Category: Choose You

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Choose You Health Running

Success and Failure

I’ve been running again.  I have been running shorter distances, but working on building speed.  A few months ago, if I didn’t run five miles at a time, I felt like I wasn’t working hard enough.  I honestly can’t remember off the top of my head, the last five mile run I had. In the back of my mind, I know this is not going to get me to a marathon in October.  But right now, it is good enough.

All my aches and pains have vanished- I have not had any more knee pain since I stopped pushing as hard as I was.  Since I am injury free, and working my way out of the physical and mental groove I have been in, I decided to enter a race. 

I felt like I needed a challenge I had not taken on before.  Since I know I am not ready right now to tackle a half marathon, and my body seems to be doing well with shorter but faster runs, I signed up for a 3K  (1.86 miles) in July.  I checked the top times from last year, and was pretty excited to see the times I was currently running were in the range with the finishers in the competitive field.  My current time is nowhere near the top level, but it was there.   With competitive runners. 

I stared at the computer screen for several minutes, wondering if this was right.  If I had to run this race today, I would finish somewhere in the middle among competitive runners.  I would be near the top for my age group.  The race description said the area’s fastest runners show up for this race, and with such a short distance it is quick!  And it is going to be hot!  It is outside, at 6PM. I am NOT a warm weather or heat runner. The last few weeks temperatures have been in the 90’s at 6PM.  This is definitely one of the most challenging things I’ve tried. 

But I was not going to let heat stop me, so I signed up for the race, in the competitive division. So I am now training for what will be my first race in 2 months, and my first competitive division race.  I have three weeks until race day to get faster and deal with the heat.  It has been hard.  I have dropped an average of 30 seconds off my time so far, and I hope I can keep adding to that.  I want to finish well, but even if I am the last person to cross the finish line, it feels good to be running and training again.

I’ve realized I might not make the goal of running in a marathon by October.  I never gave myself the option not to.  But when trying to reach any health or fitness goal, you have to have a little wiggle room.  If you never allow yourself room to fail or to be unsuccessful, then I don’t think you can ever allow yourself to reach the level of success you want either. Success and failure go hand in hand- you can’t have one without the other.

Not every training run for this fast intense race, is a success.  Sometimes the heat gets to me.  Sometimes my time is slower than the previous time.  But all of this is paving the way  for me to have success- hopefully in a few weeks in my first competitive race, and when the time is right- a marathon.

(Cross posted at Choose You Blog– a new campaign by The American Cancer Society to help encourage and support women to put their health first in the fight against cancer. )

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Cancer Choose You Health Running

Resting & Choosing You

Last Saturday, June 12th, was the one year anniversary of my thyroid cancer and neck dissection surgery.  A few months ago, I had a goal- a definite way I wanted to “mark” this day.  I was going to run in a tough half marathon in the mountains of Estes Park, Colorado.  Although I have run a half marathon distance before (13.1 miles) it would have been my first half marathon race.  I thought if I could run a mountain terrain half marathon at an elevation of 7,000+ feet, it would be an excellent foundation to build on for a full marathon. 

I would have had to put in some major training, and if you read my last post, it was obvious it wasn’t going to happen.  I thought a lot about the two races I’ve missed now, because of the time I needed to rest and regroup-physically and mentally.  It is hard missing out on a goal you really want to achieve, when your body won’t let you. 

Thinking back on my surgery from last year, it is amazing to me how much my body has been through, and really-that I can even push it to the limits I do.  I still have shoulder pain from the nerves they had to move in my neck, to get to my lymph nodes.  I’ve recently been told I need to have physical therapy on my shoulder because the muscles are so shortened and out of place.  I hardly notice the pain anymore, and this arm feels just as strong to me as my other arm, which was not affected by the surgery. In just a year-365 days-my body has made a remarkable recovery. 

But I have realized over the last month, I can’t expect my body to recover from a major surgery, heal from cancer, process radioactive iodine, function with almost 100 less lymph nodes, kill off microscopic cancer cells, adjust to thyroid hormones, be a mom, daughter, sister, friend, employee, deal with enormous amounts of stress through a divorce and losing a parent, and push physically as hard as it ever has, and not expect to ever be tired and need a break. 

I missed two goals I really wanted to accomplish, but I have also gained something I never would have otherwise.  Perspective.  My body last month was telling me it needed to rest.  I am glad I listened, because I think it will make me a better and stronger runner overall. 

