Author: Tara Cuslidge

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What we take from Boston

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I know there will be a lot of posts about Boston this week. I know that I’m also behind on being relevant with this. It’s amazing what happens when you are no longer tied to the day-to-day life of a journalist. I’m still in the mindset of a journalist, though. When I see a to-do list, I bust through it like there’s no tomorrow. Because in news tomorrow is too late.

This week, I’ve been bogged down in catch-up projects that got pushed aside during my student’s journalism conference.

But I’ve also been watching the news.

A lot of news. It’s basically been on auto play behind me for four days.

On Monday, I told my husband that this hits close to home in more ways that I could even comprehend as I watched the events unfolding in front of me Monday. This was an attack of unspeakable horror. At a public event. At a marathon.

I run marathons.

Once upon a time I was accused, by a newspaper reader, as making a horrific event all about me. The problem with events like what happen in Boston, a lot of people start asking themselves questions about how it could impact them, or if it could.

What I knew before Monday: The start line used to be what caused massive anxiety for runners (especially me).

What I know now: Now the finish line takes on a completely different meaning.

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THE FINISH LINE

The start line has always been a source of fear and trepidation among runners (the photo above is the Oakland Half Marathon start in March). It’s when your heart starts racing. When every doubt you can think of crosses your mind. If you’re anything like me, the moment you get past the start is actually the minute you feel any sort of relief.

The finish? The finish brings mixed emotions, depending on how a runner does. The first marathon? The finish is the goal. The PR run? The finish is the moment to quit the push. The bad run? It’s the moment it’s finally over.

Consider what the Boston Marathon represents to those who run it. It’s the crowing glory for the everyday runner. It’s a tough race to get into. Runners have to qualify. I likely will never qualify for Boston. Many runners won’t. For those who do, it’s not just about those 26.2 miles. It’s not about Heartbreak Hill. It’s about the journey.

Seeing that finish line? It’s the finish line of all finish lines.

Now it means something completely different. Joy and accomplishment have been replaced with sorrow.

‘LARGE PUBLIC GATHERINGS’ A CONCERN?

On Monday, one of the talking points that kept coming up was that of how to make “large public gatherings” safe.

Have you ever considered any marathon you run a “large public gathering?”

Think about it. Because until this week, I never did. Instead, I lumped running events into “you either have to be crazy enough to do this or love someone who is” to be here. I think about the smaller races I’ve run, where people not involved were annoyed at our presence when streets were closed down. The bigger races? Well, even those didn’t really seem all that big.

Then I think about the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Diego Marathon. I ran the full 26.2 last year (it sucked, I cried, I’m over it).

According to Active.com, the “Epic Summer Run” is one of the top 10 runs, according to finishers, in the United States.

The ING New York Marathon (43,660), Bank of America Chicago Marathon (33,701), Boston Marathon (22,843) and the Marine Corps Marathon (21,405) are the top four. Rock ‘n’ Roll San Diego includes 13,361 finishers. I was among those finishers last year.

This year I’m signed up for the half marathon with my friend Sam. She’s running all the Rock ‘n’ Roll events she can this year.

Yes, the suspects were apprehended (one died, the other was taken into custody earlier this evening). But there are so many twisted people in this world (what you learn from 10 years in the news industry is that humanity, while there are good moments, is full of bad people), that I wonder if this could happen somewhere else.

I’m running San Diego before I run the San Francisco Marathon this summer. Both are large events.

I’d be lying if I said thinking like this didn’t trigger my anxiety.

TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL MEDIA ARE EVER PRESENT

This is kind of a given, but you don’t see it really, truly in action until something like this happens. On Sept. 11, 2001, very few people had their smart phones out. Facebook wasn’t invented. Those initial images we received on the attacks? More often than not, they were from news photographers. Not a lot of people were pulling out their smart phones.

Today? The finish line at the Boston Marathon was literally the most photographed public place that day. From the moments before (captured by a Boston Globe videographer), to the moment of (captured by an Instagrammer flanking the race path) to the aftereffects (including the YouTube video of people pilfering the Adidas booth).

I ask my students in my first lecture of every semester the same question: Where do you get your news?

Where did you find out about Boston?

I was knee deep in code and curriculum writing on Monday. A Facebook status post alerted me to Boston. It was from another runner friend. That’s when I turned on the television. I tell my students all the time that the best ideas for stories come from Facebook. I can name about 10 ideas that I’ve found on Facebook in the past year.

