*HEADDESK*

So I got all bored with massive blood blisters after every long run and took my orthotics in to be adjusted, as you do. The podiatrist took them on Wednesday, was going to fix them on Thursday or Friday and pop them in the post (his main office is 150km away, and he's going on holiday next week) so I would have them today. Not ideal since my foot still needs to be mollycoddled and the best way to get it all sting-y and painful is run without orthotics (I have evidence that this is not just pessimistic thinking, alas - I had to borrow back my favourite ice-pack from Noddie on Friday) and I HAVE A HALF MARATHON IN 3 WEEKS did I mention that?????
They weren't here today so I rang up to check whether he might have sent them to his office for me to pick up. HE'S JUST DONE THEM. TODAY. HE WILL POST THEM TOMORROW.
*headdesk*
One of the perks of living in a picturesque bucolic wonderland such as that in which I reside is that THE POST TAKES AN EXTRA DAY. So I won't have them until Wednesday at the earliest and I've already had five days off running and I HAVE A HALF MARATHON IN 3 WEEKS did I mention that????
 Yes yes yes I've been stretching and walking and doing my core workout and a bit of cycling but really - hang with me on this, I'll explain it very slowly and carefully - the best preparation for a running event, especially when you've not laced on a Saucony in anger since October, is RUNNING. True.
Now I am happy to take responsibility for any and all behavioural impediments to my becoming super-zoomy. I eat too much. I drink too much. I get all disheartened and don't work out enough. But I've rehabbed this foot like it was my job and been careful and patient and cautiously optimistic and aimed high-enough-but-not-too-high and I was just getting on a really good roll and building up some reliable strength and endurance and I WAS REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS RACE AND NOW IT'S GOING TO BE A TRAIN CRASH unless I come to my senses and drop out but then I won't have a hit-out before Gold Coast and I was really looking forward to it it's not fair

*pouting*

Le sigh.......

Look! Shoes!

- not mine, but very fab, don't you think? Who can be downhearted when such shoes exist?
More anon, toe-tappers!

Just like the big kids

The nice chap at the bike shop gave me an Endura Cool Mint Gel to try so I thought I'd be like all the big kids and do a product review. Here it is: this gel sounded as though it would taste like toothpaste, and did taste like toothpaste. I'll stick with the raspberry and vanilla. They are Yummy.

I confess I haven't tasted the coffee one; I am extrapolating from the fact that I don't like anything else coffee-flavoured

In other news, Noddie has a new bike and has started riding to school! It's about 1km along a straight road so no big dramas but I am still SO proud, and so happy to see her beaming as she flies down the hill.

She also has her first sports injury BOOOOOO! - a hairline crack in her heel, which is not uncommon and will resolve itself in time but it's been quite painful, poor lambie. She was so brave at the podiatrist's. I have lent her my favourite ice pack.
Please don't feel you have to read this next bit as it's quite dull.
Activity here at the LBTEPA Institute for Behavioural Modification continues apace. Project thisissoboringOKAYI'llwritedownallmyfood has interacted with my laziness in an interesting way: I'll often refrain from cupboard-grazing when I can't be bothered looking for the notebook o'boringness (aka my food diary)! As so often happens, my friend the Mighty Emma has lit the way to another breakthrough. She has recently modified her diet to include porridge for breakfast and salad for lunch. I don't especially care for porridge, or rather, since it is the LBTEPA way to be accurate, washing the porridge pot, so I have substituted muesli as a fast-breaker, and fang down on rabbit food at noon. Rather startlingly, after only four days the button on my work pants is noticeably happier.
Have you fallen asleep yet? Sorry.
I must tell you about the Most Awesome Run I had the other day. It wasn't one of the effortless floating ones or the wow that was fast ones or the I could go all day ones. It was after work eww and warmer than I like and I was stiff from my long run on Sunday (14km, how the mighty have fallen, eh?) and my foot was hurting and I couldn't get my shoe tied properly or my orthotic to sit right. But I kept going. I retied my shoe and fixed my orthotic and stretched my calves. I focussed on my form and reminded myself I only had to run for two songs (BTW ahem did you just read that? Two whole songs! Squee!! And happy dance!!) As I trotted on, things settled down. I felt more comfortable, and strong. I didn't ever feel good as such, but I felt ok and as though I could keep going as long as I had to. No dramas, no desperation. Enough in the tank, physically and mentally. I felt strong! I didn't realise how much I had missed feeling strong. I think about it now and I smile.
More anon, exemplars!

