didn't need to do this several weeks ago. I'm happy I made it through week 1 of training and while I don't expect it to get easier I do hope that my body catches up to my brain and makes it a little less frustrating next week.

Week end totals:

Run: 10.20 miles
Bike: 14.67 miles

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

answers and week 1

My lab results came back yesterday that once again I tested positive for Group Strep B which in turn caused a bladder infection. Really? This is the third time I have tested positive for it in the past 5 years. It got me thinking after some research this is more than likely what caused my uterine infection and eventually sepsis after the birth of Kylie. They were puzzled at how I developed a uterine infection one month postpartum, they basically guessed that I had an e-coli infection that moved into my uterus. Looking back I think it's more likely that that the Strep B is what started it all. My doctor wanted to induce me to make sure I could get at least one round of antibiotics in before I delivered Kylie. Since My first labor had only been 5 hours she was very worried about me making it to the hospital in time to get those antibiotics. Sure enough, 2.5 hours after breaking my water Miss Kylie arrived. While I did get one dose of antibiotics in and Kylie spent so little time in the birth canal she escaped any harm herself. I didn't think to be concerned about it, because Strep B doesn't typically cause any harm to an adult unless you have a compromised immune system.

I am on antibiotics now and I'm hoping this will cure all of the ickies I have had for the past few weeks. I'll go back and redo my blood work in a couple of weeks to see if the infection is what triggered some other off results.

On to today's workout. Today was my first run of week 1 of training! It sucked! Treadmill running is just not fun for me, especially for 3 miles. I've discovered that I may need to wear my glasses on the treadmill. It's easier for me to focus on something while running on the treadmill to distract me, TV, the theater across the street, people.. whatever. I'm noticing I am having a hard time doing this which is causing me to get dizzy. Guess maybe I should wear my glasses, I wear my sunglasses outside to run, so wearing my glasses on the treadmill should be okay, right? I'll give it a go next week. I had to take a couple of walk breaks, which irritates me, since I didn't have to do that before I got sick! But I keep telling myself it will come back and just cover the miles!

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Proceeding Cautiously

It's been a joy ride the past two weeks. After succumbing to the flu for 6 days I thought I was ready to get back on track and got two days of running in last week before being flat on my back for the long weekend. I had a physical scheduled anyway and some of my lab work came back a little off so we reran some labs on Friday and will do some more within the next 30 days to see if my numbers are off due to some little bug that I have or if there is legitimately a problem.

Today I decided would be the day that I got back out there no matter what. I woke up this morning with sore legs ( a strange phenomena since I have not run in 10 days) so I put on my compression socks while I got ready and told my self to just get over it. I have some new toys that I wanted to try out today; one being my RoadID. Yes, I finally ordered one and will put it to good use so that I don't lose my license again. The second new toy is a hydration waste pack. I knew I would need something for my longer runs and when I tried on the hand ones at the store, it just never felt right, so I ordered this:


While I didn't really need it for today's 3 mile run, I wanted to try it out and see how I liked it and since I've been sick I loaded it up with some FRS Energy Drink just in case. I found it to be pretty comfortable on today's painful run. I did however notice that when one bottle has more liquid in it than the other it pulls to one side a little bit, but for the most part it stayed put pretty well. I know some people said the sloshing around of liquid bothered them, I couldn't feel the liquid sloshing around and since I had my tunes playing, I couldn't hear it either. The other bonus is the little pocket. Since my armband had been causing chaffing on my last few runs I decided to skip the armband and keep the i-touch in the pocket, awesome!

As I mentioned the run sucked. I really need my new shoes but since I ordered narrows by accident, it will probably be at least a week before I get them back. My shins protested slightly on my normal zippy, downhill first mile so I took it really slow. I felt pretty decent until the return trip back. Even though it was early and the temperature outside was still nice, it was clear and the sun was beating down on me. I had to slow to a walk at two points just to gain my composure before I could start running again. Once I made the turn onto my street, the long, slow, uphill street I was just toast. But I was not quitting, I probably could have walked faster, but I was not going to walk. I got the 400 meters warning, it seemed forever before I got the 200 meters and the last 100 meters was brutal. But I did it. I ran up probably .40 miles of 1 mile killer street.

Another day, another run survived. Tomorrow I officially start Hal Higdon's 12 week 1/2 marathon training program. I hope the next 12 weeks go more smoothly than the past 2 weeks have. At least I think I have all of the proper tools now to get me there.

I discovered my love of the foam roller so I got my own! Based on a friend's recommendation I got a Trigger Point Performance foam roller. It's small enough that I should be able to take it Vegas and it has all of these different nubby textures on it that are supposed to be great for releasing those tight muscles.




Week end totals:

Run: 3.10 miles
Bike: 5.64 miles