Twitter is also good for that. This obviously was a breaking news event. Still, social media played a huge role in conveying messages to the masses. I teach mass communication. Unfortunately a really bad headache kept me from my class and more talk of the Boston Marathon on Thursday, but believe me, we’ll be digesting this story for weeks to come.

Why? There is just so much more now out there. We are seeing every side of this story, good, bad and indifferent. Consider, too, that the photos also played a huge role in the identifying of the suspects. The FBI was asking for photos and video.

Say what you want about being in a wired society, in this case it helped crack the case.

RUNNERS ARE STRONGER THAN THIS

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This may be the most obvious lesson from watching the bomb blasts in Boston. The videos show the dazed reality runners were heading into after the blasts. And 468 just kept running. That’s right, nearly 500 people finished the 26.2 mile journey AFTER the bombs blew.

“They had no idea what was happening,” one of my Facebook friends wrote.

True. But if you’ve ever run a marathon you know that in those last few miles, you are basically on autopilot. Your legs feel like they are going to collapse under you. You can’t remember exactly why you signed up. You are tired.

The moment you see the finish line, you just run. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve missed seeing my husband at the finish line because I’m just running and not thinking about anything else.

Runners are a tough bunch.

Runners are also part of a tight-knit community.

And we come to the aid of other runners in times of need. Members of my running club were posting links on how to help, whether it be racking up charity miles or donating to campaigns.

On Thursday, Adidas introduced Boston: Stand as One shirts. The first ones listed, including the yellow one above for women, sold out. I was able to grab up a yellow one before they were all gone. The $26.20 goes to One Fund Boston to support the victims of the attack.

Runs have been scheduled across the country for people to show support. This is an amazing community to belong to.

“You will run again,” President Barack Obama said to attendees of a prayer service on Thursday. The truth, though, is that runners never stop running. Those 468 marathoners kept running. There were people running for Boston that evening. There have been all week. This weekend, the London Marathon will go on as planned, though with more security precautions.

SO WHAT DO WE TAKE FROM BOSTON?

Hours after the second suspect was apprehended alive, what we take, at least right now, is the realization that it only took law enforcement four days, less than 100 hours, to catch the the two allegedly responsible. That’s fast.

We also take away a sense that we may not be as safe on the marathon route, that once exposed in those 13.1 or 26.2 miles, the finish line is not a guarantee.There’s no promise we’ll make it to the end. As runners we know that going in.

But we also take a sense of community, of knowing that we are not alone because there are people out there who want the good to outweigh the bad. And that’s the real lesson in this week.

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There are no words

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I’ve been watching the live coverage of the Boston Marathon explosions since I received the first update on my phone earlier today.

My television is surrounded by my California International Marathon poster and a Nike Women’s Half Marathon picture frame. Marathons are part of my life. I watched the live coverage of the winners this morning online.

Then I shut off my television.

I’ve been watching the replay of the explosion at the 4:09 mark.

The photos are horrible and dramatic. An emergency room doctor earlier said there were several “traumatic amputations” of the victims. NBC is quoting that two are dead. The number injured is still in dispute, but it’s somewhere around 100. A former soldier, who finished before the explosion, compared the explosions to an IED blast.

It’s chilling to watch the videos over and over again.

These are details you can’t forget.

It’s painful to watch. The Boston Marathon is the top event in marathon running for mere mortals. There are stringent qualifying times and rules to get it. It’s heartbreaking to see what’s happening there.

It’s heartbreaking to know that the marathoners there will never come to the start line of a marathon feeling the same way again. It’s also heartbreaking to know that some of the rest of us, me included, won’t feel the same either. This event changes everything.

My prayers are with those in Boston right now.

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Jumping back in

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There was a bit of a joke in my house last week about my ample amount of extra time since I usually take a week off of running after a marathon. It’s less about recovery, more about me giving myself a treat. One week without running.

That said, I really didn’t have “ample” free time last week. I spent Monday recovering from the run while coding some websites, specifically mocking up a text-only version of a site I’d been working on for some time. Then my students had full-day labs both Wednesday and Thursday for the newspaper. Then, as I was hoping for a wind down, I left with six students for a three-day, two-night journalism conference.

Once there, it was literally one thing after another for the entire time.

I’m not ashamed to say I slept most of Sunday.

