A quick (and very rough) post…

Because I’m tired, but I need to write. February 17, 2011 I returned to work after I took a leave of absence for my emergency brain surgery. I wasn’t quite doing a full 8-hour day and the driving in LA traffic was precarious since my neck still didn’t have a full range of motion. Dad stayed behind and acted as chauffer for a couple more weeks and slowly, I was able to have full driving and work independence. Even today, on days where I’m working 11 hours, I’m thankful that I can since I remember those early rough days.

February 17, 2013 I had another runners’ high while I ran the Pasadena Rock n’ Roll Half Marathon (my 8^th half). Despite being under-trained (although I think those hill repeats in the foothills of Mt. Lee did me some good psychologically), I was only 3 minutes off my PR. This race felt less achy than last year’s Pasadena half marathon and certainly less achy than the half I did 6 months post surgery.

And after these runners’ highs, I am shaken to the core with my own humanity and reminder that healing is a non-linear process. I had a follow-up MRI in San Diego. I was so exhausted I fell asleep in the machine and didn’t even feel the poisonous contrast enter my body. By eight o’clock that night I had all I could do to sit up through dinner, and my 8:30 I was in bed.  I felt ill. A night of cold-sweats and discomfort.  My parents didn’t disturb me for breakfast the next morning.  They kindly brought back some toast & got me some orange juice. One sip of the juice and my body rejected it. I felt like I was a dishrag being run out for every inch of its worth.  I slept until we could check out, followed by more sleep during the 3 hour drive from San Diego to Los Angeles and still more sleep when we got back home. It took almost a day and a half for the radiation poisoning to work its way through my system. My previous MRI (in September) also didn’t leave my stomach in a very happy state, but this one just wiped me out. Plausible theories surrounding this are the accumulation of the contrast that has been pumped into me since December 2010, or the fact I’m nearly 10 pounds skinnier than I was then… which makes it great for running and clothes looking better, but not so great when it comes to enduring MRI contrast. My doctor didn’t make a mention of my next
MRI, so I have some time to recover. I’m not ready to run 3 miles, but I’ll be back on the running path soon. The only thing my doctor said of note was having the two of us work together to raise money for brain tumor research. It looks like I have my work cut out for me- I have my next race to train for & a small (multi-million dollar) fundraising goal. Should be an interesting year.

Ups & Downs of Endurance Running

Foothills of Mt. Lee.

The last couple weeks has been filled with ups and downs, but that is t normal with endurance running.  There are ups where you have a great run and you feel like you can go for miles and miles at a pace you had no idea you could run. And, when you’re down, they feel really down. You feel like you can barely complete this run and the pace is much slower than you’d like.  It’s after one of these down days that it’s difficult to get out for a run the following day. You’re convinced the run is going to be as terrible as your last run.

With the new flu strain being as aggressive as ever and working in the standard office Petri dish, I’ve been more anxious than normal about germs. (The anxiety is actually a result of my time spent in the ICU in 2010.) In the early parts of the month, I was stocking up on sleep. My need not to get the flu was an excuse to stay in bed. Last week, I looked at my kitchen calendar and I realized that my next half marathon was less than a month away. I wasn’t running consistently so I wasn’t accustomed to running on tired legs and I have little base. What I do have is the knowledge that I can run a half marathon and now that I have the taste of quitting in my mouth from my crash and burn from Long Beach half marathon in 2011, signing up and not completing a half is something I don’t want to repeat. I was a little concerned because my longest run in months is 6 miles. That’s less than half the distance and that 6 is no match for the hills of Pasadena!

I was running pretty consistently for the week of January 20^th. I was feeling the high, especially after bonding with a friend over their sudden interest in running. A down came when I had to get to the office early and I slept in too much to get the run in I wanted. I nearly bagged it, but I threw on my running apparel & set out the door. I got in just over a mile, which included 3 hill repeats on a gentle hill. (And, doing just a little over a mile turned out to be an up.)  Looking at my kitchen calendar, I realized that I was not only going to have to be creative with the training, I was going to have to be aggressive.  With all my other halves, I had time to taper. With this one, I was going to have to train through, meaning each weekend long run would increase from 7 (this past weekend), to 8 following, 9 the week after that and then I have my half (13.1 miles)! Most training plans suggest that you increase your weekly mileage at 10%. It has been pointed out to me at some point if you don’t run and then start running, you are increasing your weekly mileage by more than 10%, so using that theory, while it may not be sound, I’m going for broke and going from 10 miles a week to 15 or more. 

Topographical Map of Pasadena-
The closer the lines get the more hilly
it becomes.

Watching the Rose Parade, one might think that Pasadena is flat. It’s not.  It’s chock full of hills, which is one reason why I’ve been doing hill repeats even if they are on gentle hills. My big training run was filled with ups and downs. This weekend, I hit the Burbank Reservoir, in the foothills of Mt. Lee for my aggressive training.  I parked my car. Hopped out and after a half mile of virtually flat packed dirt, the hills descended in front of me like a giant monolith. If I were driving, I wouldn’t take a standard shift car, but this is why I chose this area. I ran one hill and then some neighborhoods. Then, it was off to do hill repeats. My GPS watch tells me that the hill I picked was half-mile long. On my second ascent, I already made friends. On my third trip, I had a cheering section and my hip flexors were very sore. By the time I was on my fourth my water was nearly empty and my new friends were gone. I still had more miles to cover but knew I wouldn’t be able to keep going if I ran out of water. I descended the hill and found some flatter h area. I pushed to make sure I could get my 7, with only a mouthful of water when I got back. I promptly downed the extra water I had in my truck, vowing I would plan better for next weekend’s run. This week was nearly a 20% increase from the first week in January, but with 3 weeks remaining before my race, I need more hills and more miles if my ego is going to be able to tackle what lies ahead of me on February 17. 

