Blah Blah Blah! Fat Chicken!

I'm not really sure where to start. For the last two weeks I have not felt like myself. I'll readily concede that stress definitely has something to do with it, but come on! I can't sleep, I hardly want to eat and I hurt ALL the time. My lower back, hip and neck stay locked in a battle for my attention and they cause me great pain in the process. In spite of my efforts lately I also feel like a puffy chicken! That's the only image that comes to mind when I put my clothes on in the mornings. I jiggle and bounce in all the wrong places and I'm inclined to waddle and cluck just to see if I'll sprout feathers and lay an egg!

For most of my life I've considered myself a pretty healthy eater. I don't turn my nose up at too much and when I've found myself in a greasy food rut I quickly pull myself out of it. I love fruits and vegetables (veggies especially) and eat only small portions of meat, though I dearly love fresh fish and other types of seafood. I have a sweet tooth but have gotten better about shelving it when necessary. I don't eat a lot of foods packaged in cardboard (mostly cereal and pastas, and I'm sooo not giving up Kraft Mac n' Cheese) and I try to stay away from canned anything these days, except for tuna! So I feel like I have the food part nailed down. I'm always interested in healthy alternatives for things but try to take what I read and hear with a grain of salt. I'm a fairly "middle of the road" kinda gal and think that you can find research to support whatever fad you might come across. You have to try things and trust your body to let you know what's working and not working for you. All this being said, the food seems to be the only thing I have a firm grasp on. And that's not really helping me at the moment...

I'm terribly dissatisfied with my body and have been since my son was born, TEN years ago! Having children does strange things to your body and you're never quite the same afterwards. I'm at a healthy weight and my bmi is just fine, but my saddle bags and jiggly muffin tops would have to disagree with that "just fine" part. I hurt somewhere all the time. It keeps me awake or wakes me up most nights. I've been to a chiropractor a good bit and I'll be ok, eventually but in the meanwhile I have to suffer. There's really nothing apart from icing that can relieve the pain at this point. And I despise pain killers so that's out. I have the best intentions to eat well lately and usually don't fnd the time or inclination until around 1 or 2 pm and then it's only something like a tomato or peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat. And I don't eat again until supper and even then I don't eat very much, but fortunately this trend has only been the last couple of weeks and isn't something I've ever done for any extended period of time. I suppose I added that part so that I don't look completely nuts and you don't start to think I have an eating disorder or something. Who knows? I just know I feel like shit and my running is suffering for it. I have great plans to run a half marathon in the fall and a marathon in January of 2011. But if something doesn't change soon I'll never be able to keep up the rigorous training I'll need to get those things accomplished.

I need a change. A shift. A pull in some direction other than the one I'm heading in. It's so hard to take control of anything when you're tired and in pain. I constantly tell myself that I'll start or even finish things when I get enough rest and can concentrate on doing them. I get up every day with the intention of taking a nap at some point (it seldom happens). And I want to be more active but I have physical limitations (i.e. my frickin' spine) that I have to abide by or else I'll suffer the even more painful consequences.

And there you have it! I'm in a rut. A mental rut, a physical rut, a body rut. A life rut! Even as I type this out my lower back is reminding me that I've been in this chair for too long and is punishing me with small, shocking twinges. I'm sure I'll figure it out and that things will get better and that like everything else in life, "this too shall pass". But for now I just want to whine and feel sorry for myself... and feel hopeless. Great things are apparantly born from desperation so we'll see how desperate I get eh? In the meanwhile I guess I'll just cluck!

For the entirety of the past week I have felt like... crap. I haven't been abe to sleep well. Something startles me awake on a regular basis now days it seems and when I wake up I'm unable to go back to sleep because my neck and/or my shoulder hurt. I've been seeing a chiropractor but it's a very slow progression toward healing. During the day I've been unbelievably tired (and a bit lazy - especially with the housework) and have not been taking care of myself or my family's dietary needs. And when I don't eat properly I of course feel more... crappy. I haven't eaten a lot of junk really, I just haven't taken in enough calories and I've eaten pretty late several times this week. It's been sort of a vicious cycle that I plan to abort this weekend. I WILL take this problem head on come Sunday evening becase I. AM. A. WINNER! Right? Right. Anyway, in spite of the obvious challenges this week I've still managed to run consistently, although I know I could have done better if I had felt better and taken better care of myself. My total for this week was 9.7 miles. Part of what has kept me going has been running with my best friend, Jennifer. We help to keep one another accountable, motivated and competitive. Because we live about 15 minutes apart (with not much but empty roads and uneven highway between us) running together in my territory or hers has been a welcome change of pace and scenery. Yesterday evening was by far my best run of the week. The first mile was not as bad as it normally is, probably because we'd just had a storm and the temperature at 7:00 pm was only around 80 degrees so the humidity was a bit kinder to us as a result. The second mile was slightly harder because of the lengthy inclines and buckling pavement in one of the neglected streets we ran. But when we rounded the corner of the main highway that leads back to my house I felt rejuvenated and ready for more. As we made our way past the tiny community college on our left I began to see the end in sight. For the last .3 of a mile I picked up my pace and held it steadily all the way to the lamp post in my driveway. I felt amazing! It was just the boost I needed to cast off this miserable week. If there had been a banner to break I would have broken it and dubbed myself THE WINNER! I wanted a trophy, a ribbon, applause, a parade! Instead, my son brought us two big cups of water because Jennifer and I were unable to move out of my driveway for a bit. We managed to cool down and stretch, which is my favorite part, and I spent the rest of my evening basking in the tiny glory of knowing I was ready to do more.

