february

it's been a pretty tough month.  i'm going to round it out at about 1/2 (or maybe just under) my goal miles for the month.  it's pretty disappointing actually.

i've had a few set backs and the weather has been shitty.  couple that with a new job that by the time i get home from work it's dark out... well, i've sort of been stuck on the treadmill this month and i hate it so much it brings me to tears.

i finally hit the trails last saturday, and for whatever reason tweeked both of my knees.  i didn't run the sunday after (missing 6mi) because my knees still hurt.  i ran my tuesday run on the treadmill (4mi) and my left knee hurt the whole time... it hurt most when i began running but subsided as i ran.

it scared me because i don't want another injury so early in my training.  i've also been fighting migraines all week beginning with sunday night.  i've had them sunday, monday, wednesday, and this morning.  that's most days this week.  makes for a challenging running week indeed.

since cutting my migraine meds i've been getting headaches more frequently and absolutely for the week of my periods these last couple of months.  i see my doc on monday and plan to discuss this with him.  i'm hoping that he has some other suggestions for mitigating my headaches/migraines so that this doesn't keep being so debilitating.

on the flip side of all that hum drum stuff... i have several friends who run in altras and they simply rave about them.  i have been having a lot of issues with my feet/ankles since i began running and i've had a couple different physical therapists as well as my chiropractor tell me that i need to run in different shoes.  i've been very reluctant to do that because i love my shoes.  after the last couple of pairs of new balance i've been running in i've consistently gotten blisters and now calluses on my third toe.  my nails have finally grown back and well... i am not interested in losing them again.

long story long i decided to try out the altras myself.  i received them in the mail when i got home from work today.  it was still light out when i got home and i was so excited about the new shoes that i decided to take them for a quick spin before the sun went down.  i'm so glad i did!  it was a really fast couple of miles.  i surprised myself.  the shoes feel great and my toes are so happy!  i noticed right away that i wasn't kicking myself with them... i tend to kick myself at the inside of my leg near my calf when i run.  i didn't do that even once in these shoes.  i'm not sure if they changed my stride that much but they must have changed it somewhat.  the shoes are zero drop so i'm interested to see if and where i will feel that change tomorrow.

i'm pretty happy with my pace.  it didn't feel laborious or too challenging.  i felt at ease in my stride.  i guess those interval sprints on the treadmill are helping my speed.  we'll see how it goes in my next race i guess.

now i just have to make it through the next week or so until march 8th which is daylight savings... sunset will then be at 6:50pm which means i will be able to run OUTSIDE every day of the week that i run except tuesdays when i work until 6pm.  i'll just make that my dreadmill speed workout day.

i hope you all have an excellent weekend and get some time on your feet this weekend!

couple of things

so... i pulled my right hamstring during the icebreaker, and my physical therapist wanted me to stop running.  admittedly he wanted me to not be running anyway for the whole hip thing.  i didn't run from january 29th until february 10th.  that's twelve freaking days!  it was torturous!  not to mention that i didn't run from january 19th until the race on the 24th because dr. mike wanted me to rest the hip.

needless to say that when i started back on the 10th it was really really tough.

i've clocked 26 miles (all on the dreadmill) this week, and most of them were really challenging.  i've begun my iceage training and all of the runs are important ones.  i need to keep my body healthy so that i can go into this race whole and pain free.  that's the goal.

i guess i didn't expect to lose so much fitness within 12 days time.  running feels so hard!  i actually cried today because i had 1.5 miles left to run and it was just so hard!  i got it done and i feel really good about it now but at the time... man, it was really awful.

cindy crawford 2013

there's a photo floating around the interwebs right now of cindy crawford unretouched.  the comments on the photo are really positive and complimentary... however, they make me sad none the less.  why do they make me sad?  well... because the woman looks like a NORMAL woman.  she's had 2 children and is 48 years old.  she is in great shape and beautiful.  the fact that people are freaking out over her photo makes me sad because our bodycentric society has made it ABnormal for women to have stretch marks, and wrinkles, and gray hair, and whatever else it is that makes us aged.  the woman is gorgeous!  aging does not make a person ugly!  when will we understand that?  there was a time when aging was respected and revered.  that time is long gone...

it is depressing that women are valued so highly on looks alone.  we teach our young girls to value themselves based on looks.  our marketing does this.  i have no eloquent way to express how this makes me feel.  i am thankful every day that i gave birth to boy children.  thankful because i will not have to teach them that they don't have to aspire to something that is unobtainable.  some weird ideal that cannot be obtained.  i do, however, teach my boys how not to look at women.  how not to treat women like meat.  i spend a lot of my time trying to figure out how to teach my boys to treat women as equals in all ways.  it is a hard road to travel given that my boys are bombarded with the exact opposite in all forms of media.  women are things... we are simply here for the collective amusement and desires of men.  that is what our media teaches.  print ads, tv ads, tv shows, porn, movies, unequal wages, rape culture, cat calling, etc... it all speaks to women being less.  fighting against that is an uphill battle.  this photograph of cindy crawford isn't brave in the sense that it is normalcy.  it is beautifully normal.  it IS what a body looks like.  whether she's a supermodel or not it IS what a NORMAL 48 year old woman's body looks like.  wrinkled skin, cellulite, and all.  beautiful!

going forward i will not be mortified by the very mobile skin on my belly when i run.  i too have had 2 children and worked hard for this body of mine.  wrinkles, cellulite, and all.

we would all do good to love ourselves as we are and focus on more important things than the outside of our bodies.  these bodies that do such amazing things for us.

and that's all i have to say about that.