The Bad and the Ugly of a Driven Distance Runner

I guess there is no time like the present to write a new post.  Although, be warned that this may be one with a more pessimistic tune. I’m injured, I’m sad, and I’m getting fat.  That’s right folks. This is what happens when you take running 70 miles a week away from a girl.  Cranky pants.

It all started back in December with some aches and pains and a really shot pair of shoes.  Do not, I repeat, do NOT keep running in shoes that feel like they’re past their prime.  It was the first time I had ever felt pain in my achilles.  It seemed manageable, just an annoying little ache that would warm up after a couple miles, and I thought nothing of it.  I iced it after my runs and it wouldn’t bother me for a week until it flared up again.  It seemed to get sore after track workouts, and even got to the point where a nodule formed on the back of my achilles.  It hurt just to put my shoes on and walk, so I started getting Graston treatments and calf massages, and the Chiro advised me to cut back my mileage by 20% for the next 3 weeks.  Why is it so hard to listen?  I dropped my mileage the first week until I realized that it was friction from my shoes that was causing the pain, so I cut out the backs of all my shoes and continued running my usual mileage.

Things were going so well, as you might have read in my previous post.  I had a new training partner, I was running workouts that I didn’t even think we’re possible, and I felt like I was in the best shape of my life.  I had just finished my last tough week of training before the US 15k Championships’ Gate River Run in Jacksonville, FL, one of the most prestigious road races in the country, and couldn’t wait to test my fitness.

My view from the hotel in Jacksonville

It was the Monday before the race, and I had put on my shoes to go to school, but there was a strange soreness in my achilles that I hadn’t felt before.  The more I walked around, the worse it felt, so I took the day off to see if it was just a little freak thing that would go away.  It felt a little better the next day for my last tune-up workout on the track, but after the adrenaline wore off in the last interval or two, it got so sore, I couldn’t even finish a mile cool down.

I saw the Chiro again the next day (the same night that i was supposed to head to LA for my trip to Jax), who said that it was really inflamed but thought I would be fine to race on Saturday.  I tried to go for an easy 8 that evening, and couldn’t even get past 2.5 miles. I broke down and started crying, I was so broken and frustrated!  I slowly jogged/limped/walked back to my car.

The 15k Champs were going to be the first opportunity to race nationally with my Nike RunLA team.  I really didn’t want to let them down, so I did everything I could to race.  I stayed off my feet, iced every hour, massaged my calf, and just took it easy for two days leading up to race day.  Nike RunLA, has been so supportive and is the reason I am am able to travel all over the country and compete.  They believe in my ability, and I am forever grateful for all the gear that I receive and all the financial support they have given me.  They were so understanding about my injury and left it up to me to race or not.

Craig Virgin and me!!

I really, REALLY wanted to run this race.  The atmosphere was incredible, the very best runners in the country were racing, the race director, hotel, and everyone involved really pampered us and treated us like celebrities, and for the first time, I had a bib with my name on it!  It wasn’t until Friday afternoon, when I tried to run an easy 4, that I decided it wasn’t going to happen.  Every step was a painful burning sensation that felt like the tendon was just going to give at any moment.  A bummer indeed.  On a positive note, I met and chatted with one of the best American runners of all time, Craig Virgin, the night before the race, and the incredible race director, Richard Fannin, let me ride on the press truck to watch the race!

The press truck.

My last real run was the morning of that last workout on March 5.  Since then, I’ve been aqua jogging, biking, and using the elliptical every day.  I’ve gone to PT and the Chiro twice a week and have scoured the internet for answers and tried every exercise in the book.  I’ve tried to run twice since then but couldn’t get past 400 meters without that burning sensation coming back.  It really hasn’t improved much at all, so I went to see a Sports Doctor who finally told me to just shut it down for 3 weeks and wear a boot every step of the way.  Crap.

It’s a pretty anti-climactic story, but one that many runners go through and hopefully one that people can learn from; listen to your body and your doctors!!  There are so many things I could have done differently.  I should not have kept running in those old shoes.  I should have taken it easy back in December when this whole thing started.  I should have listened to the doc when he told me to cut back by 20% for those three weeks, and I probably wouldn’t be in this mess.

