Little update about becoming littler

I am not sure how it has happened as I have taken a week off of running and have been eating more than my fair share of bacon and bread but I am down 3 more pounds! I am now officially down 17lbs since the start of all of this nonsense in December! Hooray! Now, if I could only get my body in the groove! I went for a 3 mile run tonight and was battling pain the whole time. I was taking it easy and then I realized that when I was running up hill and pushing it I felt better. So I started running hard for one block and then regular for one block and it started to loosen things up. I can't understand why but I was feeling much better at the end of 3.
I have been seeing the dreamiest of acupuncturists and when I went in yesterday he showed me that the left upper arm links to the right upper leg. He put about a thousand needles in my upper arm and then did the usual in my legs and feet and set me to 'steep'. My arm was jumping all over the place. My leg felt all jumpy too. He said I might feel sore in my arm the next day but that was normal. Well I do feel sore in my arm today and my leg does not feel better but I am in it for the long haul and had such success with my shins and the needles that I will give it a month's worth of treatments before I make a decision. I go back the day after tomorrow....we shall see. In the mean time I drink my green tea and grin about my meager gains and losses....

Waiting for my real life to begin

Any minute now my ship is coming in
I'll keep checking the horizon
And I'll stand on the bow
And feel the waves come crashing
Come crashing down, down, down on me

And you said,"Be still, my love,
Open up your heart
Let the light shine in"
Don't you understand?
I already have a plan
I'm waiting for my real life to begin.

When I awoke today suddenly nothing happened
But in my dreams I slew the dragon
And down this beaten path
And up this cobbled lane
I'm walking in my own footsteps once again.

And you say,"Just be here now
Forget about the past
Your mask is wearing thin"
Let me throw one more dice
I know that I can win
I'm waiting for my real life to begin.

This is a very fitting song at the moment. I am waiting for my "real life" to begin. I am waiting to know where my internship will take me. I am waiting to test and waiting to get hired. I am waiting to throw a wedding. I am waiting to be thinner. I am waiting to apply for nursing school and to become a mother. I spend too much of my time waiting. I am actively trying to spend more time "being here now" and "forgetting about the past", as well as "letting the light shine in". I am happy beneath all of my impatience and anxiety. I have such a fortunate life. I am in love with my husband and his family almost as much as my own. Yet, I feel there is this huge pause.....right now. It sucks to feel trapped and like nothing is quite right when I know that everything is as it should be. I am pretty sure it is a lack of meditation exacerbating my foggy awareness of the "is-ness" of it all. I am just so ready and so excited for it all. It is hard to sit still. Sometimes I feel like the picture above...like I am sitting behind a curtain until I finish my spelling homework and my vegetables.

Speaking of veggies...The Hubbs and I are getting a farm share with friends this summer. It will come from an Organic farm on a little island just outside of town. Each week, for 30 weeks, we will get fresh veggies and eggs from the farm. We will get potatoes, kale, salad greens, tomatoes, cukes, squash, corn, broccoli, and a host of other yummy things from the earth. I am really looking forward to the challenge of incorporating new veggies into our cooking routine. It will be my 3rd summer of Community Supported Agriculture (check out http://www.sauvieislandorganics.com/). I am a huge fan of the idea of buying a share of the bounty of a local farm as a way to help 1.Pay the real cost of my food 2. support local small business and agriculture. We are sharing the share with our friends GW and KJ who are also in the wedding planning process and medical field. She is an RN and he is a RAT medic like the Hubbs. They are awesome. I wasn't sure if she and I were going to get along just because she seemed very "wholesome" and I got a vibe that made me wonder. Well boy, was I wrong! She is so funny and so cool. I love spending time with the two of them. They are quickly becoming our closest "couple" friends in town. It is nice that we live so close and have common interests (as well as senses of humor)I am beginning to feel like we are building our community here in NOPO and it makes me feel very "grown up" and happy.

My running is going really well. The hubbs and I went to the woods last week and ran ten miles. It is the first ten miler since I broke my foot at Seattle. It was hard. The first 3 were great. The next 2 were a little hard. Miles 6-7 were good. Mile 8 ok. Mile 9-9.75 SUCKED! I walked a lot. I was so done. I wanted to be teleported to the car. I wanted down hill and no more mud. I was toast. The last .25mile I flew. It was downhill and lovely. I cranked out everything I had. It felt good. Later that night we went to see the Waillin' Jennys in concert and then met friends for drinks at a swanky cocktail bar downtown. We followed it up by splitting a pulled pork sandwich from the food cart kingdom in the hubbs' old neighborhood. It was AWESOME. The next day I was sore. Aching all over, dear GOD who walks down STAIRS!!???!! My back ached and my R leg is inexplicably painful at the strangest of times. I was a little concerned about running Eugene in oh 3 weeks. So Friday I rested and went to acupuncture and then work that night. Saturday morning I laced up and hit the streets to run home. It wasn't the best run ever. In fact, I felt very fatigued but not all together surprised to be feeling that way. When I got home I did some simple yoga videos off of youtube before dying in my bed. I woke up feeling shockingly good! I am still feeling a little beat up at the end of this LONG night, but it all seems manageable. I am apprehensive but hopeful about this coming Tuesday as well. I have another crack at a ten. Between now and then I am going to run my 3.5miles home this morning, do my simple yoga, have breakfast with my in-laws, sleep with the hubbs for a few precious hours and get up and hit a yoga class. I think adding yoga to my weekly routine will help build strength where I need it and foster some awareness and calm in my mind as well as my body. Why does it seem like it was so much easier to just grit my way through this "distance runner" thing when I was 17? It is a struggle and a joy to be getting to know my body again through running and endurance training. I am learning how to listen and accommodate

