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There are some moments in life you wish you could just erase.

Words that are said, written, thought…that as soon as they appear, you know are a mistake. You know it’s wrong to say things and tempt fate in such an idiotic way, but come on, fate wouldn’t interfere with something just because you said it out loud. I mean, does fate even really exist? Superstition has no business in a life built on reality and reason. But yet, somehow you still get that lingering doubt when the words tumble out of your mouth and you immediately realize you may have just made a devastating mistake.

I had one of these moments while I was writing the last entry of this blog back in March.

“We didn’t get pregnant in December, but we did in January. Yes kids, sometimes is really is that easy…”

As soon as the words appeared on the screen I knew it was a mistake.

“Sometimes is really is that easy…”

Cocky? Probably in my pregnant state, I was. Stupid? A little. Tempting fate? No doubt. Why would I say something that could so obviously come back to haunt me? Pregnancy is anything but easy and we all know I was just lucky to get pregnant so quickly anyway. If that part was so damn easy, it probably meant that there would be harder obstacles to overcome in the next few months. I knew this, but I typed it anyway.

“Sometimes is really is that easy…”

While I pride myself on being a rational person who doesn’t fall for the idea of “fate”, I still had a lingering doubt about publishing this sentence. Besides, when you become pregnant with a child, all your reasoning goes out the window. You will believe anything if you think it will help. All your suppressed religious beliefs, superstitions, old wives tales, and understandings of fate and the universe rise to the surface with reckless abandon. You truly want to believe there is a God that would bring you such a wonderful gift, an understanding God that would make it so easy to conceive, a loving God that would keep you and your baby safe. Of course, God wants all babies safe and sound. And if there is ever a time to believe in an understanding and loving God or at least not mess with fate, it’s when you are pregnant.

But twenty days after I published that sentence we lost our baby. Z was 13 weeks old, just passing the point of when we thought we were home-free. It was without a doubt, the worst three days of my life, three days filled with tears, fear, screaming, praying, pacing, pain, guilt, research, questions, doctors, waiting…The darkness we experienced in those three days are like none I have ever known or thought I would ever experience. How do you grieve for the loss of your future? How do you deal with the loss of your child when you have never looked into its eyes, touched its skin, felt its heart beating against your body? How can you wrap your mind around seeing your baby dancing inside of your body on a computer screen so clear you can make out every line of it’s face only to know that in a few short hours it would probably be gone? You can’t. Anger, grief, disbelief, sadness, agony, heartache, suffering, torture…no word can really describe what it is to lose a child, even one you have never met. It just doesn’t exist.

The weeks after losing Z were intense. I stayed in the house for a week and did nothing but lie in the back bedroom like a sobbing zombie, being waited on hand-and-foot by my loving and worried husband. I wallowed in immense guilt that I could finally enjoy eating a meal again without feeling like I was going to be sick. After three months of not being able to eat a thing, I suddenly couldn’t get enough food. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have an appetite. I ate out of anger and spite that I was miserable and starving for thirteen weeks for nothing. I ate to fill my suddenly empty stomach.

I craved the discomfort of a long, sweaty, uncomfortable run to make myself feel a different type of pain, anything other than what I was feeling. I wanted to run so far it hurt and I could cry as hard as I could to get out every tear stuck inside of me. But I couldn’t run for three weeks, which seemed to make the grief all the more of a prison sentence. I suddenly had energy again with nothing to focus it on.

So I made all the necessary arrangements to transform my life back into a childless existence. I packed away all my baby books, magazines and onesies in hard to reach places hoping that I wouldn’t accidentally stumble upon them at an unfortunate time. I unsubscribed from all the electronic pregnancy newsletters that were infiltrating my inbox. I deleted the ultrasound pictures and congratulatory comments off of my Myspace page. I watched all the beautiful flowers that were sent to our home as a loving gesture from countless friends and family during those weeks wilt and die. We cancelled all the remaining Doctors appointments I had for the baby and replaced them with therapist appointments.

I watched in quiet appreciation as Jeremy, who in his own despair, did whatever he could possibly do to make sure I was going to be O.K. He called the Doctors; he made the arrangements; he called my work to tell them I would be taking time off and intercepted the phone calls from concerned friends and family for weeks when I just couldn’t face anyone but him. In his own way of grieving, he took care of the only thing he had left to take care of, me.

And when I honestly thought I wouldn’t make it, that it was more than I could handle, than we could handle…we made it through to the other side.

Over the past three months, the grieving process has been slow, awkward and uncontrollable. Sometimes I take giant leaps back just when I think I am making my way through it. The crying and pain haven’t stopped but have slowly subsided, becoming less suffocating and violent and more listless…dull, sometimes coming from out of nowhere and catching me by surprise. I thought once my hormones were under control again, this would end, but to no such avail. I went from crying maybe once every two months before I got pregnant, to crying on a regular basis nowadays, sometimes 3-4 times a week, mostly for no good reason. Well meaning friends and family respond by telling me “It’s ok, you’re young and healthy, you can have another baby.”

