Just Breathe

After a miserable race at St. Anthony's Triathlon a few weekends ago that I would just like to put behind me (although, I am happy to report that I dropped more than 4 minutes off my swim time from that race 2 years ago!), May 1 arrived and it was time to hold up the bargain I made with myself, and start my runstreak. I was a little afraid, a little hesitant, and honestly dreading the idea of running 31 days in a row.

It was an ugly race for me, but at least I got this really cool (although really heavy) stained glass finisher medal

Before I was able to hit the pavement for my first run of the month, though, I had to visit the doctor. I've talked about how difficult running and training have been for me for the past several months. Mostly, my lung capacity has felt compromised when running (also a little with swimming and cycling), as if there is a cork in my windpipe keeping me from taking in enough air when I try to run faster than a jog. After doing a little research on my own, I began to think I had developed exercise-induced asthma. But I also worried that there were other issues afoot, thanks to my nearly-constant physical fatigue.

I visited an Internist, a nice enough woman who seemed to agree with my self-diagnosis, and prescribed me an Albuterol inhaler and some allergy medication. Four vials of blood were sucked out of me, and a complete blood work-up was ordered.

My first run after using my inhaler was nothing short of miraculous. Though my endurance is in a seriously pitiful place, I was able to run AND breathe simultaneously. I did not have to stop and bend over in order to attempt to suck in as much air as I could, and I did not feel even the slightest bit of panic due to the feeling of being strangled. It was as if I had been renewed. I felt like a runner again! I don't love using the inhaler, I hate being on medication, but I feel like it is helping me, and I am grateful for having a set of lungs filled with air again!

So back to the runstreak. It is now May 7, and I have run 7 days in a row! I am running 1.5 - 2.75 miles per day. I know the distance isn't there - YET - but I am already beginning to feel as if I could run farther at the end of each run. It is hot and humid outside, but now that I can breathe again, I feel like I have power and I feel my speed gradually beginning to return. This weekend, I plan to run a 4-miler, then next weekend, a 5-miler, then the next weekend, a 6-miler, and I plan to cap the month off with a 7-miler. Surprisingly, my legs feel strong each day. I suppose that is because I am not doing any real distance each day, but the continuity and the steadiness of my pace is hopefully allowing my legs to ease back into some real strength (and some of my thigh cheese to melt away). Incredibly, right now, I don't hate running. I am, however, frustrated with the feeling that I am starting over again completely.

My lab results came back yesterday, and my thyroid tested in the hyper range. I had feared that I had hypothyroidism, like my father, so this was a weird twist. Side effects of hyperthyroidism include shortness of breath (check!), restless sleep (bingo!), itchy & dry skin (bullseye!), moodiness & depression (BOOM), among a few others. I go back in 4 weeks to have my thyroid tested again, and we go from there. But to now know that there is a concrete reason for feeling like I have been falling apart for the past year or so is a such a huge relief.

One week down, three to go in my runstreak, and there's no real finish line in sight. My goals now are more humble, more like baby steps than giant leaps. I know that it will all come back to me, in due time.

Run Streak

Hello again to all of my invisible readers!

It has been a good, long while since I have had the desire to sit down and write about anything here, or anywhere for that matter. I'm in the middle of some kind of change, physically and emotionally, and I don't know why or what or how. Waking up each morning, I question my purpose on this rock, and each day, I go to bed no closer to the answer. 

My internal crisis is not the point of this post, however. I have been thinking for a while about ways to change things up, in my fitness and training routine, that is. I had to face the cold and hard fact that I am just plain tired of training all the time, especially for triathlons. And I am even more tired of "racing". I think I broke some kind of unwritten rule when I began racing 3 years ago, and I did way too much way too fast and the honeymoon of it all ended rather quickly and abruptly. 

If I had one piece of advice to offer anyone who is new to running, multisport, or fitness in general, it is this: TAKE YOUR TIME. Don't be in such a hurry to accomplish everything at once. Enjoy the journey that your body and mind are going through, and pace yourself (literally and hypothetically). Allow yourself the time to savor each accomplishment before tackling the next one. You will enjoy yourself a lot more, and you will perform better because you have been kind to your body. Learn from my mistakes.

