Welcome to funky town

I have not run since the Freihofer's race. I planned on taking the week off to catch up on all the things I have been neglecting the last couple of months. Instead, I had birthday parties (one we hosted for Chewie and a couple for the Princess to attend), multiple school visits, field day, doctor visits, dentist, etc. I shlepped poor Light Runner around so much. I planned on just taking last week off but I had also planned on getting stuff done! So, here I am this week trying to scramble to get it all done. I've managed to clean a couple of toilets, repeatedly straighten up the kitchen, finally have clean underwear to wear, straighten up the deck, clean off my craft table, and there's so much more I still want to do. I feel slightly better that I'm getting some of this stuff done, but I am in a serious non-running, non-exercising funk. It's my own choice,  but I know that with a 16 week half marathon training plan coming up, I need to get my affairs in order.

Part of those affairs was seeing a stone specialist about these damn kidney stones. Long story short, I have NO plan for these stones other than to "wait and see." No blasting. No magic pills. I can drink citrus to try to prevent them and to try to help with the blood in my urine when I run, but other than that there's nothing that I can do. On the one hand I am glad I don't need parathyroid surgery. On the other hand I don't want to be in the middle of running the half in October and start passing kidney stones!

Another loose end that has been finally wrapped up--Chewie and her speech. I received a letter a couple of weeks ago that she qualifies for twice a week services, no meeting necessary. Ooookay. We had our review meeting yesterday and she will not only get twice a week services in the fall, she'll also get it in the summer. Easy peasy.

School is winding down and I can't wait for it to be over. We've come up with a list of fun things we want to do and I plan on actually doing them this summer. Instead of waiting for friends to invite us to things we're going to make our own fun. We're also going to be doing a lot of running. In addition to my 16 week training plan on the fridge, there's also an 8 week plan for the kids! It's a 5K plan, but the biggest ones will be running a 1 mile race in August. The Princess wants to run a 5K next spring, so I figure we'll train this summer. If SkyWalker can last a mile without complaining he can do a 5K sometime too. I'm looking into getting a jogging stroller for LightRunner, but I'm not quite sure what I'll do with Chewie. She can run, but I'm not sure she can run that much. I don't want to get a double jogging stroller though because I hope to run a lot when she is in preschool three days a week next year and I just have LightRunner. I'm thinking of seeing how I can do with the stroller I have now that lets her stand in the back. We aren't going to be running fast or far, so I might be able to get away with that and just get a real jogging stroller for the fall.

I can hear LightRunner crying in his crib so my brief naptime break is over. But one more thing--if you actually visit this blog instead of just read it in a reader, you'll see a brand new image over to the right. I am now a #RunChat Runbassador!  Those of you on twitter who also run should definitely check out the #RunChat tag, it's super helpful. On Sunday nights there's sponsored chats, but the rest of the time it's just runners exchanging info. I think they're still accepting Runbassadors, so click on the image in my sidebar and fill out the form.

Running smart

I know. It's been a few days.

So, my goals for the Freihofer's were:

C. Beat my last 5K time: 28:26

B. Beat my last Freihofer's time of 27:58 (I need to double check this!)

A. 26:30 or better

I didn't do it.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't slightly disappointed, but this year the cards just seemed stacked against me.

For the first time I was able to see the starting line from where I was. The first year there were hundreds of women in front of me. This year I was in the 3rd corral and could see the elites and the road ahead! Crazy. I started out strong with a good first mile and got slower with the second and even slower with the third. It was WICKED hot. I didn't go to the bathroom before the race and I wound up having some complications from that. And then in the home stretch when I wanted to speed up, my shoelace came undone. For the first time ever.

I kept switching sides when I was running to try and stay in the shade and I freely admit that I didn't "empty my tank" (well, I emptied one of them, hahaha). In fact at the finish line when most women stopped or passed out, I kept on running. I could have run longer. I think I'm okay with that now. I didn't stop to walk, I didn't have to visit the medical tent, didn't pass out, didn't vomit. Didn't collapse. There will be other races when I can give it my all, but when it's already 79 degrees at 9 in the morning and I have EIGHT KIDNEY STONES and four little children to go home to (they were at soccer and missed the big race)... well... I think I ran smart even if I didn't run exceptionally fast.

