Cross Country track meet on Friday - Me (in the middle pointing) pacing Jack, autistic child from Smoky (in the green singlet). There had to be about 200 kids in this wave. He ran a 22:10 - which just about was all I had in me that night!I am sitting at the Sports Clips, writing, waiting for the boys to get their hair cut. Sometimes I wonder if I have some sort of abnormality bringing my laptop with me most places where I have a few minutes to squeeze in some writing time. Time seems to slip away at exponentially rapid rates lately so I carve out a few minutes here and there when I can.
So I watched about 10 minute of a movie on my laptop last night, which I’m not certain is a good idea or not; I instantly thought of emails I needed to return and started emailing in the midst of plot. 20 minutes later, I’m totally lost and decided to just skip forward to any juicy parts and decided a plot is non-essential. Movie: Duplicity. A mighty fine case of a male bod in that movie .. and well, maybe a little more interesting right now for me. I dunno, but I had zero attention span to figure out what was going on. It’s about every 6-months that I ever watch a movie….and this is the reason why (I do like to GO to the movies, though, just not watch them at home. Especially if I go with Abbey :) )!
Time. I guess if we had more of it, we’d just find way to fill it and we’d be left with the same amount of time to ourselves that we have now. So I won’t wish for more, other than I wish the days went slower sometimes. I look at my children and am bewildered how the heck they got to be the ages they are. Oh, I’d also like an hour more a day just to take a nap - and not feel guilty about it.
Abbey was home on Friday night. I miss her. Anyway, reason for her return was actually not a good thing: her hard drive died on her computer. You know the computer that I paid a small fortune for back in April – you need one of those for college these days, you know. She had a gazillion pictures on it and I’m certain a lot of writing and school work. Not backed up. Live and learn, I guess, but my heart went out to her. Will see if I can pay someone to get as much info off of it once Dell comes and gives her a new hard drive. Hopefully tomorrow. We did some shopping on Friday night when I “eventually” got home from the high school Liberty Bell cross country meet (87 teams. Took forever. I paced autistic kid, Jack Ryan, which is a whole blog entry on its own! Pic above) and returned her back to school after Brendan was done boxing Saturday. I hated to leave her but she seems to be settling in well at school. She even took the train downtown later that night with some friends – that alone makes me very happy!
Okay, so there’s the real point to this blog, which is suppose to be about running: I’m not feeling well. I can’t pinpoint exactly what is wrong but I overall do not feel well. Tired, achy, headache, overall blah, stuffy nose. I’m a little freaked that I’m going to end up with N1H1 after spending an hour or more with my neighbor on her b-day Wednesday who, as of Friday, has a confirmed case of this nasty flu. My friend told me today that it has about 5 days to manifest so if I’m fever-free by Tuesday, I figure I’m good on that end. Matt, from the relay the weekend before, was really sick upon return of the relay and running a fever all week. He missed many days of work. I spend the greater part of 36-hours with him in close proximity to me, he drove my car the vast majority of that time. I’m downing 1000mg of Vitamin C about every 30 minutes – in hopes of warding off any and all germs. I got oranges and strawberries, full of Vitamin C, at the store today. My diet’s going to be composed of: Oranges, strawberries and chewable Vitamin C tablets!
I’m not running well. What should have been a decent 13 miler today turned out to be pretty sucky. I wasn’t feeling it from step one. Even before step one. I woke up at 3:30 this morning with a major headache and by 4:00 when I couldn't go back to sleep, I got up and took a Tylenol PM. Really what I should have done was get up and go run at 4am cuz when I finally crawled outta bed at 8:30 and hit the pavement by 9:30, it was too hot. I know better to run this late but I figured it was only 11, not 26 and besides, if Portland is hot (okay, extended weather forecast calls for mid-90’s in Portland this coming week. HUH? What’s up with that??!!?? I’ve gotta put a call into one SBS about getting that changed before I get there!) then I need to get some warm temp runs in. I got about 5 miles in at a good pace and then I just lost all sense of pace and doing close to 10:30's at the end...far from 8:30's like I was suppose to be.
