Medal and crown recap

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I feel like I got hit by a truck! I think I figured out what happened to me at the marathon on Saturday. I may have injured my IT band. After I hydrated myself, the cramping should have gone away. Instead, the pain is starting to go away now. A running friend said that the pain I experienced in my left leg may have been me unconsciously overcompensating for my rolled right ankle injury a couple weeks back. It makes sense to me. I also felt incredible pain rising from a sitting position. It is getting better, so I hope next week when I start running again everything will be healed up. 

Sunday I helped clean out my grandma’s house. I refused to help out the week before the marathon. First, it is so dusty I feel like I smoked a couple packs of cigarettes after leaving. Second, I could imagine myself tripping over my feet and falling down the steps with an armful of junk. I know, I have always had an active imagination. 

Then yesterday was my crown on the tooth that doesn’t numb. Incidentally, I ran into an acquaintance yesterday morning while taking my kids in for physicals. We started talking and the conversation moved to dentists and my appointment in the afternoon for a crown.  She said that the strangest thing happens to her when she has crowns, her teeth don’t numb. She gave me great advice that even google couldn’t give me. I felt my prayers were answered running into her. Another strange “coincidence”. My panic lessened a little. 

Yesterday I drugged myself up and had my daughter take me in to get my crown. I asked the dentist to give me a deeper shot as suggested by my friend,  but my nerves were still shot. The deep shot really hurt. I could feel it deep into my marrow. The anti-anxiety sedative did little to calm my nerves, but I didn’t feel a thing! It was uncomfortable though, my mouth is swollen and bruised today. It was hard to eat or drink anything without sensitivity or tenderness. I got home from my appointment and slept. Then I slept the whole night through, the first time in 3 weeks. I am still very run down today. I feel like I ran a marathon and had my teeth rearranged. But I look like my husband beats me. I hope tomorrow is a better day. 

Medals and crowns

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I didn’t share this with you earlier, tomorrow I am getting my first crown. I guess this wouldn’t really be a big deal with the exception that I am getting it done on a tooth that 2 dentists have failed to ever numb. That’s right, I felt them drilling on this tooth every single time. Dental pain is the worst. I thought it was a fluke thing until my daughter had the same thing happen to her on the same tooth. God forbid, is it genetic? Even getting my teeth cleaned strikes a chord of panic within me. So, not only was I feeling horrified about my first marathon yesterday but I am horrified about my first crown tomorrow. My dentist said that he will be able to numb me, but I think he is a lying sadist. 

It reminds me of when I was a young girl of about 4 or 5. I got a little piece of gravel stuck in my eye. My mom had to take me to the ER. I laid down on the table. The doctors told me to hold still and open my eye. Instead, I lashed out and fought them. They told me they would strap me down if I didn’t cooperate. They brought what looked like an ironing board out and strapped me down to it. One doctor forced my eye open, the other came at me with a tweezers while I screamed and cried. It was horrifying. When it was all over, they said I was a good little girl and they gave me a sucker. But I really wasn’t a good little girl, was I? They did have to strap me down after all. 

So, after tomorrow I can tell you what is worse…..giving birth? Running a marathon? Or an hour and a half of dental pain? 

My first marathon

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I just put the 26.2 sticker on the back of my car! Let me start this off by saying that my first marathon was nothing like I expected. I really feel bad. Right now I feel like the expectant mother who prematurely claims that “her child” will always behave and never cry, then gets hit by the 2×4 of reality. 

I figured that since I completed the half in a little more than 2 hours that I should be able to complete the full in a little over four. Seems logical, right?? The first 18 miles were going according to this plan. I got to the 18 mile mark right around 3 hours. Things were going pretty good. Then things went from good to okay to terrible in the matter of a mile. My left leg locked up. I experienced cramps that felt like someone hit me in the knee with a crowbar and my ankle felt sprained. I was in excruciating pain. The Gu that was promised at mile 10 arrived at mile 15. I was a wreck. At this point, I was limping along. People were kind and asked if I needed help. All of the training I spent on this for this! Never once did I cramp up like this on long runs. I was heartbroken. It took me almost 3 hours to finish the last 8 miles. 

