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.