It’s been an emotional roller coaster.  I cannot tell you how much I despise the pool, and no matter how many different little workouts I come up with, I am bored to death and can’t bring myself to get in there again.  It’s been so long since I’ve gotten the endorphins that I get from running which has caused me to sink into a bit of a depression.  I feel tired, lethargic, and I’m taking more naps than I did when I was at the peak of my training.  I can’t stop eating (I will also always have a runner’s appetite) and have turned to chocolate and sweets to fill the void.  I haven’t stepped on a scale in over 3 weeks.  I know I’m burning calories in my cross training workouts, but I can feel myself putting on the pounds.  I would do anything to feel that exhaustion after a solid 15 miler or hard track workout again!!

Just me, my boot and Chai.

As much as I hate to admit this, one of the hardest things for me during an injury is to see others’ successes.  Isn’t that awful!?  I just know where I should be, and when I see other people running huge PR’s, I can’t help but feel envious.  I have this huge well of potential, and I have yet to tap into it.  In the 3.5 years I’ve been running, I have never had a healthy season, each year has been plagued by something different; thyroid trouble, anemia, celiac, last year’s tendinitis in my knee, and now this.  Some other stories of professionals coming off of injuries are so inspirational and encouraging, like Amy Yoder-Begley coming back to win the 2009 US Championships in the 10k.  The difference and fear that I feel is that these runners have such a bigger base under their belts, I worry I won’t be able to come back the way they did.

This past month has been so difficult already, taking 3 weeks to completely rest is going to be torture.  The last time I took this much time off was for my wedding and honeymoon last July.  It took me about 2 months to come back and feel like myself again.  It’s such a scary thing, not knowing how or when I’m finally going to heal.  What if it comes back when I finally start running again?  What if I’m never able to run again?  I feel like the only thing I can do is trust that the Lord has a solid plan for me.  It really sucks right now, but I’m sure I’ll be back in no time.  Until then, I want to take part in other runner’s successes and enjoy this sport as a spectator.  It will just fuel my desire to come back better and stronger and completely healed!  I’d love to hear your comments and stories of injuries that you’ve had and how you’ve overcome them!

I Love Being a Runner.

There’s nothing harder than being a long distance runner and training on your own.  When running all those miles by yourself, you can have the highest highs and just as easily have even lower lows.  I’ve experienced quite a bit of highs and lows over the past couple months, ranging from the euphoria of a great run, the addition of a new training partner, injuries, the disappointment of a bad race, and just the loneliness of a distance runner.  But it’s these triumphs and tribulations that make every step of the way worth all the effort.

photo by Mike Scott

My last race was in St. Louis a couple weeks ago, for the US Cross Country Championships, and though I wanted to write a post with the race still fresh in my mind, I had a lot of emotions to process before putting the words on paper (or a screen).  There is no better way to put it; I had a terrible day.  It shouldn’t have come as a big surprise.  Leading up to the race, I just wasn’t really prepared, and I had pretty much talked myself out of the race before the gun even went off.  In the weeks prior, I was checking the status of entries and counting each of the girls who I knew I couldn’t beat.  It’s not exactly motivating going into a race telling yourself that you CAN’T beat 30 people (at the very least).  On top of my neuroses, I was having trouble with my stomach, which I’m pretty sure had to do with the unintentional ingestion of gluten (grrr!!).  I knew my head wasn’t really in it when I was trying to talk my intestines into holding on a bit longer, and my main concern was the announcer and hearing what was going on in the lead pack!  Needless to say, it was an incredible experience, and what my dad said was a sort of “rite of passage.”  It was my first really big national race, and I placed 42nd out of the very best women in the country, so I can’t beat myself up too much about it, and I should actually be pretty happy considering the circumstances.

Some other little lows along the way have come from some nagging injuries here and there, a little sciatica and achilles tendonitis that won’t seem to go away.  Call me paranoid, neurotic, or a hypochondriac, I am not a happy camper when something holds me back or keeps me from running.  I feel so bad for my husband when I’m worried about some ache, pain, or twinge, because he has to endure the wrath of “injured Suzanne,” which is like “premenstrual Suzanne” on steroids.  It’s times like those that I really have to take a step back and realize what’s really important in life.  Running is so much more to me than a hobby or a sport, it’s who I am, but sometimes I have to remind myself that it isn’t everything.  I feel that getting injured is God’s way of helping me put things into perspective.  Once I let running grow into something too great, He puts me in my place.

