the 2012 running recap.

are we really starting a new year already?? we probably all say this every year but, seriously 2012 flew by! there were a lot of really great ups and some definite downs. thank goodness running has been there through it all for me. it keeps me sane!

january~82 miles.

my mom and i returned to disneyland for the inagural tinkerbell 1/2 marathon!! oh man it was awesome and we seriously had a blast. that race also completed my 3 races in 16 weeks and i can successfully say i rocked it:) i probably should have taken a little break after this, but sometimes im a little crazy hehe.

feburary~45 miles.

the color run made its way to las vegas and it was awesome!! the funnest 5k i have ever run. also, remember that im a little crazy and decided to let the cat out of the bag about my next big training adventure...a triathlon!!

march~56 miles.

with one month out from rage i was starting to panic and found out how some people will always try and tear you down no matter what. but then had the most amazing distraction ever, a trip across the pond for nate and katies wedding!!! i officially became an international runner and got to do a running tour around london with a guide. seriously one of the coolest things ever.

april~43 miles.

in my normal, i like to overschedule myself for everything, 2 really fun things happened in the same month. i became a TRIATHELTE and a WARRIOR!! ps my running mileage is low because i was so friggin busy with the swimming and the biking:)

may~56 miles.

finally able to breathe for the 1st time all year i was able to look at the rest of my year and a few things came about. #1 my 3 year runniversary! #2 i won the lottery and got into the nike womens 1/2 marathon! #3 all this craziness really caught up with me and i went into a serious funk. i should have known it would eventually, it just really did kick my butt hard.

june~84 miles.

and just like that i kicked that little depressions ass, on national running day no less! everything is just right in the world when i am training for something and once i realized that i hopped back into it quickly. i signed up for the et 1/2 marathon that happens right outside area 51 at midnight! did i mention im scared of the dark??

july~81 miles.

i finally signed up for a 5k on 4th of july! and the olympics started. i mean if that isnt serious motivation, i dont know what is. those athletes from every country are amazing!! plus i started to see a nutritionist. i had been running for 3 years and hadnt lost a single pound. inches yes, pounds no. so after a disatourus happy hour (mostly in my own head) i took back the power and started seeing joanie. one of the best decision of my life.

august~75 miles.

half #8 in the books! plus i didnt get kidnapped by the aliens while running in the dark. i also began seeing a physical thearpist. after changing shoes i started having pain in the back of my knees so i went to the dr for help. later that week i sat in rons office and he said he could fix me in 9 visits. he did so much more for my entire running life! plus the official training for #nwm started. my dream race was finally happening!!

september~73 miles.

my 27th birthday was a blast with a staycation here in vegas! #nwm training was in full swing and i was actually able to reveal the results from joanie...
18 pounds lost!
44 inches gone!
10% body fat to never be seen again!

october~82 miles.

dream race complete!!! my parents, jessica, richard, and i headed up to san francisco for an amazing weekend full of adventure and ultimately would finalize a big life decision for me. we had a blast in the city and i am so glad my parents and jessica came! this was also the month i ended my 3 and a 1/2 year relationship and became a half fanatic! wow thats a lot of ups and downs.

november~73 miles.

in continuing my trend of ups and downs i finally got to complete a ragnar race with 2 amazing vans of girls!! i have been waiting years to complete and it was everything i was hoping it to be. then i headed back into a little bit of a funk. the heartbreak really set in and some days i just couldnt pull myself out of bed for a run or much of anything. luckily i was a very busy girl of course and got to be surrounded by lots of family and we continued our turkey trot tradition!

december~101 miles. 

what a way to end the year, my first 100 mile month ever on new years eve with my runner group friends!!! it finally got be to winter around here plus i got to see my ragnar teammates at the ugly sweater run in downtown vegas.

2012~851 miles run. 

wow!! i did not think it would get that high or that did so many things throughout the year. and this year went so, so fast. i cant wait to see what 2013 has to offer!!

the breakup.

i have been dreading writing this post for awhile, probably why i havent done it yet. i have also been a little mia lately because of this posts title. mostly ive been trying to hide in my bubble and let myself at least try to start the healing process. but eventually i have to come out of that and face the realizations of all of this. last saturday richard and i broke up. 