But I don’t another baby. I want the baby I lost, the one I made plans for, the one I named, the one I saw alive inside of me, the one I fell in love with. I want Baby Z back.

It is slowly getting better though. While I’m not the same person I was inside before Z came along, I’m not sure that is a bad thing. Some days the faint, ever-present numbness fades enough and I feel myself filled with hope. The person I am now is stronger, more aware of my family, friends and career than I ever was before. My marriage is better than it has ever been, and I am sure about what I want out of life more now than ever.

Then of course, something as simple as my hairdresser telling me she is pregnant or seeing all the babies at Jeremy’s cousin’s wedding will bring it all back and I am engulfed by sudden, intense panic and then blistering pain. And I realize that this is all bigger than me. That is it a process and like with any injury, a broken heart needs time to heal.

Maybe one day I will be brave enough or strong enough to tell the entire story of the loss, but after having to tell it over and over and over again to countless family members, friends, and therapists I need to keep the details quiet for a while. And I suppose, it probably isn’t even necessary unless I thought it would help someone else in our situation. I need to quit ripping the scab off so the wound can heal a little bit. The scar will be there forever, but the pain will slowly fade, at least that is what I’m told.

This, I suppose is why it took me so long to post this. Putting all these words into print seemed so permanent to me and makes everything that happened that much more real. It was the last step I had in dealing with this loss and I just never felt it was the right time. How could I possibly write it? Would I regret the words as they came out of me like I did before? But the rational side of me knows that it doesn’t matter if I publish these words or not, it wont change what happened to me, J and Z. What’s done is done.

So now, three months later, I am finally starting to take better care of myself again. I am eating better, running a bit more and trying to focus on the future instead of everything that has happened this past year. While I needed to take a break from the running blog, (some things suddenly seemed unimportant) I will slowly start to get back into it again. I will eventually catch up with you all and before you know it I will be posting again on a regular basis.

Thank you all for all your kind words, understanding and support, not only for the baby but for everything over the past couple of years.

Gone, but not forgotten...

I'm not dead, I promise.

I know, I know, I have been the world's worst blogger. Sorry I have been so absent lately. I promise there is a really good reason. And I really want to thank those of you who sent me messages through email and myspace just to say, "What's up, are you breathing still?" I appreciate all my cyberbuddies looking out for my life.

That being said, I would like to introduce all of you to the reason I have:

A) Been so freakin tired the last 3-4 blog entries

B) Ran a much slower time during the Miami Half Marathon (not all injury related)

C) Been a little too preoccupied to update this damn thing...

TADAAAAA...look what I did!


That's right...I'm one of "those people" now. This is Little Baby Z as J and I like to call it. Our little peanut that at the moment is 9 weeks 4 days old (for those of you interested in that sort of thing).

Jeremy and I planned all along to try to start a family after running Columbus and Miami. I insisted I wanted to run a full marathon before I became a mother and since I signed up for Miami before Columbus, I was determined to finish both.

But as I got injured and time went on, I realized that running another full in January was out of the question. One night in early December, after a couple of Dirty Martinis, Jeremy asked me why we were still waiting. "You can still run a half marathon if you get pregnant now!"

Rationalizing this in my drunken haze, I realized he was right. And besides, we're not spring chickens. It would probably take us like 6 months to get pregnant anyway!

We didn't get pregnant in December, but we did in January. Yes kids, sometimes it really is that easy. We were very lucky.

And with that, Baby Z was conceived. And the little bugger has already completed it's first Half Marathon. Here are a few pictures of the happy, running family.







Notice how freaking tired I look.

Since that day, Baby Z has been keeping mommy busy. Busy keeping her sick as a dog and making her feel like she has had non-stop motion sickness. Making her feel like she is 2 seconds away from puking (without actually puking...oh no, that would be sweet relief). Busy making her so dizzy every waking moment, that the thought of moving her head even 4mm to one side or the other makes her break out in a cold sweat and start crying. Busy making every food/drink taste like crap (with the exception of peanut butter crackers and pop tarts). Busy making mommy second guess everything in her life from her job, her house, and what city she wants to live in (we are currently looking at about 4-5 different options). Needless to say, the past month has been a little crazy. And with the dizziness I have while staring at the computer for 8-9 hours at work, the last thing I can do when I get home is go online. I have barely touched my home computer in weeks.