Right around mile 18, I ran into a girl a lot younger than me who was in a similar predicament. We helped each other have the courage to finish. I pulled her across an intersection both of us waddling, laughing hysterically about how foolish we must look. Hand in hand, she pulled me across the finish line. I still cannot bend my left leg without a considerable amount of pain. But will I do this again? Of course, I have to redeem myself…

Marathon training, less than 26.2 hours to go

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My bags are packed and I am almost ready to go. I don’t know if I will be able to sleep tonight. It has been a couple of weeks since I got a good nights sleep. I am rather exhausted. I’m sure that you have all heard that having a newborn, infant, or toddler will give you chronic sleep deprivation. Maybe you have experienced that yourself. Waking up in the middle of the night, up at the crack of dawn. Then your children hit the middle childhood years and you can finally sleep again. The perfect ages, between 5 and 10. They still want to be with you and you don’t have to lug around the stupid diaper bag. Then your kids enter their teen years and you are sleep deprived again. This time you are up late at night waiting for kids to come home or you can’t sleep because they are loud. Car seat toddlers become car drivers overnight. Then your crazy middle aged female hormones give you insomnia and you wake up at the crack of dawn. That is where I am now. I was the first one in bed last night at 10. I can’t tell you how many times I woke up. Plus my teenage son usually goes to bed right around the time I get up in the morning. He isn’t the quietest. It doesn’t help that I can hear a pin drop while sleeping. I tried, believe me. 

I didn’t tell you this earlier in the week. One of my daughter’s friends got in a car wreck this week. Her friend let some guy that she liked grab her car keys and race off in her car with her and a group of friends, but not before stashing his hash pipe under the seat. He drove quite recklessly and ended up totaling her car leaving everyone a few inches from death’s door. And this is the reason, my friends, that parents of teens don’t sleep well at night. I am happy that my driving daughter is more responsible than that, but she is not the only driver on the road. Yikes!

The weather conditions look perfect for the marathon tomorrow. I was excited to see that my hotel has a full breakfast until I called and found out it starts the same time as the marathon. Hmmmm… So I am packing some bananas, avocados, and string cheese for the morning. I am hoping that is adequate. My acid reflux has been nasty this week, so I hope that I can keep it under control. The last 10k I ran left me in a moderate level of pain the whole race. I don’t want this. I want to eat enough to keep up my endurance without having any stomach issues. I also want to drink enough to stay hydrated without having to pee at every mile. That will be a thin line. 

I spent the week wearing every running shirt I own to give me courage. This morning I plucked my eyebrows, shaved, and put a couple of blue streaks in my hair. Not near my eyes, because I worried that sweat would drip blue into my eyes and make me look like a Smurf. I cut my toenails, hopefully not for the last time. I washed and packed my outrunning my demons shirt. Compression socks? Packed. Extra running songs? Downloaded. Running watch charged? Check. Extra ear buds? Check. I am ready to go. The conditions are ideal to have a good time. And a good time is what I’ll have because I love the sport. 

I also want to thank everyone for your support. It means a lot. Also a special thanks to my husband. Thank you for supporting me taking extra time off of work to run. You always told me I needed a hobby. Thanks for the push into running and thanks for supporting my blogging. Both have been very therapeutic and have taken up gobs of my time. Until tomorrow, my friends….this is my last pre-marathon blog. Oh my! 

Marathon training, 2 days to go

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I have been running 6 years now and racing for one. I signed up for my first half marathon and first marathon in January. No, it was not a part of a New Year’s resolution. To tell you the truth, I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. I think that I should try to be a better person every day of the year, not just a couple of weeks after a night of drunken debauchery. If you kept your New Year’s resolution this year, good for you. I can’t say that I know of anyone who has. 

I would have to say that I earned most of my grit in childhood. Every single time my autistic brother slugged, hit, or scratched me I told myself that the physical pain, bruises, or scars would make me stronger. I followed that mantra back then and I follow it now. The physical pain has made me stronger, gave me the endurance not to quit the race. 

I finished my first half in 2 hours and five minutes. It was a very humid day, so even though I was not able to finish in my goal time of less than 2 hours I was ok with that. I am hoping to finish the marathon between 4 and 4 1/2 hours. Less than 4 hours will be unrealistic. Between 4 1/2 and 5 hours would still be ok. I will be sad if I can’t do it in 5 hours. We’ll see. 

Will I buy marathon photos? No way! Every race photo I’ve seen of myself makes it look like I am dying. Not a pretty picture. If you look great in those pictures, you are not trying hard enough. I often hear nonrunners say that they don’t want to run because we look so miserable. So I try to smile and wave back at the people that are friendly on the road so more people want to join the sport. Neighbors and acquaintances have asked why I am out on the streets so much. Now why does that make running sound so dirty? 

