Slow Week.

Color.Me.SLACKER.

I didn't do a damned bit o' running this past week. I ended up working around 50-hours, meaning I was too exhausted for my own good by the time I got home at night. Which meant, sleep. Not running.

A quick note about my lung...thank you for all the comments of concern and frantic e-mails about my condition. YES! I am alive and kicking (obviously). A bit o' history for you kids...back in January '04 my left lung collapsed more than 30%. It literally felt like my rib cage/skin/bra/shirt was crushing my chest. It wasn't pretty. I ended up needing a chest tube through my side (ouch!) and an extended stay in the geriatric ward of Northwestern hospital. Apparently the lining on my lungs are similar to that of bubble wrap. And when some of those little blebs (the techy term for "bubbles") pops, it's not a good feeling. But at least I know what it feels like and how I can manage it if it's not a large pop.

So last week when a few of those suckers popped it was bad at first, but with controlled breathing, improved drastically. I was a bit nervous to attempt any form of running, so I chilled.

I got a bunch of stuff accomplished though! Our taxes are now finished and all of my homework is complete for CKU. Woohoo!! CKU is well...okay...hmm...I confess...yours truly is a scrapbooking geek, and well...I'm going to this massive and awesome and insane scrapbook ordeal. It's like the mecca of scrapbook fiestas...and I'm really quite excited. I leave tonight and won't return until Saturday evening (so no blog updates either). But I had a lot of stuff to do in preparation for CKU-A, I'm just relieved that it's all finito!

I'm hoping to hit the treadmill at the hotel one of the days that I'm out there. Because this Sunday is the Shamrock Shuffle 8k...and well, I'm totally unprepared. But what's new about that?! I'm excited because this is the first race that both Mike and I are running together...and it's the largest 8k in the world (they capped it at 25,000 participants and it sold out in Feb!). My mum will be at the finish line cheering us on...assuming that she can find us in the crowd.

Ideally, I'd like to break the 60 minute mark, but we'll see how that goes over. With my lack of running and my lung, I'll be lucky to have ONE sub-12 minute mile. :sigh:

Alright....I've got lots of stuff to get done before tonight hits. So I hope everyone has a good running week and I'll report back with my race report on Sunday sometime. :)

Love and Peace!

Lungs aren't supposed to go POP.

Balloons go pop. Gum goes pop. Soda goes pop. Hell, even the weasel goes pop. Lungs? They're NOT supposed to go pop.

So yeah...breathe in....breathe out...breathe in...breathe out...

Seems easy, doesn't it?

Well it is..........unless you're me.

Tonight, I felt a few blebs in my lung pop when I was getting up to take Phog outside...and I've been sitting here vegging on the couch since, absolutely miserable. Needless to say, I didn't make it outside. I did, however, make it to the bathroom to cry and attempt and control my breathing. I'm having lots of sharp pains...and forget about taking deep any deep breaths. I may as well be suffocating.

I'm pretty pissed since.....you know.....breathing is sort of a necessity for existance.

So I'm chillin' doing the shallow breath thing and just holding onto my left side. It's not fun. But considering how much pain I was in when my lung fully collapsed 2 years ago, this is nothing that I can't handle. I'm just awaiting that first full deep breath...air never tastes so sweet.

Hopefully tomorow will be a better breathing day...and will hopefully it will include a bit of running.

Running to release frustration...

This afternoon I went out. The weather channel said it was a nice sunny, 45-degrees outside. So I tossed on my UA running pants and a light long-sleeved shirt. Once I got out there...I could see my breath in the air. There was NO WAY it was 45 out there. MAYBE 37.

Once I got out there, I warmed up. It was nice. A cool breeze floating off the lake...hundreds of runners, walkers, rollerbladers and bikers taking advantage of the clear, beautiful day...and me, coming off a night of feeling ill and having restless sleep, going out to conquer a short run.

So I'm doing a nice lil' woggle (walking/jogging combo), trying to get the agreesion out from the Kansas loss on Friday, two craptastic weeks at work, and a handful of other stuff going done. It felt good.

So here's today's breakdown...
1 mile warm up walk to the lake
3.55 mile walk/run/wog/whatever you wanna call it
1 mile cool down walk/run home
5.55 total.

I haven't uploaded the run from my garmin yet, so I have no idea what the total time was, but everything did take me just over an hour. By the time I was finished, my head was clear and I felt so much better.

Two weeks from today is the Shamrock Shuffle. I don't think I'll be in a position to run the whole thing like I had hoped, but ya know...no big deal. I'll just do my interval mojo and eventually work my way up to that point.