So there is my excuse, I hope you will forgive me :)

That all being said, I have started feeling a bit better this past week. My doctor (bless her heart) suggested I try B6 vitamin to help ease the nausea. She also wrote me a prescription for Zofran but I figured I would give the vitamins a try before I drugged up the kid. So far, it seems to help take a lot of the edge off. Still dizzy and foods taste bad, but not as intense and instead of it being constant, it's more like 1-2 days a week. Or maybe my body is just finally used to being a green, miserable wreck. Either way, I haven't needed to fill the Zofran yet. I hope it stays that way.

Other than all of that, life is good. We are happy, excited, scared as hell and freaked-the-f out all at once. But Baby Z is good and strong and right now that is all I really care about. We finally told everyone in our family and most of our friends, so I feel it's finally safe to announce it over the internet without pissing anyone off.

As far as running goes, I still venture out every week. But instead of 5 days a week running, it's more like 1-2 days of running (no more than 3 slooooooooow miles at a time) not for fear of running, but just because I am exhausted. But I also make it to the gym 1-2 days a week and get a lot of dog-walking in. Today J and I went for a 6 mile walk on South Beach, which was fun (and exhausting).

So this is my new marathon. I hope you guys are as interested in watching me train for this one as you were (or pretended to be) for the ones I trained for in the past. I have a feeling it will be the toughest race yet.

Do babies come with shiny medals and tech t-shirts?

2008 ING Miami Half-Marathon

Well, I finished. And that's what counts. :)



Actually, it could have been a lot worse. After all I have been through since running Columbus in October, I should be thankful I was able to run the half at all. And I am. However, once you run a full 26.2 miles, you sort of lose a little respect for 13.1. And you (and by you here I mean me) tend to forget how brutal a 13 mile run can be on the old body.

Official chip time - 2:18:29. Not bad at all, especially considering the circumstances. It falls pretty much right in the middle of the two other half marathon times I have and it's a 6 minute improvement from my time last year on the same course (my very first Half-Marathon). In that respect I am very happy.

What sucks is that my leg REALLY started to hurt at mile 6. And I had to dig deep down inside to figure out how to run another six miles in pain. Another thing is I was completely exhausted by mile 2. I started the race sort of bummed that I wasn't doing the full. The weather was beautiful, humid but cool and dry (thanks P.O.M.! ) and I was ready to go. But after trying to keep up with my training group who started waaaay fast, I was so tired and my leg just wasn't having it. A full 26.2 miles would have been a nightmare.

Another bummer...Jeremy's leg gave out at mile 3. He had to run with intense IT band pain for TEN miles. Yeah, we weren't the happiest runners out there. More like a couple of old gimps run/hobbling down the road.

So basically, I don't remember much about the race. I was tired and in pain and just focused all my energy on finishing and not having to walk back. It was odd. It was the first race I have run (with the exception of a 5K) where I really didn't take in much of the scenery or people. The whole thing was just a blur and it seemed to go by really fast since I was so focused on being done. I imagine this must be the same way races are for elite runners. Although the blur is probably a lot blurrier.

There were however a few cool things about the race yesterday:

1. Weather was amazing. Which sadly, is rare for this race. I do remember running up Ocean Drive and the sunrise was BEA-U-TI-FUL!

2. Around mile three I felt a little tap on my shoulder and turned around to see Jess running next to me! I was amazed that she was able to find me in the middle of over 10,000 runners! We said hello but my group was taking a walk break and since she was plugging along at a good pace we parted quickly. It was great to meet her in real life though. And she is freakin' cute as hell! Which I'm sure she gets a lot :)

3. The new medals this year are so pretty!


4. After the race I got to witness all of my group finish the run as well as a lot of other friends. About 3 of them PR'ed too! :)



5. A LOT of port-o-potties. I didn't wait in line once!


6. While waiting for my friends to finish the full, I got a lot of fun shots of all the usual suspects that make running marathons so much fun.




Here are some more shots of the whole event if you're interested.

7. I finally go to meet Sonia.


Like with Jess, I was amazed that she was able to find me in the mess of people that day. She was there with her parents who love to come cheer her on as she runs her races. One of the first blog entries that ever made me cry was about her marathon where her dad followed her around the course snapping as many pictures of her as he could.

We got to chat for a long time and it was so good to meet her, she is even nicer in real life than online and it felt like I was catching up with an old friend :) Sonia I hope you had a great time the rest of your stay and a safe trip back home. You and your parents were so great.

So even though my race was a little painful and I feel like I got hit by a dump truck today. I am extremely grateful I was able to run yesterday. I am a firm believer that the worse the race, the better a runner you will be for it. That being said, I am sooooooo glad I don't have another race to train for ...for a few months anyway. ;)

Pre Race Rundown

So, we went to see Spirit of the Marathon Thursday night and it was pretty amazing. If any of you guys missed this one-day showing, I think they have added another date in February. I highly recommend it to anyone who needs a little bit of inspiration. It definitely helped me get into the mood for tomorrow.

