Wow, it has been a while!

I have not posted here in about 6 months (maybe more) and it is a complete shame. I HAVE been running, I have done a few races actually. However, I would be greatly remiss if I told you I was keeping up with it in the manner I should have for the entirety of this separation. Allow me to summarize:

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Kinsale St. Patrick’s Day 4 Miler: March 14th, 2015

I ran this one with my brother. I should say that “with” is a loose term. My brother smoked my 12 minute mile (usually) pace, clocking an impressive 32 minutes for the four mile course. This was my first race back at it after the winter lull in which I did not train as much as I wanted to (negative temperatures were just not my thing).

I also learned a valuable lesson: I am not an evening runner. I did poorly for a number of reasons. Chiefly: I wasn’t well-trained enough. I did not end in last place, but I did not do as well as I would have liked. In addition to this I learned that I am not providing my body with the things it needs to do the job right. I did not eat well and I did not properly hydrate throughout that day. It was a recipe for disaster, but I did at least learn something.

*BONUS*

The next morning I got up to run a couple miles and fell. I truly ate dirt. Luckily it was at the end of my run and near enough to my house that I did not have to hobble far.

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Lady Tutu 5K: March 28th, 2015

Let it never be said that I do not enjoy a good tutu, my husband on the other hand was so happy to see this leave the dining room-ahem, my workstation- for good. It had glitter tulle in it and I loved it.

This race was wonderful for a number of reasons. It was unseasonably cold, which actually ended up not being too bad. I got to run it with my best friend, her first 5k, and having never run with a friend before I must say it was really very fun. I hit a PR and felt amazing after it was all said and done. We then went to waffle house and I demolished one hell of a breakfast.

After this I got to have a nap. If any of you out there have kids, you know this is a rarity. I was cold to the bone and I had plans with my other best friend that evening and I NEEDED a nap. I was happy for the hour I got.

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The Lull From Lady Tutu all the way until school let out:

I usually do not like to discuss personal matters, but lately I have been reading a lot about people who find comfort knowing others are going through the same thing as them. After those races I was riding on a serious high, but then I crashed. The end of the school year was upon me, there was a lot to be done to finish up novels and make sure all standards were covered. Sometimes it felt like the world was shrinking in on me. My anxiety peaked and panic attacks became frequent. I knew that running would help to balance me out, but there just did not seem to be enough hours in the day. I also turned to food to comfort me, even if I was not fully aware of it at the time. My husband, who joined Title Boxing club, lost 65 pounds and while I was so very proud of him I was also intensely jealous. I always maintain that I do not run for weight-loss as much as mental well-being, but it was hard to have done something for so long and counted every calorie and cut out everything “bad” (prior to the breakdown I seemed to have found myself in) to lose barely 10 lbs. It was just the last, albeit superficial, straw. I then stopped counting calories, which in addition to stopping running caused me to tack back on those 10 lbs.

This was one of the many quotes I found that I started to look at religiously. “Little Inspirations” as I called them, helped me breathe a little easier and know that eventually I would come out on the other side.

But then…

The year started to come to a close. I finished up the last of my RESA tasks (it is a nightmare, I cannot even begin to tell you), the retiring librarian donated an entire book shelf worth of books to my class library, and I started making plans to get my rear back in gear. I began to breathe easier.

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The Candy Race: June 20th, 2015

Can you tell that it was raining and freaking horrible? That lovely lady to my left (your right), the one without a small child attached to their body? That is my sister. It was exciting to run a race “with” my sister. I say with loosely here because, once again despite my training I was beaten by my sibling. This time though, it was not so bad. Actually, we probably would have ended together had I not had a cramp in the middle of mile 1, causing me to pretty much limp/walk for a majority of the race. Let that be a lesson folks, STRETCH!!! I couldn’t get my husband out of the house that day, and so by the time we got on the road, I was left with only 10 minutes to stretch before running in the pouring rain. It did not go well. This was the worst time I have ever done. As a matter of fact, I clocked the same distance about 12 minutes faster just two days prior to this race. I was devastated and cried most of the way home. This was my first race back at it and it was the worst race I had ever done. Hell, it was the worst RUN I had ever done. I felt pathetic at best and while I typically despise self-pity, I definitely wallowed in it for about 24 hours.

However, there are bright and shiny moments to this gloomy day:

My sister, who finished 6 minutes ahead of me, came back to get me so we could cross together. It was the kindest thing that I can remember someone doing for me in quite some time. My family is supportive and my sister is a shining example of that. My heart swelled so much and I swear to you I almost cried right there.