Things that make you go hmmmmm

Comment by LBTEPA on the Mighty Emma's effbee page, following an indication that she (the Mighty Emma) is thinking of a grudge match with Melbourne this October:
...asking myself, can one really go an entire year without a marathon....?
Her response:  A year without a marathon is like a year without mind-numbing terror.
When you put it that way..........

Is there a middle ground between too comfortable (which the brave, brave button on my work pants is telling me I am right now) and scared out of your wits?

Mmmm, bikkies

It's the Anzac Day public holiday here today. In honour of the occasion I have made some Anzac biscuits. My first batch ever - so un-Australian I know! but better late than never. They are yummy (if you read the recipe in the link, there's no way to achieve instruction 6).
I also ground out 8.5 of the slowest kms ever recorded by a conscious person but I did run 2 songs/walk 1 the whole way and I have no foot soreness YAY! YAY! YAY!. And it's not my long run (11km is scheduled for Saturday. Eeek).
A quiz for you: just say a sharp edge in your orthotics is giving you brutal blisters. Do you
a) tape your foot, or
b) tape the edge of the orthotic?
Extra points if you worked out that the best answer is b) in less than 3 weeks, unlike some people I admit nothing
Operation you bite it you write it is continuing in its boring yet worthwhile way; I'd tell you more about it but I might fall off the chair at the immense tedium of it all.
Must keep this short as Noddie wants to paint flowers on my nails, and the footy is on. It's my favourite sort of game - very exciting and loads at stake and my team isn't in it.
More anon, kid-wranglers!

we can rebuild it

Righto.
I must just say that, since I acquired the Best Sinuses Money Can Buy TM, sinus infections such as the one with which I am currently afflicted are a matter of somwhat tiresome pain, general off-colour-ness and poor sleep, as opposed to wanting to saw my own head off as was the case in the past. It's all good.

The other day Captain Obvious flew in and whacked me on the head with the 'you idiot!' stick - it finally occurred to me that the reason I don't seem to be getting anywhere much with the Great Health and Fitness Overhaul of 2012 is that I have started from where I would like to be than where I actually am.

Images in this post are brought to you by my no-show12.30 client

Consequently, boffins at the LBTEPA Institute for Behavioural Modification have conducted a thorough needs analysis, pinpointed a number of skill deficits, and come up with A Plan, bless their enthusiastic little hearts.

Issue 1: I am chef de cuisine here at Maison LBTEPA. I am also a picker and an emotional eater. I just stuff things in my mouth All The Time. Mostly little things, but my work pants are telling me it's adding up.

Plan: write down EVERYTHING I eat.

BO-RING, but so is my work pants being too tight

Issue 2: vaulting ambition o'erreaching itself (aka senseless optimism/biting off more than I can chew).

Plan: limit, limit, limit. Slow, slow, slow. 30 minutes on the bike, not 40, so my hip won't tighten up, so I can run the next day. 6km runs, not 7, so I can run two days in a row.

This is also BO-RING, and very confronting. I like to see myself as this crazed superfit superhero (STOP LAUGHING) and let me tell you, I will be that person again. But I need to suck up that I am not her now. Patience, patience patience. I will FLY AGAIN! Bwahahahaa!

Mind you I am still doing two half marathons in the next couple of months. That doesn't count.
Issue 3: no routine to my fitness.The Spousal Unit works pretty much random shifts and Noddie is a bit young to be left alone.

Plan: get up at 6am no matter what and do SOMETHING. Minerva is set up on the trainer in the study, but even if some wretched lurgi is hanging about (as they so often do) making cardio inadvisable, I can still stretch or do weights or a core workout. I need to am going to rebuild my "I am an athlete, this is What I Do" mindset one day at a time.

The guts of it? I need to TTC, have a RHG and a GHLAM!

More anon, thinker-outers!

PLan C

In which LBTEPA Thinks Things Through

3.45pm Saturday: The Spousal Unit gets home from work.
- You're off for a run?
- I really don't feel like it but since I didn't go this morning I pretty much have to decide right now whether I'm still aiming for the full at the Gold Coast. 
4.15pm: head out
4.20-4.45pm:  I really, really don't want to do this today. My foot hurts. Why is my foot hurting? Why didn't I stretch today? I stretched yesterday. My head aches. Stupid smoke. It'll stop soon. It's not stopping. I'm not re-tying my shoes again. This is doing my head in. I don't need this....aaaannnd repeat
4.45: sms J when I get home I am entering the GCM half the full is just too much atm it's messing with my head
5.20pm: enter Gold Coast Half Marathon
5.21pm-10pm sulk, feel like a failure/loser, and more of a failure/loser for feeling like a failure/loser about something that a) makes perfect sense in the context of my current health/injury/fitness status and family/work/study obligations and b) loads of people would love to be able to do and think is amazing.

