This week things just clicked. It definitely did not start off that way. On Saturday, I participated in a mud run with my run group. Although we had an absolute blast, the run itself was horrible for me. I could not catch my breath for anything. The air was really heavy, it rained off and on the whole time, and I was struggling. Big time. The obstacles were no problem. I was up, over, under and through with no trouble whatsoever. Plus, they gave me time to catch my breath. But the running. The running was awful.
Despite how bad the run felt, we finished really well and in a great position. For a team of two first time mudders, two teen boys and a mom who couldn't breathe, we did awesome. Then came the photos and videos. I was a mess when I saw them. Inconsolable. Which led to a complete meltdown of the entire two weeks of stress in one quick moment. I was ready to quit running. Give up. Walk away. Forget I ever even attempted this journey. It's so frustrating to be over four months down the road from where I started and see no physical changes on the outside. I know that a lot has improved on the inside. I just wish all of the hard work and effort would start showing on the outside. I'm sick of looking like this. So tired of dealing with the constant immune responses and swelling. Someone once asked me to try to explain it to them. The easiest visual? Have you ever see someone who's allergic to bee stings or peanuts or anything else swell up after coming in contact with their allergen? Well, I have a constant allergen (the neurotoxin) inside of my body at all times. Certain things trigger that allergen to cause an anaphylactic type of response on the inside of my body. So all of that swelling you see on the outside on someone having an allergic reaction to something? That is going on inside my body on the cellular level. I have dozens of "tumors"/"masses" inside my body. They are not cancerous. They believe this is where pockets of the neurotoxin have been clumped. These lumps swell - unbelievably so sometimes. There are some moments immediately after intense workouts or extremely high levels of stress that I look like I am 9 months pregnant with twins again. It is not a pretty sight. On any given day, I am walking around with swelling somewhere. On a really good day, no one can tell there is any swelling - or they ask if I've lost weight or am feeling better - because it's noticeable that I'm not as swollen as usual. On the really bad days... you guys - I can't even look in the mirror on those days or I will lose it completely. I have melted into tears hating myself on those bad days - which only makes the swelling worse and the immune response go into overdrive. Thankfully, I have a few people who have figured this out and a couple who are really great at keeping me calm, making me laugh, and helping me fight the response. My doctors are amazed at how much control we've gained over it. However, though we've figured out how to mitigate the response, and even prevent it sometimes or at least make it less intense, we have not figured out how to completely eliminate it - especially after exercising or, specifically, running. I've been noticing the response is less and less now after my long runs, but definitely still there and still happening. BUT - I'll take the progress. Again - I just wish the progress was showing on the outside. When the doctors said I'd never lose the weight and would likely just gain more weight by working out, they were only partially right. I have lost some weight. Not that anyone can tell. But I have not gained any of it back, nor did I gain any when I intensified the workouts (which was a huge fear). So, we're somewhat winning here. But, I would give anything for my body to show outwardly all of the sweat, tears, effort and determination that has been poured into the past 4 1/2 months.
All of this frustration came to a head on Saturday night, and Sunday (Mother's Day) morning. By far one of the worst days ever. But, thankfully, one of those people stepped in and provided an outlet for the frustration, a change of scenery, a few laughs, and a way to calm me down and get me back into a calmer, controlled frame of mind. By Sunday evening, I had decided that I needed to go ahead with my long run for the week, since I had refused to do it after the mud run pain on Saturday.
Sunday evening I hit 6 miles... with my best 5 mile time of the year, and my third best 10K time of all-time! Um... well... that was unexpected. With that victory came a struggle. I was supposed to go 9. I just could not. Didn't know at the time why... I just knew it was not happening.
Monday was great. Managed volleyball and 2 miles running as scheduled. The run was good. Volleyball was great. All-around winning day.
Tuesday I had an option to run, but kept debating back and forth. Finally, I let my coach decide. I went for 1 mile. I decided to try to run the entire mile, since it had been a while since I'd made it a full mile running without a walk interval. I slowed (?) my pace and kept things easy. I wanted my lungs to be happy, my legs to be happy, and my nerves to be happy. Success. 11:20 mile. No pain. No difficulty. no problem. Perfect. I wanted so bad to keep going, but refused, reminding myself group run was the next evening.