Enough about the bad, let’s talk about the good.  Running is such beautiful sport.  It comes with great friendships and wonderful experiences.  I, of course, have been lacking in the former.  Since completing my eligibility at CSUSM, I’ve been training on my own, which happens to be one of the main themes of my blog.  It sucks.  Plain and simple.  The hardest days are the easy days when I’m just putting in mileage, and it is just so hard getting out the door.  Sometimes I drive to wherever I’m running that day, and I’ll sit in my car for 10 minutes while trying to talk myself up for the run.  It’s brutal.  Painful even.  Who likes running 15 miles by themselves?  Well, I do enjoy it sometimes…but the point is that I have been desperate to find some training partners.  I’ve talked with my coaches about it, and they agreed that finding a group or partner was the most important ingredient to taking my running to the next level.  There are only a few training groups in the country (why San Diego doesn’t have one is beyond me), but they’re located in random places that I just can’t see Tad and me moving to, Michigan, Minnesota, Flagstaff, Austin, etc.  So what on earth am I supposed to do?

My mom has always said, “The Lord works in mysterious ways!,” and that He did.  A couple weeks before my race in St. Louis, I had just about had enough.  I knew that I needed to find someone to run with and it had to happen soon.  I thought it would be nice to watch and cheer on a couple friends at the Carlsbad half/marathon.  I wanted to see my old friend from the NAIA, Lauren Jimison, and my new teammate, Lauren Kleppin, finish their races.  After Lauren’s race, she asked me to join her on her cooldown, which is where I met Brooks’ athlete, Natasha Labeaud, from San Diego.  Hallelujah, another elite athlete in San Diego!  Natasha is as sweet as can be and a beast on the track.  We’ve run a couple workouts together since meeting that day, and having a training buddy has renewed my love for running.  It’s amazing what I’ve been missing!  It is a world of difference just having someone there with you.  We ran a great workout on Thursday, one that I would not have been able to do on my own, and when we finished, it was one of the biggest highs I’ve had in a long time.  I felt so accomplished, proud, and grateful to be a runner.  I drove home and couldn’t stop thinking, “man, I freaking love being a runner.”

The next stop for me is Jacksonville, FL on March 9, for the USA 15k Championships “Gate River Run.”  For the second time, I will actually be traveling with Nike Team Run LA and competing as a team!  The depth of the field is even greater than it was in St. Louis, but I am excited this time!  I will not only have my teammates, but some of my friends to run with as well, including Lauren and Natasha.  The race is less than two weeks away, and I finally feel ready and confident in my ability.  Whatever the outcome, it will be an experience to learn from and remember, with incredible people who share my greatest passion.

Just run.

    When I tell people that I’m a runner, the number one question I am asked is, “so you do marathons?”  I have to laugh every time I hear this, because every single time I give my answer, their look of interest turns into disappointment, because I’m not as “legit” as they once thought.  A classmate asked me If I was running the San Diego Marathon a couple of months ago, and when I told him that I specialize in the 5k and 10k, his response was, “Oh!  I thought you were, like, a REAL runner!”  The sad part was that he was totally serious!  

    This is my first year as a professional runner, and though I don’t do marathons (yet!), I still work really hard and am faced with the same obstacles.  Every day, week, month, I ask myself what can I do to get better?  How long will it take to reach my full potential?  What kind of training philosophy should I follow?  How many miles a week should I run?  Will living at altitude be beneficial?  Neutral or stability?  Speed or strength work?  This past month or so, I’ve been asking myself these questions.  I truly believe in my ability, and I want to do whatever it takes for me to achieve my goals.  There are so many gifted runners out there, but the ones who are most successful are the ones who give it everything, they don’t just go halfway.

    I’ve been trying to figure these things out, and I have quite a few big decisions to make (stay tuned!), but in the mean time, I’m going to keep doing what I love, and just run.  When I started running three years ago, I was immediately hooked (obsessed) with the sport, but I had so many thoughts in my head and would always overanalyze my training, races, and progression.  I realized one day that I just needed to go out and run.  No worries, no fears, just run.  I even got a tattoo on my foot as a reminder that reads, “run.”  Period.  I experienced that euphoria on my run this morning where I wasn’t worried about my pace, I wasn’t thinking about next weekend’s race, and I ignored the agonizing pain on my achilles and the bloodied blister from the dirt on my wet sock.  Suddenly all of my stresses about the future left me, and it was just the road, the rain, and me in that present moment.  What a beautiful feeling.  