So today is finally my “back to running” day. But I’m buried in projects. So I’m not 100 percent sure that’s going to happen either.I’m also behind on grading. So far behind.

Yikes.

That joke about free time? It’s really just a joke.

But since I’m home more now than I was six months ago, my husband constantly reminds me that I can’t just walk past the dishes and laundry anymore without doing anything.

I was peeling potatoes last week and he offered to buy me an apron.

“You’ll probably need one now,” he laughed.

My husband, the comedian.

I need to jump back into running. But I’m still a little tired from the crazy week I’ve had.

Part of that means writing down a plan for the San Francisco Marathon. Right now, I have my 18-miler in place (thanks to the Mermaid Series Sirena 18), and a half marathon planned out (Rock ‘n’ Roll Portland).

The quick turnaround between runs means I go back to mid-length runs this weekend, maybe even a 10-miler. In fact, I have a feeling that I’ll be doing at least two 15-milers during this training cycle. San Francisco is big on hills. I need to be ready.

So here’s to jumping back into it, or at least trying to, this week.

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Working, but not working out

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You know when you go on a work trip and take your running clothes because you are convinced you are going to run? And then your scheduled becomes so packed that you can’t?

I’ve been in Sacramento since Thursday afternoon for a community college journalism conference. I have six students with me. We leave late tonight, after a fancy dinner where I’ll be wearing a dress and heels.

My students have been scheduled with back to back breakout sessions.  I’ve been running around trying to keep track of money, hotel reservations and making sure everyone gets fed.

And now we’ve checked out of our hotel rooms and deactivated our room keys, right when I could have had a chance to check out the hotel treadmill. I don’t know the area well enough to not get lost on a run.

It’s a good thing I ran a marathon last weekend. I’m just going to call this “recovery” time.

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A SLO marathon: Part II

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So, I’m serious when I say that I think the very comfortable bed at the Days Inn on Main Street in Morro Bay was beyond comfortable. I felt like I literally sank into the bed and it just cuddled me all night. It made for a very good night’s sleep.

My alarm clock went off at 4 a.m. I had planned to leave Morro Bay at 4:45 a.m. with my husband. So I went about getting ready, mainly putting in my contacts and grabbing up all my stuff. I had decided I would wear a long-sleeve Brooks “Run Happy” shirt for the race, even though I knew I likely wouldn’t need it after the first half.

Right on time, my husband and I were out the hotel room door and headed through downtown Morro Bay to the freeway. In less than 20 minutes, he was dropping me off at the designated zone. Scratch that, he dropped me off further up the street from the designated zone.

The starting line was at San Luis Obispo High School. The parking lot was clean. It was cool, but not freezing. And there was pretty of light.

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My photos are a little blurry because I was a little jittery. The beautiful thing about this photo is that there were a ton of portable toilets behind me. And, because on my anxiety problems, I was able to just kind of hang out in a very, very clean one until about five minutes before the start.

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See all those portable toilets? That’s what a runner likes to see.

At about 5:40 a.m. the announcer started corralling the marathoners, all 600 or so of us, to the start line. I initially thought the start was right in front of where all the half marathoners were sitting, near the multitude of other portable toilets. In fact, it was at the beginning of a neighborhood.

I’ll admit it: I immediately felt bad for the neighbors. Wow. They had to hear this guy yelling over and over again. We only had to listen for like 20 more minutes. Yikes. (Neighbors later complained about the noise on Facebook.)

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That’s the view as we made our way to the start. It was pretty dark. For a minute, I was kind of worried about the light. Some runners had headlamps. Headlamps. For a day marathon.

Crap. All I could think of was how my doctor just recently told me that it I fell on my arm again within the next six months, I could potentially break it again. I don’t want to re-break my arm. Please don’t let me re-break my arm.

We queued up pretty quickly. I didn’t even know where the pace groups where. I wasn’t exactly looking for one, but still. It was dark when we started at 5:59 a.m.

Mile 1: 10:13 — I was actually on pace to hit a 9:30 mile when I realized I was going out way too fast. Slow down girl. You have 25 more miles of this.

Mile 2: 10:29 — This mile was a combination of downhill and uphill. Maintaining. But I’m starting to actually get warm here. Ugh. Great. I didn’t want to stop and take off my long-sleeve shirt just yet.

Mile 3: 10:41 — More uphills, including the biggest initial climb that gets us out of downtown and starts on the path toward Edna Valley. I start to loosen up a little bit here. My calves feel good. My head feels good.