At first I thought that running was about the small, measurable victories. I thought I could measure success in distance or time but last night was different. I didn't run the fartheset I'd ever ran or even make the best time I could possibly make. What made it special was that my body let me know I was again, ready for more. If I continued to work hard my body would reward me. Victory isn't in how far you run or how long it takes you to get there, it's in you. And it's those moments that make me want to take a week like the one I've had and leave it in the dust. I want to shake off the grime that a lack of sleep and poor diet covers me in and move forward. Finding and keeping motivation is WINNING! And if you can find a giant, cheesey, motivational poster to pin on your wall, well that is fabulous!

I Began...

I've never, I repeat never, run more than two miles in my life and the last time I can recall doing that was when I was in the seventh grade and I'm still not certain if I actually ran the full two miles or not. I've always enjoyed exercise though I've not been fanatical about it. I usually muster up some motivation to exercise consistently in the Spring and it subsides by the time the dog days of summer steam roll into southern Georgia. For some reason however, this year has been a little different. Like many people I lost my job in 2009 (not that it was all that fantastic to begin with). I've been taking care of my home, my husband, my children, the plants and my animals ever since. My husband's career provides for our family solidly and so for that we are always very grateful. A couple of months ago a friend on Facebook asked for volunteers who might consider running a marathon with her in January 2011. Under normal circumstances my reaction would have been, "...she's insane and no way in hell". But on that particular day the Earth tilted, or spun an extra spin or perhaps it stopped cold. Whatever it did propelled me to volunteer before I had a chance to talk myself out of it, or really even give it serious thought for that matter. My husband, children (ages 12 and 9) and myself had been walking for an hour in the evenings for approximately a month at that time and I was feeling a bit more motivated than usual. When I started running I would jog for a bit and then walk back to my family on the sidewalk, walk with them a bit more and then repeat that process several times. I couldn't run any significant distance and so it was of no great consequence to my body... yet. After a couple of weeks my knees and ankles hurt so badly that I would have to rest for three to four days at a time before I could run again. By that point I was running half mile increments and was beginning to believe I'd be in excruciating pain for the duration of my running experience. I had searched the net many times over looking for someone with similar experiences and could find nothing. Finally the injury I sustained in my left knee kept me bed ridden for more than a day and off the sidewalk for over a week. I had sunk into a mental hole of desperation and self pity and believed I was simply "not meant to be a runner". And then one morning I happened to catch an episode of Real Sports on HBO (a show that I never watch - EVER) and saw that the feature that day was on 'barefoot running'. The guest, author of Born to Run, Christopher McDougall brought up an interesting point. He stated that there has never been any scientific research to suggest that the expensive running shoes we've been trained to buy for the last forty years, have ever done anything to prevent injury to runners. His suggestion was that the human foot, complex and expertly designed was built to land in a way that would cushion our bodies and especially our joints so that we did not naturally succumb to injury. I was so intrigued by this blessed show that I knew I must try it for myself, this running barefoot; However I don't walk around my house barefoot so I knew that attempting to run on naked feet was not really an option for me. So I plundered through my closet and came across a pair of cheap Sand & Sun water wading shoes I'd purchased at Wal Mart two years ago. They have flimsy pliable soles and provided just enough protection for the soles of my feet that I knew they'd be just the ticket. That evening I fastened the velcro on my otherwise meaningless water shoes and ran one mile. It was a different experience for sure. But the real test came the next morning when I awoke and placed my feet on the floor. Since I began this journey I had never, up to that point, been able to walk without pain and extreme stiffness upon waking in the morning. But the morning after my water wading shoe run I placed my feet on the floor and moved around effortlessly. I felt no pain! And I haven't looked back at my Asics since. I still experience sore, achy muscles and a little tenderness in my ankles but nothing other than discomfort. There is no intense, bone shocking, joint grinding pain associated with my runs any longer. I'm now running an average of 4 days a week and about 8-10 miles per week. I still have much to learn and many struggles ahead of me but not a day goes by that I'm not unbelievably grateful I saw that episode of Real Sports. I found a key to a small success. And so far that's what this journey has been about, finding the little things, small keys that unlock the seemingly small doors that lead to the small successes.