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it was my choice, i am the one that said the words and made my decision to walk away from it all. that doesnt make any of this hurt less or easier because i said those words. in the end we were just going in two different directions. three years of love, memories, and emotion dont just go away overnight. we are both still trying to figure out our next moves. luckily our lease was up so we are able to walk away from the apartment without having to break a contract. i have decided to move home with my parents, who graciously opened their arms and said of course.

i am still wading through a lot of my own emotions and most days are still a roller coaster filled with all of them. i have been truly blessed with an amazing amount of support from everyone around me. they say time will heal, and im sure theyre right. but right now im letting myself wallow when i want to and be sad when it hits me, which it does, often. ps breaking up with someone the week of a race is not a good idea for your psyche. you think taper madness is bad? add a breakup in there, not a good combo (more on that later). 

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i know i made the right decision and one day when all of this is past, ill see it. for now im going to ride the breakup train and whatever emotion will hit me next. stick with me my friends, this blog will still be filled with love, just a different kind going forward.

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its my turn to take back the power.

for most of my life ive kept 2 things inside pretty well. the first not totally being comfortable in my own skin and second my knee pain. now let me clear somethings up. this is not a pity party or in no way am i fishing for nice compliments. this is simply my story and how i finally took charge of my own body issues!

i am comfortable with who i am, amazingly grateful for the people in my life and for the things i am able to do on a daily basis. but somehow i have managed to surround myself with beautifully skinny girls (who i wouldnt trade for the world) and just dont feel 100% comfortable all the time. i in no way feel overweight, i just dont want to be the heavy girl at the 5k anymore for example. i want to be able to go to any store and not worry about them having my jeans size. or have people look at me and go youre a runner? i want to look as great as i feel. i have the training part down, i can rattle off my plan, mileage for the week, and all the times of my races at the drop of a hat. i got it dialed and it works wonders for me. so why havent i lost any weight in the last 3 years other than the few in the beginning? it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out why a runner doing 20+/- miles a week with 2 days of cross-training isnt losing weight...its the nutrition.

 

so it all came to pass about a month and a half ago at a work happy hour as i sat there with my iced tea drooling over the alcohol and and cheeseburgers with fries everyone was eating and not having to worry about working those off. i was never blessed with that type of metabolism, i mean a lot of it is in the genes people. now some of these beautiful ladies work rockin hard to not have to worry about that friday night happy hour, i just wondered why working just as much as they did didnt seem to be making a difference. it was also a day where my hair sucked, i wasnt loving anything in my closet, and couldnt eat a french fry without feeling bad. it wasnt a good day to say the least. the next morning i got up to complete my 12 miles (which felt great) knowing they were all loving their beds as my alarm went off at 4am to beat at least a little bit of the heat. i knew something had to change and i was the only one who could really and truly make that happen.

monday morning i went into my boss, the pain still a little raw (it was written all over my face) and asked for her nutritionists phone number. she had raved about joanie forever. telling all of us how great she was and that she worked with anyone. she changed your food yes, but not to a crazy calorie counting diet plan or something we send to your house or you can only eat these 3 foods. she was real. finally realizing it was the nutrition meant i needed help, someone that could work with me and my likes/dislikes and being a runner. you see its often frowned upon for runners to go on diets because we cant totally cut out any one food. but there had to be an answer somewhere.

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so i called the next morning and by wednesday afternoon i was sitting in her office going over bloodwork and talking all about me and my body. she listened to everything and gave me quite a few faces when i told her about the things i was eating. we worked out a plan and she made a "highly recommended" suggestion that i go to the grocery store to stock up on my new things that night! its made up of lots and lots of fruits and veggies, whole grain foods, lean meats/proteins, and things with the lowest sugar/fat possible plus how many of each i should be eating per day. she had lots of great suggestions about particular brands and broke everything down for me. i literally took home a book of information comparing darn near every brand of cereal for example with all its nutritional value. i got on the scale and didnt love what i saw at 170.5 pounds. we did measurements of literally every part of my body and she gave me an "approved joanie" list of things to buy. i headed back to work that day actually feeling great about the step i had taken and was ready to make the change. now i wasnt looking to be a size 2 (or 4 or 6 for that matter), that was never in the cards for me. but i wanted to feel good about myself, and that the work i was doing on the pavement showed!