Mile 4: 11:31 — Continuing that uphill battle right here. Legs are finally starting to wake up and realize that we’re running. And we’re going to run far.

Mile 5: 9:44 — Wheeeee! Downhill. All downhill. Later on, I realized I probably shouldn’t have taken off like this, just because I think it kind of destroyed my legs later on.

Mile 6: 11:22 — The hills are rolling now. This is still the half marathon course. But I’ve only been passed by one half marathoner so far. Good sign? I don’t know. I’m pacing pretty well right now.

Mile 7: 11:52 — The good news is that I’m coming in under 12 on the hills, whereas once upon a time that WAS my pace.

Mile 8: 11:00 — I start to realize that these hills are much more serious than I thought. The elevation changes are drastic, but I’m actually not really feeling all that horrible quite yet.

Mile 9: 11:24 — I decided that I was starting to get a little tired, but I really, really wanted to have all my miles up to 10 under 12-minutes. I kept thinking it would be AWESOME to finish with an average time under 12 minutes.

Mile 10: 11:13 — Score! Under two hours! I’m still feeling good here.

Mile 11: 11:37 — Still going strong. We’re heading into the marathon out and back. I’m so ready to start heading back. For some reason heading back just seems like a mental break. Once I start heading back, that means it’s over soon, yes? And…suddenly I had to go to the bathroom.

Mile 12: 12:22 — I’m actually not ashamed of this mile, considering that I had to stop and go to the bathroom. I see two portable toilets on the side right near the turnaround. Out loud I say: “Please, please, please be open!” I was honestly surprised when one was. Quick in and out! I love small races.

Mile 13: 13:01 — Then I had that mile that killed me a little. I was doing so well, making progress, then suddenly it was like the wind got knocked out of me. I had a hard time picking it back up.

Mile 14: 11:33 — Back at it, saving myself a little. And downhills.

Mile 15: 11:35 — I know the hills are coming up, especially a big one, so I try to conserve.

Mile 16: 12:15 — That big uphill. I walked it. I was tired. But I kept going. Part of me didn’t want to start running again.

Mile 17: 12:38

Mile 18: 11:57

Mile 19: 13:17 — My problematic left IT band was starting to really, really bother me. Too many rolling hills, too much pounding in general. This was the point where I realized I was still doing pretty well in terms of time. OK, I need to slow it down. I need to take some time to walk. Slow walking. I was slogging. If that’s even a word.

Mile 20: 13:28 — Beating myself up a little and still slogging. SLOGGGGG. UGHHHHH.

Mile 21: 12:19 — I decided to start picking it up again. I wanted to start mile 26 in under the five-hour mark. I really, really wanted it.

Mile 22: 12:16 — But I’m not going fast. I can’t run as fast as I want. My IT bands, both now, hurt. This was, unfortunately, the less scenic part of the run. We headed back into the downtown area. There were far less people here, but the traffic was coming back too.

Mile 23: 13:36 — More slogging, but I wasn’t even sorry now. I was doing OK. I was coming in under the 5:20 mark that was my previous PR. I knew it would be OK now.

Mile 24: 12:26 — Getting back into the downhill area. If you look at the elevations, it looks as if the last six miles are downhill. They aren’t. Not even close. More hills. A walk bridge that goes up only to come back down. I’m exhausted.

Mile 25: 13:50 — So exhausted that even when I need to fill up my water, I kind of come to a dead stop instead of continuing to run. I’m excited when I see this later because I only had five miles in the 13 range. I was excited about that. And it was because my legs weren’t exactly properly trained to run a full marathon. The longest I had run was 15 miles. I’ll take it.

Mile 26: 12:07 — Pushing it into the end. I’m ready to be done running. I see my husband standing alongside the fence area. “I’m coming in under what I thought!” I yell at him. He has a huge smile on his face. I can tell he’s proud. Really proud.

Mile .3: 2:43 — And then, finally, I cross the finish line. I hurt, but not nearly as bad as I did when I finished the monsoon known as California International Marathon 2012. I was elated.

Chip time: 5:12:21

That’s eight minutes, 20 seconds off my PR from CIM 2011.

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I was so happy, I cried. And people were concerned, which I think is amazing and funny at the same time. I made my way back out to my husband after grabbing a small Jamba Juice, which I really didn’t want to drink.

