Little by little

So I went to the dr and asked him why my ankle was so sore so long after the Great Prawn Disaster and he said he thought it was ligament damage and that I should see the physio to start sussing out the extent of the damage and that if it was a worst-case scenario I should ring up to get a referral for a CT scan and/or MRI.
Oh, I said.
So how can I make this worse?
Keep running on it, he said. R.E.S.T. is step one.
Can we just take a moment here to acknowledge that I am OVER RESTING? I am rested Up To Pussy's Bow, what with horrendous blisters and irritated sinuses and coughs and gastro bugs and all the other stuff I am so bored with and feel so pathetic about that I don't even blog about it any more to avert the risk of anyone falling off his or her chair with the tedium. I grapple with the wake up at 3.30am with painful sinuses/finally get back to sleep 90 minutes later/now do I get up with the alarm and work out or sleep longer so I am functional through the day (and maybe get better a bit more quickly hahahahaha)? question over and over again. So. Bored. With. It.  I lost so much base over the summer and now every time I start to get on a roll something gets in the way and I just don't seem to have that killer-instinct, ok it's 5.30am/8.30pm and This Is The Time I Have for this workout so I'm Bloody Doing It steel determination in the required spadesful at present. These things happen. It's a phase. Yet still the whole mess messes with my head and makes me frantic and scared and sad.
But I digress.
So there I was, sitting in my car outside the dr on Monday afternoon with ligament damage of unknown severity. I must tell you, my five faithful readers: it felt like the Goofy news all over again, which is stupid stupid STUPID becuase I'll be missing a cheap half-marathon 2 hours from my house, not the massively expensive race of a lifetime on the other side of the world. I was frozen, I felt sick, I wanted to cry. Not. Again. That feeling didn't abate at all until I saw the physio on Wednesday morning and I confess I hid from it through irritability and under a pile of chips, chocolate and chardonnay. I just couldn't stand how bad I felt.
I know. LAME.
The physio had a bit of a prod around and uttered the most wonderful words I ever heard: the reconstruction has held. He's a bit of a buzz-harsher and would choke before anything remotely encouraging fell out of his mouth so the rest of the session was all about how I'd mismanaged things after the Prawn Fall (10 days 'rest' wasn't enough, apparently; I should have intuitively divined that it wasn't merely bruised) but his final verdict was 2-3 weeks off and add balance and calf strengthening to my core and stretching routine. Swimming and cycling ok, also deep water running hahahaha not. going. to. happen.  He also (somewhat confusingly) said that I can probably still run the half marathon at the Gold Coast - if I don't overdo things.....???....so that's good. I think.
But I still feel really sad and lost and hopeless. That hasn't gone away. I wish it would.
The only thing I know is that I don't have a choice. I have to keep doing what I can when I can with what I have. Little things. I have to keep giving up and whingeing to the Spousal Unit and throwing myself on the couch in despair and then getting up again and getting on with it. It's worked before and it will work again. It's just that this bit of it really sucks.

Good thing I am so bloody fabulous and brave and amazing, isn't it?

In other news, Noddie and I are off to the Big Smoke on the train on the weekend for our looooong-awaited Culture-and-Shopping Extravanganza. We'll be staying at a hotel in the city (and eating breakfast in the hotel restaurant! Oooh!), catching the ferry to Scienceworks to see the Wallace and Gromit exhibition and taking in the wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia at the Museum. We also plan to go nuts at as many shops as we can manage and eat good asian and greek food. To quote my 8yo companion-in-adventure: It. Will. Be. Awesome. I think I'll wear my leopard print trench coat.
More anon, fashion criminals!

Proud

Oh, how proud you will be of me, my five faithful readers! Since last I bleated wrote, I have crash-tackled some major bleaty stuff, to whit oh I'm so lonely I love it here but poor me I have no friends waah and oh I am so unfit how depressing everything always goes wrong poor poor me waah
- I asked some women I know over for a girly dinner party! Everyone brought something and we all played one of those question meme games, you know, who plays you in the movie of your life, who's the most famous person you've ever met etc (J won by miles - strip poker at Mt Hotham with Robert DeCastella, I don't care if it was 35 years ago!). The Spousal Unit kept Noddie and her little friend corralled at the other end of the house and we all just laughed and talked and laughed until home time.
And then!!! On Mother's day!!!
I Did A Race!
You see, these days J always works on Mother's Day, only this year (to my immense are you sure? are you really sure? Can I see that roster? surprise) he didn't! Once the obligatory brekkie in bed had been (gratefully) scoffed (and the lost ipod/hat/socks every other bloody thing had been located) I was off into the rain and freezing wind to represent Team Stupidly Determined in the 10km. I have a new Team SD sleeveless top that I made out of a long-sleeved top that didn't ever fit properly, me being so blessed with busty substances, and I hummed and hawed about wearing it a) becuase it was FREEZING and my other top was both extremely fetching and had long sleeves and b) becuase, well, I was feeling a bit funny about how last I was going to be. At the last minute, however, the true LBTEPA spirit shone through! and I toed the line with STUPIDLY DETERMINED on my back. Within minutes I was at the back of the field (where 'at the back of' = completely out of sight of), being passed by small children and nannas on walking frames doing the 5km. But I didn't care. It was just so nice to be out there on the river bank working up a sweat. I felt happy and I stayed feeling happy all the way, even when the rain stung me and when we had to scamper through muddy puddles and when my #$*&ing orhtotics had another go at removing the soles of my feet. Bastards. I had a few lovely chats with the bike marshall as he cruised to and fro - he did his first Ironman in Melbourne in March so was happy to yack about that and I of course can faff on about running until the cows come home.
The worst bits about the race? All the sympathy. Keep going, you can do it! (Thank goodness you said that, I was planning to stop) You're doing well! (So glad you think so). Also the outright derision from one of the marshalls. Tool. People: slow does not mean underdone or unfit. Slow does not mean struggling. Slow just means slow.
The best bits? Wearing my shirt - so many people laughed and commented on it! Being out running, along the river, in the wild and wooly weather. Cliche alert: I felt so alive! The absolute best thing of all was how strong I felt. I love to feel strong, love it love it love it - it is the absolute best feeling in the whole world and I didn't realise how much I'd missed it. I knew I could run 10k. How cool is that? I could keep running and not slow down and steam into the finish and embarass Noddie with the triumphant arm-raise thing and collect my ninth consecutive mother's day medal. I think I might run next year and then retire! It. Was. Just. Wonderful.

I've stopped wearing the bastard foot-trashing orthoticis and have replaced them with some off-the-shelf ones that feel ok. In worrying news, every time I've run in the last week my left foot - the one I hurt when I tripped over a few weeks ago - has ached and ached and felt really weak and strange. Back to the quack again today. Onto the #$*&ing injury merry-go-round again, I fear. Meh. Oh well. I'll keep you posted More anon, streakers!

oooh! oooh!

Race report coming soon! Yes, I, LBTEPA the Mightily Unfit, actually pulled on the Team SD shirt and raced! A 10k! In the rain! Last by miles (of course) but no pain! Yay!

Scary

it is so easy to not exercise

*HEADDESK* #2

MY ORTHOTICS STILL AREN'T HERE!!!! ARRGGHHHH!

*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?