I Am A Runner...Now and Forever

I ran my first Marathon ten years ago. I was seventeen and stubborn as a mule. My brother was 21 and that previous fall I stood by the side of a Detroit road and watched him run the Detroit Marathon. I had sort of chuckled as I watched the thousands of runners and their various paces and body types run by. "I could do a marathon. Doesn't look that hard". My parents sort of craned their heads and looked at me as if I had just seen Flo-jo run by and had challenged her to a race. "Ok, suuure" they said. I was not a runner. I had only ever run because I HAD to for gym class. Oh, yes, and my failed attempt to make friends in my new town in sixth grade by joining the cross country team. It was just the place for the chubby new girl who generally hated running. Anyway, upon returning home from the Detroit race I got on the computer and looked up training plans. I picked a race seven months away and set my sights. I ran and ran and ran. I started out slowly with short distances I would clock by driving them first in my mini-van. As I kept running and the distances got longer I began to find trails and places, some as far as 30min from home, where there were generous shoulders to the road and low traffic volume to run longer distances. My body ached and I still ran slowly. My parents got on board and began riding the bike along side me for my long weekend runs. Ten miles, fifteen miles, eighteen, twenty, twenty-three. My dad would tell me stories about the crazy things he and his gang of brothers did as kids. My mom would tell me about her misbegotten youth as well. It was fun. Rain, snow, discouraging aches and pains. I ran through it all. Spring came and one of my teachers from school who also happened to be a dear family friend also decided to run. It was perfect as my parents had long standing plans to be in France during my race. This was not problematic for me because "you already know what I look like running. And I promise I am going to finish so don't worry. You're not missing anything" was my attitude. Branson was running and so I could go to Traverse City with them and they would bring me home. The day came and the morning was beautiful. The course takes you along Grand Traverse Bay, down this beautiful peninsula. Every inch of the course was beautiful. The race started early and it was cool in the morning but it warmed up through the day and was down right hot by late morning. I was off and running. The dog had eaten just one of my running shoes so I had to order a new pair only 3 weeks before the race and was suffering the consequences of poorly broken in foot wear in the form of bleeding blisters in my arches from about mile eleven on. I kept running though. My brother had been in Costa Rica with a friend and was due back that day but I was very surprised to come over a rise in the course and see him standing out of the sun roof of his champagne colored Honda with sunglasses on and a Gatorade waiting for me. He was in flip flops and chinos but he ran along with me for about a mile. I was about eight miles out and it was clear that I was going to be the very last runner to finish. At this point a van pulls up along side me and a woman informs me that if I would like to get in the van she will take me to the finish line. WHAT?! QUIT?! Are you out of your fucking mind?! I have already run thousands of miles in training and nineteen of them today. I am not getting in that van. "No thanks." I said, "I'm good. I'm gonna keep running." And I did. I kept going. I think I was averaging about 15min/miles at this point. My feet were bleeding and I was sure I was dying inside. My teacher who had finished over an hour ago sent his wife out to find me on the course and Sara ran with me for a while. She was NOT a runner (yet) though now she runs marathons on a very regular basis. She was running next to me and the van lady circled around again. I politely ignored her this time. She informed me that I was going to go over the course time limit of four hours and aid stations were going to be closing up. I kept running. I got to the next aid station and found that all the people there were calling my number and ringing cow bells and cheering for me. At the next aid station someone yelled "Go Anna Hope" and it seems the crowd from the last station had joined this one and they had just two cups poured for me. There were two more stations and at each one the crowd was bigger and more excited. The van lady came by at one point and my brother told her "she's not getting in the van. Stop asking". I finished the race in 5hrs 31min. I averaged ten min/miles for the first eighteen miles and around fifteen min/miles for the rest of it. I finished though. Fifteen minutes after the last runner ahead of me. The most memorable part of the day was not crossing the finish line. It wasn't calling my folks and telling them I made it. The most memorable moment of the whole day and the whole marathon training experience came when Sarah and I were running along the lake, the hot sun on my drained body, Sarah turned to me and said "congratulations, you're a runner. You may never take another step for the rest of your life and you are still a runner." I will never forget that. I remember it all the time when things get tough. I remember that I DID that. Nobody can ever take that away. I am a runner. Broken feet, depression, changes in my body, or my schedule...none of it can take away that simple fact that I am a runner.
Yesterday the hubbs and I went to the woods of Forest Park for a run. I wasn't sure how far or how hard I was going to be able to go between the recent bronchitis and the formerly broken foot. I just wasn't sure. It didn't matter though. Once I got to the forest and let the dog off her leash it was all good. I struggled to get warmed up hacking and wheezing a little for the first fifteen minutes. On the way back I felt so good that I decided to push it a little and lengthened out my stride and picked it up a bit. It felt amazing. The hubbs commented that I had turned up the gas and he was happy to match my new pace. We ran faster than I have run in a very long time for the last mile all the way down the sloping back and forth of the forest. It felt like flying. My stress of the week and the coming weekend melted away. I was running. I hadn't run outside other than once since my injury in November. I was pleased to find everything working just the way it should. A 55min run was no sweat. I am a runner. Today, tomorrow, when I am a hundred years old. I am a runner.