Also, there was a kid’s dash:

Henry got to run and he did quite well. Of course they do not time the kids’ dashes, but I would not have cared if he was dead last. I was super proud.

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And so that is where we are right now. I am very much training for a half-marathon as we speak. I am also going to start going to Title boxing as well for cross-training. I had meant to start going a couple of weeks ago, but I decided I needed to get back in the habit of JUST running before adding in something else. If you stuck around for this whole post, thanks. I appreciate it. Tomorrow I will begin posting more “normal” posts, but today I will leave you with this:

On Wasting Time

While I was running the other day I had the following thought: “Gosh…this is such a waste of time!”

Of course, this was something that popped into my head smack in the middle of a 3-minute stretch of running (hey, I am proud to say I can do that now, and it is awesome!).

I just could not get into it on this day. I have been having trouble getting out to even do the run more than twice a week, and I was feeling really discouraged. Hot Chocolate is in less than a month and I really wanted to run it all, no walking, and I just do not see it happening. I have mentioned I am a teacher, and lately that has been super stressful. Basically, I was just having a “down” day.

It is always so hard to convince yourself.

So I had this thought, and it wove its way into my brain, slithering around like the slimy beast it was. I thought “Man, I could be spending these 30 minutes grading papers, or loving on my kids, or talking to another adult! This, this is selfish. I will never get this time back.”  But then I finished that section of running, and was doing my 90 seconds of walk time, and I realized that I am not sacrificing anything, I am INVESTING.

I am guaranteeing that I will be around to hang out with my kids in the future, that they will not have to worry about me dropping dead of a heart attack at 45. I am ensuring that when I decide to have other babies, my body and heart will be able to handle carrying them too. That whole “high risk” pregnancy thing is old.

I am making sure that my students get the best and most patient version of me they can. I am no good to them when I am stressed to the breaking point. Running ensures that I am leaving all of my frustrations on the pavement, and not taking it out on them.

But Running is also something I am doing for me, because I am a person and I deserve to treat myself well. Running helps me to work through my thoughts, and get rid of my excess frustrations and energy. It allows me to face down my own personal demons everyday, and tackle them. I push myself to what I think is a breaking point every time I run, and I push past it.

No, I am not wasting time. I am gaining it.

…and liars are not to be trusted.

My First Race: One Lucky Buckeye

I did it! I ran in the One Lucky Buckeye Race, and I did not even come in last. I am so proud of me that I cannot even begin to come up with words to describe the feeling.

This is saying something because I am a grade-A chatterbox. I mean, I have a degree in English because of my intense infatuation with words. I have an understanding with my husband to just mercy kill me if I one day am unable to speak… I do not think he would live up to his end of that bargain though, not because he loves me too much, but because he might enjoy the silence.

I wish I could tell you the entire slew of emotions I felt as I crossed this finish line, my FIRST finish line. I have walked a couple 5ks in the past, and it is not like I ran this entire 2 mile race, but this was the culmination of a lot of work for me. There was so much energy surrounding me leading up to this moment. The women who entered this race all had a purpose. Everyone came out in their red to support the ross heart center at OSU for their own reasons. When the 8 mile entrants left, and then the 4 mile gals, I could feel so many sensations. It was cold, but that was not why I was shivering. I was nervous.

Would I finish last? 

Would I finish at all? 

Would these leggings, which had fit when I left the house but have now decided to attempt a migration below my non-ass, stay on for the duration of the run (that was a question that repeatedly nagged me throughout the course)?

Would I pee myself in nervousness?

Hubby took this picture and the whole time I posed with this heart I couldn’t help feeling like I was in a pageant, lol.

All of these thoughts raced through my head as I waited to cross the line and start this adventure of mine. Then we set off and it was crowded and then we started to dissipate and I began to run. I felt so alive. When I slowed to a walk there were still a lot of women at my pace, it really wasn’t until we got to the (what I am guessing) half-mile point that they started thinning out. I intermittently jogged and walked, doing what my body told me I could. At some point my legs got to a point where they would rather run, as it hurt a little less, and so that is what I did. I did not bring my phone (I got a new one btw, pretty excited) because, silly me, I did not think anyone would. Imagine my surprise when I show up and just about everyone has their headphones in and their phones strapped to their arms. Instead, I was left to my own thoughts.

On this day, there were no “demons.”

There was not one thought in my head telling me I could not do this. I had nothing but positive thoughts. I was surrounded by women, all of us there for a common goal, all of us supporting one another. There were women my age, women a little older, women with their pre-teen daughters, teenage girls, grandmothers, every woman. And something I did not think about until that morning was the reasoning behind their participation.

