Bye Bye Marathon, Hello Crutches

Well, my plans for the Richmond marathon are done. I did a little 10k race two and a half weeks ago, and noticed a little groin pain about mile 3. That's odd, I had thought, and continued to run. After all, the pain wasn't so bad. Until I stopped. Fast forward to now: the MRI yesterday confirmed a pelvic stress fracture, which are "notoriously difficult to heal." Hmmm... not what I like to hear from my doctor.

I am the proud new owner of a set of crutches. Gee, thanks.

Thankfully I am physically able to walk in a pinch, but I've learned enough about these fractures to have great respect for how long they take to heal if not treated well. Based on the internet forums I spent copious amounts of time last night perusing, it seems pretty common for people to report being out of running for a year. I'm hoping for three months.

Right now I can't even really pool run. I actually was pool running for the past two weeks, and that was what convinced me that I couldn't possibly have a stress fracture. Stress fractures are only supposed to hurt after doing weight bearing activities, but somehow mine hurts after I pool run... so it HAD to be muscular....

It is a little tricky navigating the world with a baby on the hip and crutches. The pic is of me looking particularly svelt this morning trying out the front pack-crutch combo.

Heat Wave

It's hot here today. The heat index was supposed to be 118 degrees because of the unprecedented humidity (and this is Virginia, it's always humid here), though the actual temperature was "only" in the low 100s.

What I really want to say, though, is that my beloved husband is crazy. He worked out today, outside, lifting weights, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The temperature in the weight shed? 107 degrees. Really? Who does that?

T-minus Four Months...

...until my first marathon! I've always figured I'd do one sometime or other, so a couple of months ago I felt like I needed a personal challenge that broke the monotony of stay-at-home-motherhood and decided why not now?

So far training is going well. I have some nagging IT bands (knee) that like to get tight, but nothing that ice isn't keeping under control. This is impressive to me because I always get hurt when I run on treadmills, but because of the summer heat and a lack of childcare, I'm having to do a lot of my running in the gym where they will take my kiddos.

I'm doing a local training program, though I haven't actually started doing my long runs with them (apparently for Nov. marathons, you don't actually need to really increase your mileage substantially til end of July/beginning of August). But the great thing about this training program is that I'm learning a lot of interesting tidbits about running.
1) The less noise you hear when your foot strikes the road, the less pounding you're putting on your body. This is totally obvious, but I never knew that before.

2) The most common cause of shin splints after bad shoes is over-striding (taking too long of a stride). For every 20 seconds, one foot should land on the ground 30 times. This is easy to count when you run.

3) Hydration belts are awesome. I haven't been drinking anything on my long runs until this past week when I got a Nathan hydration belt. It was amazing, and it made 12 miles feel like a breeze.

4) The closer your long run gets to being 50% of your miles for the week, the likelihood you'll get injured goes way up.

5) The best treadmill ever is a Woodway. It is unlike any other treadmill I've been on. It's full suspension with rubber treads and feels like you're running on air.

6) Running at a 0% incline on a treadmill is like running on a .5% negative slope outside, so I always set my incline to at least 1%.

7) The first mile should always be your slowest, and the first 3 miles of a marathon should be your slowest.

The training program has all these pace charts about your marathon potential based on your average long run pace, and a two mile time trial. It's fascinating, but I feel like it's baloney. I can't imagine finishing in less than 4:30 but the pace charts say my race potential is closer to 4. Riiiight.

Probably the most helpful thing about the training program is that I have to fill out a detailed daily training log so it is keeping my nose to the grindstone and me on target to meet my weekly mileage targets. Right now I'm at 30, but I think the goal is to be at 55 before November.

Benedict the Yellow wins it all

My fantasy football team, Benedict the Yellow, pulled through a tough match up last night to win our league for the season. Thank you. I know, it was an impressive performance, probably made possible by the imposing picture of Ben that I have as my team's icon on Yahoo.

What I really want to talk about with this post, though, is my husband and fantasy football. I have been merciful all season long, choosing not to blog about the truly ridiculous things Austin says about it. But as the newly crowned winner of our fantasy football league, I think it's time for that to change.

In fantasy football, there is something called "smack talk" in which you apparently try to impersonate an ego-inflated NFL player and post insulting comments for all your other friends in the league. I am pretty sure this is Austin's favorite part of fantasy football, or at least the part that he is best at.

Here are some of his smack talk season highlights:

"John, does he have compromising pictures of you or something? How could you lose to someone who started 2 people who didn't even play?"

"No playoffs for you, husky rusky."

"Fantasy football is not supposed to bring a marriage together." (This he actually told me in bed one night instead of posting it on the league message board.)

"8-2, son." (In response to someone pointing out that he had just gotten lucky being in first place at that point as his actual number of points scored was 6th out of 8 in the league.)