In fact, I didn’t really want to eat or drink anything. I just wanted to hug my husband. I just wanted to cry. I did. A lot.

A woman walked by me and said: “Oh, honey, you did good!”

I think she thought I was sad. I wasn’t sad.

“I just wanted to make you proud,” I said to Thomas. He gave me this really sad look and told me I make him proud all the time. I didn’t need to run a faster marathon to do it. Truth be told, all my husband asks is that I don’t give up. And I make every effort when I run to not give up.

On Sunday, I didn’t give up. And I finally got my 5:15 finish. I did even better than my 5:15 projected finish.

I was so extremely happy to have my 5:12:21 finish.

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I love this photo my husband took of me. You can see the finish line to the left of me. You can see the pink sign for the Madonna Inn, kind of, behind me. And then there’s the expo tent with a guy stretching out right next to it.

I’ve learned a lot about myself in the past couple months as it pertains to running. I’ve realized that something was truly, incredibly wrong with me. That all that training I was doing that I felt was all for nothing was not working because I had a physical issue that was really holding me back. I was in pain. I was having issues each run. My stomach issues were reaching a real peak late last year as I was going through a bunch of other crap.

Pain was holding my passion back. Now I’m moving forward without it. And I’m realizing I’m a better runner than I thought I was.

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After lunch at the Applebee’s with my husband’s uncle, we started on our nearly four hour ride home. The good news is that I was sore, but it was an amazing kind of sore. It was a sore than comes with the realization that after nearly a year, I had finally broken my previous PR. And I had fun doing it. I felt amazing, even with a cranky IT band, all 26 miles of it.

It was good. I’m not a religious person, but I felt as if all of — the run, the experience, the positive vibes, my husband smiling at the finish — was telling me that everything was going to be alright.

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A SLO marathon: Part I

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I realized when I was printing out my confirmation for the San Luis Obispo Marathon that I registered on Jan. 1 at 2 p.m. By 7 p.m. that night, I was laying in a hospital bed curled over begging the emergency room staff to give me something for that pain.

When they finally did, the marathon I had just signed up for was the farthest thing from my mind. I was pumped full of Dilaudid and sent home. A week later, I was back in the hospital being rolled into an operating room having my gallbladder removed.

Ominous beginnings, right?

Good thing the San Luis Obispo Marathon didn’t turn out anywhere near bad. It was actually an amazing, pleasant experience. I had fun. I felt good. It turned out to be a great weekend, actually.

My husband and I left home at around 11 a.m. I completely forgot how long the drive down to the San Luis Obispo area was, a total of about four hours with a pit stop for lunch. The drive was relatively uneventful. In fact, we hit very little traffic on the way down, likely due to our late start.

By 3:30 p.m. we were driving down into central San Luis Obispo on Highway 101, passing right by the tented expo at the Madonna Inn.

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I should explain why I decided I wanted to run this race.

One of the issues I’ve had lately is with running really large races. Nothing spikes my anxiety more than being around a huge group of people. So I’ve been avoiding large marathons. I’m lucky that California International Marathon only has about 8,000 people. I was slightly hyperventilating at the beginning of CIM. The fear was masked by the rain, thankfully.

I read that the SLO Marathon had a cap of 1,200 marathon runners. The half marathoners were capped at 4,000.

I hate to say this, because it’s a great race, but I knew that the races wouldn’t sell out. The event is only in it’s second year. I heard about it from another runner’s blog, but otherwise there was very little Internet chatter about the marathon. I signed up when I did in order to avoid rising prices, though it still wasn’t cheap.

On Sunday, only 672 people ran the marathon. It started at 6 a.m. It was still dark. By the time I was hitting mile three, the half marathon was starting. Most of my time on the course, I only saw one or two of the fastest half marathoners. Small. Nice.

Plus, I love the SLO area. My husband and I went on our first vacation together in Morro Bay. We went back for years before our lives became too busy (note, we need to go back more now).

I ignored the elevation chart. I just wanted to run somewhere beautiful.

And it was beautiful when we arrived at the expo. It was also easy in and easy out to get my race packet. The only people lined up for the marathon were two misplaced half marathoners. It took me about five minutes from start to finish to get my race packet and number, which was assigned the day of. The race organizers then wrote my shirt size on the bib tag for me to claim my shirt.

I initially signed up for a medium. On race day, my husband went and exchanged it for a large. It was way too tight across the chest. But it was a beautiful green color, very similar to my CIM one (see above).

