Harder than it looks

When I was 32 and still a professional musician, I developed tendonitis in my right thumb from playing. I went to physical therapy, and my PT said you need to stop playing to let this heal up, otherwise it’s going to get a lot worse and you might not recover. I said well I’m in the middle of a lot of rehearsals and a bunch of concerts, I will see you in May (it was February).

And those concerts were the last I ever played.

My thumb did indeed get a lot worse. The tendonitis spread to the back of my hand, to my elbow and up to my shoulder. I couldn’t even sign my name on a check for about five months—I lost the grippy motion you need to hold a pen or pencil. I went to PT religiously, did all the rehab exercises, tried to play again and nope. Flat could not do it.

I still have issues with my right hand. My handwriting is so bad I can’t always read it. I’ve had to learn to use a mouse with my left hand so that I can give my right hand a break. It’s been 25 years and this is my normal now.

Patron saint for runners--
thanks Mom!

So I’m taking this piriformis issue seriously. I got a recommendation for a PT place that works with athletes and went for a screening last night. Holy cow that hurt. She did a piriformis release on both sides and that was incredibly painful. But it helped. She also gave me a couple of exercises and dynamic stretches to do. They hurt, but I can tell it’s not the “OMG stop you are damaging yourself” pain. I go back next week for a full evaluation.

In the meantime, I’ll hold off running until next Tuesday. That gives me a full week of no running. I’m still planning on running my half marathon, I know logically I have all the fitness and conditioning I need. But mentally it’s hard. I’ve also had to acknowledge I won’t meet the 200k distance challenge for December (I use Strava, which is sort of like FaceBook for runners and cyclists and you can sign up for all sorts of challenges every month). That’s hard too, because I hate not meeting those kinds of challenges.

But the reality is if I don’t stop and heal up, then I run the risk of a more serious injury. I’d like to think I learned something from that career ending injury 25 years ago
.

In which I am learning about the mental side of running

A week ago, I ran in the local Jingle Bell 5k race and did pretty well. I set a new personal record for the mile (7:29) and a new personal record for the 5K (25:48)—I came in 91st overall, and second in my age group.

But because I’m not very experienced at racing, I also strained my left hamstring a bit. It’s been a bad enough strain that I cut back my running this week because otherwise I’m concerned I won’t be able to run in the half marathon on New Year’s Day.

And that’s the mental part. I know logically that I’m fit, I could run a half today (well assuming my hamstring cooperates) but mentally my brain says otherwise.

It’s been a real challenge not to get clenched over skipping days in my training plan. This week, I skipped Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and today. I’m going to try a short easy run tomorrow morning, but I’m deliberately taking a loop that will let me cut the run short if I’m still hurting.

Update on Monday: Well I ran a nice slow mile, and still had a fair amount of discomfort. I'll wait until Thursday to try again. 

On a happier note, here are some photos from the 5k last weekend.

Before the race--yes, we are in a cave.

I'm the female blur in the light blue shirt.

Yay, I did it!

Finisher's medal and age group medal

Thanksgiving 2017

November has been a packed month for me, professionally and personally. After my trip to Corpus Christi for work, I headed to Orlando (also for work). Alas, the view from my hotel room looked onto a boring roof, and we were nowhere near the ocean. It was so humid and foggy that I couldn’t see through my running glasses and every attempt to wipe off the lenses when I ran only resulted in more blurry smears.

I got back from Orlando on Thursday, and Kent and I headed to Nashville the next day. My older son is engaged to a wonderful woman, and her folks threw an engagement party that Saturday. If we’re friends on Facebook, then you’ve seen this photo already—I love it. I also realized that compared to everyone else, I’m kind of short!

This past Saturday, we flew to San Diego, picked up Jordan and Amanda and drove to Yuma to be with Ben, Jen and the kids for Thanksgiving. It’s definitely different running in the desert. I run before the dawn breaks, so I’ve enjoyed seeing the stars here in the desert and then watching the sun come up as I finish my runs.

Now I’m sitting here on Thanksgiving Day, so grateful to be with my husband, sons, daughter-in-law, future daughter-in-law and grandkids. It doesn’t get much better than this.

October running recap (so I don’t forget)

Finisher's medal

• Ran my first race in nine years
• Got new running shoes—this is my first time wearing Saucony shoes (I got Kinvaras). They are ridiculously big but that’s what it took to not smash my toenails because I have long toes. But they are big everywhere else—heel to the ball of my foot, side to side and top to bottom. So I’ve got inserts in them to take up space, and I am wearing my thickest Baluga running socks just to take up some of that room. I’d love to find running shoes for narrow shallow feet with a long toe box but the current fashion is wider shoes with super wide toe boxes, and those just hurt my feet.
• Ran my first ever 10 mile run. I was pretty pumped up about that.
• Ended my mile a day streak on October 25 (I started on August 11). I ended it because (a) the streak was becoming the master of me, and (b) my son is right and I do need a rest day. 
• Ran 114+ miles in October and had my most miles ever in one week (37.8).
• I decided to run a half marathon. I would have loved to run it this month but I’m out of town for every local half in my area. So I am aiming for the Hangover Half on January 1. The only reason I would not run it is if it’s below 20F (I have some lung issues) or if we have a lot of snow and ice on the ground. I’m not interested in slipping and breaking any bones. 

Where did the week go?

I was in Corpus Christi TX last week for work. I left Sunday and got home about 9:30 last night. I don’t know about you, but when I end up working on the weekend like that (and I do count traveling for work as work), I get all sorts of confused on what day it is. I mean, I know what day it is, but I always have to deliberately remember. I guess that’s partly because I lose the rhythms and habits of my normal daily life.