Happy New Year - 2013 Will Be Better Yet!

The close of a year and the birth of another always gives one time for reflection. We say goodbye to bad habits and with resolve say hello to new ones that will carry us to a better life. We must remember that the root of resolution is RESOLVE. Too often people view resolutions as more of a “I’m going to try to do (a particular task), if it gets too hard, it’s okay if I stop.”  About 7 years ago, I joined a goal group based off of a Flash Forward seminar I took. We encouraged each other to speak in concrete terms. We traded resolution, and replaced it with goal. 

These last two years have been more difficult than I anticipated. I look back to the person I was in early 2010. I was filled with goals and ambition. The brain tumor made it easy to work hard at work and work hard on projects when I got home and only sleep 6.5 hours a night. After surgery, life stopped being so efficient.  I needed lots of sleep to heal. Now, my sleep rhythm has returned to a typical 8-hour night of sleep. I’m losing 1.5 hours of efficiency daily by having a normal sleep pattern. I’m frustrated. Despite this frustration, I’m filled with excitement for the future and my productivity. Goal no longer feels like an appropriate term for the way I have defined 2013.

On my cabinet above my coffee maker, I have my 2013 Assertions. It is a list of daily non-negotiables and below that, long-term objectives. A business wouldn’t enter a new fiscal year without clearly defining how they will meet their goals, and neither should I. By seeing the assertions daily, I am constantly reminded what my objectives are.

The past two years while difficult have been good. I had the misdiagnosis of brain cancer and have over come the anxiety of that and the other misdiagnosis for the need for a second surgery. With those, I went back to my day job and got promoted; ran two half marathons; wrote a commercial for a dating site; wrote an 8-minute short film (still to be shot); & spent lots of time with friends. While I still struggle with PTSD, and need to concentrate on over-all health (who doesn’t), healing is no longer my primary objective.  I can now focus the way I have in years past on setting and achieving my assertions. I accept I am not the same person I was. I cannot weep for the person I lost and I cannot berate myself for not being the person I expected myself to be. We learn from each struggle we face.  I have learned sleep is important and I have learned to I need shake out the chaff of daily life to get to my objective. I have 

written my map and I am excited for what 2013 holds.

Continuing to Run

I have recovered from my whirlwind trip to Connecticut and all the travel pains that accompanied it. With the Rock n Roll unlimited race package for 2013 staring me in the face, now is not the time to lay down and say, “I’m tired.” I know running enabled me to endure a 7-hour surgery and it allowed me to do laps around the nurses’ station after my hydrocephalus subsided. My constitutionals were never long enough and I needed to go for multiple laps. I know that my running got me out of the hospital quickly (as quick as you can count 13 days) and also enabled me to do a half marathon 6 months after surgery.

Like many, there are days that are difficult to throw off the covers of the bed and get up and run. Still with these difficulties, I need to get out there and do it. The more I do it, the more I am reminded how good it feels. And the more I do it, the easier it is. (The repletion and muscle memory are key here.)

Recently, I was back at a favorite local park. I did the familiar exterior loop of 1.3 miles and saw people I met years ago when I first started running. We gave the familiar running, “I remember you wave” and continued on our personal journey.

One thing I enjoy while longer runs is what I can see. Not only did I get to run through the familiar dappled shade (Yes, there’s dappled shade in Los Angeles County) I was able to see soccer matches and children riding bikes with animal helmets. I usually find something fun to look at or admire on these runs and I’m looking forward to future runs where I can see more.

While building to longer runs is a great motivator along with my need to get back into marathon shape, I have never had such a need to get out and run as I have recently. When the alarm goes off, I’m excited for the run, and I must let that excitement carry me rather than being weighed down by negative talk of tough miles. Tough miles, struggles, anything must be endured & learned from before you can really have fun and soar.

An Election Day Run

While building to longer runs has been a great motivator along with my need to get back into marathon shape, I have never had such a need to get out and run as I did today. Knowing that I needed to be at work by 9 and my polling location opened at 7, a morning run to my polling station to get my vote on and beat the pre-work rush was in order. My polling station is probably half a mile away from my apartment, but taking a detour on my way allowed me to get in just over two miles. It was not a long run by any means, but I learned some important things about myself… I’ve been cutting myself too much slack when it comes to morning runs. Sometimes I over-sleep and say, I can’t get miles in; it turns out I can. I knew this before and have even mused on it, but the run today was a big shake and wake you up, “hey, Lazy Bones- get up and run.” I also see that the time I waited to vote is longer than it takes me to run a mile, so I can log more distance before work.  The more time I spend running in the morning, interval runs, distance, etc, the faster I get and eventually, my pace will be steady, and I can set a PR.  Tomorrow for part of my morning routine? Three miles.