We made our way through the expo, which actually didn’t seem all that big. I found the race gear booth and admit that I went a little crazy. I’ve been so good at not buying anything running related lately. But I always consider marathons different. I don’t do a ton of them, definitely not as many as the half marathons I do. So I bought myself a nice jacket, my first nice race-related jacket.

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The nice logo was embroidered on the front. It’s a nice jacket, with a fleece lining and no hood. It’s kind of a windbreaker material, but it’s really, really warm.

So I splurged a little. The back of the jacket also had a basic logo on it, but simplistic design that I loved enough that I was sold pretty quickly on the jacket.

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I also bought a hefty water bottle. I’m already using it. Like I said, I haven’t been buying any running items lately, so I figured this would be my gift to myself for running the marathon. Incentive is always a plus, especially with 26.2 miles ahead.

We didn’t stay at the expo long. The area is too nice to stay inland. And we were staying in Morro Bay, which was only 20 minutes away. I had told my husband I would have preferred to stay in SLO, but I’m glad we stayed on the coast.

We actually headed out to the peninsula area and went exploring for a little while before dinner.

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You’ll notice the difference in atmosphere here. It was nice and sunny inland. Last year the marathon was run on a relatively foggy day. This year it was beautiful the entire time. The coast, though, was layered in fog. We went for a quick jaunt along the peninsula, but I didn’t want to spend too much time on my feet.

I did get to take in some ocean calm.

It helped to soothe my nerves, though, a little before my run. We ate at an Italian place overlooking the ocean before heading back to the hotel. I settled in for bed early, at about 10 p.m. Why? My iPhone alarm was set for 4 a.m. The marathon started at 6 a.m.

And you know what? I slept really, really well. The bed was super comfortable, comparable to my bed at home.

I felt like this whole marathon lead up was different than the three times before. I felt as if I was much more calm. I wasn’t cranky. The anxious nerves were being kept at bay as well. I was taking it moment by moment.

I’d like to think that’s what led me to PR success the next day.

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Admitting I’m better at this than I think

Three weeks ago, I replaced my half marathon PR with a brand new one.

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The Garmin data isn’t even completely accurate. The actual time was a 2:20:52 half marathon. Two minutes off my previous personal best.

Yesterday, I ran a fantastic first half in the San Luis Obispo Marathon. I wanted to run my little heart out. But at mile 18, where I normally get a little held up, my left IT band started telling me how much it hated me.

I made a choice then, a smart one. I could either keep running on it until I couldn’t run anymore. Or I could pull off, slow down a little and still be able to run it into the finish. At mile 25, it really started bothering me. But I had a smile on my face the entire time.

Between the increasing heat and the lack of people over the last couple miles, I had my worst mile right before the end. It happened through the streets of downtown San Luis Obispo, where the spectators became few and the  passion to finish well was waning. I was tired. I was done running.

Even then, I knew I had the goal I had projected for the very rainy, very windy California International Marathon. I was coming in well under 5:15.

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When I saw my husband at the finish, I yelled out: “I’m coming in WAY under what I anticipated.”

What I’m learning: When you keep running better than expected, you should refocus your priorities. Instead of feeling anxious about every race, maybe I should just embrace each one?

I’ve replaced two PRs in three weeks. And while the SLO marathon wasn’t what I had planned, I still came in under a 12-minute average. I knocked eight minutes off my last marathon time, which is a good chunk when you think about it.

I’m better at this than I’m giving myself credit for. It’s time I start focusing on THAT as opposed to thinking about the negatives. And while a 5:12 finish may be bad for another person, on Sunday it was amazing for me.

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When time works for and against you

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When I was in the middle of intensive counseling sessions last fall, my therapist told me to write down a list of things I couldn’t control. Want a lesson in humility? Make that list.

You’ll end up realizing that you can’t control anything. You’ll want to give up, buy a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice cream and eat it while watching afternoon talk shows (Ricki Lake has a show again, who knew?). At least that’s what I did. Months later, I’m not ashamed of it. The ice cream was good. And my soul needed more soothing that I realized.

I still have my list. The third item down is “time.”

I can’t control time. Because it keeps ticking away. Because there’s always a sun up and a sun down (unless you were the dinosaurs, as one of my students pointed out to me recently). Time just moves. You either embrace the temporal moments as just that or you let some bad drag you down.

