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May 31, 2007
Suck
So the last time I mentioned running, it was going fantastic. Well, that was extremely short-lived and I'm back to having it suck again. I'm tired of everything right now; this has not been a particularly good week. Cramps, sore boobs that kept me from running on Tuesday and hurt enough yesterday and today that I was really tempted to run with my arms wrapped around my chest, being extremely busy at work (getting to sit down a total of maybe 5-10 minutes), feeling like a fatass because I can't fit into any of the dresses I own and have nothing to wear for my BIL's wedding next weekend and therefore having to go shopping in MSP this weekend even though everything's just going to look ugly on me - which will be captured for all of time by pictures UGH!! ... At least I can get my hair highlighted on Monday!
Probably because so many people are starting to get ready to train for their fall marathons, but I'm feeling really ... sad? frustrated? envious? I want to be training for something. I'm sick of having my life on hold. But unless we shelve the whole TTC idea, that's all I can keep doing. I probably shouldn't even be running what I have been, even though the RE said it's fine since we've resorted to drugs, so attempting to train for something isn't really an option. And I can't even look forward to next year, since that's up in the air. Today I was thinking that I'm kind of mad because I have basically squandered all of the hard work I did last year. Last August, I was at my lowest weight and running my fastest and knocking out 50 mpw ... now I am flabby and struggle to run 5 miles at anything faster than 9:30/mi and hitting 26 mpw was a big accomplishment.
I'm obviously full of whine lately!
Here's some cute puppy from 2 weekends ago:
Molly in my car. She likes to alternate between laying down and trying to touch me with her nose, and sitting up and looking around. She hates getting into the car, but she loves going for a ride. Weird puppy. (Her leash buckles into the seatbelt, so she doesn't ride around untethered).
Molly at my parents' house. She had a great time playing with her ball; she didn't care that she was on a tie-out. She was confused by the green grass, though. We've never had grass like my parents' do.
May 27, 2007
Med-City Marathon 2007
No, I didn't run it - just volunteered. (I got a t-shirt + cookies!) Wow - what a great day for a marathon - under 50 at the start, and I don't think it got above 60 until past 5 hours in. Low wind, no humidity - I'm sad I didn't run at least the half because it was such great weather.
I helped at the track club's water stop (around 13.something and 15.4 miles). Again, I had a really good time. I got to meet a lot more of the track club members, who were all really nice. (I kind of dumbly showed up in shorts and a t-shirt, expecting better weather, and one of the ladies found an extra jacket for me to wear and offered gloves). It got to be a little bit of a zoo at parts since we only had tables for one side and runners were coming from both directions, but I think we managed okay.
This was the first year that they had a separate 1/2 marathon instead of a 2-person relay. I was thinking everyone seemed really spread out and that there didn't seem to be as many people as I remember from running the full 3 years ago and from watching the second half after running the first 1/2 of the relay 2 years ago. Then I realized, duh - all the people that would've been out doing the second 1/2 of the relay were now just running the separate race and therefore stopped before we ever saw them.
I'm not racing this year, since I'm so out of shape and in general I don't find it fun to "run" races. I am still going to enter the Women's Race and the JMM 5K because I love those races and want to keep my streak going (they are the only race streaks I have left), but in general I'm just too competitive and it's too hard to not race. (I'm already sad at having just looked at the race results for today and having seen that if I were in Chicago-shape, I could've been top 10 for the marathon and top 5 for the 1/2). But, I think I'm going to try and volunteer at some races this summer. It's been fun so far, I've gotten to meet some new people, and I'm past due to give back to the running community.
May 22, 2007
Murderer
For the last 2 months, we've had some birds that have been insisting on building nests under our deck. I guess Molly almost killing a bird last year wasn't enough to deter them from coming back this year. I've been knocking the nests down as I see them, most of them getting knocked down after just being started (so not really a nest). We were gone this past weekend, which I guess allowed a bird to actually finish a nest. I didn't realize that until I'd already knocked the nest loose:
*sigh* That's probably earned me the kind of karma I don't want right now.
May 17, 2007
Wind + Running Skirts
Tuesday: 57°F | From N 22mph gusting to 31 mph
1 | 8:59
2 | 9:08 | 18:08
3 | 8:40 | 26:49
4 | 8:43 | 35:32
-----------------------
4 miles w/Molly | 35:32 | 8:53/mi.
