Doubling Up

Fall is here and I doubled - Life is good!!

I wasn't suppose to double but when given the opportunity to use the AlterG a second time in the day. What is a girl suppose to do? Really - come on, easy decision. So just over 12 miles on the day between to AlterG sessions. Still waiting to see what Jeff has to say about that when all I had on my schedule was a measly 6 miles.

I felt really good today. No heavy legs and no lack of energy so hoping keeping it easy all week will keep the happy legs trend up. Medial shin is feeling worlds better. The sore spot is one of the tendons that run along ankle/medial part of the leg. Hoping the contiuned icing regime and one more day on the AlterG will have me on the road on Wednesday.

Ready to start grinding out the miles again! The weather is now perfect for running (for me anyways).

Hope you all are having great runs!

Hope

I woke up feeling lighter and more full of excitement and hope than I have felt in several weeks. Than I opened my email and found a delightful surprise sitting in my inbox. My training schedule for the next 3 weeks. I hadn't expected it cause we were sort of going day by day with things to see how I was bouncing back. I think getting on schedule just helped me see I that I am returning to training. It lifted my spirits quite a bit. All the possibilites popping back in my head and my heart. Sometimes we allow the noise of doubts & fears to keep the dream surpressed a bit. But the voice and hope of the dream is now getting louder than the fears so I have to keep nurturing the hope so I can get back my fight.

I think this schedule will help me get back my fight as well as build the confidence back to where is was before all the ups & downs of the past couple of weeks.

I am so hopeful for the future and remain content in the moment.

I have so much in the moment to be thankful for and I have so much in the future that excites me. Life is good!

Up and At'em

Well I have taken most of the week to rest up and get my legs back and nursing a sore medial shin that started up just week before the race. I ran through it and it was mostly fine during the race but we wanted to give it time to heal up before I started hitting it hard from my marathon training cycle.

Today I will be going to run 4-6 miles on the AlterG to get some blood flow to my legs without the impact stress on the shin to allow for more healing and than fingers-crossed I can get to marathon training next week. Although a strength training session on Thursday has made my legs all sore and wobbley. I hoping they feel great moving.

That's the plan. I am feeling rested phyiscally and mentally so happy to have had this mini break to gather my witts and regroup for the next 12 weeks.

Good week and Looking forward to some awesome running coming up in my favorite months to run in November and December! Cool and crisp running weather!!!! YAY - Happy Dance.

It is a Journey not a Race

First, I hesitated about publishing this post as it is sort of personal. I wrote last night and held it in the saved folder. But this AM I was thinking about writing a post and my mind kept going back to what I written the night before. I decided to post it :-).

A ten hour drive home from Detroit help me think lots. Thinking is a good thing. Being disconnect from distractions and there was no getting away from thinking my situation so thoroughly. My heart did ache a bit but I knew I could not deny the feeling, I had to let the feeling help me move in the right direction moving towards peace.

This situation of me chasing my big running dreams parallels another difficult path that I had been down just 9-10 years. There are so many similarities into the emotionally and physically struggle that took place during that struggle. That struggle was finding motherhood.

In my late 20s, I had everything a loving relationship with an amazing man and a corporate job making a dream salary but my heart was yearning for a child. We started trying casually for a year and nothing. Soon our friends were starting to have kids. We heard stories of "we just tried twice" and stories of "we weren't even trying'. I begin to feel like something was wrong with us and started to struggle to be happy for family & friends wonderful news. As the first year of no pregnancy came & went and moved into 2 years of trying, I started to get sad and baby showers and announcements hurt my heart. Than we decided to seek fertility help, we did every test and nothing came back. We had "unexplained infertility" which is when nothing is wrong but you are not getting pregnant. We decide to start a costly both emotionally & financially road of infertility treatment. We went all in with our desire to have a child. I started taking a fertility drug that caused me to gain lots of weight and played with my mood like a cat playing with a mouse. Than we started the emotionally charged process of IUI which included lots of blood tests, ultrasounds, and the dreaded 2 week waiting period after the insemination to see if the egg was fertilized and than implanted. We did this for 6 months with no success. Our hearts were constantly being broken and rehealing with the hope of the next cycle. Our love help us endure this trying time. This all took a huge toll of me. The constant roller-coaster of emotions of hope, hurt and healing put in a place where I needed a break from trying. We took this wonderful trip to a spa in Arizona where we let go of the whole process and decide to no longer try fertility drugs. I spent the next 2-3 months losing all the clomid weight and emotionally rebuilding my heart & mind. I become a stronger version of myself. I realized that I could not control everything and let go and started living again. I did have hope of having a child but I no longer obsessed over it. I found a way to be happy for all my friends having babies and celebrating their joy with them. My husband and I than started to consider adopting. My mind was occupied with those thoughts and not the thoughts of fear when one day I didn't get my period. I didn't think much of it by several days went by and no period. I still couldn't even contemplate that I could be pregnant. I finally told Nick and he was beyond hopeful that he went right away to get a test. He was braver than I was at that time as I didn't want to handle the heart break of a negative test. I remember this feeling of it can't be and than the celebration of relief and immense joy when that test came back positive.