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friday afternoon i went to see her again and we talked all about how my couple days had been and what i had been eating. she was seriously impressed with my willingness to try new food (except spinach, kale, beans, or oatmeal to name a few) and could tell i was committed. she made me get back on that scale and i was terrified to say the least. turns out i had lost 3 pounds just changing my diet in 3 days!!! i was ecstatic to already have some changes. now yes i know most of it was water weight and flushing out the bad stuff from my body, but i took it!

things fell into place with joanie quickly, not that it wasnt and still is a struggle some days. the pizza on fridays, donuts/pastries on saturday mornings, lunch dates with friends, and the offers of lets go get fast food after the et race were abundant. i have never been to so many birthday parties with delicious looking cake in such a short time. i have had days (quite a few actually) when all i really wanted to do was eat like i used too. the problem was i didnt used to eat awful, especially during half marathon training. but now comparing i didnt eat great either.

i can make my own healthier version of things
like mac & cheese! you dont have to
give up everything to be healthy!

i can now say from july 18th to september 5th i am down 14.5 pounds and 27 inches!!! i have a few weeks left with joanie and am hoping to have a big update friday when i get down to 155 pounds because then we can measure again. keep your fingers crossed:) i feel wayyy better about myself and things are fitting so much better than they used to. my body feels happier when i run having these healthy things and a better balance inside it. i know for a fact i made the right choice going to her!

now that i had the nutrition part under control something else had now reflared up, knee pain. i havent had the best luck over the years. it started when i was 12 and developed osgood schlatters disease in both knees, its common in young athletes actually. basically your body is growing and the impact of sports is putting too much pressure on the tendons in your legs which is causing pain in the knees. most grow out of it, which i did. until freshmen year of high school when i got patellar tendonist in my left knee along with knee cap falling on top of it and to the outside of my leg. the arches in both my feet also fell at the same time. i had to quit everything cold turkey and went to 6 weeks of physical therapy. it helped a lot but i was told i would always probably have some knee pain when exercising, i just had to decide what i could really deal with.

so i took that for a long while and usually icing a few times helped until about 3 weeks ago when i got a bad tightness in the backs of both my knees and the front hurt a lot and quite often. with my past track record of knee pain i decided i should go to a sports doc asap. my mom luckily had a great one that worked on her foot last summer that was also a runner so i knew he would get it. luckily again i got a same week appointment and was into see dr hanson quickly. we took xrays and did ligament tests which i passed all of them. we talked about my changing to minimalist shoes and everything was fine till he had me hop on one knee at a time and it hurt real bad in my right knee. he told me i needed to get into see his friend ron, a physical therapist quickly. there was 8 weeks till my race and he knew ron could fix me in plenty of time.

those just dont look right!

about 5 minutes later i called ron and made an appointment for that next tuesday. i was still cleared to run by both guys as long as it didnt hurt. the 8 miler that weekend wasnt my best run ever, but i couldnt back down now. tuesday came quickly and it seemed like ron had all the answers. he listened to all my stories, did some general tests, had me run on the treadmill and knew immediately what was wrong. he didnt even need xrays to tell him what he already knew. basically it was everything but my knees haha! it all came down to my hips which oddly didnt surprise me. i had hip/knee issues as a kid too. when i was 6 months old i wore a brace to pull my knees apart because they were a bit bowed in and couldnt even go around my moms hip when she would hold me. luckily the brace worked and i never had to have surgery. but now its allll coming full circle lol.

we worked mostly on my form that day and i found out that my glutes had terrible strength. i needed to build them up quickly so i could stop using my hips so much to propel me forward but the rest of my body. we worked on shortening my stride and upping the tempo. i was totally out of breath and my entire lower body was sore, except my knee. ron told me this was his favorite thing to treat and i might even get faster. i didnt really believe that until my next 2 runs!

boom!!

ive been back once after the initial and dang do my muscles need work. i am at a 1 pound weight on each leg when the average is 7-8 pounds. ron says he can fix me in 9 sessions like i said and i might even be really mad at him when this is all done. he told me ive had knee pain for so long and people have always told me it wasnt fixable, he tells me it is and were gonna do it together.

gotta do my own work!

for the first time in a long time i feel really in control of my own body. i feel skinnier in my clothes and people around me are starting to seriously notice. the support i have received from friends, family, and richard has been amazing! my knees are feeling better and i improved my 9 mile route time by 10 minutes from year ago! i know these things are working together and i couldnt be happier with both results:)


ps if you live in the las vegas area and would like information for either one of them, please let me know! i would be more than happy to pass it along and let them hep you on your journey:) also if you have any questions, i would love to help in anyway i can!!