Last Thursday, I finally had a run where I had a consistent pace again, some distance, and I wasn’t tired.  I had a bit of knee pain still, which I am convinced, is tied into running somehow.  It only started hurting a little over a month ago, when I was running.  I noticed the knee pain, before I tuned into how my body was feeling.  I hiked two weekends ago almost 10 miles on a tough trail, carrying 20+ pounds of equipment, and I had no knee pain whatsoever over the course of two days.  It might sound silly, but on that hiking trip, I decided when my knee didn’t hurt when I ran, the time would be right to come back to race training.  

On Monday I ran.  I wanted to run fast.  I wanted to run a shorter distance and see how it went.  I ran at a fast pace so I had to work, but I did not go “all out.”  I ran on grass, which is harder to run on.  I felt good.  I ended up with one of my fastest times ever for the distance in a training run.   There was only a tingle of knee pain.    

And so, I am beginning again.  I am going to gradually and consistently push forward.  I have a new short-term goal I will write about next week. 

I’ve learned a lot in the last year, but over the last month I have learned one of the most important lessons:  Sometimes by not doing anything, listening to your body, and just being, is the best way to choose you.

(Cross posted at Choose You Blog– a new campaign by The American Cancer Society to help encourage and support women to put their health first in the fight against cancer.)

Categories
Cancer Choose You Health Running

Motivation

(Cross posted at Choose You Blog– a new campaign by The American Cancer Society to help encourage and support women to put their health first in the fight against cancer.  I will be blogging with Choose You about my fitness goal- running in a marathon this year.  This is my second blog post with Choose You. If you missed the first one, you can read it here.)

The last few weeks, I have lost some motivation.  Ironically it started right around the time I made the commitment to Choose You, and subsequently announced I was going to run in a marathon this year.

Prior to Choose You, I didn’t announce my goals, or “put them out there” to everyone.  I’d tell a few friends what I was hoping I could do.  I’d sign up for a race, and write about it on my blog.  I guess you can say the pressure is on, and I have a fear now- what if I can’t do this? 

Another factor coming in to play is the conclusion of my divorce.  It had been going on for a year and a half, and any divorce that takes that long is complicated, and usually not very easy.  At the end of the court trial last Wednesday, it was finalized, and I felt completely drained. I missed posting my blog post here last Thursday, because I had no energy after the trial to write anything.  I think the conscious and unconscious stress that has been present for the last year and half has caught up to me. 

Health-wise, my latest blood work shows I am extremely deficient in Vitamin D.  The dose of radioactive iodine I had last August has depleted my Vitamin D levels.  My doctor said this alone could account for my fatigue.  She prescribed a second round of prescription Vitamin D, in hopes that will raise my levels back to the normal range. 

All of this compiled has resulted in very little motivation or desire to run.  The other day at the gym, I ran a third of a mile, and felt like I had run ten miles. (It is painful to write that!)  I was tired, winded, and wanted to just stop, go home, and go to bed.  I forced– and I mean forced -myself to keep going, and I ended up running 6.5 miles at a 9:10 pace, but my heart and my head were not in it. 

I was going to try an ambitious mountain half marathon in June, but I have no desire right now to put in the hard training I would have to do to run it the way I planned to.  I have been riding my bike more lately than running, and am really enjoying that.  I have been building up my distance and speeds, and I’m not worrying about setting any hard or fast goals.  Right now, bike riding doesn’t feel like work, and running does.  Fortunately, cycling is good cross training.    

I have still been running on average 10 miles a week, and I am going to try to keep that up.  I hope over the next few weeks, I will decompress from everything, and my motivation will return.  I have worked really hard to get to where I am, and I don’t want to just let it slide away.    

Last week I was running on the treadmill at the gym, and having a really hard time just completing a 5K distance (3.1 miles).  I had run 2 miles and saw I was on pace to finish at over 30 minutes.  I haven’t run a 5K distance in over 30 minutes in months.  For the first time in a while, I felt that drive and motivation kick in.  I turned up the pace to run almost two minutes faster for the last 1.1 miles.  It was hard, but I did it and finished in 28 minutes. 

When I was getting off the treadmill a man came over to me and told me “very nice run-especially at the end.”  He said he used to run, but didn’t anymore.  He said he was going to ask me if I run in races, but after seeing me run at the end, he wanted to ask me now how many races I have won.  It was a very nice remark from a stranger, who knew nothing of the funk I’ve been in, didn’t know that was one of my slowest runs, and I’ve been struggling.   But I knew.  And the part that he said was very nice was the end- when I was running like I know I can, when I’m motivated.   

I am not sure what I really need to do, to get my running motivation back.  I hope I can figure it out soon though, because I have a marathon to train for. 

If you have any ideas, comments, or suggestions, I’d love to hear them.