Five weeks ago today I fell hard on my left side while trying to get in my 15-mile run for this marathon training cycle. It laid me up for two weeks. Three weeks ago, I finally did that run. On my treadmill. I also ended up in the doctor’s office being properly diagnosed with a fractured radial head.

This training cycle, I didn’t do a 20-mile run. I didn’t even do an 18-mile run.

Two half marathons, one 10K, various eight and 10 milers, but no marathon-standard runs.

And I’m running a marathon this weekend.

Time. It just kept moving.

When I ended up in the hospital in January, I wondered if I’d even make it to the start line in San Luis Obispo. My husband and I did a lot of talking in the hospital. We had conversations both of us had been avoiding, or hoping we wouldn’t have to have. They concerned work. Money. Running. Happiness.

I worried more about the 10K I’d be giving up than the marathon. I’d be fine by the marathon, right? I don’t even know how to define “fine” anymore.

Three weeks ago, sitting in my doctor’s office, I was more concerned about the Oakland Half than SLO. I PRed in Oakland.

In that time, my arm has become stronger. I’m able to bend more, but still not put a lot of pressure on it. I’m able to do some of the things I couldn’t before. And I’m grateful, because time helped that. I didn’t think it would ever be better. I was convinced I was going to walk around with T-Rex arm for life.

But I was back in Modesto getting my arm looked at today. The stiffness is causing the pain. I need to regain mobility. The fracture has healed nicely so far. (See image above, where the cursor is pointing? That’s where the crack was. I took the photo for my husband.) Time healed.

Runners say that by the time you get a week out from a marathon, there’s really nothing you can do that will prepare you more. Taper. Stay off your legs. Get your gear assembled. But don’t go crazy. This past week, I kept wishing for more time. In the middle of multi-hour meetings, looming deadlines and prep to take my students to a journalism conference out of town next week, I needed a minute or two extra. Something. Anything.

The reality is that I was wishing and wanting more time to feel better about this marathon. I guess I could just not run it. But my husband doesn’t really give me that option anymore. (You know the meme that says “you had one job…” where someone messes something up even though that’s all they had to do? I kind of feel like that. I have one job on race day, and that’s to run my ass off.)

Nerves? Anxiety? Yes. Always now. But if I had four more weeks, two more weeks, I know I’d be better for it.

Tomorrow we hop in the car early and head the 3+ hours to San Luis Obispo. We’ll be staying in Morro Bay, where my husband has family. The good news is that this course has an eight-hour limit. The bad news is that last year’s finishers mostly came in well ahead of that. I’m just hoping I’m not too alone out there on the course.

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Healing up, slow and steady

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For reasons I likely can’t remember, I decided to only work on one project during my week of spring break. That meant that when I came back to school on Tuesday, I was buried in work. There were invoices to send. I worked four hours with colleagues writing a proposal for funding that would provide some excellent opportunities to our students. Plus, I was running around trying to figure out where a check went.

I got on campus at 7:30 a.m. I didn’t leave until a little after 5 p.m. Then I realized the rest of my week looked just as hectic (according to my antiquated day planner),  with appointments all week. Today that meant a 9:30 a.m. appointment to renew my driver’s license follow by some work at home, then a 1 p.m. appointment with the eye doctor to check out my contacts.

The DMV appointment went quick, if only because I had an appointment. I got in and out, even after they sent me the form with my name wrong (totally missing the hyphen, incredibly necessary for it to be there since my license is the one piece of identification I care about it being right on).

The eye appointment didn’t go as well. I lost one of my contacts last week after I rubbed my eye too hard. It disappeared somewhere in the produce department at Safeway. I wasn’t even going to try and find it. And I couldn’t see well enough out of that eye to bother looking. Know what’s fun? Driving home (less than a mile) with your left eye closed because your right eye is the only one you can see out of.

Tomorrow, I have a day full of work rewriting CSS and adding accessibility features to a website. On Friday, I go back to the sports medicine doctor to see how my arm is doing.

I’m a little iffy on how to really characterize it.

I’m still in pain. But it’s not that bad. The biggest thing is mobility. I’m still having some issues moving the left arm completely.

This is my right arm:

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This photo is the best I can do, but you’ll notice a couple things right off. My arm can extend straight. My wrist is aligned with the arm. I can fully extend, essentially 180 degrees.

This is my good arm. This is the arm I’ve been relying on for everything lately. I can’t lift myself up without it. At the Oakland Half Marathon my husband had to pull me up off the ground with this arm because I still couldn’t bare too much weight on my left arm. I’m calling this my “strong arm” lately.