I wound up finishing with a net time of 28:30 (gun time 28:45. I was only 15 seconds from the start!).

How cool are these results? I mean, the layout, not the time.

My friends all ran great and did really well in the heat. It's so nice to be a part of a supportive group.

I'm taking this week off from running and exercising and trying to get to all the things I've neglected. Laundry, toilets, my poor garden. I've been doing tech support with our wireless network and security camera for the last 2-3 days. Today we had a birthday party from Chewie who has managed to turn 4. I need to start planning Lightrunner's first birthday party next month. I see the stone specialist on Friday and hope I have some more answers and a plan for these stones. My next planned race will be the 10 mile Clove Run in August (on my 11th anniversary. Maybe I'll run the 1 mile fun run with the kids to make it 11 total!). I'm not thinking about that yet though. I'm keeping my fridge plan-free for a little while. 

May Wrap-up, Race goals, and Another Mother Runner house party

It all comes down to this. 7 weeks of running and cross training and preparing. My "A-goal" race is tomorrow. I've done all I can do.

But first:

Last night a bunch of my running friends and I went to a local shoe store to meet the authors of Run Like a Mother and Train Like a Mother (take a look in my sidebar at my favorite books section.) The original Another Mother Runners Dimity McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea read from Train Like a Mother, raffled off cool prizes (I won a gift card to Saucony for a FREE pair of shoes or apparel!!), and gave us a bunch of swag (now I can try Nuun and various gels that I will need when I start training for the half). They mingled and talked to us and it was funny immediately recognizing their voices because I listen to their podcast. It was such a fun night and made even better by having so many of our Strong Running Mamas there (even though I missed the group picture because we left a little early).

******

7 weeks done!

May wrap up:

I had a bit of a setback in May because of these kidney stones. But considering that I have EIGHT KIDNEY STONES it's kind of amazing that I've done anything besides lay on the couch and bemoan my fate.

• Mileage: 46.2
• Runs: 11
• Cross training days: 16
• Cross training sessions: 25

So, my mileage was down, but not really by all that much. But my cross training was way up (thanks Summer Shape Up Challenge!). Hopefully it will be enough. I attempted my mile repeats last week and that didn't go well. I never did wind up trying again later that night because I was just too wiped out. Last Friday I tried again and I had to stop and pee halfway through the first mile and I was struggling. So I decided that what I needed more than mile repeats was to feel successful and I switched it up and did my favorite fast pick ups instead. And after that I did kickboxing (with much less energy than normal). I don't think one particular speedwork session is going to make or break me. Either I'm ready or I'm not. 

Tomorrow is going to be wicked hot. I have EIGHT KIDNEY STONES. When I did 35 minutes of cardio and then ran 3.5 miles on Wednesday I peed a bunch of blood. There are a million excuses to accept less than my best tomorrow. 

But I'm not. Accepting less than my best, that is. I'm going for it. 

Goals:

C. Beat my last 5K time: 28:26

B. Beat my last Freihofer's time of 27:58 (I need to double check this!)

A. 26:30 or better

I guess I should also include "pass at least half my kidney stones immediately following the race" as a goal as well. I go to the stone specialist next Friday and will hopefully have a plan of action besides drinking a lot of water and waiting.

I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't make it. But there's no reason to not give it my all. 

Cross training and Jessica Smith's Summer Shape Up Challenge

The only exercise I have ever stuck with is running. It's remarkable really. But I'm at the point now where I want to improve my running and simply running more just doesn't cut it. I've tried over the past couple of years to add other things, weight-lifting, yoga, etc, but nothing ever lasted more than a week. Until I found Jessica Smith on the exercise On Demand. Specifically the 10 minute workouts. I started doing those and then I bought the book/DVD combo (Thin In 10, you can find it over there in my right sidebar) and then I subscribed to her YouTube channel (you can find that over in the right sidebar too). I would pick whichever routine I could squeeze in. I've had some good weeks with a lot and some bad weeks with a little.

