Tag: hinson lake

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Staying Distracted, Lifting Weights, and a Facebook Rant

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 :

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Epic Fail

(Insert TMI- men please navigate away from this page)

In short, it wasn’t my day.
Friday night hit me with a massive and painful urinary tract infection. Saturday, 2 hours into the race, I started my period. I stopped in the bathroom after every other loop. 4 hours into the race, I started to feel the most weakening pain I’ve ever felt. It was awful from the get-go. My right leg locked up into a terrible grip, and it didn’t release- ever- no matter what I tried. OH BELIEVE ME, I ran through it- hard and fast. Tried to ignore it, got 3 separate deep massages, kept fueling perfectly, but only pulled out a total of maybe 14-15 painful hours, and only hit maybe 78miles. To sum it up: It sucked.

I literally cannot move my legs today. Did I do something awful continuing to push to almost 80 when I noticed the pain? Yeah of course. But that’s what I do. I’m stupid like that! Piriformis? Broken or dislocated bone? Whatever it is – its totally destroyed. Daniel is having to pick me up and carry me everywhere. Physical therapy may be in order, as I’m literally screaming every time I attempt to move. I can’t bear weight on my right side. If you know me well, you know it takes a lot for me to quit. And for once, I actually decided to quit.

SO. What happened? Where did this bad race come from?

It was just not His plan for me. I did everything RIGHT. I fueled right, ran right, trained right, rested right, paced smart, raced hard. Didn’t skip a beat. And I knew it was up to God to take care of the rest if He wanted to. And in the end, He didn’t want to.

So what did I learn ?

It’s a big one…

That was my last ultra race.

I knew that the moment I crossed the line on my last lap. I felt it, and it felt right. Maybe not forever. But- for awhile.

I know, you probably think I’m swearing them off because I can’t walk right now.

Actually, no. That’s not it.

It’s just time to move on..

As a side note –

I DO enjoy the people. That’s the only thing that was fun about today. I ran with so many of my good friends:
I got to have a long heart to heart with Ray K, run a few laps catching up with Bruce, Joe (early on when I had speed on my side!), sweet Beth, super funny Ami, and of course my all time favorite person in the world -Daniel. I also got to catch up with Naresh, who I met at my first ultra, and Kena one of my favorite runners around. All of the volunteers were superb, as they always are at ultra events… Bending over backward to cater to the runners. It was great to see everyone and socialize for a change.

So why quit if there’s still some fun?
It’s kinda deep. (duh, it always is)

..Because God’s not in it for me.
I’m positive now.
It has nothing to do with quitting. It’s something spiritual, something I’ve been praying about for some time.
I didn’t feel Him with me at all during this race. I wanted to so bad, but it just didn’t happen. I prayed the whole time, but I didn’t feel His guidance and blessing and strength that I usually feel. And that’s not something I’m willing to live without. If I don’t feel His presence in something important in my life, I leave it alone.

I’m done wasting time on things that I know God wants me to get rid of. I’m not even sure why He even wants me to get rid of it right now- but He does. I feel it in my gut. And thankfully, I’m fine with that. I can let it go. So I will. My relationship with Jesus Christ is THAT real and THAT meaningful to me. I’ll never let anything hinder it. It’s not just some religious game for me. It’s just a perfect God, a messed up me and a lifelong learning process to make me a better person to please Him. When it’s time for God to work on me- I feel it.. & right now I more than feel it.. I know it. So I’m gonna surrender what I feel like I need to, for Him to carve me into that person I’m meant to be. Simple as that.

(PSALM 127:1a Unless the Lord builds a house, the builders labor in vain.)

I don’t think I’m a terrible athlete. Nope. & Maybe I’ll come back to the sport one day to compete. I’ll definitely continue to run my own ultras! I seem to enjoy those long lonely runs much more anyway.. They’re beneficial to my growth.

We’ll see what happens in the future.

Until then,

Bye for now! 🙂

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Taper Time- I’m Ready!

I spent 18 weeks training my heart out with ONE thing and ONE THING ONLY- in front & center of my mind- RACING HARD THIS FALL, & more specifically, racing hard at Hinson.

& Hinson Lake 24 hour starts in just a few days!

MANNNN AM I PUMPED!!!! I’m so ready to race. SO READY! I’m 200% confident in my physical and mental training. I’ve never felt more prepared for anything. It’s a good feeling, especially for someone like me, who lives life on the fly, just figuring things out as I go. I should prepare for things more often, ha!

This week is awesome, as I’m just hitting short fast runs, and listening to nothing but rage music. I’m getting a little too crunk probably. I was at a stop light earlier, screaming my heart out to Linkin Park, when I noticed the dude beside me gawking at me like I was crazy….Yeah, apparently I forgot the windows were down.Annnd his were down too. DANG!

HA, so anywho, while we’re counting down the days, Beth McCurdy (who also plans to destroy Hinson), and I keep texting and emailing each other, getting all excited. She sent me something yesterday along the lines of ”Don’t mess with a woman who runs 26.2 miles for fun” in which I replied, “and especially don’t mess with a woman who runs 100 miles for fun.” Hilarious! It’s been fun training with Beth for Hinson. It’s a special bond we have, that we can run for a full day, and dig deep into conversations of 100 mile race strategy like its a normal conversation. Good times.

I love tapering. Its like the calm before the storm. & storms are fun.. all of the anticipation, the fear of the unknown. “Oh my gosh, is that tornado coming our way going to take out our little piece of crap house???” Yeah, THAT adrenaline- I crave it. I LOVE it! And I get it right before a super long race. Wish I could gather it all together and put it in a little jar, all for me to keep.

Yeah, so can you tell I’m excited to race Hinson Lake?!

Eat. Sleep. Breath. Run. …… no, seriously….

:)

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