While the Rest of the Country Watches Football, I Write About Bread.

In order to run my best and stay healthy, it is essential that I eat completely gluten free (GF).  I have been GF for 4 months now, with the exception of an accidental bite of a wheat bread sandwich that I made for my sister-in-law (sometimes you completely forget!), and the Odwalla Superfood juice that I pounded after my run (who knew it was loaded with wheat?!), but I’ve now grown accustomed to being that annoying guest at a dinner party and obnoxious patron at a restaurant who asks any and all questions about ingredients.  That’s me.

So, what’s the most difficult thing about being GF, you ask?  Finding a tasty bread!  Oh, how I miss the days of eating soft, deliciously moist bread with flavor!  The only decent bread that I’ve found in stores is Udi’s, but it’s almost $5 for a tiny loaf, and it’s usually not very fresh on the shelves at Trader Joe’s.  I decided to put my baking skills to the test (which are pretty much non-existent, except for some boxed brownies) and make my own bread!

I’ve done a ton of reading about the different ingredients, the best flours to use, etc., and bought about 5 lbs. of sorghum flour.  After searching for a simple recipe, none of them called for sorghum flour, so I now have a huge box sitting in the pantry.  I went to Jimbo’s Natural Food stores, and luckily, they had all of the ingredients I needed for my first loaf of GF bread!  Here’s what I needed:

2 cups brown rice flour

2/3 cup potato starch

1/3 cup tapioca starch

3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 teaspoons xanthan gum

1 cup warm milk

1/4 cup butter, softened to room temperature

3 large eggs

1 creepy husband to take pictures

 

The recipe is really simple and can be found here.  All you have to do is mix the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl then slowly mix in the warm milk with a mixer.  Then you can add each egg, one at a time, until it is completely mixed.  Cover the bowl with a light towel and let it sit for 90 minutes while the yeast causes the dough to rise.  Go sit out in the hot tub with your husband and some wine, then come back in to play with your cat.  Stir the dough a little bit and pour into your lightly buttered bread pan.  Cover again with a light towel and let sit for another 60-90 minutes.  The dough should rise just above the rim of the pan, and it is now ready to be placed in the 350 degree oven for 25 minutes until it is lightly browned.  Remove the bread from the pan immediately and place on a cooling rack.  Do not slice until the bread is completely cool.  Voila!  You now have a delicious, soft, moist loaf of versatile gluten-free bread!  Yum!

Here are some pictures of my first bread-baking experience!

 

 

It’s really important to spoon in your ingredients when measuring.  Some of these flours and starches have really interesting textures and consistencies, so make sure not to add more than you need.

 And this is what happens when you give your husband the camera…

 In the last step of your mixing, mix at high speed for 3 minutes to create air in the dough for a more fluffy loaf.

 My little love bug, Chai.

 Make sure to smooth out the top with your wet rubber scraper or finger.

 This was my dough after 90 minutes.  It didn’t rise too much because my husband insists on keeping our home at 65 degrees!  I will be sure to turn up the heat next time!

 I’m thankful that it did a little more rising in the oven!  It smells delicious!

It can be sliced very thin!

This bread is so yummy!  I am looking forward to making my first sandwich with it this afternoon.  There are a couple things that I would like to experiment with.  I used salted butter, but I think I’ll use the unsalted next time.  I’ve also heard that club soda or even GF beer is a key ingredient to really fluffy bread.  I will definitely turn up the heat so the yeast can rise a little bit more.  Other than that, this bread is the best I’ve tasted!  I can’t wait to search for some new recipes and play around more!  It’s definitely worth it!!  Stay tuned for more recipes!

A (not so)Quick Recap!

I absolutely love the months of November and December.  It’s a time of reflection, spending time with family, gearing up for new goals for the new year, and cross country championships!  I have had the most incredibly challenging and rewarding last couple of months, and I am hungrier than ever to achieve my goals.

After my race at Stanford, I changed some of my goals, which helped to take some of the pressure off for the season.  My happy place for mileage has been 65 miles a week, where I am finally comfortable doing good quality runs.  Last month, I ran my first “professional” race at the USATF Southern California Association XC Championships.  Though the field consisted of only 10 women or so, I won the race and $500.  It was really exciting, and I finally feel like a pro!