For now, I gotta get crackin' on my CKU homework.

Please, don't say anything.

It hurts too much to talk about it. So it's better off just left...in silence. I just need a hug.

KU in 2007. :sigh: :(

Sleep Wanted.

The stress is officially affecting my sleep. Normally, I can sleep just fine through the night. But lately I've been falling asleep later and later while waking up earlier and earlier. It's making me bananas!! WHY am I waking up minutes before the alarm clock sounds off? And since I'm a habitual snoozer, I reset the alarm so I can try to get at least another 15-20 minutes of straight sleep in rather than the 10 my snoozer button offers. It's driving me nuts. 5 days in a row. FIVE DAYS.

Any advice on how I can get better sleep?

In other news, my piriformis is mad, crazy tight. :/ It's such a pain in my ass. Literally.

Resurrect the Running...

I've come to learn that the less you want to run, the more you need to just buck up and do it. It's amazing how a quick lil' jaunt will make you feel so much better.

So as the craptastically delicious week continues, my stomach was really bothering me after dinner and I seriously contemplated just showering and hitting the hay. But that little voice in the back of my head would have nothing to do with it. I knew that if I just got up and ran, I'd feel a kajillion times better. Stomach issues and all.

So I laced up my shoes and went to the workout room. I only got through a mile and a half before the stomach acids started brewing and had to stop. It took me a whole 19:30 to do it. Blah. Not.Good.Enough.For.Me. It'll get better soon.

Rather than watch TV, I opted for the iPod today. One song in particular got me really going...it's a song by Self (this fantabulous band from Murfreesboro, TN) called Resurrect. You should all go download it. Now. Here. The lyrics are kick ass...and it's all about making the best with the little time we all have left here on earth. So be alive!! Go live!! And no matter how craptastic your days may be...at least you're alive!! HELL YAH!

But as for now, aside from my tummy bugging me, I feel fantastic.

And in other fun running news. I've been invited to be on the TNT Race Crew up here. It should be fun. I basically run races and talk to folks on the course and at the table about the programs. Should be fun...

Craptastic Continued...and a lil' bit o' Madness (March Madness that is!)

So....the craptastic week sorta ruined the weekend (with the exception of my Jayhawks winning the Big 12 Tourney...and receiving a 4-seed, which I'll aruge should've been a 3...but whatever, the committee had their mind made up before the game was even order...boo hiss!)...and then the crapiness moved into this new week.

Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaantastic.

I won't go into details, but it's another stinky week. And it's only Tuesday. And judging from my workload, it's not gunna lighten up for a few more days. I haven't been working out at all, partly because I'm just not motivated, partly because I'm crazed with other things (like CKU homework) and partly because I'm just too friggin' excited about the Dance. I need to pick up our taxes from a family friend so we can get that in the mail and get our refund. Woohoo!! I'm just thankful we don't owe anything. Looks like we'll be able to get a new bedroom set afterall.

But let's talk about something a bit more important...
Now...my fellow RBFers out there...you know who you are...I'm going to suggest you join the RBF bracketology crew...thanks to A.Maria, aka Little Miss Runner Pants, she's set up a fantastic lil' group for all us RBFers indulge in a bit of March Madness. This is my FAVORITE time of year (next to Christmas, of course)...so I hope everyone will join us for a bit of fun and competition. Be sure to check out her blog for info on how to sign up before Thursday's first game!!

For now, it's time to watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, work on some more CKU homework (I'm making an encyclopedia of my life for it...sheesh!) and then drift off to dreamland...

...where Kansas makes the Final Four and beats UConn (or maybe BC). I love my little piece of dreamland.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!

My Craptastic Week!!

Let's face it. We all love reading about other people's misery, because it makes our lives seem a little less...well...sucky. So for all those looking for a post to make them feel a tinge better--my unlucky week is your lucky day....this blog is for you!! No worries, there is some stuff about running in here and I promise not to bore you with the mundane details of my life.

So yes. My week has been totally and utterly craptastic, for lack of a better word. I wish folks knew just how stressful things are at work. Yes, I know everyone's job is stressful from time to time, but I'm just...ugh...frustrated!!! There is soooooooooooooooooo much to get done and only so few hours to accomplish it all. I feel like my fabulous little team is doing the work of a PR army...we're getting the job done, but it's really catching up to me. Thank GOD tomorrow is Friday. I need the weekend...and a bottle of wine...and maybe some valium, too. So on top of the beyond insanely rough and craptastic week (seriously...imagine your work week ever...multiply it by 672...and you've got a fraction of what my week has been...I kid you not) I've been having some really bad acid attacks. My doctor's appointment on Tuesday didn't accomplish much other than the thought of lowering my medication and waiting another few months on my follow up gallbladder ultrasound. Great....still having problems and you want to ween me off the medicine that's supposed to help....brilliant!!!

