Everyone keeps asking me if I’m depressed. Ha. Well….Nah, I wouldn’t say I’m depressed. I’m definitely not my chipper -bouncing off the walls- self. I think I’m just really DISTRACTED. I only get down during times when I feel like I should be running, or when I crave a run. Truth is, I haven’t had time to notice my injury other than the obvious, more in-your-face, times Take grocery shopping for instance, yeah…screw that! Ha! Daniel keeps telling me to use one of those riding carts, and I refuse….they look too weak! So I crutch around all over the stores, and try to carry stuff at the same time. It’s so pathetic.. maybe I should just swallow my pride? (Or NOT.)
I’ve been keeping myself really busy, and I feel just about as tired as I felt during peak training weeks this year. As a matter of fact, last night I forgot I can’t even walk. I was laying in bed, it was around midnight, and I told Daniel, “I’m gonna go hit a few miles really quick so I can sleep, I’ll be back.” He looked at me like I was crazy, and then I remembered I can hardly walk, and I dropped my head back to the bed in defeat. (Yes, running is THAT ingrained into my system… anyone else ever experienced this sort of thing?) Also, I had to leave the house last night, and I drove past my favorite training grounds, Fort Yargo, on the way to my destination. I almost swerved into the park! I got all teary eyed. What would I do there? Crutch to the trail head and turn around? I SWEAR, I really feel like a teenage girl who’s daddy made her “break up” with running. SUCKS! So..I took a pic and kept driving. sob. For real, that is so lame. Why I’m writing this for my small world of friends to know is beyond me…not like you guys don’t know this stuff about me anyway. Somewhere in this mess of a year, I apparently lost my ability to care about what anyone else thinks… (?)…
I’ve spent the past couple of days helping a close friend of mine revamp her blog, so that’s been keeping me distracted. Beth McCurdy is a fabulous cook, and has a lot of great recipes geared towards runners, check it out : betheats2run.blogspot.com . It turned out to be a nightmare of HTML code input for the header, which I haven’t dealt with in years. Also, when I committed, I forgot that my new laptop has no photoshop or editing software installed. I’m a wiz on photoshop, but I had to use a crappy generic photo editor to create the logo and it took foooorrr–eevvvv–urrrr. (No really. Forever!) Regardless, it turned out pretty good for my first attempt at designing a blog for someone & with minimal tools to do so. She really liked it, so that’s all that matters to me.
Dan’s kicking my butt…err, upper body, with whatever cross training I can handle. I’m looking forward to the body changes with it all. I’ve lost a lot of weight since Hinson, surprisingly. Probably because I’m not hungry. I can already see a lot of cuts and definition returning that I had lost during heavy distance training. I’m eating way less than 1000 cals a day. My body is so used to burning 3-4000, and consuming even more than that on a daily basis. I guess my body just doesn’t know how to react! It’s kinda weird.. I’m so fascinated by how our bodies respond to training
Another thing keeping me distracted are the looong and meaningful conversations I have had with so many of my friends. I’m the type of person who you DON’T want to get into a phone conversation with… no really.. most people just text me to avoid it! Ha. Everyone knows that I prefer deep conversation versus meaningless chatter, so I’m surprised at how many people are willing to actually CALL me! SOOO many friends, and other ultrarunners have taken the time to chat with me, and I’m loving it! Thanks guys, it’s keeping my mind off of NOT running. Huge help! Some conversations have been FUNNY. I found out that a girl at Hinson Lake thought I was trying to “show off” by sprinting a few loops after already running over 60 miles. Ha. Actually, I had no intentions of showing off, and every intention of trying anything in my arsenal to shake out the pain I was feeling in my hip. A true runner knows that sometimes a good solid block of natural form sprinting can fix your gait & stride and help tame some muscle pain. So no, I didn’t WANT to run a sub 7 pace for half an hour on crappy legs, I just felt like I needed to try it. (Shakin My Head)
(enter random facebook rant)
Things like that chick talking smack about me- that reminds me of how much I LOVE being off of facebook. All of the political correctness and fake friendships used to drive me up the wall. When I hear of silly things people say about me, I’m reminded of how people used to write that kind of stuff to me on my facebook wall… I can only imagine the crap I’d get if I was on there posting stuff about breaking my hip during Hinson! —Bet this would be verbatim :
“Ashley, you really need to take care of your body. Don’t you know how dangerous ultrarunning is? You should have stopped when you noticed the pain! I’m sure I know exactly what happened. I wasn’t there or anything, but I think I know. You must have over trained. I bet you got rhabdomyolosis again too. (Wait is that even how you spell that? Can you get that from drinking well water?) Any way. I know nothing about that, but I bet you have it. Oh & You should get some good orthopedics for your running shoes. And get a shoe guy to check your running form. It might help with that hip problem. I know we’ve only talked once in our lives, but I really REALLY care about your well being!!! I just really think you should focus on your future and your longevity instead of running so much right now. In fact, that’s why I’m taking precious time out of my super extremely BUSY day (of sitting on facebook instead of doing real life activities) to explain to you how you should pay better attention to your body. LOVE YA! CHEERS!! :-D” (like + 10)
Yup. And next would start the all out debate wars with people stepping in defending me, or backing up said person. You know, all of that fun adult drama madness over elementary things. I’m always surprised that no one ever seems to have the balls to say that stuff to anyone’s face, yet they get behind a computer screen and somehow grow a set. Cute.
If you actually remove yourself from the shenanigans for a bit, and think about the whole facebook gig. It’s really quite lame. Who would actually spout off the things they write as status updates? Imagine yourself going into a huge crowd and shouting, “HEY EVERYONE! I JUST BROKE OFF A FEW 6 MINUTE MILES AT 6am. FEELING PUMPED! HOLLA!” Yeah, now quickly stop imagining that scenario because you’re gonna feel really what….? Yup..Lame. See? It’s lame! No one really says that crap. We just want people to think we’re special. It’s part of this whole crazy psychological game we all play. But MAN it’s a stupid game- & FACEBOOK, TWITTER, and all of the social media gigs are just huge platforms to all of it.
My opinion- It feels good to be human. It feels GREAT to actually have genuine conversations with people versus lame social media phoniness. I can definitely give an unbiased opinion on that one, too. If you know me, you know I used to be a facebook junkie!!! I found this year that I like not depending on my 800 fake friends for entertainment. I like not knowing what everyone is doing. I like that everyone doesn’t know what I’m doing either! & When I have absolutely nothing to do, I don’t stare at facebook. I go outside, lay on the ground, gaze at clouds, and think DEEP. It’s a rare phenomena people used to do- well before gadgets aimed at pleasing the instant gratification needs of greedy humans ruled the world- its called “Doin’ Nothing”. You should try it sometime. Ditch absolutely everything, lay in the freakin grass.. alone.. next to somebody..whatev.. and just look at the sky. Don’t SAY anything. JUST LAY THERE. Ha. It’s good stuff. It will make you smile.
Rant done.
YEAH. So. Anyway!!!!!!!!!!!
That was my form of self expression (minus my daily 20 mile trail trot) geeeez.
Sorry.
So btw,
Race plans are coming along nicely. Have a route, date, sponsor, and distance set. Need a few more sponsors, but I’m already on it. Lot’s of long detailed finishing touches.. but, I’ll let everyone know about it when it’s ready.
PS thanks for emails, sorry I don’t have comments turned on..I’m just not a “feedback” type of chick if you haven’t noticed. 😉 I do appreciate the heartfelt emails & texts though, it means so much to me. very big thanks. 🙂
ASHRUNS100s 