I want to run!

Well, here it is 22 days later and I was not very good at keeping this blog going.  I again have no excuses other than being lazy and letting other things distract me when I know that I needed to spend time to sit down and let Christi know what is up in my end of the country.  I am sure other than my Dad and Christi, no one else reads this blog anymore and I am partly to blame for that.  I just have not been really interesting lately.  I have no contests and give-aways.  I don't do any product reviews.  I have not been racing.  And right now, I'm not even training.

WHAT??!!??

Yes, I am grounded from training.  How did that happen???  Well, the quick version is that I am human and I am not a professional at this whole sports thing.  Being that I am not a professional that means that even though I have training of my own to get done, I also have a job that requires me to exercise more, I have to be swim team/cross country/band mom, somewhere in there I have to try to do some housework or at least not let my husband think we live in a bear den, and then try to get enough rest and recovery.  I have been good at getting a little of everything done but bad at not getting much of anything done.

I was feeling like I had been cheating doing my running indoors on a treadmill but my mileage was over 10 miles and with morning temperatures over 85 degrees, I was just not able to carry enough water with me and I had been having problems maintaining the pace that I needed to be running at.  The treadmill let me be close to a bathroom, close to more water, and to stay on pace or be spit off the back of the treadmill.  I set the incline to 2% and got the speed up, but I am sure that I was still cheating.  However, I have mastered running 14 miles on a treadmill.  

I did try to run outside, but with all of the smoke from the Texas wildfires, it was making my lungs hurt and my esophagus feel like it was lined with broken glass, and since I have asthma, it was back to the treadmill.  Again, I felt like I was cheating and not really putting in the effort that I needed to.  On the second week of the month, I failed to recognize that it was the start of the next four-week cycle and I was on remote control and did the old workouts rather than the new ones.  That was a forehead slap there.  I was too busy with getting other things done to pay attention to my training.  Bad.  I had great TRX and Kettlebell workouts, but it is the running workouts that really matter.

My long runs were getting done, but I was secretly dreading them.  I dreaded them because there was some chick who always seemed to be on the treadmill that I wanted to run on.  I had the Goldilocks Syndrome going on.  That one is too close to the weight floor.  That one is not balanced and wobbles above 4.7 speed.  That one is too close to the mirrors.  I was also dreading the long run because somewhere between 9 and 10 miles, the pain set in.  The pain was different every time and it moved all around.  One time it would be burning in my calves, next it would be pain in the right oblique or in my left lower abdomen.  Sometimes it was in the left shoulder and then the next week it was in the right shoulder.  This pain would make the last three to four miles really rough.  I had to grit my teeth and just get through it.  ARGH!!!

Dr. H was great about getting me unwound and unbound but the pain would just return in a different place on the next long run.  Dr. H said that my adrenal glands were probably fired up from the car accident and recommended that I try to see Dr. Krupka.  I had heard of the amazing Dr. Krupka before from my Sports Stretch therapist, Kimberly.  Dr. Krupka was highly recommended so I was willing to wait a full week to get in to see him.  I kept going with my workouts and waited.

Last week when I got to see Dr. Krupka, he explained to me that along with chiropractic work, he practices Functional Medicine.  Functional Medicine is to look at root of the problem and not to just treat the symptoms.  After a little question and answer time and some muscle testing, Dr. Krupka confirmed that my adrenal glands, my ovaries, and my pituitary gland were all in a cage fight with each other and that we needed to figure out what was causing this.  Dr. Krupka suspects that I might have a gluten intolerance that I have also suspected in the past.  I was told to do a saliva collection and send off to a lab to look for certain markers for adrenal fatigue and gluten intolerance.  I was also told to try to avoid gluten for a week and to see what would happen.  So my spit sample is in a lab and I am waiting for the results.