Wednesday: 59°F | From N 22mph gusting to 32 mph
1 | 9:25
2 | 9:11 | 18:37
3 | 9:03 | 27:40
4 | 8:55 | 36:36
5 | 8:38 | 45:14
6 | 8:35 | 53:49
7 | 8:52 | 62:41
8 | 8:43 | 71:25
-------------------------
8.06 miles | 1:11:55 | 8:55/mi.
Thursday: upper 60s | very low wind
1 | 9:15
2 | 9:07 | 18:23
3 | 9:16 | 27:39
4 | 9:22 | 37:01
---------------------
4.03 miles w/Molly | 37:17 | 9:15/mi.
The wind has been pretty rough here the last few days. I was very pleased to get a break from it today. Today's run was a little slow, partly due to some fatigue from yesterday's 8 but also because Molly was being slow and pokey - and it's very hard to run fast if you've got a 40 pound dog leashed to you that doesn't want to move faster. Yesterday's run was great; I really felt a lot more like myself. It's so funny to me ... I was nervous about taking the Clomid because of all the potential side effects, and yet not only have I not had any (well, I guess I had some hot flashes last weekend) but I'm suddenly running better than I have in months.
I wore my new running skirt today. I liked it more than I thought it would. I had thought the shorts liner (boy-short style liner instead of the brief style liner in normal running shorts) would be annoying, but it didn't creep up like I'd thought.
The best way to get Molly's attention is to have a Frisbee in your hand. She'll do just about anything if she thinks she'll get to play.
May 14, 2007
ABC Meme
It's too hot and windy to be outside today (90 degrees, 30 mph gusting to 36 mph), so I'm being lazy.
A- Attached or Single? Attached
B- Best Friend: The Engineer
C- Cake or Pie: Cake
D- Drink of Choice: Water
E- Essential Item You Use Everyday: My contacts - I hate glasses!
F- Favorite TV Show: (tie) Veronica Mars and How I Met Your Mother
G- Gummi Bears or Worms? Either is good, but I like sour ones best
H- Hometown: hmm ... I guess I'll claim Wildwood, MO
I - Instruments You Play: I used to play the clarinet
J- January or February: January is colder, but February has more snow - both suck. I hate winter.
K- Kids: If the Clomid works ...
L- Last place you ate: I come home for lunch everyday so that I can play with Molly
M- Marriage Date: July 18, 2003
N- Number of Siblings: 2 younger brothers
O- Oranges or Apples? Apples
P- Phobias/Fears: I hate bees - a bee chased Molly and me around the yard the other day and it was terrifying.
Q- Favorite Quote: "Even when you have gone as far as you can, and everything hurts, and you are staring at the specter of self-doubt, you can find a bit more strength deep inside you, if you look closely enough." - Hal Higdon
R- Reasons to smile: I'm only working a half-day on Friday
S- Season: Fall or Spring - we don't really get either one here, though
T- Tag Three: consider yourself tagged if you read this
U- Unknown Fact About Me: Last summer when I was running 50 mpw, I once ate 3 containers of Edy's Slow Churned ice cream in a week and didn't gain weight. That was awesome.
V-Vegetarian or Not: Lacto-ovo since June 1998
W- Worst Habit: Being too critical of myself.
X – X-rays or Ultrasounds? I just had an ultrasound last week, and I would've much rather had an x-ray.
Y- Your Favorite Foods: cookies, ice cream, apples, cereal, pasta
Z- Zodiac: Sagittarius
May 13, 2007
Fresh air
The wind changed direction after Friday, keeping the smoky air away. Yesterday was a really nice day, and I took Molly out with me in the morning. Apparently 57 degrees with sun is too warm, because she got tired again. At one point, she stopped and I thought she was going to "stop" but she just wanted to roll around in the grass. She was also trying to do "drive-by" weed eating. What a weird puppy.
57 degrees | From SSE 10 MPH
with Molly
1 | 9:14
2 | 9:20 | 18:35
3 | 9:23 | 27:58
4 | 9:15 | 37:14
----------------------
4 miles | 37:14 | 9:18/mi.
walk 1.05 miles | 15:48 | 15:03/mi.