Then there’s my T-Rex style left arm:

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That’s not a huge dust bunny down there. That’s Cassie. She’s taken up Beau’s love of photo bombing my blog shots.

Notice a couple things here different? My wrist is slightly askew. I can’t align it properly with the rest of my arm without getting a bit of shooting pain up my inner wrist. My elbow is also more bent than on my right arm. It still feels vastly uncomfortable to bend it. It also feels uncomfortable to try to force it into a straight position.

I’ve been trying to get it more mobile than it was three weeks ago when I initially went in to see the doctor. He mentioned ordering physical therapy the last time I was in. I’m hoping to avoid that. I think it’s past the threshold set by the doctor initially. Then, I could barely bring it out in front of me. That’s part of the reason I went to see the doctor. I knew something was wrong.

The biggest problem is still the elbow-area, where the radial head is located. I still can’t put a lot of pressure on it. I’m also having some issues with lifting or moving things, even small items.

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I figured a visual would be better for an explanation of what type of pain I’m dealing with.

The red lines indicate the areas where I’m still getting shooting pain, which is essentially up my entire radius bone on both sides. The pain comes when I usually try to grab something or forget that my radial head is broken. The pain is just enough to shock me, but it doesn’t stick around. I’d like to think it’s just a reminder to me that I broke a bone and I need to slow down.

The blue rectangle shows my wrist area where I still have some general weakness. Essentially since I haven’t been using this arm all that much, everything I do with it feels foreign and just kind of wrong. I found my list of exercises from when I strained a thumb tendon shooting video that I’m using to increase the strength in that area. It still hurts, though. My grip isn’t very strong. If I’m carrying something, usually small, I hold it close to me because I’m unsure of myself.

The yellow circle is the worst and most uncomfortable of all of the pain, it indicates the area where the pain comes out once pressure is applied to the area, even slight pressure. It’s really hard not to put your arm down on a table or use it to support yourself when doing activities. Have I mentioned how hard it is to put on my running shoes with limited mobility? That elbow area is where I usually get the pain associated with that. Anytime I put pressure or increase pressure on that bone through activity, it hurts.

That’s the type of pain that actually sticks around for a bit. I’ve actually cancelled runs because the pain has become so bad I’ve taken to take an Ibuprofen, which is what I’m using for breakthrough pain.

What I’m not showing is my general mobility. My arm feels very stiff. I was warned around this. My doctor said normally when medical professionals treat these injuries, they put the arm in a sling for a couple weeks, then take it out so the patient can begin regular movement again. I’ve really struggled with that area.

Three weeks ago, I couldn’t lift my arm above my head. Even putting on a T-shirt was difficult. I couldn’t style my hair. I actually held off on dying my hair (I’m so gray without it, it’s ridiculous), for a couple weeks so my husband didn’t have to figure out how to help me. It’s not that bad now. In fact, I can lift my arm over my head, but it’s not a fluid motion.

So I’m getting better. It’s healing. But it’s happening fairly slow. I have an X-ray with my doctor’s visit on Friday. Then I’ll see just how my arm is doing.

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Finally, new socks

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I’ve been in need of new socks for about a month now. Most of my original Nike collection has holes in it, right in the big toe where my nail has gone through. I’ll admit, the socks have lasted a good while for as much as I wear them.

I found my favorite running socks, though, in 2012 before the Pasadena Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon when Sam and I visited the Nike Outlet inside the Citadel Outlets in Los Angeles.

We just happened to stop by when we were checking out a ton of other places.

Those two pairs have actually been my most resilient pairs. No toe issues, still fit good, etc.

In fact, I’ve been relying on them more and more as my other ones start to fall apart.

On my way back from the Oakland Half Marathon expo, I stopped at a new outlet center in between Oakland and where I live. The Paragon Outlets in Livermore recently opened up. This was the first time I stopped there, so I didn’t realize there was a Nike store.

But when I saw it, I immediately knew I had to track down another pair of those socks (or three, whatever).

And I found them, after some looking. For $7.99 a pair. I bought three pairs for just over $26 with tax.

These will likely last me a good while. Plus, they are soft and cushy. I wore a pair for the Oakland Half the next day. Since that run turned out good, I figured I really, really needed new socks.

Now I have a relatively close place to get them at a discount.