Essentially, I did The Right Thing, then had an extended sook about going interstate for a nice holiday, some bling and a new t-shirt - becuase I looked in the mirror and didn't see Wonder Woman.
Boo F----ing Hoo, eh?

J said Now you can just enjoy yourself! And do a bit more riding and swimming, and just have fun.
That's taking me a while to get my head around, but I'm sticking with it. I'm plucky like that.

Of course I woke up this morning at 4.30am becuase poor little Noddie was coughing and I feel fantastic and full of energy (if not properly awake). If I hadn't got all gloomy yesterday I could be out getting my long run in and still on track for Very Slow Marathon #6
*SLAPS SELF ON HEAD*
This will give me the chance to really thoroughly get my core strength and flexibility sorted and my foot really properly healed (not to mention the sprained ankle from last weeks' faceplant) instead of always worrying about how far I'm pushing it and every little ache and sniffle that's going around.
I will also experiment with this 'exercise for fun' thing. I'll just do a couple of halfs over the next few months and maybe the full in Melbourne in October.
*READS PREVIOUS SENTENCE, SLAPS SELF ON HEAD AGAIN*

More anon, derring-doers!

The horns of a dilemma

So. Do I crank out my make-or-break, do-it-this-weekend-or-forget-about-the-full-at-the-Gold-Coast 20km (did I tell you that Noddie commented the other day you know you could just go to the Gold Coast and not run in anything. I just stared at her in complete incomprehension) from 6-9pm tonight after work EWWWW, or from 3-6am tomorrow morning before J goes to work EWWWWWWWWWW?
Ewww.
But as the Mighty Emma, my comrade in Stupid Determination, has observed, everyone wants to do a marathon but no-one wants to run a really long way.
I want to send a shoutout to my good friend Sara who is going through her own stuff and still reaches out with comforting thoughts when her dopey mates fall over broken footpaths and hurt themselves twelve weeks out from the Next Big Dream. Darl, I think I was going the full drama queen about my foot, on the inside, but was so horrified myself that I couldn't even express it. The ankle is still a bit creaky but that's what ice and ibuprofen are for, no? (((HUGS))) darl you are the best.
Do you have an awesome friend who always says the right thing? Get on the phone or the interweb or ride your bike to their house Right Now and thank them for being in your life. Off you go!

More anon, buckers-up!

(that's BUCKERS. With a B)

JFDI

I was whingeing to the ever-patient Spousal Unit the other night. No! you cry. Never!
What's happened to me?I used to be fired up! No sooner had I packed Noddie off to bed and I'd be on the trainer! I hurled myself out of bed morning after morning in the freezing cold, no worries! Now look at me. What's happened to the mean keen exercise machine? Where did she go?
I don't know where she went. She's not here, that's for sure.
B#&*%, letting me down when I need her.
You know what? I thought. She nicks off, with my mojo and my enthiasm? I'll show her. I'll run by myself. 
And I did. It wasn't too bad. It's been cold but the mornings have been clear and beautiful, and I got to high-five the funny old bloke who always tells me there's five miles to go, and say hi to Killer and Fang the attack fluffballs out protecting their Mum.

Dear Keen Energetic Self: see you when you get back, but I'll be ok.

Told you

6 km run 4: walk 2 with no more than the usual creakiness says IT'S JUST BRUISED.

Thine be the glory

Easter Blessings to you all!

A river in Egypt

I have decided to ignore this whole foot nonsense and treat it as a false alarm until evidence to the contrary becomes particularly intrusive. IT IS ONLY BRUISED.

The curse of the prawn

It's Good Friday today so yesterday I nicked out from work and headed down to the waterfront to get some super-fresh prawns off the trawler (as you do skite skite) for the fish barbecue tonight.
My purchase complete, I trotted back to the car, caught my foot in a broken bit of footpath (as you do) and splatted so heavily and inelegantly that the fishermen came tearing out to see if I was ok. I think I was a bit shocked becuase I more or less bolted away. I should have asked them for some ice. Now my foot is sporting some unsightly bruises and is quite painful even without weight on it. It feels weird.  I might whiz up to the hospital for an x-ray when I've finished my tea.