On November 18, Nike Team Run LA and I traveled to San Francisco for the Pacific Association XC Championships at Golden Gate park.  After my previous two races, one which consisted of running up a mountain (yes, a mountain), and another on a course known as “ankle-breaker,” I was ready for some real cross country!  It was a beautiful day, and we couldn’t have asked for better conditions.  There were 200 women in my race, and I was running against some really tough competition, including one of my good friends from the NAIA, Lauren Jimison, so I was definitely feeling nervous!

As soon as the gun went off, I was feeling good, no…I was feeling great!  It was just the kind of course I like, rolling on hard-packed dirt.  I felt really strong and finished in third place, 25 seconds behind the winner, professional runner Magdalena Lewy Boulet.  We did really well as a team, only losing to New Balance Silicon Valley by 3 points!  This is exactly what I needed to build my confidence before heading to Club Nationals in Kentucky.

Last weekend, I traveled to Lexington, KY for the USATF National Club Cross Country Championships.  I would be competing against some of the best women in the country for a spot on a US team to compete internationally in Scotland and Jamaica.  The top 10 are most likely to go, but anyone in the top 25 has a chance of going if someone declines. 

I traveled completely on my own and left the morning before the race.  In retrospect, traveling the day before a championship race was not the best idea, but it was actually a seamless day of travel.  Lexington was good and rainy, ideal for some sloppy conditions.  As soon as I got to the hotel, I had to lace up and do my pre-race run with some strides.  I headed over to the host hotel to pick up my race packet and eat dinner, and the restaurant was extremely accommodating and fixed me some delicious homemade gluten-free pasta.  Yum!  I was in bed by 9, although I didn’t fall asleep until almost 1 am.

photo by Mike Scott

This has been quite a build-up, so I’ll get to the point already.  Everything had gone perfectly.  There was no reason why I was to do poorly.  Naturally, this made me even more nervous, but I knew I had done everything I could to have a good race.  This was it.  The course was definitely intimidating.  It consisted of long grass, hills, and was good and muddy after days of rain and the two races before us.  This was cross country.

photo by Mike Scott

The gun went off, and my legs didn’t feel good, but I didn’t fly all the way to Kentucky to give in to pain.  I toughed it out and worked my way up to 16th place.  I finished the 6k course in 20:58, 57 seconds slower than the winner.  I ran as hard as I could and am extremely pleased with where I finished.  After these last two races, I know that I can run with some of the women who I have looked up to.  I am so hungry and motivated, and I am that much closer to reaching my goals.

After an extremely long couple of weeks, I am on my 4th day of complete rest.  I finished up my semester yesterday and sat on the couch all day today and did absolutely nothing.  It was glorious!  I am taking a week off to let my body recover and repair itself and maybe even gain a few pounds. The following two weeks will be used to slowly build up mileage again.  My next race will be on February 2nd in St. Louis for the USA Cross Country Championships.  My goal is to be in the top 15 with a chance of possibly making the World Cross Country team.

Sometimes I think the hardest thing about being a runner is living in the moment.  We are always so focused on the next race, the next workout, or the next season.  I am so excited about where I am headed, that I sometimes forget to focus on the present and enjoy the journey that I’m on.  Every run is a gift, and I am so incredibly thankful for the blessings the Lord has bestowed upon me.  I am going to take the next few weeks to really soak it all in, reflect, and spend some quality time with Tad and the rest of my family.  It’s hard to believe that Christmas is just around the corner!  We haven’t even gotten a tree! 

Trust Your Gut

After two really difficult months of training, I’ve decided to shake things up a little bit.  I’ve successfully increased my mileage and have been averaging between 65-75 miles per week, but I’m beginning to realize that the goals I set for myself for this season may be on the unobtainable side.  In these last two months, I’ve gotten two races under my belt, have spent way too much time in doctors’ offices and have come to many conclusions as well as a few epiphanies about my future plans.

Let’s start with the good news.  My upper endoscopy biopsy results came back negative but showed that I have chronic inflammation in my gut.  This was good and bad news, because I was really hoping for some answers but instead was told that I have gastritis.  Tell me something I don’t know…  I wasn’t happy with the doctor there, so I didn’t go back for a follow-up and requested to see the results for myself and was able to get a picture of my insides!  After obscene amounts of time researching Celiac disease and studying and comparing my results to those online, it is clear to me that I’ve got the disease! 

