Weekly Weigh In & 1st 5K Prep

Today we took Summer and walked up to a local appearance of 2 decent bands - Hinder and (my personal fave) Theory Of A Deadman. It was fun. Got autographs and just generally hung out. I did manage to get about 2 miles in through the process.

Today was my weekly weigh in and I was surprised to find I've dropped another 5 pounds since last Sunday. I think I can easily drop down to 118 (2 pounds below normal for my BMI) fat wise an then gradually bulk up muscle wise back into my normal range, and that is my plan. I think 125 would be a nice place to land at in the long run, however, I need to first lose the extra weight I'm carrying and then graduate back to it with muscle. This experience is far more about performance than appearance though, so I'm pretty laid back with the numbers.

I'm hoping to run today but the weather is foreboding and there are responsibilities with the fam that might have to take precedence over it. Actually it might be a good day to fully rest my body and then push further through next week.

I'm trying to secure a running partner for a 5K coming up in April and hoping to hear back from her in a day or two. It's sort of random really, but this is an obstacle course run versus a straight race and I think I want to go in with some support. :P

Quotes For Runners

Know what you want to do, hold the thought firmly, and do every day what should be done, and every sunset will see you that much nearer the goal.

-Elbert Hubbard

Today was a rest/cross train day and so I did a casual walk of 2 miles or so. Probably more but I didn't keep track of it so we'll underestimate.

Bittersweet Bridges Burning

After several days of only walking waiting for my body to kick into "move mode", I decided to push things a little further today. I ran 4 miles and then walked 2 this afternoon for an (obvious) total of 6 miles moved today. It was a genuinely good run, and I hit my stride about mile 2 after banging around and struggling during the first. I took off my running shoes today and felt genuine joy.

While at the time I didn't realize it, I was being prepared for an emotionally charged decision this evening. For me, I have found that my better running days almost always end with a bang, and I often wonder if this is because of the sense of clarity it leaves me with. I am learning that our past may not always successfully bridge to our present or future. Learning the intellectual lesson and applying the proper emotional response from the knowledge is not an easy or straightforward process. I have no regrets, except that I made a decision, backed out and then ended up having to remake the same decision again, but not before old hurts were revisited to a present moment. Meh. Live and learn. :P

Quotes For Runners

"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. "

-John Wooden

Music Addition En Route

Right now I'm working on a way to feature music here that is great for running playlists (for those of you who run as well). They say bringing the right music into a workout increases its effectiveness by 15%. I would actually argue that number believing it to be considerably higher. Music is a huge part of the experience for me, so being able to share it here matters. Hopefully I'll have access to that soon.

Waste, Walk or Wisdom

Today I walked about 2 miles, although it was strictly for amusement so I don't know if I get to claim it as anything particularly worthwhile.

I am striving to find a balance right now, between nurturing my body as it it works through the process of returning to normal and in preparation for the donor process, while continuing to gain ground towards my goals. I have to admit that this is a hard balance to strike, and I can find no information on how to achieve it. I do know that I will need to train heaviest in the autumn and early winter for my January goals, so I am guessing that it would be wise to encourage my body to return to normal as quickly as possible so I can begin and thusly end my donor cycles as early in the year as possible. That is my plan at this point, but I can't guarantee it will be the same tomorrow. I'm in uncharted territory here, and am notoriously spastic.

I am also watching some emotional choices made earlier in this process be revisited, which I find immensely interesting. However, I believe change, like time, cannot always be comprehended in a forward view. In fact, if I had more energy I would break off into a halfhearted explanation of the branching universe theory of time and how it is a powerful reflection of course altering forks in the road of life. But I'm weary, and you don't care, so it's all good...........

I hope MaKenzie doesn't mind that I put a link to her blog up. Her and Dana's half marathoning endeavors were hugely inspiring to me.

Quotes For Runners

"Whether you think you canor whether you think you can't,either way you are right."