This week has been good. I only ran twice, but they were two solid runs. While I was exhausted both times, once again, no leg pain which is pretty awesome. I told my PT on Monday of my progress and she was so excited for me that I was going to be able to run tomorrow. Yeah, sucking it up and paying the dough to switch back to her was the best decision I have made in a long time. I have no doubt that if I had stayed with Mr. 70's Velvet Sweat Suit, I would not be running tomorrow.

So today we went to the expo and picked up our swag.





Other than the $15 parking, the expo was pretty good. Although I live in Miami, so a $15 parking fee shouldn't phase me, but somehow it still does.

After the expo we headed home and just chilled on the couch switching back from "Best Week Ever and The Real Housewives of Orange County. I love Saturday afternoon T.V. Later, we headed down to the Footworks pasta party that was held at the Knights of Columbus Club in the Gables for some pasta and cake. The cake was made by our friend Ralph's wife and was amazing. She duplicated the medal from last year perfectly!





So now I think I'm going to take a warm bath, do some light stretching and make sure I have everything ready for the morning. The weather is calling for rain showers from 6am-11am now, which scares me after last years monsoon that came at the beginning of the race. You never know what kind of weather you are going to get down here in South Florida. Well, at least I know we wont get snow.

Wish me luck (and dry weather)!!!

Bring it Miami...

Decision's been made. I'm in. I'm doing the Half on Sunday.

I am happy to report I had three FANTASTIC runs this week. Jeremy and I ran 4.6 on a beautiful and cool (51 degree) Tuesday morning. Leg tightened a bit at the end, but no pain at all. Then we ran 5.6 on Thursday which was the best run I had in months. While, we didn't run it fast and I felt completely out of shape and tired the entire run, there was no pain or tightening at ALL. I was so excited. I'll take exhausted over painful any day.

Then Saturday morning I ran my final run of the season with my Miami Marathon Training Group (Roadrunners). I designed some running t-shirts this week for our group to wear after the race. We should be getting them in sometimes this week. I can't wait to see how they came out.

Front:


Back:

I am pretty sad that this is the last week we will be running together and a little bummed that right when I am starting to feel better and run with them again, it's ending. But I have to say, it is going to awesome to get to sleep in on Saturday mornings again. This whole getting up between 3am-4am to run every Saturday morning, especially since I have been biking most of these runs since October, has gotten very, very old. I have been getting up early to run on Saturday mornings since October of LAST year. And by last year I mean 2006, not 07. Jeremy and I have been training for something it seems like FOOOREVAH. Sooooo ready to hit the snooze for a few months.

Anyway, the final run was great. Other than feeling EXTREMELY tired and out of shape again, I felt really good. No pain or tightening at all and we ended up doing about 9 miles. Thats the farthest I have run since Columbus, and it felt great.

So, I am going into the race this weekend with a lot of confidence. I have zero hopes for a PR, but I am pretty sure I can run the distance without too much discomfort. At this point, I think the hardest part will be the fitness part. When I run lately, I just feel like I am running through a vat of Jello. I am not sure if it is just me not used to running, or the humidity. Whatever it is, I can live with it. Like I said, as long as I am not in pain, I'll be OK.

I am also pretty excited to meet up with Jess and Sonia afterwards. It should be a beautiful race day guys. Hope you are ready! :)

Tuesday, 1/15 - 4.6 miles/45:39 - 9:58 pace
Thursday, 1/17 - 5.6 miles/55:44 - 9:57 pace
Saturday, 1/19 - 9 miles/1:39 - 10:59 pace
Sunday, 1/30 - Gym, lift, 30 minutes elliptical, stretch

Total Weekly Mileage: 19.20

Plugging Along

First of all...

What the hell happened to my Buckeyes???? Seriously, COME ON!!!



Two years in a ROW??!?!?!?! Sigh...

Other than that my week has been OK. I had another session with the weird PT that was bizarre. He had me stretch out my leg on this machine for 10 minutes and when I was done and he came back, my back was so tight I could barely walk. He had to get another PT to massage it for me until it was better. Needless to say, I cancelled my last appointment.

Wednesday morning I went for a slow three mile run around campus and I felt great. No pain at all, just a little stiffness. Then I had an appointment with the original PT that worked on me and I love her. She worked on my leg for a whole hour and I felt so much better when I was done. Sooooo worth the money.

Of course, then I tried to run again on Thursday morning (stupid) and I had a horrible time, I had to stop after 1.5 miles and walk the rest of the way home. I was pretty bummed out even though I shouldn't have been. I knew better than to try and run two days in a row, so it was my own stubborn fault.

The rest of the week I spent stretching a lot and Saturday morning I met my group on my bike for their training run. Since they are in a taper they "only" had a 12 mile run. I biked the first 6 then passed off the bike to another leader and attempted to run the rest.

