Just Keep Moving

This is kind of my theme right now. It is how my life is going and how running is going. Nothing too exciting, nothing to bad. Just moving forward.

I saw the orthopedist last week. He really isn't entirely certain what is going on. Apparently, and if you know me this won't surprise you, my body is weird. It shouldn't be experiencing the symptoms that it is all at one time. Which either means I have more than one thing going on, or I'm a freak. I'm sure it's the latter. He wants me to go to physical therapy for a few weeks and see how that goes. I have my first appointment tomorrow. In the meantime, he said keep running. He doesn't think I have anything so serious that I shouldn't run while we figure it out. The more miles I run, the more painful it gets. He told me to run until I get to a level of pain I can't deal with and then don't run more. Make sense? I can run between 20 and 25 miles without too much pain. After 25 it's pretty bad. So for now, I'm staying at 25 or under.

My running is just kind of uneventful. One run from last week will probably stand out in my memory for a long time though. Last Saturday I got up early to run. I was just not feeling it, but I got up anyway. I got dressed, ate, and headed out. I ran about a block before turning around to go home. I took off my running clothes and sat in the recliner. Then Adam woke up and talked to me for a little bit. I decided he looked very comfy on the couch so I joined him under the blanket. A few minutes later Ryan joined us, then both cats. So it was Me, Ryan, Adam, Daisy and Lucy all on the couch. We goofed around a little and I fell asleep. When I woke up I was alone on the couch. You know what? I wouldn't trade that time snuggling with my kids for the best run in the world. While running is important to me my kids are more important.

I had planned to do my run after the Christmas parade and before Adam's basketball game. Unfortunately I would barely have time to run, then take a shower, so I decided against that. Instead, I decided to run home from Independence. I can run the lake way and not run into too much traffic. It is more than 10 miles, so my plan was to call someone to come get me when I got done. Rick was busy, so I asked my mother in law, Kay. Being the awesome person that she is, she said yes.

 After the game I went to the bathroom to change and had forgotten a sports bra. Ugh. So I went to walmart to just grab a cheap one and they were crazy busy. I ended up leaving about 30 minutes after I intended.

I never could get into a rythm and the run wasn't a lot of fun. I started out way too hot. It was 57 degrees and I had packed a thermal nike shirt. By the end I was super thankful I had it though. I've never run this way, and knew there were hills, but I had no idea just how bad they were. At one point you are going uphill for almost a mile. Part of it is just a small incline, but some of it is NOT! At mile 7 there is a really large, really steep hill. I already knew I was walking up it, but what I didn't know is that I would barely be able to walk up it. It was rough. The sun was also starting to go down at this point so I planned to call Kay at mile 8 to have her come get me. I knew how long it would take her to get there and was hoping to get to 9. It would have been fully dark if I had gone to 10 and I didn't want to do that.

At about 7.75 miles my cell rang. It was Kay. She didn't know I had started late. She had fallen asleep watching tv and when she woke up it was almost dark and she hadn't heard from me. I told her to go ahead and come get me. She got there right on time! There was a very hateful dog that wasn't too excited about me running past his house. He never left the driveway, but I was happy that someone was coming if he did attack me.

I came home and had a shower and made popcorn. The boys and I had planned a Christmas movie night. Problem? Our dvd player wasn't working. I shamelessly had Adam call Kay and ask if we could have a movie night at their house. He called and said, "Hey Nanny, this is Adam. Can we come watch movies at your house? We will bring our own popcorn!" It was cute. We had a lot of fun eating popcorn and watching Miracle on 34th St. I love love love Rick's parents!

So, nothing exciting running wise. I think maybe I have found my next race! I'm not positive though, so I'm not going to say what it is yet. I probably will right after the first of the year.

Happy Running!

~Mel