-Henry Ford

a little over 2 miles covered today - still struggling with my body adjusting to some changes.

Cosmic Pushes In The Egg Hunt

In January, I had contacted a regional clinic about the possibility of egg donation for couples struggling with conceiving a child. I have always understood the immense value of our gift of abundant fertility, and if there was ever a year to act on that desire to share that, this seemed the right time. I qualified completely, however, I was required to remove the Mirena IUD (5 year) to move forward. I asked for some time to turn this over in my mind, as removing the Mirena would mean immense care would need to be taken in this aspect of our life to avoid conceiving another child. I about died having Langdon (full placenta previa with an abruption) and hemmoraged out delivering Dex, so for us conceiving is genuinely a risk.

Yesterday night my Mirena became dislodged. With my more intensive running schedule since January and the fairly rapid weight loss that has accompanied it, this wasn't a total surprise. And, when I saw the indications that something was not working right with the Mirena after the donor review, I think on some level I had been waiting to see if perhaps the decision would be made for me. Hoping for a cosmic push in the right direction perhaps? And that seems to have happened last night.

And so I am in fact taking it as a sign that the time to move forward with that process is now. The year just got potentially a lot more challenging. Some races may have to be moved around and even my end goals may need adjusted, but I figure it's worth it. This year is about more than marking miles. It is about realizing the complexity and beauty of intimate change both on my feet and in my heart.

Did I run today? No, actually I didn't. I think my body is adjusting to the new Mirena-less state of hormones, and I know my eating habits for the last few days (no appetite) have been less than stellar. I could barely move today, feeling of lightheaded and experiencing a general disconnect between my mind and body. Teresa rallied me out of the house though late this afternoon and we walked about 2.5 miles, so the day wasn't a total waste. :P

Plotting The Paths

I didn't not actually get to hit the pavement today running but I did spend the day roaming the town within a 5 or so mile radius and mapping distances. By plotting out the area piece by piece from specific center points I should be able to move pretty freely through the area and still walk away with a decent idea of my mileage. Yes, I know, there is technology available to do this for me. :P I rather like it this way. It keeps things interesting. For instance, on a route I've been running for the past couple times I wasn't for sure the distance, but guessed it was a 1.5 mile run total. Today I learned that I've been pushing almost 3 miles on those days. That was extremely satisfactory, to say the least......... :D Michael came with me today and it was fun to get to show him my haunts and distances so at least I feel he understands on some levels what I do everyday; I don't think he was nearly as interested as I was though. Can't much blame him, I suppose. It was lots of driving in circles and me yelling "Hey, miles........ give me mileage!" every 10 feet or so. :D

Hope everyone likes the improved design. I got plenty of complaints on the other one. I know, I know........ it was uber busy but I hadn't had time to fine tune things. Utilizing this set up, I didn't have to tweak everything personally and hopefully there will be less occurences of blog motion sickness.

And The Journey Begins

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one single step -Lao Tzu

Welcome, everybody! Many of you are here as friends, family or previous readers of L3 who wanted to come along for the ride, and as happened in the previous projects I'm sure we'll have some new faces joining up with us along the way.

I wish I could explain where this all started. I wish I could do one of my Cosmic Conversations with God L3 was so known for, and make it funny, but I'm drawing a momentary blank. There are few things in life that I've come across that I couldn't summarize and poke some fun at but the transition of the last year is too impossibly complex. I'll work on it though. There's a lot to laugh at, I assure you. :P

Long story short, I turned 30 in July, and with it came the realization that I was neither happy nor unhappy with my life; that I had accomplished a great deal of everything and yet a great deal of nothing at the same time. And in August, still in the process of pondering the mediocrity of it all (yes I was still pondering it a month later), I was roughhousing with a lifeguard and broke my heel in half which turned out to be a rather serious injury, regardless of how unimpressive it may sound. And, yes, I can roughhouse with lifeguards while actively pondering mediocrity because multitasking is one of my many skills. However, if I had not been pondering it, I might have managed to push him in the pool instead of getting rudely chucked fully clothed into 3 feet of water.