A lot of these women, most of them really, had been impacted by heart-health. Some were running for their selves, some were running for their mothers, some were running for a person lost too soon. I was running for me, and for the good I wanted to get out of my body. However, as I was running I could not help to think of my own grandmother, she died of complications due to congestive heart failure. My mother, who has high blood pressure, my dad who has the same, and the myriad of family members of mine that have bum hearts. I personally do not know what it is like to have a “risk-free” pregnancy because inevitably I end up hospitalized with high BP. I was on medication for my blood pressure years before having my first child.

Somewhere in the middle of the race my race became about everyone else. I was racing for me, but I was also racing for my family. I was racing for my grandma, and my parents, and my children who deserve a mommy they don’t have to worry is going to have a heart attack at 45. A mommy that models a lifestyle that will insure they are able to develop healthy habits to keep any heart problems at bay for them.

I was racing for all of it.

I had so many emotions and fought back tears throughout the race.

For realz… what is the deal?!

Since having kids I have become overly-weepy and frequently kick myself at the dumbass things I cry about. Wanting to cry over a two-mile race, not because it is hard, but just because…gag me with a chainsaw. You would never know I used to be the future lawyer with a heart of stone would you?

And so there I was, running/walking through this race, occasionally checking to make sure there were people behind me, and fighting back tears like the pseudo-loser I can sometimes be (not that crying makes you a loser, obviously, just that even I am disgusted with some of the things I cry about). When I came upon the final corner, there were little cheering people telling me the end was near and I was so excited.

I took off running, yanking my ridiculously ill-fitting leggings up and pulling my shirt down simultaneously and when I rounded the corner and saw the finish line I felt the biggest smile come across my face.

I was going to finish.

I was almost there.

“Stephanie Davis, congratulations!”

Crossing the finish line at 1 lucky buckeye!!

You can kind of see my smile in that picture. I was so excited. I came in at around 27 minutes. Considering I usually do a little less than 2 miles and it takes me 30 minutes, that would be my best time ever for that distance. I was number 115 out of 236, so I did not finish dead last, I was smack in the middle!

They gave me a medal, but they had plaques for the 8 mile finishers and so I kind of feel like next year I am going to have to do the 8 miles… I am totally motivated by rewards.

I was so proud of this medal. I have won a lot of medals in my life, but this one was super satisfying in a whole new way.

Don’t you love my red lipstick?! It was really the only red accessory I had for the day, and I felt pretty BA running with lipstick on. I did have to wipe it off my teeth for this photo though, so I am sure it was quite the source of enjoyment for people I talked to. 😉

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LOOKING AHEAD: Hot Chocolate

My motivation is totally chocolate… however, the sweet hoodie and other swag you give seems pretty legit too. Also, there is a big party at the end for the kids, so double perks.

I will be running the hot chocolate 5k here in Columbus on November 16. I am deciding which 5k I will do in October. I had to take a break in training because of my knee (remember?) so I am not sure if October is even going to be feasible, at least not an early one. Maybe something for halloween?! I do love that particular holiday.

However, my mother was so proud of me for doing the One Lucky Buckeye race that she wanted to sponsor me in the Hot Chocolate one. So I am officially registered, and that is thanks to my mother. Giant shout out to my mama!!!

So follow along as I continue this journey!!

Fear Not!

I am still running, I promise. However, I am also a teacher and have one helluva commute and so my time to post is scarce. My free time is a precious commodity that must be divvied up to make two small children and one husband happy while simultaneously allowing me to plan my lessons. Making time to run is something I have not been doing great at…

BUT I AM TRYING I SWEAR!

inspiration?

Yeah… I firmly believe the douchebags that come up with little quips like that pinterest-gleaned bundle of sunshine right there are actually sadists. Sadists who have no commute and no kids and if they do have kids, they’re probably practically adults in their level of self-sufficiency by the age of two because lord knows the maker of this type of saying is not going to care for them. “what is that? you need me to wipe your nose? YOU ARE TWO, ALMOST THREE, ACT LIKE IT!”

I had about a week and a half where I did not run, I will be totally honest. I could genuinely not even walk like a normal person without copious amounts of ibuprofen and too many bags of frozen pees to count. I made the mistake of wearing heels (and they were “comfort” heels) to the first inservice of the year and now the ladies I work with think I am an idiot who can’t walk in heels. I had that whole “newborn calf” thing going.

Me: true story

Then, sometime relatively recently, I woke up and the pain was gone! I think it was after I got some new running shoes and I tried wearing them around the house in an attempt to break them in. As soon as I put them on, there was instant relief in my knee. This leads me to believe it was definitely a shoe/poor form issue with my knee in the first place. Now that I have my lovely new tennies, and I have tweaked my stride a bit, I have not had any knee issues, so YAY!! Not to mention they are pretty. I am a sucker for pink.