My willy nilly days of picking the shortest workouts whenever I feel like it are over. I'm following along with Jessica's Summer Shape Up Challenge. It's a 5 week program with exercises 6 days a week. She posts the entire week's plan on Sunday--but just a week at a time. I'm used to thinking in months and not weeks so that's a bit of a challenge to me. But it's good. All of the workouts are free through YouTube and we comment on each video so she knows we're keeping up. It's a great motivator. I'm sure she's not going to hunt me down if I don't do a day, but it keeps me accountable and I find myself rearranging things so I can do it. I'm so excited that I'm sticking with something other than running that I am planning on donating to her website. I'm getting quality workouts in the comfort of my own home that I would normally have to go to a class to do. I just started Week 2 today and so far the only pain is that the rest day doesn't always sync up to my running rest day. Week 2's rest day is Saturday--the day I will be racing the Freihofer's. But once the Freihofer's is over I can try to plan my weekly runs around the Shape Up Challenge. I'm not sure what I will do if I wind up having to get these kidney stones blasted. But I'm not thinking about that yet. 

I'm hoping that all of this will make me a stronger runner and that by the time I do the half next fall it'll be a piece of cake (yeah, I'm kidding.). I guess I'll see on Saturday how well I do (provided I don't have any more complications). I know that I've lost 3-4 pounds in the last couple of weeks and my clothes fit differently. (I don't really track my weight, I've never cared that much about it, but I still weigh LightRunner every week and that involves me weighing myself first and then holding him). But really, the only numbers I'm concerned with are the ones on the clock at the finish line.

Re-evaluating

Yuck. Image from MedicineNet.

It has been a crazy week. Besides all of the good stuff like the Princess turning 6 (no superheroes this year) and going out for Mother's Day dinner, there's been some less fun stuff too. Like trips to the doctor and the ER.

Just a couple of months ago, I wrote this about hydration and how important it was because I had recently been diagnosed with a UTI and we concluded it was from dehydration. I may have been wrong. Not in the importance of drinking water and staying hydrated, but in the cause of my UTI.

On Mother's Day I ran 6 miles with a couple of friends who are MUCH faster than me. Midway through the run I needed to stop at one of their houses so I could pee. Blood. Yup, peeing blood again. Awesome. I returned to running, drank more of my water, and attributed it to running with people much faster than me. Then a couple of days later I did a nice easy 4 mile run early in the morning. I had made sure to drink plenty of water the night before and I think I may have even had water with me as I ran... and I peed blood again. That's no good. I went to the doctor the next day (Wed) and she prescribed me antibiotics in case I had another UTI and sent me for an ultrasound. I went to the ultrasound on Thursday and the tech just happened to be a runner. So we chatted a bit and she was a little more forthcoming with the info than any other tech I've seen. She told me right away that I had kidney stones. Argh.

Here's where it gets really fun. I started to feel less than 100% on Friday. Light headed, shaky, back hurt, cramps. Had I not known better I would have thought I was going into labor. I got in touch with my doctor who told me I did not have a UTI but that I had kidney stones (I pretended not to know already). I described what I was currently feeling and she said it sounded like I was passing the stones. Or trying to. She instructed me to go to the ER if I started to feel worse because I didn't need to just sit there in pain, I could go and get medication if I needed it. I talked to my mother who has had a zillion kidney stones and she described her symptoms when she wound up being septic and she said they would probably do a cat scan at the hospital and I thought I might as well get that done instead of having to schedule one later and well, for once I decided to play it safe and just go to the ER. I sat there on a stretcher in a hallway, alone, watching trauma victims come in and wondering what the hell I was doing there. I had started to feel a bit better (really it was the shakiness and feeling like I was going to pass out that concerned me, not any pain) except for being hungry. They took my blood and tested my pee again and said they would do a cat scan... and then they didn't. The doc on duty didn't want to expose me to radiation. So they did an ultrasound instead. I still had the stones (I'm not sure if they moved or not since we didn't have the first ultrasound results to compare it to) and some "weirdness" where my ureter joins my kidney. The doc on duty recommended I take ibuprofen, which is when I decided I needed to go home--since everything I had read said to NOT take ibuprofen. A different doc discharged me and said take tylenol, follow up with urologist. Oh and pay $70 on your way out.