Today was really windy:
I was going to just treadmill, but then I found my MP3 player wasn't charged and I didn't want to just watch TV. So I headed outside to brave the wind ... and it was rough. The first half was all in the wind, and then I got a 2.5 mile reprieve. The last mile had some wind, but it wasn't too bad until the very last part when I almost got knocked over. But overall - a very good run for me! I felt a lot more like myself today, for the first time in a really long while.
1 | 9:12
2 | 9:06 | 18:18
3 | 9:09 | 27:28
4 | 9:01 | 36:30
5 | 8:47 | 45:18
6 | 8:58 | 54:16
7 | 8:55 | 63:12
----------------------------
7.04 miles | 1:03:34 | 9:02/mi.
I didn't take Molly with me because I wanted to see how I would do on a long run without dragging along a 40-pound weight, and because she's not so much a fan of wind. I figured I would take her out for a walk or some Frisbee when I got back, but I didn't feel like walking in the wind and it was too windy for Frisbee. Luckily, I picked up some rubber balls at Target yesterday, so we played soccer instead. That was a lot of fun.
When I picked up my Clomid on Tuesday (from a very visibly pregnant pharmacist, nonetheless) I had some time to kill so I wandered around Target. I found that they had new running shorts in, so I picked up a pair. I really like them! The drawstring is on the outside, which is a little different. I also picked up a running skirt ... I've been semi-interested in them for awhile, but the $40+ price tags have been a strong deterrent. Target's version is only $19.99, so that's not too bad. I haven't tried it out yet, though.
May 11, 2007
Smokey Air
I had to return a book to the library today to avoid paying a late fee, so I decided to pack my stuff to change at work and then run from the lake after going to the library. I checked weather channel before I left, and saw a weird icon.
(I just print-screened that; it was more like 70-something when I ran + the picture was of the sun).
I went to the local newspaper site and learned that we're getting a lot of smoke from the fires going on in the boundary waters. Just for reference:
The fires are in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area; I live roughly 7-8 hours away in the area marked by the pink square.
Running wasn't horrible ... but it wasn't exactly pleasant, either. And because I'm a glutton for punishment, I even did 6 x 100m strides. Having not done strides in awhile, the first one was a little rough. But by the end of the set, they had gotten easier.
It's now gotten too hot here for me to run with Molly after work. I took her with me on Wednesday, when it was 78 and she just got too tired/warm. She tried to sit down at one point, so we came back to the house early and I finished my run on the treadmill. Running with her lately has been almost pleasant, so this is sad.
While looking at the local newspaper site, I saw that they had an article about running featuring 2 new moms and one mom-to-be. One of the new moms is one of runners Chad is following for the MDRA newsletter. The mom-to-be is one of the speedy girls from last summer and that ran 3:26 in Chicago. She's due at the end of July, meaning she got pregnant pretty much right after Chicago. It made me a little sad because at one time I'd hoped to have that happen ... and the whole "why me?" thing - she probably ran as much (if not more) than me, and she was smaller than I was ... blah blah!
I know I made a fuss last summer when I started blogging about this stuff that I wasn't going to talk about it on my blog, that this would stay a running blog. Obviously as things dragged on and on, and it started taking up more of my thoughts I did start blogging some. I've decided to not worry about boring people with it, because maybe someone will find it helpful or something to see that not every woman just *bam!* gets pregnant. I know when I see blogs or people IRL that make surprise announcements I tend to assume it was either an accident/oops/unplanned, or that it was easy for them. I had a train of thought here, but it seems to have run off so I'm going to move on.
We had the follow-up with the RE on Tuesday. The good news is that I don't have PCOS, I didn't have any structural abnormalities seen on ultrasound, and my hormone levels were all normal. (The hormone levels shot down my theory on why my running sucks). So what the RE thinks is that it's hypothalamic amenorrhea, except in my case it's oligomenorrhea. She outlined what our options are, and we decided to go with the simplest which is 5 days of Clomid. I want to see how that works out before adding more procedures and tests ... I want things to be simple. I'm thinking optimistically!
May 6, 2007
Volunteering
Yesterday was the local 15K, a race I've run the last 2 years. Since I wasn't going to run it this year, I decided to volunteer instead because, weather aside, I really like this race.