I also went to lunch with a teammate Tuesday - and we had a great discussion. It's comforting to know there are other people who get where you have been or where you are now - and connect with you on multiple levels.
Wednesday. Group run day!! Coach was going to be out, but that was not going to stop us. We met, did our run, worked out, and did it all well. I managed to go the entire 2.7 miles running with no walk intervals, and it was at a great pace for me. I was happy with it. I also had some great conversation and was thankful again that coach had pushed for me to join in with the group on Wednesdays. Again - great connections.
Thursday. I was feeling great. The boys had swim later in the evening, so I decided to repeat the Wednesday evening run, only by myself this time. The first mile actually felt good, and was easy. When I saw the time and realized I was going too fast, I switched to intervals and forced myself to slow it down. I did the run faster than the night before - even with multiple walk intervals. Maybe too fast - but it felt great. I had to go jump in the pool for a few minutes after the run, to get ready for a skills test on all strokes Friday. I hadn't swam butterfly or side stroke in forever, so I needed to make sure I could still pull it out. I had not done a solid run followed by an immediate hard & fast swim set in almost two years. My lungs felt like they were going to burst. It was so hard to swim. I also had a sore area on my back before I started, and it started hurting really bad after the second length of butterfly. That swim hurt. A lot. But I felt ready for the skills test. I definitely was really glad Friday was a scheduled rest day. I went home and did everything I could to recover and keep the pain at bay.
In the back of my mind this week was the weekend long run. I couldn't shake the fear over it. It took me a long time to figure it out. I was terrified to go longer than 7 miles. Why? Because the last time I did - I almost died. I knew the doctors had all said I'm good to go. I knew my coach felt like I was ready. I knew I could do it. But I was scared out of my mind. I was also embarrassed. What distance runner is afraid to run more than 7 miles? I knew it was an overreaction, but several things this week had made me really nervous about it. I realized that the past 2 weekends, I'd bailed on the longer distances. It's a mental block. I did not want to tell anyone about it - especially my coach - but couldn't figure out how to get past it on my own.
Friday. Well. First thing Friday morning - at like 4 AM - thunder woke me up and I instinctively grabbed my phone to look at the weather app. Instead of the weather, however, the first thing that caught my eye was my coach had posted feedback on my run Thursday. He was yelling at me!!! I was thinking "what did I do?!" But then I realized that I had sent him a very short "well that hurt" type of text and then never clarified. He must have gotten the text really late and then seen my run, with a first mile of 10:44, and immediately thought the run had been the hurt part. It took a while but I think we ended up on the same page. I do need to slow down my runs, especially my first miles, and I'm pretty sure I'll be more specific on future texts. Before anyone jumps to any conclusions - my coach is still the best hands-down, and the only reason I say he was "yelling" was because of the exclamation points and the way he phrased his "you know better" type of commentary. He's really not a yeller. At least not at me. And he's not mean. He was just making a very strong point - that I needed to hear.
We ended up talking later that morning and I shared my fears about the long run. He already knew. Go figure. We discussed some strategies. Hoped it would help but was still convinced 9 was not happening on the weekend. At least not at one time.
Anyways - Friday was REST DAY. Thankfully. The skills test literally took me like 5 minutes. It took 10 times as long to drive there as it did to take the test. But - I passed it quickly. Would you believe I did not miss running on Friday? I was completely content to have a day off. For once. It was nice.