the 8 weeks to nwm recap.

yay for being on time this week!! it was one i wasnt totally expecting, a few suprises that i think will be good long term.

sunday~rest

rest.

i got tons of sleep and then we spent the evening hanging out with my parents watching girly movies and big brother to finish out the weekend. it was fun!

monday~4-5 miles

4.72 miles = 45:49 minutes/9:42 min/mile

things have been a little nutty around here lately and i was beyond glad to see my runner friends on monday night. we had a really good run, the best in a long time. between all of our injuries lately we have a bit of a rough time up and down the hill. this one was smooth and felt really good. i was incredibly grateful to chris and jen for the great run!

tuesday~spin

6am body flow class

well i hit the snooze a little too hard and woke up with just a few minutes to spare. i thought about just rolling back over but knew i needed to do something. monday night i was having a weird tightness in the backs of my knees so running was probably not a good idea. instead i decided to try body flow! i heard some good things and its a combo of tai chi, pilates, and yoga. its really hard, ha! kicked my butt in a good way and i was super happy i went.

wednesday~4 miles

2.6 miles = 25:31 minutes/9:48 min/mile

this is where the week turned interesting! we had a few cool days in the forecast and it happened to fall on a run day. i headed out and had immediate pain on the front of my right knee, like bad/sharp pain. i thought about just turning around but the weather was too nice and cloudy i couldnt. so instead i gave myself a 1/2 mile to see how i felt, and it subsided so i decided to cut the run to an out and back quick 3. i got to the turnaround point and the sky decided to open up into a full on downpour!! not little raindrops either, huge fat ones. i had to get home, theres was nothing other to do than laughed to myself and headed back. there was no sign of stopping so i decided to cut out my extra loop which in hindsight i could have just done and it would have been fine. it was kinda fun to run in weather:)

thursday~body pump

rest

with the recent knee pain and past knee issues since like forever i decided it was probably a good idea to see a sports doctor. i did some googling (big mistake) and saw everything from a cyst to fluid needing to be drained to my new minimalist shoes were causing the whole problem. so thursday morning i arrived a 1/2 hour early for paperwork did x-rays and still waited 45 minutes to see the doc after my scheduled time. anyway, he looked over everything and did all the ligament tests which i passed, then came to the conclusion i was ok. i do however now need to visit a physical therapist for the next 4-6 weeks to correct some things and work on my form. he is also a runner so he gets it and seemed to understand what i was talking about. everything was great till i told him about the front of the knee pain and he made me hop on 1 leg. i had a ton of pain on my right knee and after some poking and moving around muscles he said the scary phrase. we need to get you in pt now, otherwise you might develop a stress fracture in your knee cap!! it was in the next 5 minutes i called my new pt friend.

does that look crooked to you too??

friday~rest

rest.

the doc said i could still run and cross-train so my 8 miler was still on deck saturday, which meant rest day friday.

saturday~8 miles

8.45 miles = 1:24:26 minutes/9:59 min/mile

i was a little nervous for my run with all the pain but taking 2 days off helped and i felt good getting out of bed. yesterday i stopped to buy kt tape on my way home from work because i thought that would help keep my knee in place and had heard really good things about it. so i taped up, got dressed and headed to the hills. surprisingly it went really, really well! last week my run was mostly flat so i wasnt sure how today would go, but it felt sooo smooth. i got caught at a stoplight with 2.5 miles to go and knew it was going to hurt when i started again. i kept trying to talk myself through it and with less than a mile left i took a tumble on a sidewalk lip because i was more worried how much further i needed to go rather than the uneven sidewalk. luckily i fell mostly on my side and wasnt go full force. somehow only my left pinky is really hurting. like bruised and currently under ice! oh geez.

if i could have even a pinky's worth of keri walshs
talent wearing this, i would have it on every day!!

totals for the week = 15.77 miles + 1 cross-training day

like i said, a week full of surprises. i think this week i became a real runner...i had my 1st real injury! the doc seems optomistic and i told him about nike and he wasnt worried at all, so neither am i (at least thats what im telling myself, ha!). 

48 days to the nike womens half marathon!!!