Bloody prawns.

UPDATE: possible fracture, a week on crutches then another x-ray to confirm. #!&%!!  #!&%!! #!&%!!

Up and at 'em

I need a personal trainer who would stab me with a pin and make me get out of bed in the morning! I used to be really good at hurling myself out from under the doona o'sloth: now all it takes is one trip up the hallway at 3am to help poor coughing Noddie and I'm All Excuses All the Time when 6am rolls around. Then I get up at 6.50 in a temper becuase I KNOW I'd be feeling GREAT if I'd just got back from a run or ride.
Oh well. We here at the LBTEPA Institute for Self-Improvement are nothing if not tenacious and optimistic! The sun will rise tomorrow, and who knows, I may be out there to greet it! I'll be doing (drumroll please) 6.5 km of run 4 minutes, walk 2!!! No more run 2 walk 2 for me, no no no no. Bring on the squeals and girly handflaps!!! Woot!!

I did charge through a major (self-created) obstacle today. The GPs at the clinic where I work are quite grumpy, and I suffer from Fear Of Grumpy so I've been putting off asking them to distribute the surveys for the research I'm doing for the Everlasting Masters Degree. Today I just thought, hang it, I'm going in! Possibly becuase I've been reading Bear Grylls' autobiography. Fascinating stuff, all GO FOR IT, DREAM BIG, WORK AS HARD AS YOU CAN AND THEN WORK HARDER, NEVER GIVE UP AND THEN GO FOR IT SOME MORE. He could so be a member of Team Stupidly Determined (especially if he took his shirt off a lot).
 Anyway, of course the GPs weren't nearly as scary as i had imagined them to be (although they were pretty grumpy, possibly an occupational hazard??) and they were happy to help me. That's a major yay since I need a sample size of 138 for appropriate statistical power and as of last week I had eleven.

And YAY for sucking it up and going for it. When did I forget how to do that?

More anon, storm riders!

why I walked home

aka EWWWWW

More anon, band-aiders!

What does it mean?

What does it mean when you dream you've drunk-dialled Mark Allen and told him he has diabetes and he threatens to shoot his doctor and then you have to stop him?

I know this

if I am consistent with my strength work and running I will progress
if I am consistent with my stretching and core work my foot will take more running without hurting me
if I am consistently patient with my run/walking I will be able to run further and not aggravate my foot
if I am consistent with my patience run/walking so slowly won't mess with my head so much
if I am consistent training will get to be a habit again
if I am consistent I won't worry about what's going to go wrong this time, I'll just do it
if I am consistent I'll believe in the process and that one day I'll be able to run without thinking about it
if I am consistent I will be able to come home from a run all sore and hurting and not be upset because I am looking at the big picture
if I am consistent I'll finish another marathon one day. Maybe one day this year
if I am brave I will get up from this computer and put the ice back in the freezer and limp off to the tri club dinner.


I AM BRAVE.


Cheers

Interesting facts

- Running shoes that are not  completely worn out don't make your feet and knees hurt. Note to self: mark the date on them somewhere.

- These shoes don't make my feet and knees hurt either. They may blind bystanders with their fabulousness but I can't help that.

- The lurgi that hath laid low half my town is of a treacherous and deceitful type, viz., it pretends to bugger off and then when you're reaching slightly-less-feebly for a bite of something more substantial than dry toast, returns with a vengeance. I tricked mine this morning: I went out for a stagger before I'd properly woken up so I didn't register how crappy I was feeling until I was out watching the sunrise and bidding a gay good morning to the sprightly octogenarians and their foxies fox terriers, what were YOU thinking?. Worked like a charm - I was slow as a wet week but got the ks done and didn't die. KPIs achieved!

- The sum total of Australian awesomeness dropped this week. Jim Stynes and Lincoln Hall have died. Let us learn from their lives. Live the dream, people! Go big or go home!

And fill up your life with small sparkly joys while you're at it.

- I am not entering the Gold Coast Marathon until the last week of May I have done a 30km training run. I am not entering the Gold Coast Marathon until I have done a 30km training run.. I am not entering the Gold Coast Marathon until I have done a 30km training run.. I am not entering the Gold Coast Marathon until I have done a 30km training run. Let sense rule over optimism this once.

More anon, flashdancers!