Saturday. <Deep breath> Saturday. It took me longer to get going than I had planned. I was stalling and I knew it. I finally set out after mapping out a route, contacting a friend on the route to stash an aid station, leaving instructions at home, and taking a whole lot of deep breaths. Mile 1 - I tried so hard to keep my pace slow. Really slow. Success. I hit mile 1 at 13:46. Right where coach wanted me. Whew. No yelling tomorrow. Mile 2 - I got into a groove and was trying to convince myself that I'd be happy about the 5:2 interval later. I was not feeling that 2 minutes of walking. I hated it. But - I was happy in the 5 minutes of running. Mile 2 - 13:28. Still slow but increasing pace. OK. Mile 3 - I'm actually enjoying this. It's slow - but it's nice out. But this is only mile 3. How am I going to go 6 more? Nope - not thinking about that. Rules. Sean's rules. Rule 3 is run the mile you're in. I'm going to focus on this one and worry about the others when I get to them. Let's just keep enjoying this. Rule 2's have fun. We can at least try. Mile 3 - 13:25. Wow - consistent enough? Mile 4 - my three fave songs all came on my iPod during this mile. Plus a good downhill. Plus I hit the halfway mark. Mile 4 - 12:46. Nice. Almost. Thinking if I go this slow in Tahoe I'm never going to finish. But - at least this is easy. I stopped at my stash at my friend's house and ate a quick snack and drank some water. Headed back out for mile 5. Including the break mile 5 was 15 something - but it was still on pace when I was moving. I was happy with it. Mile 6. Hill from Hades. Dude. Village Green is vicious. Still - with the hill - mile 6 was 13:03. Staying consistent. Mile 7 - got to go back down said hill. But when I got out of Village Green I had to make a pit stop at the park. So mile 7 ended up another 15 something - but my pace was still consistent with the rest when moving. I started on mile 8. Then my mind registered that it was mile 8. So did my nerves. The pain was intense. I started to freak out. I reminded myself again that I was okay, to remember to run the mile I'm in (thanks coach), and I was really close to home and could bail if I had to. Let's just get through one more 5 minute interval and see what happens. Mile 8 - 13:23. I half-smiled, half-cried. I was still alive and still going. I was okay. It hurt like crazy. I was tired. But I was okay. I'm so close to mile 9 - I have to keep going now. I have to try to finish this. 5 more minutes of running. Mile 9 - 13:00. Huge smile. I did it. I was still 0.2 from home, so I kept going. I thought about going for 10. My nerve pain was not lessening, and I was tired, so I thought it was better to end now and still be able to go for 11 next weekend than to push now. So at 9.2 miles - I finished. Happy and proud. It was exactly 2 hours. Way slower than I want to go - but this wasn't a race. This challenge was - can I go the 9 miles? Can I get further than 7? As the nerve pain eased, I realized something else. My legs did not go numb. I know most people are thinking "I should hope not." But, in the past few races, I've dealt with a lot of pain and numbness. I finished the Anthem 10K without being able to feel my legs for the last 0.5 miles. None of that happened today - on my longest run. I really am getting better. Or my body is finally adapting. Either way - I made it 9 miles!!
Saturday evening I took my girls back out and walked while they rode their scooters. I was sore. I was totally feeling the 9.2 miles from that morning. But I was okay enough to walk and was laughing while texting with a teammate. It was a great evening.
Sunday morning. I woke up thinking "why do I do this to myself?!" I could barely stand up or walk. I forced myself to move and get going. By mid-morning I was ready to attempt to run again. I was only supposed to try 1.5 easy miles - pretty sure just as a recovery run to try to ward off any stiffness or muscle cramping. The first 0.5 miles were awful. It hurt. I was sore. I was tired. But then I got into the easy run a bit, and relaxed. I was going slow and easy. Mile 1 - 12:24. I took an intentional turn to make the run a 2-miler instead of 1.5. I figured if I got to 1.5 and was done I could just walk the rest and be okay. I was just feeling better moving and running. So I kept going. Mile 2 - 12:14. I ended happy and a good-sore.
Sunday afternoon it dawned on me. I ran 20 miles this week!!!!! And most of them were good miles!! One week ago I almost missed this. One week ago I almost let temporary frustrations and disappointments lead me to walking away and giving up on it. So thankful for friends who refuse to let me quit, and a patient-beyond-patient coach who knows when to push, when to comfort, and when to redirect.
I have no idea from one day to the next when it will be a good run day or when the pain is going to be too intense to allow me to run. But for now, I will be celebrating this past week as a string of good run days and be thankful for that. Looking ahead - I don't even know what I'm supposed to run this week yet. My coach might be hiding from me (avoiding my complaining about soreness??). But what I do know is that Saturday we are heading to one of my favorite places to run 11 miles. I know Tahoe is still just over 3 weeks away - but this is our Tahoe. We both know if I can do these 11 miles here in the hills of Tennessee in freaking hot weather, Tahoe is going to be a breeze. I heard it snowed there again today. Begging it to stay cool for one more month - but not too cold. Praying the timing and temperature work out perfectly. I'm really hoping my body sticks with the program this week and allows those 11 miles to happen Saturday. If not - I'm sure there's a backup plan. But, regardless, I know I am ready and able to run Tahoe and maybe even have fun during the race. We've come a long way in 4 1/2 months.
