Running behind

Hmm I’ve been a little distracted lately, sorry about that.

To follow up on my last post, I met with my new personal trainer, and this is going to be great. For the summer, I’ll work with him on Wednesday mornings and then go to the group class on Saturday mornings. And what’s even better—I asked Kent to go with me the first time in hopes this would be something we do together. And he agreed!

I will say, the day after the first group class, we were both sore but not where we thought we would be. Since we’re both runners, neither of us expected to be sore in our quads but oh my goodness we sure were. We joked about trust falls onto the toilet . . . only we weren’t really entirely joking.

Jerry had told me I'm to work out four days a week, rather than six. I tried to negotiate to five days but he asked me to give him two months at the four days a week and see how I felt. My biggest concern with losing a day of working out isn't overall fitness, it's my running base. You see, to be ready to train for a full marathon, I need to be regularly and easily running more volume than I am right now. Still, I agreed to cut back for the summer and work on the strength. He's fine with me having active recovery days, so I can cycle (as long as I'm not doing 20 mile rides--oh hey, no worries there!). 

This week, I cycled on Sunday (7 miles), ran 5.5 miles on Monday, walked I'm not sure how far but close to 3 miles yesterday, today I worked out with Jerry and I will run probably tomorrow or maybe Friday. We're in a brutal heat wave and the "low" temperatures the next two days isn't very low: 76 and 78. Then Saturday I'll be at the group class.

He also had me bring in my food diary (very easy to do since I've been tracking with My Fitness Pal for a few years), and then laughed at my protein. Yeah, he wants me to up that considerably. And that's not easy as a vegan. I'm working on it though.

I mentioned that Sami and Jerry own this gym and that she’s a nationally recognized expert in exercise for cancer patients and survivors. At the first group class (which she teaches), she asked if I wanted to stick around afterwards as she and Jerry were going to make a short video of other cancer survivors who work out there for an upcoming conference. So I did! She tossed me a logo'd tee shirt and then I worked out with the rest of them while Jerry filmed. It was so much fun and even more, I felt entirely normal there. I wasn’t the only person who had to pay attention to scar tissue or what have you.

Here’s a photo from the end—Sami is in the front row on the right, and Ruth is their adorable dog.

Next steps

Remember the issues I’ve been having with numbness in my big toe? I’ve gotten all the test results back and they don’t show a reason for that numbness. To recap, here’s what's happened:

Late February, the top of my foot hurt. Being my mother’s daughter and knowing that the tincture of time often cures aches and pains, I waited a couple of weeks, and also retied my running shoelaces so they didn’t cross that spot on my foot.

But over the next two weeks, I got pins and needles down into my toe and then a bit of numbness plus the pain on the top of my foot. I got it checked out by an NP who ordered an X-ray. Nothing showed so I shrugged and moved on.

Two months later, the numbness, pins and needles worsened, and then my foot broke while on a training run.

Obviously, I didn’t run for a while and I figured if this numbness etc. was caused by running, then the time off should give my foot time to recover. Nope, that didn’t happen. 

I went to the podiatrist both for the break, which I will say took ages to heal, and this numbness and pins and needles. She had me go back to the orthopedist; several x-rays and an MRI later, everyone agreed that my bone was very slowly healing, and no one had any clue on why I had this numbness and pins and needles in my big toe.

In December, the orthopedist referred me to a neurology consult on the off chance that the numbness etc. was caused by a nerve impingement. I saw the neurologist in April, and he ordered two tests (nerve conduction test and an EMG, both of which were very, very unpleasant). Neither test identified any issues, so he ordered an MRI of my spine to rule out any issues there. As expected, that also came back absolutely fine.

So here I am with this numbness and pins and needles and no idea what’s causing it or how to get it to stop. But I’m tired of waiting, I have fitness goals I want to work on. Today I booked my first session with a personal trainer—he and his wife are experts in fitness for people who’ve had cancer, and I'd checked out their gym right before COVID shut everything down last year.

I have two goals:

• Prep for and run the Grandma’s Marathon next June. This is the marathon I’d registered for last year only of course, it shifted to virtual (ugh) and I broke my foot. I have a discount code for it that has to be used no later than next summer’s race. I’m bound and determined to be there.
• Prep for staying as physically healthy and strong as I can during my older years. After watching how fast my mother-in-law lost all her strength, I’m committed to doing everything I can to avoid that kind of frailty. Sure, it’s not always avoidable but often it is.

More to come after my first session (which is next Wednesday).

Another anniversary

A year ago, I was out running a planned 18 mile run in training for a marathon. Only at mile 6, my foot broke (I didn’t know that’s what that pain was) and I was 4 miles from home. That ended my marathon training, of course, and I started the rehab process again.

Today, Kent and I volunteered at the Kansas City Triathlon as running marshals. Unfortunately, Kansas City had torrential rain today, and the triathlon was changed to a duathlon: 1 mile run, 20 mile bike, then a 20k run. 

Kent and I were put in separate spots, I couldn’t see him or any other marshals and there were no spectators where we were. So, I stood alone in the rain and waited and waited for the first runners to appear. Let me tell you, those elite athletes were really moving! 

I made it a point to cheer for every runner as they passed—my thinking was that I’ve always done better when someone cheers me on at a race and even if I’m not yet in racing condition, I can sure return the favor. So many of them thanked me for cheering them on, for being there, and boy that was humbling. Yes, it was miserable weather and I was cold and wet even with my running rain jacket on. But I also hadn’t run a mile, biked another 20 and then been running another 12ish miles in that weather.

This was a good way to mark a not great anniversary. Next up, I’m going to be talking with a personal trainer in the Kansas City area. I’m ready to gear up my training for the marathon I missed last year. I want to be in my best possible shape for that (and NO broken bones).