Living the dream

This edition of the LBTEPA News begins with ORN (obligatory running news):  despite being laid low with the vicious lurgi that has claimed half my town I am stringing together sort-of regular workouts. Nowhere near what I'd prefer at this stage in a (ahem) "marathon" campaign but what can you do? and anyway I haven't entered yet although I'm not giving up. I'm gaining weight like it's my job, le sigh, but I have A Plan for that which I may go into in another post if it doesn't seem too boring. My foot gets niggly when I slack off on the core/strength/stretching but hasn't torn again. That is A Good Thing.
The first ever Ironman Melbourne is next week and I was really looking forward to being part of it as a spectator with the Spousal Unit and Mum and Dad. I don't know if you remember the magnificent Dave, who gave me his marathon medal when I sooked all over him after they ran out of bling at the end of Melbourne 2010? Well you should, he is a Top Bloke, and I was looking forward to cheering him over the line of his first Ironman. But as so often happens, everything has fallen into a sorry heap and we're not going. Mum and J both thought it was on the Saturday not the Sunday, so J would have had to arrange an extra leave day. Then it turned out that Mum and Dad are moving into their new house on the Monday as well. Not the best time to be away and there will be loads of last minute things to help with over the weekend. I'm really very disappointed, but in comparison with spending three days hobbling painfully around Disney World looking at other people with Goofy medals it's not so bad. I can go next year.
But I digress.
Not long ago Noddie went to a party where she'd had a great time playing football with the boys, playing on her friend's wii (which we don't have at home) eating cake and watching the big kids play car chase games on the x-box. We were talking at bedtime and I asked her how it was. Oh mummy, she said, we were living the dream!
A couple of things have happened lately that have got me thinking about that.  Margaret Whitlam died this week. Although I never met her (my Mum has) I felt happy for her that she lived well for a long time and passed quickly. She lived by her principles and from all accounts her life, although not perfect of course, was how she wanted it.  The second thing was that a friend of mine was on holiday when she heard that a friend of hers, whose wonderful life she'd always been a teeny bit jealous of - great job, married to the man of her dreams, brand new baby - had died, very suddenly. My friend went home, packed up and left her partner. She wrote in her blog that life's too short.
I asked J if  there was anything he isn't doing that he wants to do, any important thing that's missing from his life? He thought for a bit and said no. This probably sounds terribly smug but, touching wood, I can also answer 'no' to that question. I'm blessed with loved ones, I live where I want to and I'm doing the work I want to do. My commute is a drive through the countryside. My home is warm and pretty and full of stuff that would horrify the style police. I wear red lipstick and fab shoes and crochet lairy blankets and run Very Slow Marathons with other big dreamers. Of course I've got a one of these days list like everyone else - an ironman, Macchu Pichu, piano lessons - but - and this is the important bit - it's not an oh, I could never do that list.
My question, seeing as we are getting all philosophical oh you weren't? righto, carry on is: are you living the dream? What are you not doing? Do you want to wear polka dots and paint your bedroom silver and sing opera and get a dog? Why aren't you doing it? If the answer is because it's not the right time, but I know I will one day - great! Keep your eye on your dream and grab it when you can. If it's oh, (a person like me) couldn't....  well...

Just trust me, my friends. The Style Police, the Too Fat Police and the Not Good Enough Police never come.
More anon, dragon-tamers!

Playing with the big boys

Hurrah for public holidays and family all the way from Ballarat for the long weekend and trips to the beach in the boat and barbecues at friends' places (but not the totally TMI conversation at the end of the evening, how do I get myself into these things?) and permission to start my placement At Long F#@*ing Last and effective antibiotics and 12 glacially slow, drippingly humid and just bloody wonderful km of 2 min run/2 min walk! My first 'double figures' since October! All that tiresome boring stupid stretching and strength work and patience patience patience is getting me what I want. Who knew? I'm thinking of doing the Traralgon half on the third of June. One of my friends is doing her first full there, pretty exciting! Go Jenny go! It'll  be a good hit-out to see if I should do the full or the half at the Gold Coast as well. We've booked our flights now. I'm stoked.
I've also discovered that you can while away a very pleasant hour googling "good disney running songs". Don't judge me.


 

more anon, wandering minstrels!

Happy International Women's Day

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY TO ALL THE INSPIRING WOMEN I KNOW

 

 

 

...this is not all of you, of course. I'd be here all night.
Cheers to you all, dear friends! You make me brave and the world amazing.