I had a pretty good time, and actually felt like a member of the track club. I guess this is something I should've done a long time ago! I got there about an hour before the race started, and helped with race day registration. Then I got to be a course marshal with 2 other women - our job was to keep the (often angry) golfers from driving out onto the road the runners use for the first 1/2 mile or so. After both the 15K and the 5K went off, I tried to help with cleaning up the registration area before moving to the finish line. There, I got to help with tearing the tags off bibs. Most of the time, this wasn't a hard job, but when a big group would come in it was tough to keep everyone in order. Luckily, the tags were the backup to the backup. (The race was chip timed, and they also had someone writing down the bib #s as they came across).
There was kind of a scary incident with the 15K. The 3rd finisher was dehydrated, I guess. As he came over the bridge, he was kind of weaving and his arms and legs were kind of bent and he was just running really weird. People starting shouting for him to just walk it in. He went down right around/on the finish line. He was carried off to side, and eventually was taken away in an ambulance. I hope he's okay ... one of the other guys suggested that maybe he had a cold or something, because yesterday wasn't the kind of day you think about people being dehydrated.
Because I'm socially challenged, I didn't get the names of everyone that I was helping with. But everyone was really nice and it was really a fun experience. After I got home, I e-mailed the track club president about helping out with the 12/14 mile water stop at Med-City. We're not going anywhere that weekend, and I won't be able to race so I might as well be helpful and maybe meet some more people!
Frustration (again)
I'm going to write a separate post about volunteering at the 15K yesterday (because that was fun, and this post is not), but watching the finish was kind of depressing because of how out of shape I am. I should've been racing yesterday - with the times I ran the last 2 years, I would've been 4th woman and would have had a good chance to finish 3rd.
I ran on the treadmill this morning, and surprisingly it was significantly easier than the running I've been doing outside with Molly. I ran for an hour, and didn't get the overwhelming tired feeling I've been getting outside. A sign of how bad it's been: on last weekend's 5 mile run, I actually stopped around 3.5 miles and sat down for a few seconds! I'm going to guess the big difference is that I have water on the treadmill (as I did in Hawaii, where I was able to run farther on a daily basis, even with the hills, than I have here) and I don't outside. Guess I'll have to try to run with the water bottle and the leash.
But water won't help with my motivation. I want to run, but at the same time, I'm so frustrated with lots of things, especially how slow and fat I feel, that I don't want to run. Which is dumb, because not running isn't going to help with either of those things.
Now that we're back from vacation, and starting to get back on schedule, I've started counting calories again. I have so many pairs of pants in my closet that are just mocking me because I can't wear them right now. And since the added weight isn't helping me out very well, why bother carrying it around when it just annoys me?
Things with the whole trying to conceive process suck ass. We had our appointment with the RE back in March, and it went fairly well. I had started feeling guilty beforehand about going in when it hadn't been so long, but then the RE said that it wasn't normal to have these long cycles and made it sounds as though I should be seeking help even if I wasn't trying to get pregnant. So that made me feel better. She set me up for cycle day 3 bloodwork, telling me to call when I started my next period. I was on CD42 at that point.
I just finally went in for my bloodwork today. While we were in Hawaii, I called on CD64 because my temperatures kept spiking up and then dropping down, and I was pretty confident that I wasn't going to ovulate and I was getting annoyed because every day that I stayed in cycle 4 was going to delay starting any kind of evaluation and treatment. She agreed this was odd, and called in a prescription for prometrium (progesterone) so that we could induce my period and get on with testing. And so after 79 days (!!) I finally moved onto cycle 5, but only because of artificial hormones. I kind of wonder how long things would've gone otherwise.
I'm honestly doing okay with the not being pregnant side of things. And it really isn't a terrible thing, financially, since every month I'm not pregnant is another month we can save money. What is really hard for me is that I feel like, once again, my body is failing me. But breaking down in a marathon is one thing - I can't even fucking get my period!
Once we get the blood results back, we might know more. Obviously something changed with my body while I was on the pill. I could have PCOS, although I lack a lot of the symptoms. Or it could be related to hypothalamic amenorrhea; she said it was possible that the only reason I had been getting a period was because of the weight I had gained. Of course, I now think that theory is shot to shit since I didn't really get a period, and I'd cut back on running, too, in the hopes that maybe fewer miles would help.
HA would be much harder to treat than PCOS, but I'll find out what the problem is and our options on Tuesday. I'm hoping it's something as "simple" as clomid, and not IUI/IVF because getting time away from work for that would be very difficult without everyone knowing what's going on. And while I've talked about some of this stuff with J, this isn't really something I want everyone to know about.