My new Nike Free 5.0 shoes! They have nike plus, but I haven’t set it up yet. Should I? Is that something any of you use?

Pay no attention to the crappy flash. I dropped my phone (a myriad of times) and this happened. The shoes are great, hubby got a pair in some super neon green, but they don’t have nike plus. So do I maybe have 1 up on him? I would like to think so.

So now I am back to the grind of running! I love the freedom I feel when I am out running. It hurts like Hell, as I have said before, but I really like it. However, I learned the other day that I am definitely a cool-weather runner. How do people run in the heat?! I ran at probably 6:30, it was around 89 degrees, and I could only do half of my run! Seriously…death. People who do crap like hot yoga, good on you. I will keep to cool weather. Any freaking day.

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I apologize if this post seems a bit half-hazard. I am just truly exhausted. Yesterday was a really long day for me (around 18 hours with my commute worked in) and who knows how much (little?) sleep I got considering my youngest is teething and has some bizarre cold. I am running on fumes (ha, running…get it?).

Just laugh.

I have 1 week until 1 lucky buckeye and I am so excited. I don’t think I will actually be able to run the whole two miles, but I will be able to run some of it and I am confident I will finish it in 30 minutes or less. That is more thank I could say even 6 months ago.

So, until next time,

My Soul Will Need a Censor Bar After This One…

I have given it a lot of thought and I have come to the conclusion that if I’m going to do this,  I need to be completely honest with you.

 

Oh Gaga and Queen Bey, you totally get it.

 

I’m not doing this to lose weight, but if I am being honest there will always be a part of me that hopes “this running thing” gives me some magically thin body. I can tell myself that I do not care, that I love my body the way it is, and that I am an effing super-human pseudo-mythological lady-beast because I pushed out a couple of bowling-ball-sized meatball babies. All of that is true. 

And yet…

I found myself pacing around my living room today, practically sobbing over the pain in my knee, cursing myself for embarking on this ridiculous venture because I’m just a “fat girl,” and nothing is ever going to change it. I will always be that chubby girl who doesn’t make eye contact with others and fears going to the mall because of what I was sure was my super noticeable love handles and lack of any sort of ass to balance it out.

Now, of course, I’m not that girl anymore. I’m a grown woman who has spent a lot of time learning to love my body and be proud of who I am. I love the mall, and while I don’t particularly rock a lot of heels, I am a fan of some cute flats and the occasional wedge. I have embraced my asslessness. But it took a long time and a lot of soul searching to get here. Not to mention a lot of words of encouragement from my husband. The more he loved me, the more I loved myself, even if I pushed hard otherwise. My sons love me and it is in their eyes that I have learned to see myself as beautiful in my own way. 

“I do not need anyone’s permission to feel glorious”

But today is a bad day. Today is one of those days where it doesn’t matter how much I chant to myself “just because someone else is beautiful (and thin),doesn’t mean I’m not pretty (despite my belly flab), or “beauty is a social convention that is created and perpetuated by the media!” I just feel crappy. I am fully aware that beauty is not tied to weight, that those two words are not interchangeable. 

Some logic for your beauty pipe. Smoke up.

I get it.

Sometimes, however, the demons (remember them?) creep in and drive all the body positivity I have completely out the window. Today’s run was horrible. I hurt like hell going into it, and obviously don’t feel great coming out of it. I feel no victory about it, and I actually spent the majority of last night dreading it this morning. In an effort to be completely honest with my readers (I know there are a few of you), I will tell you that I genuinely contemplated not doing today’s run. I wanted to push it off till tomorrow. 

Because I’m sure that would have gone so well…

I want to say this though: at the end of it, I still know without a doubt that I am a rock star. I know it. I know I am doing something that is going to be wonderful for my body and that this pain is because my body doesn’t have any idea what the hell I’m doing to it (**hint** I’m torturing it). I know that when I cross the finish line of my first 5k, after I have RAN the whole thing, I’m going to know I’m awesome and I will feel it. 

But for now, in this moment and on this day, I don’t feel any of those things.

Seriously.

And that is okay. 

 

 

Week 2 is OVER

This week was hard. I thought it was going to be, and I wasn’t disappointed. I am, however, surprised at why it was as hard as it was. I did day 1 with pretty much no hesitation, I even felt good about it. This week is a 5 minute warm up and cool down sandwiching intervals of 90 seconds of running with 2 minutes of walking. It works out to 31 minutes of workout. 

Day 1 came and went without too much to think about.