Anyway, at the end of this month, I am doing one last race for a long while, St. Anthony's Triathlon in St. Petersburg. Training has been tough, due to weather (RAIN, WIND, COLD!!!), due to my kids' seemingly endless stream of weekend swim meets, and due to my complete apathy. But, I will get it done (which is no attitude to have, I tell you!). Beyond that, I have nothing scheduled. This is both relieving and terrifying at the same time.

Because I have no races to dread look forward to, I have been trying to think of some challenge that I can present myself which will keep my body moving, and maybe even help me find my way back to loving somewhat enjoying running. And a few days ago, it hit me: A RUN STREAK. I was inspired by a few friends that did this several months back, and I have one friend who is attempting a run streak for over a year (that's crazy and incredible!).

Beginning May 1, I will run at least 1 mile each and every day of the month, rain or shine, humidity be damned. I hope to run at least 15 miles per week, and I hope to coerce recruit some friends to join in with me, both for accountability and for moral support. This isn't going to be a competition of any sort, other than with the person that stares back at me in the mirror each morning. For me, I have found the best person to compete with is myself.

It's not a huge achievement, but it is what I can manage right now. And I am hoping that it will help me remember why I began running in the first place, four years ago this month. Maybe, for the first time in a long time, I will be running toward something instead of letting it chase me away.

Quite frankly, Cancer SUCKS

On Thursday, February 13, my husband will turn off his alarm at 4:45 a.m. and climb into the shower. He will get dressed, start the coffee, make the kids' sandwiches for their lunches, and he will eat his breakfast. I will get up at 5 a.m., join him in the living room for our brief morning conversation over coffee before the chaos of getting everyone out the door commences at 6:15 a.m. It will be like every other week day. We will talk to the kids about what will be happening at school that day, I will remind them to get their bags ready for the afternoon's swim practice, and I will kiss everyone goodbye as they head out for their days of work and school.

The only difference about that particular day is that, in the forefront of my husband's mind, and my own, will be the bitter fact that it is the 20th anniversary since the death of his mother. Every year since that awful day, we have stopped to remember her. Every year, we talk about what she missed in our life by being taken too young. Every year, we remember how powerful her love was for her children and we strive to give our own kids - her grandchildren - the same.

Sue was a mom, and if you asked her what she did and what she was, that is likely the very first thing she would have told you. She was a commanding presence, but not in any kind of overbearing way. She was gentle, but led her family with strength, and when she was suffering from the viciousness of cancer, sometimes you hardly knew it. She smiled a lot, she laughed a lot, and I'm told she had kind of a naughty sense of humor, something that my husband was too young to notice or appreciate before she left the world.

Breast cancer struck her in her thirties. She had two young sons, and no time for being sick. She beat it once, with the love and support of her family and friends, but mostly due to her own strong will. But it returned, and it took her when my husband was 20, and his brother was 16. It made a widower out of their father, and it left two boys with questions of "why". They were angry, they were devastated. You see, good people shouldn't suffer, mothers shouldn't leave their families, kind and generous people like Sue shouldn't have to feel pain. That's not how the world works in the mind of a boy who doesn't realize just how incredible his mother was until she was taken from him. And 20 years later, that's just how that same boy, now 40, feels.

We are old enough to understand that life isn't fair, not that it's easier, though. We talk all the time about how proud Sue would be of her grandchildren. We see her legacy in their many smiles, and how my children possess that same commanding yet humble presence. She would have given the same love and devotion to her four grandchildren that she did to her two sons, and the hugs would have been unending.

Cancer just doesn't really care who you are or what plans you have for life. Cancer is such a bastard.

In the 20 years since Sue passed, we have watched my father-in-law fight and beat cancer, and we have watched two of our young cousins beat cancer's ass hard. We worry what this means for our own children, whether they will be faced with the same fight one, two, or three decades from now. We wonder if our grandchildren will be left without their father or their mother because of cancer. What a crappy thought thing to have to think about.

If you have beaten cancer, you are amazing! If you know someone that has beaten cancer, make sure that they know that you think they are amazing. And if you have lost someone to cancer, never forget them.


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