Those 3 years torn me down and rebuilt me into a stronger women with a heart more compassionate & full of gratitude. Those years taught me that I could not control life, how to be more flexible and allow the wind to blow through and not to break. It made me the mom that I am so proud to be. I appreciated deeply the gift of life that was entrusted to my care. I would not be the mom I am today had I not gone through those years. We savored every moment of my pregnancies, labors, and baby years. I gave up my career to savior more and more of my babies. I did everything to spend time with these precious babies of mine. I breastfeed, I carried them in maya wraps to keep them always close to my heart, I held them while they slept, I co-slept and I was so happy and did not let a moment go by where I didn't Thank God for my babies.

Maybe God keeps us from our gifts so that when we finally get them after enduring the obstacles that we truly understand their value.

Thinking about the journey of having our dream family & the dream of reaching my running potential really gives me the faith that I can endure and continue to believe even though it may not be happening in my timeable of what would be perfect. God's timing is perfect! I only have to look at my babies faces to realize how perfect God's plan is for my life.

Detroit

Many of my close friends may know already about my Detroit race or are still wondering.

First I will start out with the good because the good is so great. We had a beyond amazing trip home to the Motor City. Both my husband and I were raised in the Detroit area and spent lots of time in the city so we havee deep roots here as well as all of family living in the Detroit area. We got to visit and see lots of family which made the trip home richer. I spent the day before the race in the city at the expo with my husband, sister and Dad all of whom were running in the half as well. We shared in that excitement of the city being all a buzz about the marathon as well as the Detroit Tigers going to the World Series. We visited the finish line area, happened upon my best friend from high school, and participated in some general silly antics.

The morning of the race we all made our way to the race start to join over 14,000 other Half marathoners and 5,000 full marathoners. The atmosphere was amazing.

Even though my own race did not meet with exceptions, my family all achieved their goals and more. My husband ran his first half and did 10 minutes better than expected with a 2:19 finishing time and powered through what he said was the hardest thing he had ever done. HA! Just wait till I have him marathoning :-) My sister ran 3:20 with which was 40 minute PR of her previous half and my Dad, where do I start, he ran/walked at 63 yrs old and knees that have been ailing him, 3:47. What a wonderful day full of love and realizing more is possible in life always!! My husband and father both admitted to feeling emotional and teary-eyed when they crossed the finishline. LOVE!!

After a week of on & off rest trying to get my legs back after a difficult training week. I never felt 100% rested but was optimistic nonetheless. I wanted to leave hope for the chance of race day magic which is always a possibility. Plus we revised my time goal so that it wasn't overly ambitious and felt much more doable than my original goal. I didn't get to really warm-up before the race but got in a short 5 minute jog to get blood moving before I had to jump into the corral with minutes to spare. I started out at 7:30 pace which was the goal for the first 3 miles, didn't feel great and legs had the dreaded heavy feeling but I keep thinking once I warm-up I will get in a groove and I push the legs out the funk. Mile 3 hit and we were coming up a half mile uphill over the Ambassdor Bridge - beautiful sight but much harder than I had anticipated but I tried not to get discouraged as I could make up the seconds on the downhill and use the downhill to build momentum to picking up the pace after the downhill portion of the bridge. The downhill felt good and I started feeling confident all would be well and I eased into a harder pace around mile 4. I felt like I was really working and legs still felt very heavy. I thought maybe if I could get them turning over I might be okay. I looked down at my garmin and saw that my pace was fricking slow as heck but I felt like I was pushing. This is when I really struggled mentally and phyiscally the rest of the way in. I basically started bargaining with myself mile by mile to stay in it with heavy legs and heavy heart I came in the best I could on that day. I really struggled to with the mile climb up and out the tunnel which my pace dropped to 9 minute. I finished at 1:43:01 - later - my husband and I were talking with another runner who was talking about her disappointment and I told her I understood cause I was disappointed with how I felt during the race and my time. She asked me my time and I told her and she responded with "can I trip you now?" :-) Totally in fun but I realized how silly my disappointment was and made a decision at that point not to be disappointed and move on.