 

Then, I decided (very last minute) to stay the night with my mother before my next day’s run. I had some old shoes there from my college days, and she had workout clothes I borrowed. It didn’t seem like that big of a deal. Plus: she lives across from the high school’s stadium which meant I’d get to run on a nice bouncy track. All of this coupled with me not having to drive home at night after a mentally exhausting day at the school, seemed like a perfect combination. 

I think I was wrong. I did my longest distance that day, but immediately felt like my knee was going to explode. It felt like it needed to pop, but hasn’t. I’m almost positive it was the shoes. That was Wednesday, and here I am on Saturday, still hobbling around my house with a sore knee.

 

I am super proud of breaking 2 miles here!

I did still work through it to go on my run yesterday, but I didn’t do near the distance I usually do and I know that’s why. I hurt. A lot. No amount of Fall Out Boy or old school Black Eyed Peas was going to make it any better. 

This was my runkeeper for yesterday. Now, my phone did die with about 2.5 minutes left in my run, so I did go farther than this, but the numbers are still discouraging.

Im lucky to have a network of friends who are very much into running and they have given me wonderful advice to combat the pain. I put an icy/hot patch on it yesterday for a while, then I iced it, and last night I finally took an ibuprofen. I’m hoping to have some modicum of normalcy back for tomorrow’s run, as that is the first day of week 3, which looks to be moderately terrifying (3 minute jogs!!). 

I guess what I’m getting at is that I’m in pain, and I want to quit. However, I’m not. I am not quitting this. I want to not just do it, not just complete this stupid regimen, but I want to RUN in the One Lucky Buckeye race and I want to RUN the first 5k I registered for. This pain, while nagging me to just quit, is a reminder that I’m doing something my body isn’t used to. This is a good thing. To use one of the countless motivational sayings you see all the time “Pain is weakness leaving the body.”

I’m fully aware of the lameness of that statement, btw. 

 

Until next time, 

1.65

My phone died as soon as I hit share for c25k so I screenshot this as soon as I plugged in my phone.

Today I did 1.65 miles of combined walking and jogging. I wish I could tell you I sprinted it, or I ran my  heart out, but that’s not the case. I jogged at the pace I could handle. Which wasn’t too fast.

But you know what?

I did it.

I didn’t quit, and actually I feel like I improved mentally. I didn’t look at the app every two seconds waiting for the run to be over/dreading the running to start. I won’t lie and say I didn’t calculate in my head how many more reps before the “cool down” time. I *totes* calculated up that business.

~can we just pause for a second and talk about me using “totes” in a conversation? Elucidate on that a while.~

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Stretching, as I learned the hard way, is not something to be rushed through. That in mind, I stretched a lot more today than I did yesterday, and as a result, I don’t hurt as much. I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you I still hurt. Because I do. Yep. Hurts like hell. In a good way? Maybe.

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How bout the husband you ask?

I didn’t even have to fight to get him up this morning. He was waiting for me when I got home. Now granted, that could be because my littlest of men, aka the Chubbiss, aka Eddie (my 9 month old), was not pleased to have been so covertly placed in daddy’s arms as opposed to waking up with his mama and boo (what we call breastfeeding in this house.).

Yay! Mom mom is back so I won’t starve!!

Buuuut…. Point is that he got up and went about his morning run and I didn’t have to threaten to leave him. So we are getting somewhere. Have I mentioned how proud I am? Super proud!

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I wish I could word this in a hyper motivational way and convince everyone that they NEED to try this and that they CAN do it, but I’m exhausted and while I have a lot of words, they are eluding me this morning.

So I will leave you with this nugget: I’ve been spending the last few years letting everyone know they are worthy. That they should believe in themselves, because I certainly believe in them. I like to believe if you work hard enough you can accomplish your goals and those are worthy (as long as your goal isn’t to commit genocide or anything, I’m not supporting that shit). After I had my first son, I felt so empowered by what my body could do. I had pushed out a 9lbs14oz baby. THAT HAPPENED. I was a freaking god. I then proceeded to do it again, completely natural (the epidural didn’t work the first time, so what the hell right?) and I rocked it. My babies are my most prized accomplishments, and they were hard work.Hell, raising them isn’t exactly a cake walk. However, while I never doubted my body’s ability to create a life, bring it into this world, and then feed it, I never for a minute thought I could be a runner. I never thought I was capable of accomplishing that.

But here I am. I am living my truth. That we, everyone of us, is capable of anything we set our minds to.

I worked hard having my kids and I want to be around a hell of a long time (if only so I can be a really mean old lady), and so I’m doing this in part for them. But I’m also doing this for me. I owe it to me to be the best version of myself I can be.