Waste. Of. Time.

I suppose it was good to know I wasn't septic or suffering from a kidney infection. But other than that, I really didn't need to be there. I could have just gone to lay down and been okay. Oh well.

So here I am now, drinking water like there's nothing else to drink, and while I didn't quite pee blood during today's scheduled mile repeats, it was darker than it should have been. I have a follow up with my primary doc tomorrow and an appointment with a urologist scheduled for next week. I am planning on trying the mile repeats again tonight after the kids go to bed and I've spent all day hydrating. If I have the same problem... well... I'm planning on doing an easy 4 mile trail run on Thursday evening. If I still have the same problem then I'm going to have to accept that I need to re-evaluate my race goals. You know, for that race I have in 11 days.

Bye-bye April

While I might be trying to hold this baby back, I am pushing my running forward. Last week I had very specific intervals I was supposed to run: 1 mile warmup, 6 x 400 m @7:30 pace (8.0 with a 1% incline on the treadmill), .5 mile cooldown.

I didn't quite make it. I think I did the full 400 m (1/4 mile) for half of them, but the rest I just didn't last that long. Instead of looking at it as a fail, I tried to see it as progress. Up until that day I had only run at 8.0 for 1 minute intervals and here I was doing it for longer than a minute, just not quite as long as I should have. It was hard. When I started feeling like I had to hold on to the treadmill to keep going I realized that it wasn't worth it. I truly didn't feel like it was a fail though.

Today, I once again had very specific intervals to run: 1 mile warmup, pick-ups of 30 seconds each (for 2.5 miles), .5 mile cooldown.

I nailed it.

I think 30 seconds is my magic number. There was no holding on, no fear of falling. After each 30 second interval I either walked for 60-90 seconds or I ran slow (@ 5.5) for 60-90 seconds. I think I did more 60 seconds than 90. I wound up doing 17-18 pick-ups when I usually do 10-12 during the Fast 40 workout I do.

It was great. I felt strong. I enjoyed it and remembered why I love intervals. I have mile repeats coming up on the horizon and I think I may actually get up early and run on the road instead of the treadmill. I don't think long intervals on the treadmill works for me.

My April stats:

• Mileage: 50.2
• Runs: 12
• Cross Training Days: 4?
• Cross Training Sessions: 5

I had 2 miles less than March, but I did those miles in fewer runs. It must have been those longer runs with friends ... so I'm okay with that. I don't even want to talk about cross training.

I'm happy with April and looking forward to May.

Holding back

I've been trying to keep this little baby from growing and getting older. I've tried SO HARD, but time insists on moving and I have so little control over it. He is now 9 months old, longer out than he was in... Crawling everywhere, babbling, eating his cheerios and anything else within reach. I am absolutely certain that he is our last, we are done, we are complete, my dinner table is full. I had no problem giving away all my maternity clothes. I gave away the co-sleeper that held all four of my newborns. But I keep holding on to stuff... not because I want another baby but because I don't want him to stop being one. The swing he never sleeps in still takes up space in my kitchen. He's STILL in the car seat carrier even though it kills me picking it up (he is smaller than most 9 month olds though). I just want to freeze time... hold him where he is... he is so happy, so content, so full of joy. It is impossible to look at him and not smile. Impossible. I just don't want this stage to end.

His 9 month check up went well. He's back on the growth charts, albeit barely, and is a whopping 16 pounds, 5 ounces. 27 inches long. He's gained and is clearly healthy and his pediatrician is happy. He gets three meals a day now, including his yogurt lunch, and although we still nurse four times a day I can feel it starting to peter out. It's supposed to... and yet I want to hold on. I have always cut down on nursing at a year old and just done the wake-up and bedtime feedings with cows milk in between. I have all of these running plans... and yet... I just want to hold on. He's my last.

A few weeks ago I said that after having the kids home for spring break I was ready for them to be home for summer and I meant it. Naturally people laughed and didn't quite understand why. I'm not saying that everything is blissfully happy all the time--it's not--but I really do just want them home with me. If for no other reason than that I am painfully aware of the passage of time.