Things That Give Me Wings

I have been sick for the last week. Sick like I have not been in a VERY long time if EVER. I can't remember ever, in my adult life, being so sick that I stayed in bed for an entire week and didn't get cabin fever. That was me last week. I had a bit of the slows on Thursday when the Hubbs was feeling under the weather and we went hiking in the muddy wonderful oregonian february spring. By the end of our night at the soaking pool I was feeling wiped out. I didn't even want to 'do it' and it had been about a week since Hubbs and I had been in the same bed at the same time. The next day I woke up feeling pretty puny and I puttered around before work coughing and feeling scratchy and icky throated. By about half-way through my shift I was wheezing, coughing and sweating. I took a gram of Tylenol and 800mg of Motrin and 3hrs later I had a fever of 101.3. That was enough for my charge nurse (mother of 5). She sent me home and I went quite easily. I was hacking my ass off. I would get really winded and breath fast and hack some more. The next night the Hubbs had to go to work and I was wilty on the sofa watching the olympics (perfect sick day viewing BTW!) I was breathing pretty fast just resting and around midnight I spoke to G and he called a friend of ours who was working in the county and just happened to be in the neighborhood, to come over (in her AMBULANCE)and check me out. I was breathing fast at about 30-40 times a min and my oxygen saturation and CO2 levels were normal. She gave me a nebulizer treatment and then got called out to a "real call". The Hubbs called and told me that he thought if I made it through the night and still felt shitty in the morning that he would take me to the quick care. I knew it was viral. I never once thought it WASN'T viral. I was scared though. I have never had asthma or anything else that would compromise my ability to breathe. I felt a little panicked that I couldn't get enough air all the time for about 4 days. It was worse if I had a coughing fit. There was so much pain with just breathing and it became SO much worse with coughing which I was doing almost constantly. I was MISERABLE. I was living in my shower sucking hot steam and eucaliptys. Sunday we went into the hospital. I was working pretty hard to breathe just walking from the car to the door but I begged the triage nurse to let me go to the "fast track" because I didn't want a full work up for chest pain and I knew that if I went to the main ED some over eager resident would order every test in the whole world and I would end up with an ECG and there was NO FRIGGIN WAY IN HELL that the tech on that day was going to see my boobs! Yep! That's how I felt. Silly or not. I knew I just needed a little chest x-ray to make sure it wasn't pneumonia and some NAR-CO-TICS! I needed to be sedated so I could finally sleep! I got just that. She didn't even offer me antibiotics and that was a good thing because I didn't need them. I needed sleep. Sleep. Sleeeeeep. A little phenergan and codiene later and 4 more days in bed and I am a 70% new woman. I am still coughing and still a little winded with exertion but I feel a lot better. We even did it...twice. Yeah, this may be TMI but G has been such an amaizing sport and has taken SUCH sweet care of me (including calling my mother to tell her about my trip to the doctor and delivering milkshakes and cup-o-noodle to me) he deserved to be jumped. I took my decongestant, took my advil, steamed as much crud as I could out of my lungs before he got home and jumped him. He was so happy both for the booty and for the sign that I was feeling better. I love my husband.

So, needless to say my exercise regiment has been a little non-existant. I did lose 7 pounds in fever and coughing. Next week I will start up with water aerobics and running and see how the lungs do. I am excited to be back in action after what was the longest week in my adult life in bed. I am totally behind in school but hour by hour I catch up and the work I am doing is getting me A's so its gonna be ok. The title image for this week came from the fact that as I sit here at work it was time for my redbull inorder to amp up enough to get through the project I am working on as well as the next 4 hours until morning. As I stared thinking about how I manage to make it from day to day the one constant is G. He makes my life possible right now. Paying bills, cleaning up after me, listening to my crap, bringing me food when I am sick, making me dinner while I study, snuggling me to sleep on the rare night that we are home together for bed and being eternally patient with my bad behavior, my short temper, my distracted mind. He loves me. It makes everything "do-able". He gives me wings. He is my melted cheese all the time. Tonight, as he is sleeping in a snow shelter up on Mt Hood, with the Search and Rescue kids doing snow training I am proud of him and proud to be his wife. He makes me want to try harder, be stronger, do more for other people. He is my inspiration.