"You better worry about even making the playoffs first. On an unrelated note, did everyone see that i already clinched a spot?"

When a good friend failed to make the playoffs like Austin did (top 4 spots) he rubbed it in, saying, "Great job on securing the 5th seed in the playoffs. I look forward to playing you. . ."

And of course today he tried to rob me of my hard earned victory, saying, "I taught her everything she knows." That is, of course, blatantly false--he's so competitive he has not offered me a word of help all season long!

But the very worst thing he said all season was the week we had Molly and we happened to play each other. While we were in the hospital his friend posted "what are the ethics about beating a women about to have your baby? Should you throw the game? Just a thought." Austin replied, "if she had bore me a son, I would have let her win."

Now do you see what I live with???!!! :)

Of course, the one redeeming factor of Austin's ridiculous bravado is that everyone in the league was glad when I soundly stomped him last week and went on to win it all this week. After all, they figured, who better to rub his loss in but me?

Football

This video is of Tucker trying to change the channel on the TV so he could watch football... on Monday at 6 pm. He has become convinced that if he holds the remote to the VCR pointed at the TV and chants "football" that football will come on. This crazy belief has nothing to do with his father's tendency to secretly hold the remote that changes the channel and change the channel back to football when Tucker does his football/remote chant....

My first race in ages

It was only a 5k, but if felt a lot longer than a 5k. Really. There is nothing like running a race outside after having "trained" on a treadmill to convince a person how much better shape they could be in. You see, there's a little thing called topography outside that treadmills (fortunately) lack.

The last race I did was before I moved to Virginia, a 15k. I remember it being surprisingly a lot easier than I thought it would be (and I went at a faster pace than I did this time, too!). This was exactly the opposite. But, kudos to my friend Lena for getting me off the couch so early on a Saturday morning and at least contemplating getting into that kind of shape again... maybe... eventually.... :)

Addendum: It turns out we got 4th place in the female-female team category, out of 12. Surprisingly good, but out of medal contention. :)

Fantasy Football

I lost my bid for the playoffs in my fantasy football league due to the underwhelming performances of Randy Moss (0 points) and Kurt Warner (1 point) this week. Argh! It came down to the wire, but at least I did get the fourth most points in the league, out of 10 teams. I also beat Austin this season, so that makes the season not a complete wash out, and I think I probably should earn the Most Improved award after a pretty horrible introductory season last year.

My husband, on the other hand, is suffering from a severe case of I'm-the-best-fantasy-player-ever syndrome. It's true, he finished the regular season at the top of the league, with 200+ more points than any other team.

This is how he put it in his most recent email to the whole league:
"run and shoot [a's team] is in first place, most points scored, most blowouts, longest winning streak, eventual champion, and humble."

Yep, definitely humble. That's what I was going to say. :)

Like a beached whale

Way back in high school, we would practice splashing in the water like Shamu, the killer whale. In college, our coach made a very unfortunate comment about wanting no beached whales on his team (!).

Well, yesterday, I did my first masters swim meet.

The good news: I'm still alive to tell the story.

The bad news: I have a lot of work to do.

Actually, it was a lot of fun, and as I have never competed under the name "Jackie Jamison" before, ALL of my swims were personal bests (riiight).

It was definitely inspiring. I watched a 96 year-old woman set two national masters swimming records (in the 50 breast and 50 free--both swims around 2 minutes each). She even did the 100 IM, which was impressive.

Probably more inspiring to me for my stage of life were the legions of other former swimmers who are in really good, competitive shape and swimming some pretty good times.

Hopefully this motivation lasts as I swim alone at the YMCA day after day over the next six months....

Domination and Sports

We're spending a quiet New Year's afternoon watching football, specifically the Rose Bowl where USC is up on Penn State 31-7 in the first half. Austin is complaining that the game isn't more competitive, but I think it is perfect. I love domination in sports. My favorite golf tournaments are the ones where Tiger Woods gets ahead by 10 strokes and everyone else looks like an amateur next to him. I loved watching the Patriots last year attempt an undefeated season and belligerently try to rack up the points on their opponents. Who's my favorite basketball player? Michael Jordan of course. What was my favorite Olympic event this summer? Anything with Michael Phelps (except, of course the 100 fly and 400 free relay which were waaaaay too close for my taste).

What could be more fun than to watch the truly elite perform at their absolute best, and wreck the competition in the process? There is no suspense, and no anxiety about who is going to win. It's like getting to experience the glory of the win throughout the whole game without suffering the agony of indecision and suspense and all that. Plus, if you like to multi-task while watching sports, it is VERY easy to follow the game satisfactorily. And, if you get tired, you can go to bed whenever you want because there will be no plot change. You know who is going to win and can just check the internet the next day to see how bad the spoils were, though it does bring a certain satisfaction to see the carnage to the very end.

Underdogs are overrated.