So with all the majorly crappy things going on, on TOP of the stupid wisdom teeth drama, I have been a complete and total slacker with working out. I tried doing pilates earlier in the week, but 10 minutes into the tape and my acid reflux ensued and that was the end of that.

Tonight was my first time back on the treadmill in oh...uhm...a week. :/ ...I swear the damn thing was out to get me. It seriously had a mind of it's own. I was psyched to run off my shitty day and in turn, my shitty day kept running on.

Mike and I go downstairs. First time...both treadmills taken...one of which is little miss wenchy wench who was so rude and decided to run 5 miles instead of 3 when there was a wait. We opt to not even deal with her. Go back down 40 minutes later....finally available.

We both hop and get going. I'm feeling good going strong. And for some reason, as soon as I hit a a mile, it starts cooling down. WTF?! I start it back up again...my piriformis is bothering me...run through it and the damn machine stops again....at .25! I am sooooooo freakin' irritated by this point. I try again one more time and end up going around .6 or something. I ended up getting pissed off and ditching the rest of the run, quite ticked and unsatisfied. So I have no idea what my final distance was. Could be 2. Could be 1.8. Could be 2.3 for all I know. In my pissiness I lost count. I stopped adding in my head the number of times the damn machine started and stopped on me.

I am seriously waiting for something to start going right for me and soon. Can't a girl get a break?

Anyhoo...enough bitching. Good luck to everyone out there this weekend with races.

Edit to add: the one and only semi-redeeming factor this week was the fact that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire came out on DVD. I am such a sucker for the HP movies. So at least my Tuesday evening was good. Everything else just suuuuuuuucked.

Ooooooh....AND here's some pics from the Hustle for your enjoyment....

You know you are a runner if...

I totally ripped this off from Dane...he's my hero and running 52 marathons this year (all under an insane time) for L'Arche-Mobile--an international federation of communities in which people with a mental handicap and those who help them can live, work, and share their lives together. Stop by his site, www.fiddy2.com, and show him some love.

You know you are a runner if...

* you spit
* you have been spit on, and not cared
* you run through goosepoop like it doesnt exist
* you have been spiked-you use frozen peas/vegetables to ice
* taping is heaven
* you know carbs are good
* you have a warm up mix
* you know the ammount of time to digest before you run
* you know what PR's are
* you get mad when people dont know what a 400 is, or any distance for that matter
* you own more running shoes than regular shoes
* you enjoy running in the rain
* you get excited when a new flavor of gatorade comes out
* theres no such thing as too much pasta
* you wear a black, plastic sports watch with your dress clothes.
* you can remember a time from a race 4 years ago, but you can't remember your friend's birthdays.
* you are not embarassed to show someone where your hamstring "really" hurts.
* you know your resting heart rate, maximum heart rate, and exactly what your heart rate is at all parts of your run.
* you wear your running shorts underneath your work clothes so that you can quickly get running after work.
* you love shoes...running shoes.
* you won't drive by any running store without a quick look inside.
* you know exactly how far a kilometer is.
* you have more old dirty shoes piled by the door than a farmer.
* you read each month's issue of Runner's World cover to cover within 24 hours.
* you not only know how you did in a race, but you know exactly how every other runner finished.
* you drive by a golf course and think what a nice place it would be to run.
* you know splits are something that not only cheerleaders care about.
* your friends know to never call you after 8:30 at night.
* you get up earlier to run on the weekends than you do for school/work.
* you think that the inventor of Powerbar should have his likeness engraved on Mount Rushmore.
* you have hundreds of safety pins scattered around your house.
* you have more T-shirts than a souvenir shop.
* you can't wait for your next birthday so you move into a new age group.
* you check out the running stores for the new styles.
* you know that cotton is not the best fabric for running!
* someone asks you how your run was, you go into a 10 minutes description of every factor of it.
* you could watch a whole marathon and not be bored.
* you think of distances in terms of mile repeats.
* you don't care what the temperature is, 0 and snow or 100 and 100% humidity
* you can convert miles to km and back in your head in a second
* people think you disappear into the woods
* you wear multicolored socks for no reason
* when someone asks you what you did today, you respond with a number
* you run 2 miles for practice and tell your coach that was a nice warm-up
* you've mastered the evil eye to give to all competitors before a big race
* you can eat almost anything and the pounds never show (and your non-running buddies hate you for this)
* you enjoy racing your shadow.
* your wardrobe consists of at least 1/2 race/school team t-shirts.
* your "nice" shoes are your new running shoes.
* You've considered calling your child speedy, prefontaine, bowerman, bullet, unna, olympia, etc. * You drink water as quickly as a fat child eats cake.
* you look dumbfounded when everyone asks you how long your marathon was. (26.2 miles... duh)
* instead of candy bars you keep energy bars in your desk.
* you don't blink an eye at $100 for running shoes, but you have to think about $100 for any other shoes.
* you save bib numbers in a scrap book
* you know to the hundreth of a mile how far it is around your neighborhood
* you have imaginary lines on the ground (start/finish)
* you dont even bother to use your car to get to nearby stores
* you look at other people's running shoes to see if they really run....you can tell
* any parking spot is never too far away....
* you know when all the latest running shoes are to come out-you spend way too much time shopping for socks
* you know every runner in you're community
* when you run a mile in school, you finish at least a lap before everyone else
* when you run a mile in school and you critisize the way other people run
* all you can talk about was you're run from the day before
* you think frisbee is the ultimate workout :)