With my new self-diagnosis, I have been off of gluten for a month now, and I can’t even begin to describe my excitement!  My symptoms are improving everyday, and I am so sorry I hadn’t tried this sooner.  For three solid years, I have been training with symptoms so severe, that I’ve almost gone to the ER a few times, the only thing holding me back was my lack of health insurance!  I have been unable to finish workouts or even daily training runs without getting sick and having to stop for several bathroom breaks.  It was at its worst after my races when I would have to lie on the couch in the fetal position and rock back and forth to ease the stomach pain.  I have successfully run several workouts and two races pain-free, and my pit-stops are becoming more and more seldom and are no longer “emergency situations.”  My endocrinologist said that once my gut starts to heal, my body will even respond better to my thyroid meds, and I will also be able to absorb my vitamins and other supplements like iron much better.  This should really help with my anemia as well!

 Now that I’ve got some things figured out with my health, I now have to make some revisions to the goals I set at the beginning of the season.  I’m coming back much slower from my break over the summer than I intended to, and I’m just not where I want to be.  I’m pleased with how my races have gone, but it’s definitely not where I should be.  I felt pretty good at Riverside but felt the typical first race syndrome where my legs wouldn’t go any faster.  I finished in 6th place with a time of 20:52 for the 6k course.  It was my first time running with the girls from Team Run LA, and it felt so good to run with a team again!  Our top 3 girls were all within 7 seconds of each other and we tied for 2nd place as a team!

Last week, Carol and I traveled up to Palo Alto for the Stanford Invitational.  It was kind of a disappointing day for both of us, but we had a lot of fun.  The atmosphere was unbelievable.  There were over 4,000 runners there!  Looking at the times from last year, I was expecting the course to be really fast and was expecting a PR.  It was on a golf course and was nice and rolling, just how I like it, but the course was really muddy especially around the turns.  I never quite got my rhythm, and I was running in no-man’s-land for half the race, but I finished in 12th place with a time of 21:24, over a minute behind the winner.  That’s what upsets me the most.  There’s nothing more humbling than being beaten by over a minute.

After Stanford, I’ve come to the realization that this season is not going to be what I wanted it to be, and that’s OK!  I’m feeling like I need to start over and just build my base instead of worrying about peaking at the right time for cross country.  My focus has been shifted to the track, and from this point on, I’m not going to get caught up with times, places, and paces.  I’ll continue to run some races just to keep things interesting and get my legs moving, but I’m not going to dwell on what could have been.  Another huge epiphany that I had just the other day, is that I’ve got to start cross training and building strength in the gym.  For the past 6 months, all I’ve been doing is running.  I’ve stopped doing drills, push-ups, and core-strengthening.  It’s no wonder I’m not getting stronger.  Yesterday, Carol wrote me a workout plan for the gym that I’m really excited about incorporating into my training!

I can’t be too hard on myself.  This has been a season of adjustment.  I’m transitioning as a post-collegiate runner and a wife!  Last year, I had a team to push me and hold me accountable, but now it’s just me.  This is a change that’s going to take some getting used to.  I felt it on the line at Stanford.  I had no team counting on me, no teammates to push me during the race, and no adrenaline.  It was just me out there.  It was weird.  Being a wife has also been a transition.  Before, I was living by myself, I had my own schedule, and I was able to come home and do whatever I wanted to relax, but now I’ve got a hubby to please and take care of.  As a runner, it’s so easy to become selfish and have this “everything revolves around my needs and my schedule” attitude, and that’s something that I’ve really had to work on. 

Things are really starting to look up.  I’m happy in love, my health is improving, and I’m content with my new training goals.  Tad and I are heading up to San Francisco this weekend for a race at the Bronco Invitational in Santa Clara on Saturday.  There will be some good competition there, and it will be my first 5k of the season and my first time racing my teammates from Cal State.  I’m so excited and am really looking forward to feeling that adrenaline again!  Tad will be running the Danville Primo half-marathon on Sunday, and I am so thrilled to be the one cheering him on! 