I am not sure if it was the group dynamic, or if I was just running a bit slower than I do when I run alone, but I felt pretty good. Not great, by any stretch of the imagination. My leg got pretty tight. Especially when Ralph, the other leader sped up and had us doing Cross Country drills. But the pain never went to the knee, which is a good sign. All in all it was a much needed mental boost to my running.

I talked to my PT again this morning (or she talked while I writhed in pain and sobbed like a baby as she rubbed knots out of my leg) and she told me since I didn't really have an injury but more or less just REALLY tight muscles all over one side of my body, it wouldn't kill me to do the half. She told me to just stay conservative, have fun, walk if I need to and to NOT even think about a time. She also reminded me that there is no shame in having to stop during the race, especially since I'm injured.

We'll see. I am still up in the air about the whole thing. I will be there either way, but it may be a game day decision at this point. Either way, I am just glad I am seeing a bit of progress. Yay! Progress rocks!

My mind is made up...

What a crap week.

My emotions have taken a ride on the proverbial roller coaster. One minute everything seems to be going my way and then wouldn't you know it, my stomach is doing flip-flops from dropping down another hill.

Without boring anyone with details, lets just say I had a lot of things planned out for how the next year of my life was going to unfold. We (J and I) have been planning certain things for almost a year and this week a lot of what we had planned pretty much flew out the window. Tough to deal with on many different levels.

I may have had an easier time with all of it, if at least my plans for running had been going my way. Since all the nagging injuries I have had, which seem to change from one thing to another every time I run, running is just another thing on that list that seems out of my control. Another thing that I am longing for that I just can't have.

The thing that really sucks about it, is that running is the one thing that would actually make me feel better about all this other shit. Running clears my mind, makes me take better care of myself, which makes me feel better about myself. When I don't run, I eat and drink like a pig which just makes me feel disgusting, weak and sad. When I feel healthy, I feel better about everything else. I need running now more than ever.

So this is why I was so bummed out this week when I went to my new PT. Before he even evaluated me, or let me finish telling him what was wrong with me, he immediately told me to forget about running the Miami Half.

"Not gonna happen." he said.

Of course that was after he hurried me along while I was trying to explain to him my problems. Then he automatically told me I have a back problem, which is fine, but he completely missed the part about my tendon issues and the IT band pain, which was why I was there in the first place. Never mind the fact that he wore an awful 70's sweatsuit, didn't wear underwear and rubbed his junk all over my knee when he was stretching my leg, cut me off every time I opened my mouth to speak, rubbed my back so hard I thought he was going to break it (it was bruised the next day) and just generally made me uncomfortable. Oh and of course, when I told him what my other PT had told me, he basically told me she was stupid. Of course.

So after he stretched me, rubbed my back and had me do back exercises he had me run. When my IT band started aching he seemed surprised, like, "Oh, you have an IT band issue as well?!?!?" Sigh. Maybe if he would have let me finish explaining myself!!! Grrrr.

Now, I know it sounds bad, but I am not saying this guy is unqualified. He is a well-known PT in the area, owns his own popular running store, taught as an adjunct at various Universities and written countless articles on gait analysis and running. He knows his stuff. I just think that our personalities do not match at all and I just got a really weird feeling about him.

So after telling J how I felt, he agreed he was weird (he is going to him as well), but he knows his stuff and it only cost us 15 bucks, so we should give it another chance, blah, blah, blah...

Then, after he found out some running gossip about him from a reliable source, he agreed to let me go back to the first PT if I told them I was limited to 2-3 visits. I called and made an appointment immediately.

I went back to him for a second visit though on Friday (it was too late to cancel and I figured I should give him one more chance to redeem himself to me). Maybe I was being too judgmental. Anyway, he was better, but I am just not convinced he is the right fit for me. I have another appointment with him tomorrow, but on Wednesday it's back to the first PT. I hope I am making the right decision.

So the good news is that after having our gait analysis, we figured out the correct shoes we need to be in. Jeremy and I both have narrow feet and slightly overpronate. He was in a neutral shoe, and my shoe was fine, but too wide in the middle. So I switched from my beloved Saucony's to a new pair of Asics 2130's.

Tadaaaaaaa....


Pretty snazzy huh? I broke them in on a 3 mile run tonight and good news all around! First off, love the shoes. I thought they wouldn't be cushiony enough for me, but they are. And since they are snug in the middle they seem to really stabilize my feet.
But even better than that is that this is the longest run I have had since the Columbus Marathon where I wasn't in excruciating pain (yes, 3 miles is my longest run in two months and I want to run a half-marathon). At the very end, I could feel my leg getting weak, like the pain was coming, but I stopped in time.