I wish my kids were hard core runners, instead my dog is. He cries like a baby when he can’t run. He is almost 8 and kept limping around after running with my husband. We put our dog on joint pills and it has been really working good. Almost too well, in fact. The first day he dug a hole to China. Then he escaped our yard and dug another hole in attempt to release our neighbors caged rabbits. Good thing they caught him before he succeeded. I think that I could use some of those pills! Wow, we don’t need an aged puppy running around. 

Other than that, I have been fluctuating from excitement to terror. If running a marathon is anything like childbirth, at least it doesn’t last as long. 

Marathon training, 3 days to go

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I was feeling great and ready to run my first marathon after taking some time off to “relax” before the race. Then I got this great idea to read blogs about marathons. Hmm. I was horrified to be reminded that I might lose a toenail or two. I picture myself running with blood seeping out of my shoes. Good thing I will be throwing those shoes out right after the race! The soles are worn. Believe me, that is not the only sole that is run down. Doubt started to penetrate my soul. 

As a 40 something person, do I have what it takes? Someone compared running a marathon to childbirth. It was a 30 something year old man, so really what would he know? You see, I have never been good at the childbearing part. Not once has someone exclaimed joy over my birthing hips. After having 3 children via c-section, you could say that I suck at this part. It could be a lot worse, I know. My grandma died during childbirth right around the age I am now. 

When I started this journey into adulthood, I was considered thin. I wanted to exercise to build muscle, not lose weight. People said that since I was thin, I really didn’t need to exercise. Lies! I was 120 lbs when I got married at 23. Shortly thereafter, I got pregnant and gained 66 lbs. 66 lbs! Afterwards, I lost all but 10 lbs before getting pregnant again. I gained 45 lbs with my second pregnancy. I stopped counting the lbs by my third pregnancy. I wanted to work out, but I didn’t have anyone to watch my kids. I tried child care at a fitness place and didn’t like it. I once forgot something and went back in after dropping my son off as a baby. They wanted to know why I was hanging around a baby. Hello, that was my son whom I just dropped off. Scary! 

People told me that I could never have nice abs after having my muscles cut after 3 c-sections. More lies!! I started doing crunches anyway. I worked my way up to 75 crunches three times a week, later adding weights. It was something that I could do without leaving the house. After working out my abs, and lately after losing 2 inches around my waist during marathon training I have no problems wearing a bikini. I am less than 5 lbs away from the weight I was before kids, with a lot more tone. I am not going to lie and say it wasn’t a hell of a lot of work, but it is attainable. If I can do it, why can’t you? Don’t ever believe that you can’t do something until you fully test your limits! 

So, before you sign up for your first marathon, I will let you know if it is anything like childbirth! Until then, I will be sitting around trying to relax in horror wondering what the hell I got myself into. 

Up north, part 4

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You may or may not have noticed that I took a couple of days off from blogging. I am getting really close to the 3 month anniversary of my first blog. I remember reading somewhere right before starting this new adventure that statistically most people get frustrated and quit blogging after 3 months. Sorry you can’t get rid of me that easily, I just went up north for the last couple of days. 

Saturday morning I had to pick up Arabella and her BFF from Bible camp. I was running late, but thought I would be forgiven for being late since I was reading my Bible in a year app. This is on my bucket list and I am over half way done. I prefer to be a fully informed believer. Plus I had to turn around because I forgot to feed my cat. No excuse for that, I know.  By being late, I avoided a big accident on the highway. Once again, it wasn’t my time to go. 

It was a hot weekend up north. We spent tons of time in the water. I promised to try to relax and take it easy before the marathon. I told myself that I wasn’t going to be crazy and swim across the lake, so I got about half way across and turned around. Damn, I guess I did swim the lake. Oh well. Sunday soon turned into Monday and brought with it a 30 degree drop in temperature with lots of rain. So now I was forced to sit and do nothing. No more swimming. We played a lot of games and talked. 

My mom apologized to me for having a difficult childhood. She was very upset about some things that have been happening in Matt’s group home (another blog). She wanted reassurance that I would take care of Matt when she leaves this world. I told her I would even though last week I told Paul that I would like to leave this area in 6 years when we are empty nesters. Paul is an only child, although he does have stepbrothers that are in and out of prison in another state. So I guess we are stuck. 