Revised Goals:
1) Strength training and cross training – I’m starting out with 2 workouts in the gym a week.  Depending on my racing schedule, I might go to 3.  One day a week of cross training – bike/aquajogging.
2) Maintain/increase mileage to 75-85 miles per week – Start running longer runs of 8-10 miles instead of longer doubles.
3) Do more races with Nike Team – main focus on Championship races.
4) Train smart – ice baths, more stretching, drink more water.

When Things Get Tough…

It’s been a little over a month since my first post, and what a month it has been!  If I finish these next two days as planned, I will have logged 70 miles this week, the most I have ever run.  Ever.  So, it’s all very exciting, right?!  No, no it’s not.  Haha!  It’s been a terrible month for me, but I’m really trying to stay positive!!

First of all, I turned 28 a week ago.  I can’t believe I am now 10 years older than the incoming freshman on my team!  Still being a baby in this sport, it’s hard not to think of another year gone as one less year I have to compete (when did I become such a pessimist?).  I’m at the prime age for running, but I have so much to do and so little time!  This wouldn’t be an issue if my biological clock weren’t ticking!  I’m so anxious to accomplish my goals but somehow must find a way to do so before it’s too late to start a family.  So, there you have it, my clock is ticking, and I’m feeling the pressure.

Another ongoing issue that I’ve been dealing with since I started running is severe stomach pain and what I call an “emergency situation,” where I have to find a bathroom right away.  I’ll spare you the deets, but it’s very unpleasant, and I usually can’t go for a run longer than 30 minutes without having a few bathroom breaks.  The worst is after my races or running high intensity workouts when I’m doubled over in pain for hours after the activity.  It’s such an awful feeling and something that I’m now realizing is not normal, so I’m trying to figure out what the problem is and make sure I’m not doing any permanent damage to my organs.

 After reading an article that one of my teammates had sent to me about professional runner Amy Yoder-Begley and her struggles with Celiac Disease (an autoimmune disorder that attacks the intestine when wheat/gluten is ingested), I was convinced that I had Celiac!!!  I shared all the same symptoms as she did, so I saw a GI who said that it sounded like I had it.  I went in for an upper endoscopy and biopsy the next day (my birthday!) and am still awaiting my results.  They’ve got the results of my biopsy but are holding them hostage until I can come in for a follow-up appointment.  What a racket!  I’ve decided that no matter what the results, I’m going gluten-free to see if it helps with my stomach problems.

Go, Amy!!!

 Along with my stomach troubles and depression over turning one year older, my training has not been going well.  I’ve been extremely fatigued, and my workouts have been horrendous.  It’s so hard as a runner to deal with hard times during training without feeling like your career is over or that you’ve got some terminal illness (or maybe that’s just me and my hypochondria talking).  It’s been a chore getting out the door, and I feel so awful, I’m convinced my thyroid is broken, that I’ve got some form of cancer (this is seriously how my mind works), or that I’ve already peaked and have hit the downward spiral.  Either that, or I’m just a little over-trained. 

When I started to increase my mileage, I told myself that I had to first increase the quantity, and then I’d work on the quality of my mileage.  This, however, is not an easy task for someone like me, who chooses to hammer every single run without even realizing it.  Perhaps I tried to do too much too soon and have been trying to make things happen.  I have to realize that it’s going to take some time to get back to the way I felt during track season after taking a month off.  Patience is a virtue.

Tomorrow will be my first race of the season, and I have no idea what to expect.  Usually the first race is always my favorite, because you go into it with no expectations, but with all of these negative thoughts looming over my head, I just want to finish the race without embarrassing myself.  Haha, talk about confidence, right?!  I’m trying to go into it with the attitude that I will accept whatever the outcome may be, but the competitor in me won’t be happy unless I win.  My realistic goal is to finish in the top ten.  It’s the first race, so I know my legs are in for a shock when we hit that first mile in 5:15.  I’m still really excited and am looking forward to my first race with my new teammates of Nike Team Run LA! 

I know things are really tough right now, and I’m definitely going through an adjustment of not being on my college team anymore.  I do 90% of my runs on my own, and that’s a really long time to be pounding the pavement by yourself.  Your thoughts start to consume you, and sometimes it’s really hard to think positively.  Things will get better, they just take time.  I take comfort knowing that every runner feels this way once in a while, and things always seem to work out.  It’s times like these that I have to remind myself why I do what I do.  It’s the achievements that come after these struggles that make everything worth it.