Since the Miami Half Marathon is three weeks away, I have made up my mind. I am definitely running it. I think if I work my way up to a slow 10 mile run in two weeks, I can do it. I was thinking about just dropping out completely, but you know what? Screw it. It's already paid for. If all else fails, I'll power-walk that bitch. No more feeling sorry for myself. I don't care what annoying PT's in bad attire tell me.

I'm doing it damn it!

...and a Happy New Year!

I hope everyone's holiday was as good as mine. There is nothing better than spending a few good days in a festive mood, laughing, eating and drinking all you want with the people you love the most. Oh yeah, and the whole "presents" thing is pretty cool too.

Since so much has happened in the last couple of weeks, and we all know how much I love making lists and taking pictures, here is the lowdown on Christmas/08.

First and foremost, the Friday before Christmas MY BROTHER CAME HOME FROM IRAQ!!!!

It was a few weeks earlier than they had planned and it made a great Christmas gift for all of us, but mostly for him, his wife and their three kids. YAY! Best gift EVA!

Here we are at Christmas, oh, about 27-28 years ago.


Then a few days before Christmas, J's parents came to visit. I am very lucky in the in-law department. They are the easiest house guests ever and we love having them around.



After driving up to stay with my parent's, we all went to see the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular.




Here we are keeping ourselves entertained during intermission.


Can you believe all these gifts are for six adults?


We ate an impressive Christmas Eve feast. My mom makes the best Christmas Eve dinners and this one didn't disappoint. The potatoes were insane.


I got to see my Godson Hamish again on Christmas. He was sporting the spiffy new bib I got him a few weeks earlier.


He wasn't the only tired one from all the Christmas hoopla. Zero was pretty exhausted too.


Apparently I was good this year because Santa (Jeremy) treated me very well and surprised me with a shiny new Michael Kors bag!


Since I have never spent more than $75 on a purse in my life I am constantly scared I am going to accidentally drop it in a puddle of mud (even though it hasn't rained here in weeks) or spill coffee on it's shiny camel-colored skin. So I used a gift card and some extra money from a few gifts I had to return to pick up another bag. I saw this Lucky Bag before Christmas that is equally as awesome, yet much less expensive. This way, I wont ruin the first bag with my everyday klutziness. Yay, TWO new bags for Christmas!



As far as running goes, there hasn't been much of that in the past few weeks. This morning Jeremy and I went to South Beach and walked a 4 mile stretch up the boardwalk and back for a nice, fast 8 mile walk. That was the most mileage I have done since the Columbus Marathon in October.


I spent the week before Christmas going to the gym a lot. This is the one good thing about not being able to run, I have been forced to start lifting again on a regular basis which is nice and much needed. I have also been stretching a lot which has been helping a little. Of course the week of Christmas, with the inlaws coming in and driving us all up to my parents house, I got no workouts in. Unless you count uncorking countless wine bottles from our celebratory drinking and washing dishes from the 5 million times we ate as working out. Needless to say, I haven't stepped on a scale in over 2 weeks. Oh well.

The good news however is that I found out from my doctor that the MRI resulted in no lower back problems. So Friday I decided to try running a slow three miles to see how I felt. Once again at mile 2-2.5 the tightness in my leg got so bad that the knee just had no support and basically gave out. I did run a bit slower this time though and took two minute walk breaks instead of one, which helped it to be a bit less excruciating when I was done.

That afternoon I went to see a PT. She was amazing and after evaluating me told me I have a pretty badly inflamed IT band, a bit of Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome and REALLY tight quad muscles that need to be stretched (which was probably causing a lot of my problems). After giving me an ultrasound and an IT band massage that almost had me crying on her table she said three things that really excited me.

1. She told me to keep running. She said I just need to go slow and stop as soon as the pain starts, three times a week, every other day. If I don't run, then start again, the pain will just come back.

2. She said it's probably easily treatable with more massage, heat and some serious stretching.

3. She said there is still a chance I could run at least the half in Miami.

WOO-HOOO!

I am trying not to get my hopes up too high, but we will see.

As much as I loved this woman there was one catch. She didn't take my insurance. And even with my Footworks Marathon leader discount, (she was recommended by the person who runs our running group) it was still $100 bucks a visit and she wanted to see me twice a week for at least a month. So I thanked her for making me writhe in pain, paid my hundred bucks and made an appointment for another PT this Wednesday. Hopefully, he will be as positive and as effective as this woman was and I will be out there running soon.

Until then, it's another day at the gym tomorrow and maybe a slow 2-3 mile run on New Years Day if I don't celebrate too much the night before.

Happy New Years everyone!

Merry Christmas!!!

I am sure I will not be posting until after the Holidays seeing that my in-laws are already here and we will be driving out of town over the weekend to go visit my parents.