My mom and I played cribbage this morning. I got the perfect hand. I got a jack of spades with three 5’s and a 5 of spades was cut. I texted Paul and asked him if I should frame my hand or head to the closest casino. He said my chance of getting the perfect hand was one in 216,000. What luck! But since I wasn’t able to take a shower in 3 days and had a car full of children, I thought that going to the casino might be frowned upon. Since it was a once in a lifetime hand that was dealt to me, I will just check that one off my bucket list too. After this week ends, I may have to add a few more items to my bucket list. I am considering adding triathlons… 

Da bomb

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Here is some of the treasure I found while cleaning out my grandma’s house. A World War II gas mask. We also found uniforms, helmets, and war papers, etc… I found out that my grandpa had measles during basic training. All of my grandpa’s sibling served in the military during World War II, even Aunt Grace. One of grandpas brother’s watched the bombing of Hiroshima from a naval vessel. He died from cancer before I was born and it rendered him sterile. We found countless historical treasures from this time period. Seeing a gas mask is a rather eerie experience.

I would have to say that my mom’s dad takes the prize for military treasures. He is da bomb. He actually brought back a live hand grenade. I can’t even imagine how he got that safely home. My mother and her siblings found it in his garage while cleaning it out after he passed away. They posed for a couple pictures then wondered what to do with it. The bomb squad ended up coming out after evacuating 2 blocks from the neighborhood. The bomb squad said that it could have gone off at any time. My aunt was horrified after hearing that she could have died while posing with a live grenade. Now isn’t that da bomb?

Marathon training, week 12

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This is it. The training for my first marathon is over. Ready or not, here I come. Today I had my last run before the marathon. I finished a 12 mile run in a little over 2 hours with a heat index of 90. Wow, talk about sweat! Today must have marked a new record. My sweat made my skin sparkle like a Twilight vampire in the sun. A lot of people were out and about today. I saw 3 bicyclists and a walker/runner. I even had 2 people that I know stop along side of me. Motorcyclists waved. I felt motivated by all of this. Somedays I don’t see anyone. 

I feel relief that the marathon training is over. I also feel relief that the shirt I ordered for the marathon came in early. It looks great! I even took the advice of other runners and took my measurements before training. I wish I took my measurements before I started running 6 years ago. That would be impressive. I took my measurements after I was done with the half marathon training when I was already at my ideal weight. I ended up losing 2 inches off my waist and hips. I lost a total of almost 7 lbs. 

If I could do anything differently, I probably would have started breaking in a new pair of shoes on my short runs. My shoes are worn out. I was going to start breaking in a new pair but then I hurt my ankle. After that, I just ran out of time. The first thing I will do after crossing the finish line will be to find a trash can for my shoes, even before the free beer!

So far the extended forecast looks ideal, almost perfect, but things can change.  I recently received a positive thought for the day saying that the journey is the reward. How true that is. Reaching a goal is the easy part. It is the countless hours pounding the pavement that the memories are made, limits are tested, and the joy is found. 

Just rubbish

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The last couple of weeks of cleaning out my grandma’s house turned up a lot of junk. I would say 90% junk and 10% real treasure. Today’s post is basically trash talk. This weekend I will bring out the treasure. This is just the teaser. We have emptied out 2 dumpsters already. I come from a long line of pack rats, or according to my sister-in-laws borderline hoarders. I feel bad because my future sister-in-law didn’t even meet my grandparents to see how wonderful they were. This dumpster full is mainly from the garage. I am sure that the house will be a couple more dumpsters full. To think my dad said that we could just bag up the garbage and put it on the curb. I told him I wouldn’t do any cleaning until there was a dumpster.

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I found the box above hidden in the back of a closet excited over what might be inside. Surprise, nothing! The 2 years that my parents lived there when I was a baby turned up boxes and bags full of even more crap. Phone books from the 70’s, my baby clothes, stained old elastic shot shirts, and I even found a box with my baby teeth. Gross!

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I did find my grandma’s wedding dress pictured above. I remember trying it on when I was 12, telling my grandma that it will be my wedding dress someday. The problem is that it fit me when I was a tiny 12 year old. My youngest daughter, at 12, is bigger than me now. So, that is not going to happen. Plus the buttons on the back of the dress are rusting and bleeding into the dress. I am thinking of restoring it, but for what purpose? It will never be worn again. I hope someday my grandchildren will not be cleaning it out of my closet not knowing where it came from. No memories of their wonderfully great grandparents.