I found a Thai restaurant about a block and a half away from my hotel, so Monday night I got take out green curry. It was fantastic, very spicy (which I like) and came with the rice, vegetables and pineapple you see in this photo. I had a fridge in my hotel room, and where I was working had microwaves, so I had half for dinner and the rest for lunch Tuesday.

It was so good, I went back Tuesday night and got the red curry. Well, it was even better! So I did the same half/half split. I briefly thought about trying the yellow curry Wednesday night but honestly, that red curry was amazing. So I got it again.

I ran on the seawall four of the five mornings I was there—even in the dark, it was lovely. I ran up toward the bridge and then back down to Cole Park. I could sort of see the USS Lexington in the dark but never had enough free time to tour it. 

Not all the damage from Hurricane Harvey has been repaired. In the photo from my hotel room, you can see that the hotel next to mine still has room damage. And I don't know what the building is in the next photo, but it looks like the damage was severe.

View from my room.

I don't know what this building is but you can see the damage.

Sunrise from my hotel.

The USS Lexington model in the airport.

It gets in your head

Since getting that original melanoma diagnosis, I’d wondered if I would be freaking out over any new blemish or spot on my skin. See, the problem is I don’t actually know what that melanoma looked like. It was on my back, basically between my shoulder blades and centered on my spine. That’s not a spot I see every day. Plus, my dermatologist warned me that the normal A B C D E signs of melanoma wouldn’t really apply to me because of my moles, and I guess because of how the one spot looked. So I’m not at all sure of what should be flagged and what shouldn’t.

When I put on make-up in the mornings, I use a small magnifying mirror. I wear reading glasses but of course you can’t actually wear reading glasses and put on eye make-up, or if you can I haven’t figured out how that works. Two weeks ago, I noticed a small dark spot at the lash line on my right eye lid. Hmm, I thought, maybe I didn’t remove my eye make-up thoroughly enough . . . I decided to scrub harder the next morning, and check again. The spot was still there. So I thought OK, this is a little alarming—I’ll scrub harder one more morning and check again. Still there.

I called my dermatologist that morning, and they squeezed me in that day. Fortunately, the spot is benign, but until I got that news I’d been wondering how on earth it would be removed and then reconstructed if it had been melanoma? After all, the eye lid isn’t very big—seems like a wide local incision would remove the whole thing. That was not a pleasant thought.

As I told my mother yesterday in our weekly phone calls, the thing about a cancer diagnosis is that it leaves this invisible “what’s next” cloud over anything. She herself has cancer, and as she told me years ago when diagnosed, having one kind doesn’t preclude developing another kind. So there’s that bit of fun to contemplate. Plus, at least for me, this has disrupted the way I’ve always thought I’d end up going. There’s a pretty strong history of blood cancers in women on my mother’s side of the family. I figured I’d end up with one of those, and I guess I still might. But for now I have this melanoma to pay attention to, and to watch for. Only I don’t know what it looks like on me.

I go back in February for my next screening. I’m going to ask for any examples of what he removed from me. And if he needs to do any scrape biopsies, I'llask to see what it looks like before he removes it. That’s all I know to do.

WW1 Museum & Memorial 8K Double

Originally I was supposed to be flying to Utah for work today. That trip got canceled, which meant I could run in this race. Unfortunately, because I made the decision so late, my normal runs were probably not ideal in terms of coming into this double race all fresh and ready.

But that’s OK. I haven’t run any race in 9 years and sort of feel like those two don’t count because I’d never run any races before and didn’t have any clue on how to prep. This time, though, I asked my younger son’s advice. Ben’s one of those people who dives deep into whatever topic catches his interest, and he’s been an avid runner for a while now. He comments on my runs on Strava and always has an encouraging word to say.

We talked this last week and I asked him how he’d run a race like this:

• 9 AM: 5k race starts
• 10:15 AM: 3k race starts

While I regularly run hills, the hills around the Liberty Memorial are no joke: they are steep and long, or super steep and short. So I knew this course would be a challenge. (Fun note: my Garmin marked enough rapid elevation changes and decided I'd climbed 49 flights of stairs . . . during this race!)

He suggested running a negative split on the 5K—in other words, go out faster than normal so that when I hit the hills, the bleed off of speed would be offset by the faster start time. And that’s what I did. I could also tell that the hill running I do every day paid off because I passed a lot of people on those uphill portions.

For the 3K, Ben suggested going all out, which is also what I did. Too bad the first mile of that 3k had an elevation gain of 58 feet. Ouch!

It was fairly chilly this morning and raining lightly, and also pretty windy. I wore the long tights and long sleeve hot weather shirt for bug mitigation (no more oak mite bites please!) and of course to keep the sun off me. Then the sun broke through during the intermission, so I swapped to a short sleeve shirt. I was pretty happy with the gear, but I should have brought a different pair of sunglasses since those slid down my nose all the time.

For this race, I’d set three average pace per mile goals: 8:45, 8:55 and 9:05. I didn’t meet that goal at all in the 5K (pace was 9:12), but did well in the 3K with a pace of 8:48. I’m a little surprised at the 3K pace, since I tend to have my best speeds on longer runs. Then again, I was taking Ben’s advice and I wasn’t leaving anything on the table.

Pics or it didn't happen:

5k start

5k finish--I tried to motivate that guy behind me
but he was flat out of gas

3k start but after that freaking long hill at the beginning

3k finish

Yay!

All in all, I had a blast and I’m looking forward to seeing what else I can do. Also, check out the WW1 Museum and Memorial's site. If you are ever in Kansas City, consider going to this museum. It's truly amazing.