I saw Dr. H the next day and he tuned me up and told me that I needed to take one week off from exercise just to be pro-active.  WHAT?!?  I called Coach Woofie and reported to him what Dr. K and Dr. H had to say and he agreed that I needed to take one week off from workouts and if I could, one week off from work since work involves me exercising.  WHAT??!!??  Ok, how about I take the time off in another week when I have a good excuse to goof off (more on that in a bit).  The members at the gym would never understand that I had to take a week off.  Well, yes they would, but they would not be happy about it.  WAIT, is this what they were all talking about?  I had stressors in my life that were causing the glandular and hormonal smack-down and I just had to walk away for a while and let everyone else get their knickers in a twist for a week.

The next day I had my long run and I told myself that I was just going to run 7 or 8 miles.  During my cycling class that I teach at 5:30 am, I felt a muscle twinge in the inside of my right leg that Dr. H had told me to be aware of that was a signal that the adrenal glands were crying "Uncle".  I got on the treadmill after class and within 3 minutes I hit the STOP button and bailed on the workout.  I felt like a looser.  I took it easy the rest of the day.  Friday was a little easier, but I had stuff I had to get done, so skipping the workout actually gave me more time.  Saturday was h.a.r.d.  I was coaching my TNT tri TEAM and they were doing a run.  I did the water stops but it hurt watching everyone else running and it was sad to watch the shirtless runner boys run off into the distance and I could not run after them.  I just had to climb in the Element and go home.  

On Sunday, I realized that some of the a few of the symptoms from the adrenals were going away such as the crazy irregular heart beat when I would go to bed, and the eyelid twitch.  I guess the extra sleep was helping, but I was still waking up after 8 hours feeling like I needed more sleep.  Some things were worse.  The hives on my arms, shoulders, and chest were out of control and on Saturday night I woke myself up five times scratching my arms.  I was scratching my arms in my sleep!  Dr. K said that the hives might get worse as my body was trying to clear out the toxins from the gluten and that because I was not working out and sweating, the hives were going to get worse.  

On Monday, I was in a funk.  I felt tired, ugly, and sad.  I felt like a disappointment to others for not getting my sh*t together and getting done what needed to be done.  I forgot to get someone signed up for a swim meet, I didn't check back on a confirmation to send the kid to a swim clinic, I accidentally ate a slice of bread.  I felt like I just needed to crawl in a hole and disappear.  But I could not do that, I had too much that I had to get done!  I had to go to work and teach classes, bake bread for lunch, finish laundry so the kid had clean running clothes, pick him up from tutorials, drive him to swim practice, get after him to work on his English project due later this week, and have him practice his trumpet.   I wanted to pull my hair out and then Greyhound threw me a bone and put me in contact with a spectacular trumpet instructor who gives private lessons at the high school up the road.   THANK YOU GREYHOUND!!!

After some sleep, a chance to sweat while teaching my cycling class, an opportunity to spend a gift card from Lululemon that I had received from a PT client, a nice quiet lunch, a handful of mallow creme pumpkin candy, a spectacular find of a $16 bikini to take with me on my adventure next week, and a thumbs up from Bud's band director to take private lessons from Mr. Kavanaugh, my day was 120% better.  I was smiling again!  And my hives were under control and not itchy!

I have six more "sleeps" until I get to escape while my family has to fend for themselves and my clients at the gym have to figure out how to get by without me for a while.  I will be on a secret mission on Saturday, October 8th.  I cannot tell anyone about it until after it happens because it is that Top Secret!  It is such an AMAZING Birthday treat that I am almost giddy.  I am grinning from ear to ear right now!  

So sorry for all the downer stuff earlier but check back in the next few days to see how the transition back to workouts goes and how the Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mole Mission goes down!

Stay tuned and have a great day kids!

Later Gators,

Liz

Well, there went August...

