Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Merry Christmas and 2 Feet of Snow


Christmas was great! Christmas Eve is spent at my mother-in-law's for the Italian - Night of the Seven Fishes!!! Yummy! 18 people at my house for Christmas day. Lot's of wine and good food and family! Hope you all had great holidays!


My attendance at the gym has been spotty at best in the last 2 weeks. I've been there 3 out of the last 4 days and had my first easy run on the treadmill since the evil snowman incident. It was a very slow run for a mile. My ankle was taped to high heaven. Good news is that it didn't give me any trouble. But it was a very sloooow run. I'm happy tho. I've been doing my favorite Arc Trainer and have diversified to the bike (might be thinking about a bi or tri for 2010).
My new Garmin has not had any use lately. We had 2 feet of snow - yes that's TWO feet of snow (actually about 25 inches - see pic above). My decorations actually continued to light up - however, they were under all that snow! It rained heavily on Christmas and melted a lot of the snow that had been there for a week. I had to drive back and forth to work in it over the weekend. My normal trip would take 25 minutes - 1 1/2 hours later - still trying to get home. I saw some crazy idiot running in this storm. Cars were sliding all over and here he is running in boots with earphones in - he's lucky he wasn't killed.
My new favorite drink is Bubble Gum vodka - it is seriously dangerous and yummy!! Have some set up for New Year's Eve.
I'm working on my wish list for 2010 for runs. I'm trying to get hubby to run with me - should be fun since we have opposite working schedules. :)

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Monday, December 7, 2009

Taken out by a Snowman

Last week started out really well. I made it to the gym four days in a row. I ran two 5Ks at the gym and did my weight circuit twice and was a maniac on the arc trainer. Then comes Thursday morning. I got home around 8:30am from a horrible 12 hour night at work (Where I found out that the patient I had for the last two nights who had a bad pneumonia tested negative for swine flu but was now a rule out TB patient.) Just wonderful.

Well, anyway.... It stormed pretty heavily the night before and my twinkling snowman was lying in my driveway. I got out of the care and slipped on a wet leaf, went over on my ankle, heard a pop and twisted my knee. After the immediate need to vomit passed and a stream of potty mouth where I insulted the snowman and his mother, I hobbled into the house. I took Motrin and wrapped an ice pack around my ankle and knee and tried to sleep. Of course the ice pack leaked and my bed was soaked.

I wrapped my ankle and limped into work. I had a friend xray my ankle and I have a hairline fracture. I "borrowed" an airboot. I guess the 5k I had planned for Sunday was off. This is what happens when I finally get my Garmin! Not gonna have to worry about pace time - it's really, really slow!

Monday - I still have a lump on my ankle (nothing like Lisa's beautiful swelling!) but I can walk a little better with it wrapped tightly. My knee is still sore tho. The Jingle Bell 5K for arthritis is this Saturday. Maybe I will walk a mile if I can :P

Christina
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Getting ready for my very first run!

After I renigged on my promise to run the Broad Street 10 miler with my friend Chrissy D - I decided to make it up to her by running the Ben Franklin Bridge 10k. Did you read below where I NEVER ran before? She told me that if I cancelled on her again, she would drag me across the bridge by my hair. Okaay then.

I was in shape until a work injury side-lined me (a patient decided to herniate two discs in my neck and tear my shoulder in two places - thanks!) So kiss that bikini goodbye. Pain and inactivity followed. I found myself unable to sleep and in front of the pantry at 3am - everything screaming "eat me!" My day consisted of Percocet, Valium, Red Bull. Percocet for the pain, Valium for the muscle spasms, Red Bull so I could pretend to play mommy for my children. So, physical therapy, epidurals, steroid injections and 40 pounds later, I decided that getting ready for this run was going to help me get back into shape. (I decided against 3 surgeries at this time.)

I had already conquered the ellipticals at the gym. I could do them for an hour on level 6 and barely break a sweat. Surely I could run a measely 6.2 miles. I moved on to the treadmill. I couldn't even run .25 miles continuously. This was a lot harder than it looked.

The Ben Franklin Bridge is almost 3 miles back and forth and it went up, up, up!! and then down. The first time I crossed it (walking, mind you) on the pedestrian cross-walk, my calves were cursing me in three languages. What did I sign up for - who was I kidding?

I downloaded inspiring, fast beat music to keep me pumped up and ready (Britney, Buck Cherry's Crazy Bitch (yep that's me), Pink, PCD, etc.) I decided that I would go for distance and not speed. I discovered that I had exercise-induced asthma when I pushed a little too far (anything at that time was too far). Soon I was able to run a mile, then 2 - at once. I continued to "do" the bridge and even took my kids a couple of times. I had to find a better way to keep my iphone close. They didn't make an arm band that I liked so I found a "runner's belt" online and soon had it. I tried it out one day in the park. My 11 year old was with me and started laughing when I put my iphone in it. "Seriously mom, a fanny pack?" It is not a fanny pack, it is a belt. It stays still, doesn't ride up and I can put my keys in it too. So there!

The weight was slowly coming off. I decided to take a drastic measure - no alcohol at all for the month before the race (oh no, what was I thinking.) My goal was 20 pounds by race day. I continued to plod along on the treadmill. I was up to 5k with almost no problems. However, when I tried to run outside, my body rebelled. The park trail was 1.3 miles - however, it was not flat (but hey - either was the bridge). I was a wheezing, sweaty mess .4 miles into the "run." I was running faster than I was used to on the treadmill. (GPS is a wonderful thing - an app I downloaded on my iphone let me know my distance, speed, and even mapped my route - love the gadgets!)

Strep throat struck my son (11) and he generously shared it with me two weeks before the race. I bought new sneakers (Asics Nimbus Gel 11) and my shins and calves let me know it was not a good idea to change things two weeks before the run. So I went back to my Nike Lunar Glides and made everybody happy. My 16 year old decided he would like to try on the Swine Flu one week before the run. My throat was still bothering me from last week and my chest was tight. I was having some serious doubts if I would be able to finish this race. Not to mention Lysol toxicity from degerming the whole house.

I completed 5.5 miles on the treadmill on my birthday, 6 days before the Sunday race, and for the first time I thought I might be able to do it. It rained for the next two days, so I didn't run the bridge (think shuffle up and run down). I worked Friday night and had off on Halloween. Was I ready? I made my goal of losing 20 pounds two days before the run - yeah me! (20 more to go!)
P.S. Read posts bottom up :)

Ben Franklin Bridge

Ben Franklin Bridge

Kids on the Bridge

Kids on the Bridge