A Mezcal tasting

Tuesday night, we had a virtual mezcal tasting with The Restaurant at 1900, a restaurant we love (side note, I'm hoping we can still go there what with my shift to veganism). A friend asked me how that worked, so this post is for her.

We chose a pick-up time to get our packages; you have to pick a time, the pick-up person has to be 21 or older and show proper ID. Then we joined the session via Zoom and learned so much about how mezcal is made. 

We've done virtual tastings with this restaurant before, but this was the first time we've done something other than wine. When we saw how big the tasting bottles were, we decided we would share all but the first cocktail and the last bottle (it was a lot smaller, the restaurant's chief sommelier donated it from his own private collection).

Wally insisted on joining us and was lolling around on the counter, until Kent grabbed a cat bed and then he settled down. He stayed there the full two hours, too.

Here's what we had:

We each got one of these little cups to drink the mezcal out of:

And here's everything staged properly (chips are ours, we thought that might help clear our palates between the types of mezcal):

A Macabi review

This is mostly for some posters on the subreddit r/HerOneBag who were also interested in the Macabi skirt.

First, let me level set size etc. for me. I’m 5’4 and ½” tall, I’m slightly short-waisted and also very slightly pear shaped these days. I tend to wear size 2 in most pants, sometimes a 0. I got the XS in both skirts and that was the correct size for me.

I bought the short skirt in purple haze (no length options), and the slim long skirt, in the regular length in charcoal. Slim is possibly misleading as it still has a lot of fabric. But I’m fairly small and suspected the regular long skirt would overwhelm me. I apologize for not great pictures, but if you click the images you should be able to see better.

Let me start by saying this is not a fashion skirt. You will not win any style points wearing this unless you are with like-minded people. I got cold the day I wore the short skirt, so I ended up putting on a cardigan over my shirt. At that point, I figured I’d nailed much like the stereotypical librarian.  But it’s super comfortable.

It’s chilly again today, and I’m wearing the slim long skirt today with a new pair of boots so I can break them in. As with the short skirt, this one is very comfortable; I haven’t clipped it to make the pants or clipped up to make shorts but it’s easy enough to do.  

I can see why the photographs on the website aren’t great, this isn’t a skirt that lends itself to a form-fitted tucked-in top since the skirt itself is so voluminous. But I like it a lot with the sweater I’m wearing today and think I’ll use both of them, especially in the summer. And if I ever get to walk the El Camino de Santiago, I would take the long one for sure. That way, I would meet all the clothing/modesty requirements for seeing the churches and cathedrals along the way.

The yard is coming along

We hired a landscaping company for a couple of projects:

• The patio needed to be cleaned quite badly
• The hack job of a path behind the garage was both unsafe and ugly
• We wanted to have the beds along the sides and back of the yard moved closer to the lot line (we do NOT need giant beds full of weeds)
• We also wanted some sort transition from the path to a less structured walkway toward the garage

Most of these projects were beyond our skills and also our equipment. We don't own any sort of tiny bulldozer or the tool this company used to cut the narrow trench for the new beds. We might have been able to clean the patio, but probably not nearly as well or as efficiently as they did. And we sure wouldn't have solved the down spout issue on the side of the garage.

Here are some before/after photos:

Dirty bricks and filthy chimenea:

Hack job of a path from the previous owner (which we tried & failed to fix):

It's just an ankle twist waiting to happen:

See the chain link fence? That area was full of weeds and the downspout couldn't do a great job (downspout is off camera to the left):

Clean! And the fish is too!

Another view; also gone is the honking big grill that we used once in the last eight years. They said they have a graveyard of old grills:

Looking toward the new path:

From the path back to the patio:

New stepping stones which are shaped like slices of wood:

New sod and we hope it gets enough light that it doesn't die (we also need to trim back those bushes, that will help a lot):

MUCH improved downspout area! We hadn't even asked about that, they saw the need and did it:

Now winter weather needs to go away so we can put our sun umbrella out and start enjoying this.

Not today, cancer

Today is the second anniversary of my breast cancer diagnosis, which is also the second cancer I've been diagnosed with. I remember dates like these, not to live in a mud puddle or focus on bad things but as a way to honor the trauma I've come through, and just as importantly to normalize having things like this happen.

There's a real tendency not to talk about what it's like to get cancer, or break a bone, or live through a flood, or survive childhood sexual abuse, or menopause or (fill in the blank). I find it comforting when I hear from someone else who's walked the path I'm on and so I do the same for others.

Breast cancer was different from the first cancer diagnosis, and not just because it involved more treatment. There was also the whole OMG BREAST CANCER response from so many people, and the huge disparity in the amount of support available compared to melanoma (which was . . . basically nothing).

Breast cancer also brought more trauma associated with my childhood abuse, which OK that makes a weird sort of sense since some nasty things were done to my breast. Going back to therapy, doing the entire Cognitive Process Therapy was hard so if you are there now, please know it's not your imagination. That stuff is hard.

And the lingering effects of radiation on my running, and the way my bones are just shit now, that's been hard too. After doing all the so-called right things in terms of food and weight bearing exercise, to have my bones just break was a real blow. So if you're there too, you're not alone. 

Today is a run day, and as I've done the last couple of weeks, I did not look at my running watch to see what my heart was doing or what my pace was. I just ran by how I felt. Frankly I didn't think today's run would be all that great since a cat woke me up at 2:30 this morning by massively throwing up on the bed. So I had to get up and deal with that and then try to get a bit more sleep.

But this run felt good and I'm getting more hopeful that my best running days aren't in the past. And that's especially meaningful today, on this second anniversary of my second cancer diagnosis.