This was not a bad experience, it was an experience that can only expand me and make be better. Yeah my fitness is not shining though like we had hoped but that doesn't mean it won't someday soon. You can not work for as long as I have and not have built some great fitness. Not all things happen in the timetables that we hoped but I still believe it is there. Somewhere, somehow I will breakthrough!! I just believe it.

The thing is I keep trying! I am in the game and the law of averages is on my side.

Here is something that makes realize me reaching your potential does not come easy but through lots of experiences Good and Bad. You learn something from each experience that makes you better and wiser.

Thomas Edison set out to make the light bulb was seen as crazy and disilluioned but he believed. Best said is his own quote -

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”
― Thomas A. Edison

I will keep working, keep having experiences, and keep believing.

Although most importantly this week, I will work on resting and getting 100% back to feeling heathly mind, body and spirit.

Non-Running Goals

"To live a life of freedom, abundance, creativity, love, and peace. When enough of us begin to live lives of self-responsibility, non-judgment, compassion, and honor, we will rise above old societal beliefs." - Unknown

I think part of growing both in the sport of running but as a women and citizen of the world it is important that I have goals that are not running related.

For me what I am working on in my heart is letting go of judgment of myself or others, to give love freely no matter the person that is brought on my path to love, remembering to be compassionate for everyone is struggling, to be in place where I emphasize gratitude in my daily life for all the adundance of health, friendship, love, wealth that flows into my life.

We have so much more adundance in our lives than we actually acknownledge on a daily basis but when you take a moment to think about what is already there in your life you realize that it is enough :-)

Much love to you all.

Happy Sunday

Feeling much more anchored after a week of topsy-tivey. I actually think I needed a week that made me stop and take a deep breathe. I think that is was neccasary in introspect to go through this week. Sometimes you need a breakdown to have a breakthrough...I know that God was trying to get me to work on somethings that were being ignored in my journey to achieving a PR. I think this week made me realize that I need to focused more on the process, the joy, and not the result.

I think what happens is you start putting pressue on yourself. Sometimes you want the results to show up sooner, quicker, faster. You're looking at Tom, your looking at Jane, your looking Anne without you noticing you start comparing your jounrey. And you start feeling you have to have it sooner - you sort of lose track that your journey is not the same as someone's else, that your results will show up when they are suppose and no amount of impatience will bring them any sooner but that impatience may delay their arrival. I think I started doing this as Detroit approached. I started to focus on the result way more than the process. I started to feel impatient. I think God dealt me the hand this past week to help me refocus and relax.

What moves you forward..............

What do you do with a week that makes you feel like you are in quicksand? Do you let the quicksand swallow you whole or do you fight your way out?

Do you allow two workouts that go badly to get you off course? Cause it would be very easy to cry about it and wallow in it. My mind is fighting a huge battle for control of which way I will go - either cry, kick and scream or take a deep breathe, pray, have faith and move on knowing that far, far better days are ahead, keep on enduring and believing that my day will come even with the struggles that I am facing.

So having to gather my witts after a very dishearten workout this AM. Yes a few tears did roll but I did a much better job of not letting the negative chatter in the run. Yes, I was sad that things did not go well but I tried to shake it off. I had to stretch and get my butt to my chiro to take a look at my medial shin that has been a bit achy on & off the last week. While there, he asked me how my running was going and I responsed just trying to keep the chin up :-) He could tell I was not my usual self and did his best to encourage me and remind me that it is all going to work out.