Being locked down in the house, and spending countless hours watching Shutter and knitting gravely ugly hats, gave me plenty of down time to turn things over in my mind and concrete up some rather profound realizations.They are as follows:

1. I was unhappy with every single relationship in my life. Every single one. Past, present, future....... they all were totally unsatisfactory. I thoroughly enjoyed blaming everyone else for the first couple days of this realization, however, after mapping everyone's family trees out on graph paper I had to admit the only common denominator was myself, therefore I was to blame. This was not at all a pleasant thing to realize and I did not thoroughly enjoy it all.
2. My next profound realization was that my children were horrible at picking toys up and did not rinse the dishes properly.
   
3. At this point I switched from the movie Shutter to the movie The Grudge and started a different hat which naturally redirected my thought process to the fact that my parents raised me to believe I could do EVERYTHING, which is not at all the same as being raised believing one can do ANYTHING. Believing oneself capable of ANYTHING naturally routes into choosing SOMETHING whereas believing oneself capable of EVERYTHING leads to narcissism and general underachieving, both of which I am extremely guilty of.
4. I then noticed I had an average butt. I hadn't noticed this before. This was possibly the most traumitizing of them all.
   

So there it was. All laid out. I was an underachiever with unsatisfactory relationships, poorly rinsed dishes and a mediocre hiney. It was horrifying. It was also funny, but I tend to think most things are. I mean, where do you really go from there, knowing this about your life? The answer: you immediately blow up everything around you to see if the pieces land in a more satisfactory manner. And, believe it or not, they did, although I don't at all recommend this course of action for the faint of heart, and it was an evolutionary process type of recovery from the initial explosion. And, in all fariness, I will admit, that the people around me would vehemently deny that emotional sucicide bombing can be positive, but this isn't their blog so they don't get a vote; they're happy now, so that's all that matters.

As I emotionally poked, prodded and powerbombed everything around me, I took my foot which had a variety of braces, boots, and casts depending on what point you located me, and I begin to roam the neighborhood. By the way, this slowed the healing of my foot considerably and it was a stupid thing to do but, no matter because I don't regret it, so meh. I never turned the TV back on. I never sat back down. Sometimes with the crutches, usually without though, I wandered the city and through that experience my world got considerably bigger.

Each time I left the house, dragging my foot behind me, I found that I emotionally clarified and grew. Sometimes I came home with a solution to an immediate problem, sometimes I came home having finally emotionally sorted through something that had been following me around since I was 6. The more I moved, the more I healed, the more I healed, the more I was empowered to take action, and the more action I took, the more I found I was free from things that had been weighing me down, without me even realizing. I also lost a lot of weight rather quickly, but I'm supposed to pretend that losing jean sizes is less satisfactory than emotional growth. :P

And at some point during that process, I knew that I wanted to run; knew that I was going to run. Right or wrong, I felt deeply the desire to go farther and faster with my body and thusly, in theory, continue the journey of change that had begin, while slowly dragging a shattered foot up a hill to a grocery store. If you have ever tried to walk 3 feet in a NON WALKING cast without crutches, much less a mile, then you can understand the rather profound concept laid out above. If not, then pretend you do and look very impressed and inspired anyway. It's the polite thing to do.

I took my first official "run" in January when I had been released from all casts, braces and boots. I have run almost everyday since then, and the concept of healing has grown into a decision to take a year off to run, to heal, to grow, and to close chapters that have followed me for years. Forver Chasing Eve is my chronicle (started 2 months in, of course) of that year and of that journey. My goals are to run 2 half marathons this year and any smaller races I can fit in. I would like more than anything to close out this year with a bang, hopefully running a full marathon next January, but that goal is kept quiet and tucked close to the heart. Time will tell if it is possible, but as Ursula K. LeGuin said, "It is good to have an end to journey towards: but it is the journey that matters in the end."