     I have been bad about updating this blog for many reasons.  The main reason has just been pure laziness.  I know that people do not like to reveal their shortcomings but I will admit that I am lazy, a procrastinator, and perpetually late...for everything.  Even if I write down a "To do" list, program in electronic reminders in my iPhone, or set the clocks 13 minutes ahead in my house, I still end up not getting things done, I am down to the wire on getting projects finished, and I am always 5 minutes late showing up somewhere.  I hate it.  I have tried working on these faults for years and I get a few successes here and there, but then things go back to normal, and I am rushing around to get things completed, I roll up late, and something just never get done.

Oh yeah, the kid and I ran a 5K.  More lame excuses...

     So here are my lame excuses.  The last weekend of July, I was attending a TRX Suspension Training Sports Medicine certification.  From time to time I get clients who come to me after being set free from their physical therapist or doctor to resume exercising again.  Most times, these clients are weak and are still hesitant to use the previously injured joint or limb.  This training was attended mainly by chiropractic doctors, physical therapists, and some personal trainers.  I am in no way a personal training superstar but the other 20 people in that training seemed to have very limited experience working with clients and patients, and did not have very good communication skills.  I know that this is probably not true, but I guess I have high standards.  The training was at a very nice (read very exclusive and pricey) health club in town and it had a beautiful Pilates studio.  It made me wonder why I am still working at the gym where I do work.  I realized that it was my clients.  I have taken pay cuts and other lame excuses from this company and continue to work there because I really like my clients and many of them have been working with me for over five years.  Some as long as eleven years.  I would feel guilty for leaving.

CAAAAKE, YUMMY CAAAAKE...

     Ok, so immediately after that, the next week was busy with the Team in Training Kick-Off and our first TEAM training.  I am coaching 34 athletes to compete at the Memorial Hermann Ironman 70.3 in Galveston, TX on April 1st and at the St. Croix Ironman 70.3 on May 5th.  For all but two of the group, this will be their first 70.3 distance.  So my excuse for not blogging was that I was building training calendars and workouts for the first 9 weeks of training.  Lame excuse, I know.  You want an even lamer excuse?  I had to bake a birthday cake for someone.  Not just any old birthday cake.  A Red Velvet and White Vanilla checkerboard cake with white butter frosting and decorated up nicely with roses on top.  The heat made frosting the cake a B-TCH but I finally got it to set up.  Super lame.  Come on, everyone bakes cakes from scratch.  I have no excuses.

Pretty cool packets for packet pick up.

     The same weekend, I was a very proud mommy.  My kid did his first sprint triathlon!  He rode one of my bikes and I had some Team in Training gear that he could wear.  He had a dash to the finish with the boy that would take third place by one one hundredth of a second.  He was not too pleased about that.  Of course, he had a great swim and averaged over 17 mph on the bike, but the heat we have been experiencing here in Texas made him take a few walking breaks on the run and put him in that mad dash to the finish position.  I waited to see him cross the finish after I had finished and I am sure I had a stupid smile on my face.  My race was good.  I was second in my AG for the swim, 7th on the bike with a 22.3 mph average and way low on the run with a 9:04 average even though I was running the entire time and passing people.  I guess it was not as fast as I thought.  I ended up 7th overall in my AG out of 50+ women.  Meh...

How come I look short in this photo???

     During the week, we went to the local movie theater to see the live presentation of Drum Corps International's World Championships.  It was pretty awesome and we ended up seeing many of the same performances that we saw live at our school district's football stadium at the end of July.  I did not expect that I would be spending 5.5 hours in a movie theater and having to eat movie theater food.  Oh well, the kid is super motivated about playing his trumpet so I will take one for the team and eat a rubbery hot dog.

     The second weekend of August I had to go to San Antonio for another TRX Suspension Training certification.  It was a nice opportunity for me to get over to see my parents in Canyon Lake and to give the kid one last little trip before school had to start.  Since the training was not a Level 2 training like the Sports Medicine training, there were more personal trainers in attendance.  It is always fun to see big muscle dudes sweating bullets and struggling with the TRX Suspension Trainer.  I had the same instructor that I had when I took a training back in March and she knew that I had really been using the TRX Suspension Trainer both for my clients and for my own training.  She had me demonstrate some of the advanced exercises while she talked to the group.  I guess that cemented my credibility as being not just a skinny old chick.  When we were split up into groups later in the training to work on a case study, all of the male trainers in my group were stoked that I was in their group.  I guess the other chicks at the training were not so stoked about that.