GOD!!! Can't I ever have once decent "long" run!!???!!??? I mean, really this is getting very frustrating! Aside from the relay last weekend, I can't recall the last time I ran well. Maybe Georgetown half? Bix? Both of those good, but I have not had a decent long run since before I went to Boston! I swear to that!
I can’t run in the heat. I can’t run in the heat when my legs are still not recovered from the relay. I can’t run in the heat with heavy relay legs and not caught up on my sleep from the relay and I took a Tylenol PM at 4am – I felt like hell when I started out. My quads feel like lead pipes and my right calf muscle feels like it wants to explode right out of the skin! What is going on with that I have no idea. My ankle’s been bothering me since I ran with Jack on Friday night so I’m icing the crap outta that. Thankfully, it didn’t bother me at all running today – unlike other leg parts. My lower back has been in pain since I ran Pikes Peak.
So here’s my plan for the next 13 days: rest as much as I can. Stretch at least a half hour a day! Try to get a leg massage – at least twice…. Charlie, the guy that I LOVE to work on my legs, is out of commission until November. His replacement only works during the day, not after 3:00 (um, there is something not right about that – don’t most people work during the day??) so I’m going to have to be a brave little girl and seek another (need to call Kathryn, she said she had an excellent women). Take an ice-bath once daily. Start an antibiotic I have sitting here from my last sinus infection (don’t ask!). Drink plenty of water. Eat exceptionally well. Wash my hands every 10 seconds and use Germ-X the other 9 seconds. Consider over-nighting the military gas mask my friend from TX offered me. Go to stretching class once (maybe. Still on the mend about that) or maybe yoga. Do a little praying to the Running Gods that they give me one more chance. And hope that Rob will talk to me about post-Portland - cuz I've expressed many times that this is weighting heavy on my mind right now but we ever seem to address it.
And I’m going to continue my 1000mg of Vitamin C every half hour.
Can one OD on Vitamin C?
BTW, the boys haircuts are awesome!!!! They are soooo grown up (even sporting that little peach-fuzz mustache. *sigh*). Now if I can get them to just care a tiny bit about hygiene!! And I’m going to finish watching the juicy parts of my movie now and go to bed by 9:30 tonight. I promise!
4 comments:
Before every marathon (or before any long race) I tend to feel bad. I'm certain that I've pulled hamstrings, injured feet and hips, am getting a cold or worse, maybe food poisoning. My legs lose most of their strength and I overdo something in the gym and I hurt my back. I forget to stretch and feel all tight. I'm suddenly overwhelmed at work leading to lack of sleep. Important running gear goes missing. Money woes arise. Nothing seems to feel right the week or two before the marathon. I used to really freak out over this. Now it's almost "normal" although it still makes me feel uneasy. It's going to be alright. You've trained well. Rest well now b/c you can't improve anything these two weeks. Do some positive mental imaging. Think about the pizza and beer after the race. :-)
Thanks, Tim, it's nice to know I'm not alone! Thanks, too, for not stating I'd run a 3:30 - ha! I don't fully think that people whom have never lined up on the marathon start line know exactly what we've done to get to the finish line, even those that are close to us and see what we do daily don't fully understand - there's way more to it than mere running. And there's only a few of us that understand.... :)
Every half hour? I would go with every hour...and make sure to take it with a mineral supplement or a multivitamin with minerals, or Gatorade, or EmergenC. It needs minerals to absorb properly. When your body gets too much you'll get the runs, and not the PR kind! You'll also pee a lot, ahem. And what do you mean about "a little more interesting for me right now". JK. Now that I've covered every taboo subject, the answer is no, you can't really OD on Vit C cuz your body will excrete it.
I really like EmergenC, Walgreens has a good generic brand too. Check out this article http://saltlakerunning.blogspot.com/2009/02/we-all-know-that-dreaded-feeling-of.html I must warn you though - it is WAY potent, kind of kept my belly warm for about an hour. But this lady is a master nutritionist, really knows her stuff.
As far as the legs not feeling up to par, I'm with Tim, I don't always feel so great until very close to race day. I think maybe it's just a result of all your hard work and it's catching up now. As you get into recovery and taper now, I bet those legs will freshen up for you.
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