So I hope everyone has a safe and happy (insert holiday here). Enjoy the festivities, the food and drinks, and enjoy your families (even if you want to kill them- haha, it IS the holidays after all!)

And happy running, to those who are still doing that sort of thing ;)

Holiday Madness

I think it's safe to say that I think I may finally be done with all the holiday hubapaloo. I actually came home from work last night and had no shopping to do, gifts to wrap, cookies to bake, homemade Christmas cards to design or packages to send and was confused as to how I was supposed to spend my evening.

Here is a little pictorial of the past week and a half.

Company Christmas Party at O Asian Grill.



Notice the beer in my hand. This picture was taken on a FRIDAY night at about 10 pm on South Beach. After we left the party at 11pm, it took us (Jeremy and I) two hours to get home (accident on the bridge) and we didn't get to sleep until after 1am. We then had to wake up at 4am for our Saturday morning training run with our groups. Sixteen miles to be exact. Mind you, I am still injured, so I wasn't even running, but BIKING! Ugggghhh....

My Godson's Naming Ceremony



I finally got to meet my little Hamish (Hay-mish), What a cutie! It was a good night with old friends. We had a blast even though we were exhausted from the night before.

Here's a picture of the proud papa! (hehe)


(that's SCOTCH by the way...a big-ass glass of scotch)

And here I am with Wendy, one of my best friends from high school.



When I wasn't at work, the rest of the week back pretty much looked like this...









I suppose I have replaced my fixation with running with a case of Christmas OCD. Oh well, I needed something to keep me from feeling sorry for myself.

As far as running is concerned, I tried running twice last week. Monday, I got to mile 2.5 before my knee started to give. But this time I noticed the pain and how it worked. It it no longer an issue with tendonitis, but is something related to sciatica or something similar. It starts with a dull ache deep in the muscle ('scuse my French, in my ass), then as I run it goes down the back of my leg, causing a numbness that eventually surrounds the knee and causes the knee pain.

After walking home the last 1/2 mile of my run, sobbing from frustration and sadness, I finally decided to call my dr. and made an appointment.

I got in the next day and he seems to think it has something to do with a Lumbar Compression, blah, blah, blah...so I went and had an MRI on Saturday and am still awaiting the results. All I know now is that any dream I may have held on to about the Miami Marathon is finally gone. There is no way I am doing the full and it will be a miracle if I do the half at this point, especially since my dr. told me not to run for a bit.

I have been going to the gym, lifting weights, getting to know the elliptical again and trying to focus more energy on my abs and lower back. I have also made an effort to spend at LEAST 20 minutes stretching EVERY DAY! Of course today I was exhausted and decided to stay snuggled in bed while the winter winds (60 degrees) blew through my open bedroom windows. It's just so much harder for me to get motivated to go to a crowded, obnoxious gym than it is to run outside in the beautiful South Florida winter-ish weather.

Sigh...

No time for anything...

I've been a little busy lately with all the Holiday madness coming up. With making homemade Christmas cards, baking cookies, decorating, shopping, work, etc, I have had little time to think straight. I don't know why I think I am Martha F-ing Stewart sometimes.

But all in all, I enjoy it. Plus, it keeps me from thinking too much about the whole "knee issue" that wont seem to go away.

I had a couple of three mile runs last week that were fine. Then I attempted a 6 mile run last Sunday and had to stop at 4 because I could feel my right knee acting up. Then I took a couple days off and tried again on Wednesday with the exact same results. Sigh.

Needless to say, tomorrow I wont be running the 10 miles I had hoped with my group while they do 16. Looks like it will be another Saturday on the bike. The thing that really sucks about this is that my holiday party is tonight on South Beach and I wont even be able to enjoy it because, once again, I have to get up at 4am to BIKE! Ugh. Does anyone know if it's hard to coast on a bike if you are hungover?

It's an extremely busy weekend that goes a little like this:

• Tonight - Holiday Party on South Beach

• Tomorrow morning, 4am - 16 mile bike ride with group

• Come home, pack

• Drive 4 hours to Sarasota

• 4pm - Hamish's (My friends new baby) naming ceremony (non religious christening basically)

• Afta party at the Roo (a great bar in Bradenton with a ton of imports)

• Sunday morning/afternoon - looking at houses in Sarasota (looking into buying a property)

• Dinner with parents and friends from Miami

• Monday morning, wake up at the crack of dawn to drive back down to Miami (4 hours) and go STRAIGHT to work.

Ugh, I'm exhausted just typing it!

I am however, super excited to meet my new Godson Hamish (or Hamster as I like to call him).



I also love looking at houses, so that should be fun too. Even if we don't know if we are going to buy anything.

Hopefully soon I will have a moment to stop and check up on all you guys to see how everything is going. Maybe I can even get a few miles in myself.

Have a great weekend!