     The third week of August was not so fun.  I was on my way home from a Sports Stretch session and when I was at a complete stop in traffic, I was rear ended with enough force that it sent me crashing into the car in front of me.  The worst part was that the person who hit me left the scene of the accident and off all of the other people in drive-home traffic, no one stopped to offer any information or to prevent the person from leaving the accident.  I had no witnesses.  I can only say that the car that hit me was silver and not a truck, mini van, or SUV.  That's it.  I was able to get uninsured motorist coverage and I only have to pay $250 on all repairs rather than the $1000.00 deductible.  My 8 month old car had over $6500 of damage and it is still in the body shop.  Thankfully, I have not had any neck or back pain and my Sports Chiropractor, Dr. Hassenbank, has been taking good care of me.  The first week after the crash my run workouts were not very good and they have gotten much better as he has been working out some issues.

And we drove all over town looking for this thing...

     I spent the next weekend coaching my TNT 70.3 TEAM through their first bike workout and doing Middle School check-in.  I had to do a little back-to-school shopping and that put me in a foul mood and I got flack at home for spending too much or not getting cool enough stuff.  I give up.  I'm just not cool.  Deal with it.

We both look a little hot and tired.

     School and swim team started back up on the 22nd and it has been a whirlwind of drop offs for swim practice, cross country practice, and band sectionals.  I also had to help out with our Team in Training Nations Tri Team as they hosted Dave Scott for the Clear Lake International Triathlon.  Dave Scott is our National Coach and he did the race in Team in Training gear.  Very cool!  On Sunday, we had a tri camp with Dave Scott that had about 27 participants.  We had a great venue for the camp out at the Houston Oaks Country Club.  We had a swim session in the 25 yd pool and then an open water session in the lake just a few steps away.  I was on kayak duty for that.  Dave gave some great stretch and flexibility training and then the group went out for a 15 mile ride.  While they were gone, the volunteers had to get things ready for the run training and strength training session.  We had a big open air pavilion to use for the strength training session and then run drills were done on the outfield of a baseball diamond just a short walk away.  A 2 mile run had been planned but the temps soared to 109 and we called that off.  Lunch was great and then Dave finished up with a nutrition lecture.  Everyone at the camp seemed to have a good experience.  The nice thing was that 80% of the camp attendees had no relationship with Team in Training and it was a great way to show people in the triathlon community that Team in Training does not work with only beginners.  We have Ironman finishers, Boston Marathon qualifiers, Triathlon National Championship qualifiers, and a Triathlon World Championship qualifier in our Houston TEAM.

     This last week has been all about settling into my new school year schedule.  My training is coming along well with "Weapon XL".  I am running a little faster and I have been hitting all the workouts that Coach Woofie has given me.  I still do not know which half marathon I will be running for time this fall.  I should find out in the next few weeks.  It has been lonely training on my own.  But really, who wants to run 12 miles on a treadmill?  No one.  It has just been too hot outside the past month but we have had a temperature break this past weekend and hopefully I can get back to running outside.

And we took care of this lost pup until the owners were found.  They were ecstatic to have Cinnamon back home.

     I had two interviews at personal training centers.  They are both great places but I think one of them might be a better fit since it is not too far away from where I already work and most of my clients would follow me and I would be able to do Pilates work.  I have to be patient.  Both locations would have nothing ready for me before mid-October.  

     So basically, I have had no good excuses to not update my blog.  Pure laziness.  I have been a bad influence on my kid.  I will try to do better job in September.

Later Gators,

Liz