I'm going to add a few to this list, too...
* you have a running blog and religiously read running blogs of your "friends" who are actually folks you've never met.
* you check the finish times for your running blog friends and cheer for them states away.
* you have no problem asking to bum a gu off a runner you've never met.
* you have the ability to pee while you run (more for the elite, but still).
* you don't mind squatting behind a bush to relieve yourself during a long run.

What would you add?

Say AHHHHH......Now SPIT!

Remember how I talked about being strangely aware of my teeth? Okay...so my rear finally went to the dentist. Alright, that's a lie. Yours truly never actually called the dentist in a sheer act of "I know what they're gunna tell me and I don't wanna hear it." I'm not a fan. I loathe the dentist, even though mine is uber-cool. Just the drilling sound...well...you know how it goes...it just crawls under your skin and makes you wanna dig your eardrums out with a spork. I'm getting the willies just thinking about it.

So yah...never called...totally put it on the backburner...the teeth didn't bother my very often and it wasn't anything that Tylenol couldn't handle after a while...

Imagine my surprise when I received a call last Friday remind me about my Wednesday dental exam.

oh. shit. i completely forgot about that.

Serves me right I guess. I have these terrible visions of ending up with a dentist like Steve Martin in Little Shop of Horrors.

Yesterday, I go to my dentist and don't even mention that I'm having issues in my mouth while running...assuming that if I don't say it, the condition just doesn't exist and all will be fair in the land of my mouth once again.

The scraping begins.

"Hey Barb" she says as she scrapes at my teeth "Is your mouth bugging you in the back?"

Damnit. Caught red handed. Clearly there was a problem...and it was evident from the little scrapey thingie and mini-mirror. She was so far back there she should've checked my tonsils while she was at it.

"Yah...my mouth has been a little sore lately...I didn't think much of it."

A lie.

"It really hasn't been bothering me at all."

Another lie.

"Nope...no problems here!!!"

a big.fat.juicy.mother of a lie.

"Uh huh...well it looks like your wisdom teeth are coming in full force and really doing a number on your other teeth."

oh shit.

"And it looks like it may cause damage to your root canal."

OH.MY.GOD. I am never having that done again as long as I live. I don't screw with my root canal tooth. Yes...I had a root canal...I grind my teeth at night, and a few years back, it cracked. Lemme tell ya...it sucked!

"Well that's great..."

"Well...only one of them is impacted...the other is cutting through, so we're going to have to take them out for you...well, the oral surgeon is going to take them out for you..."

Brilliant.

Even through the thick of my procrastination and lies. It all catches up to me. So pretty soon, I'll have to shell out some ungodly amount of cash to go through a few days of excrutiating pain.

At least now I can procrastinate calling the oral surgeon...right!? Plus the oral surgeon is the one with the drugs! Put me under!!!!!! I'll get around to giving them a call. I guess things just have to die down at work...and I need to plan on taking a day or two off.

In other news...Mike opted to make fun of me during my Pilates workout this evening. It not only hurt my feelings., but broke my concentration, too :( Everyone should go over to his blog and leave a comment about how he should be nicer to his wife.

Heheheee..