Happy Day!!!

First off, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I know I did. And now I have something to truly be thankful for.

For once in my life, my utter laziness has worked in my favor. All this non-running the past 2 1/2 weeks has really helped my knees. I still have a slight pain in my left knee when I bend it back too far, but the lingering pain in them from sitting is completely gone. So after a seemingly endless hiatus, I decided to muster up the courage to try and run a slow, steady 3 miles this morning.

After about 5 minutes of running I must have looked like a crazy person. I was literally smiling so hard from the excitement of a pain-free run that I felt like my face was going to split in half. On every run I have had since the marathon (all three of them), the pain under my knees came on as soon as I was done warming up and by 2 minutes was full throttle. This time, that burning pain in my tendons was nowhere to be found. I did feel a little sluggish and had a little bit of discomfortin the left knee but I think it was because my legs were rusty from all inactivity, wine drinking and eating this past month.The best part of all though, was afterwards there was no pain whatsoever, even later as I sat at my desk all day. This is a pretty good sign.

So without getting too overzealous, I am cautiously jumping back into the running pool. I am going to try another 3 miles tomorrow and on Saturday, while my training group is doing 14 miles, if I feel O.K. I will attempt to run at least 6 with them and then finish on the bike. If my knees cooperate, I need to start getting my mileage up so I can catch up with the group and our schedule. Otherwise, my laziness and inactivity will keep me out of the Miami Marathon, not my knees.

Other than that, I have finally put up the trees and decorations.

I even have most of my Christmas shopping done. Now if I could get to wrapping gifts, making cards (I don't know why I feel like just because I do graphic design I need to design our own cards), and making Christmas cookies I may be able to relax enough to enjoy the holidays this year.

Maybe.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Good luck to everyone during their Turkey Trots!!!
Run, eat, drink and be merry!

Long Lost Me.

So, I haven't been around much this past week or two. Between not running and the impending holidays, I haven't been thinking about blogging too much. However, my solemn vow is to spend some time this weekend at my parents house on the couch with the laptop, stuffed from Turkey and Pumpkin Pie, catching up on all you running nerds. I miss my pals. :)

So things have been OK. I have spent the past week walking Zero and getting to the gym a couple of times to lift and work out on the elliptical. Nothing too exciting. Saturday morning was my Miami Marathon training group's first 20 mile run of the year. Since, there was no way I could run it, I decided to borrow a friends bike and ride along with them. It sounded like a great idea until:

A) I had to get up at 3:15am to NOT run.

B) I had to spend over FOUR hours COASTING on a bike.



My ass/crotchal region is still recovering three days later.

I am still glad I went though. I think it was good for me to get up and still be a part of it so that I just don't sit around and feel sorry for myself. Also, the weather was so nice Saturday morning, I actually had to wear a jacket the entire time. That's pretty much unheard of around these parts.

At the 10 mile turnaround we all gathered for a group picture that came out great considering we huddled together in about 3 seconds to get the shot. I'm third from the left on top :)



Other than that, things are good. My knees are feeling better every day, but they are still a bit sore and tender. The most random things hurt them, like when I tried to do crunches on a stability ball yesterday. It was murder! So strange. The good news is it gave me a great excuse to not do crunches.

I am hoping with another week of rest, ice and Motrin, they will be better soon. Hopefully.

In other news, I have been tagged by POM and Leana to post 5 random facts about myself. There are hundreds of thousands of weird,random facts about myself, but I will try to keep it brief.

Fact number 1:
I worked as a bartender/server/manager in the service industry for ten LONG years. Every time I go out to eat, I thank my lucky stars I went back and got my degree.

Fact numero dos:
I, much like POM went through a "dark" phase in high school. I wore all black and about 30 cross necklaces, had REALLY big hair, listened to only metal music (mostly Metallica, Iron Maiden and Anthrax) smoked ALOT of this and that and had a pretty bad attitude in general.

Here I am at 15, smoking in the girls bathroom in high school. Lock up your sons!


From here I went through my "alternative" phase, my "grunge" phase, and my "hippy" phase, with better and broader music following me every step of the way.

Here I am at 22, living in Athens, Ohio.


I think I never realized who I was for real until I was about 24 years old. Which is just a normal person with really good taste in music from all her different phases.

Fascinating Fact number 3:
Goat Cheese sucks! Yes, that is a fact.

Fact Four:
If I hold open a door for you and you just walk through it without either grabbing it from me or saying "Thank You" I WILL say something mean to you. You can blame my living in Miami for my increasingly thinning patience with bad manners.

Final Fact (5):
I quit smoking last year after a 16 year habit. It really makes the whole running this easier.

Next up (forgive me if you've already been tagged):

1. Taryn (when she's back)
2. Sonia
3. Micki
4. Irish Blue
5. Leah