Than an interesting thing occured after I left his office in route to get a quick bite to eat. I ran into a local & very respected coach, he himself at in his late 30s maybe 40 is outkicking may of the younger runners here locally. Anyway I recognized him right away while we were standing in line at Qdoba, he was very nice and smile at me and I told him I recognized him and we exchanged names - both of us being Jamie's. :-) Funny, we immeidately started a really great conversation which led him to me what I was training for. Ah - Detroit next week and he asked how the training has been going. I let him in on my whole training cycle and than said how I have been struggling since I came back from my down week. He actually gave me such good advice and insight that eased my heart a bit - he said -"you know the body is a funny thing, it does not always response the way we think it should, it can be up and very down right before you make that break through and the break throughs can sometimes happen right after feeling so junky and when you least expect it". WOW I needed to hear that :-) Sometimes when you pray for peace and guidance from above, you have to know he hears you and sometimes the counsel he sends to ease your heart is by sending an angel into your path.

I will not let the yuckiness of this week keep me from having faith and I will keep moving forward body and mind.

Much love to all you out there struggling to move forward.

Just an Ordinary Girl

Yeah that's me..Just an ordinary girl!

I am suspectible to the doubt that can creep its way into your head & heart before you even know it is there waiting to attack. Sometimes I get scared and let me dreams scare me. Sometimes I let little things hurt me more than they should like a workout gone south :-), untrue gossip or judgement from others. Sometimes I let all these things in and not realize they are there until there have hurt my heart and I left gathering the pieces up.

I think of this Miley Cyrus Song that my daughter listen's to - Ordinary Girl

Don't get me wrong,
I love who I am I don't want to be ungrateful,
it probably sounds strange

The things that seem so simple
Are suddenly so far out of reach
Wish that they could see that underneath
I'm just an ordinary girl

Sometimes I'm lazy,
I get bored
I get scared,
I feel ignored
I feel happy,
I get silly
I choke on my own words
I make wishes,
I have dreams
And I still want to believe Anything could happen in this world
For an ordinary girl

So give it everything Or nothing at all
Get back on your feet When you stumble and fall
A little luck can go a long way
So don't you worry 'bout what people say Who knows where the wind may blow
For an ordinary girl
I'm just an ordinary girl

Week in Review & Detroit on the horizon

Ah Nice Down week to rejuvenate the legs and mind. I am itching to start putting some work this week. Big News - We have Fall weather!!!! It is a week into October and finally some decent running weather. Today was so nice 58 degrees and cloudy. It renewed my spirit to know that this week has temps like that for fingercrossed for the next 10 weeks of my training to Jacksonville.

What is closer on the horizon is Detroit Half Marathon. I am starting to get my head on straight for Detroit. My coach and I recently exchanged emails about my fitness going into Detroit. We are both hoping for 1:33-1:35 range but he is waiting to set a goal unto after this week as I have 2 big workouts this week that will gauge where I am at after the down week.

I sneaked a peak at the 14 day weather forecast today and temps look good - 40s for AM. Alas, anything can change in 14 days but I am hoping to run in the 40s with low humidity. I wonder what will feel like?? Even todays 58 degrees had a good 80% humidity so I am so giddy inside to breathe in low humidity.

Monday 6 easy + Strides
Tuesday OFF
Wednesday 2 W/U, 6X800 @ 6:10-6:22,1 C/D
Thursday 6 easy
Friday 8 easy + Strides
Saturday 12 easy
Sunday 8 easy + Strides

Total Miles - 46

A must

Okay after watching Chicago Marathon this AM, I put this on my list that I want to do in the next year or two. So exciting, so flat and so awesome!!!

Two years ago I attempted to train for Chicago only to realize by August that I was struggling to get in mileage and quality work in the heat and than a month of sickness completely derailed my training which left me with a DNS for Chicago 2010 which wasn't such a deal cause race day temps that year were very high.

Only thing I would have to figure out is how to train for Chicago if we live in Charlotte. The key training months for Chicago are June, July, August. Those months are the suckiest months to train here in Charlotte. Maybe a summer time relo to better training climate? Maybe a summer time stay in Seattle? Maybe up North to Michigan where parents could help watch the kids while I spent the summer months training my butt off for it.

Who knows where life will take you.....Be open to anything is my motto :-)

Ready, Set, Go

Well my down week is almost coming to a close, I am feeling very rested and relaxed. I am ready to go for this next week of hard training before my sort of taper for Detroit. If you call 60 mpw a taper than that is my taper :-)

It is amazing that by the end of the week I feel very mentally refreshed and excited to hit the hard work coming in the next 6-8 weeks. Something really changed in the last two days - low pollen levels, weather, iron intake, rest - not sure what exactly or all of it but I felt like myself today during a run - no struggling for air, no clammy or feverish feeling, or general fatigue.

I am super eager to get back up to full training speed. I look forward to seeing where my fitness in is Detroit than taking that into a 6 week marathon training block where I get to do my favorite type of work in the most wonderful running conditions. I have waited almost 7 months to get back to the running I love. Cool conditions where I get to push the envelope of what is possible. I have run through heat & humidity for most of the 7 months, I have spent more time on the treadmill in boredom, I have grinded out miles while struggling with asthma & allergies all to be in prime marathon condition where finally all those things that held me back will be no more.

Maybe all that was just to toughen me up to be able hurt more in the marathon. I think I really learned over the last 7 months to get comfortable with being uncomfortable which I think is something you have to experience more times over to be able to transfer it to race day.

Let the good times roll!

Possible Answer

So I have had some fatigue and struggling with breathing out, feeling winded a lot and off on & off throughout the summer and in the last couple of weeks. Yes, mileage would explain some of it and allergies some of it as well but after having a couple recovery days, I still have had that feeling of fatigue, trying to get air on easy runs and even slowing the pace down on easy days doesn't neccassary keep it me from struggling. I had been linking it too the asthma/allergy season but the allergen/pollen level has gone way down and I was still struggling for air. Also the energy level and fatigued feeling was becoming an issue over the past couple of weeks. I thought I hadn't been taking in enough calories and starting eating even when I was not hungry to make sure calories were coming in. BLah! I am now pretty I packed a couple pounds from that experiment but not worry as it will easily come off with the next few weeks climbing back in miles. But all roads have left me wondering "what the heck?"


After having discussion with my coach, we concluded that iron might the issue. UGH! I haven't been really thought about it. I hadn't been supplementing and I thought I was getting enough red meat in my diet but I can't say "Yup, for sure I have been good at that".

I actually have many of the symptoms of low iron and have 3 of the for risk factors
for developing low iron.

1 - Running in Hot & Humid climate
2 - High Mileage
3 - Female

So I went on a liquid iron supplement yesterday. My coach said it should kick in by next week and I should be starting to feel worlds better.

This actually explains a lot. As I remember when I came home from my cruise in May where I had steak for most dinners on the cruise, in the weeks following my cruise I was flying through workouts with relative ease and than started to get increasingly fatigued and worn as the summer weeks worn on. I thought it was running in the humidity but probably was developing aneima.

Here is to the awesome weeks of ahead with fingerscrossed - lower temps, lower allergen levels, lower humidity and HIGHER Iron/ferritin levels!!

Unscheduled Rest Day

It is my down week where my miles have dipped to allow for recovery from the last 5-7 weeks of hard training. I woke up today feeling very off. Sinus & ear pressure keeping me feeling foggy and the sudafed and coffee trick that usually helps did nothing to make me feel better. Than the 100% humidity, 70+ dew point and high temp that was looming outside just made me feel like I was fighting a lossing battle by attempting to drag my achey body through conditions that would just wear me down both phyiscally and mentally. I put in the email to my coach my late-morning about how I was feeling. It was a relief to send but also tired in with some emotions of frustration and struggling mentally to keep the chin up when the weather just won't cooperate with trying to gain some momentum.

I quickly got a reply back from Jeff giving me go ahead to rest today as it most important training objective of the week - to rest and get refreshed for the weeks ahead and whatever needs to happen this week to make me feel 100% going into next week.

I need to work through this frustration with the weather though as soon as we have a couple days of runnable weather, we are shifted quickly back to the humidity and heat for a few more days. It is a see-saw of emotions and takes my very constant inner-voice to remind myself that everything happens for a reason and far, far better days are ahead and let go of this frustration and enjoy each days gifts. Find something each day, even on the hardest to hang my hat.

I feel like this voice that says it has to come through at some point, all this hard work and sacrifice has to pay off somewhere, somehow. This voice has been saying this in my head for so, so, so long. It is the voice that has pick-up me after several less than stellar summer races, it the voice that has pick-up me after many difficult summer runs, it is the voice that got through disappointment of not shining & showing off the hard work and dedication of 60-70 mpw weeks since April.

Jamie - Keep hanging on to that voice, it is your intuition. Your day is coming - Keep working and the results will shine through when they are suppose. Trust it!