Believe to Achieve

Not much soreness until.....Dinner at my sister's Sunday night.  Eating lots of protein/veggies and some awesome chocolate desserts.  Then Voila, swollen feet.  5 pounds of fluid gain.    The usual.  

Bed at midnight.  Woke early to telephone ringing at 545am.  Father in law had fallen out of bed.  Troy left to help his mother move him.  He ended up being admitted to the hospital.  He finished chemo last year and has fallen a handful of times but it had been several months since his last fall.  He is over 70.  Fell back to sleep then ring again.  Just family calling to see what was going on.  This was 7am.  7:30am Troy back home and briefly back to bed.  Got up.  Tried to weed my garden.  Did so for an hour and felt impending fatigue and that dang back pain so stopped.  Took a two hour nap and still felt utter fatigue.  Still do even as I write this.  Got some info from Melody about icing and hot showers so tried that.  Slowly awaking and muscles feeling better.  One more nap before work tonight is in order but won't happen.  Off to make dinner and hang with the kids.  Got a 50 miler coming up in less than 3 weeks.  After a few days I will be remotivated.  Kind of excited to just take it easy on that run and enjoy nature.  They let everyone off the waiting list on Mother's Day.  A nice gift.  Since I wasn't sure about that status my focus was on Ogden.  Now its all about trails at a relaxing pace.  I think a course record for over 40 this year has gone out the window (under 10 hrs 26 min).  I am just gonna run by feel.  Taking time at each of the 10 aid stations.  Enjoying vistas along the way.  Pray for good weather.  Lightning was in two years ago.  Wouldn't that be a real treat!!  Pouring rain is not allowed.  High temps and high winds are out too.  Just letting you know what not to pray for  : D

Back pain ridiculous, cramping like, RIGHT Hip (not left like before), quad and hamstring VERY tight!! I couldn't even walk right.  The nerve pain was intense up until 5am.    Pretty much a marathon shift, literally.  Didn't get tired much though.  Weird.  Must have been that two hour nap yesterday.  Time to go back to my neurologist or finally an endocrinologist.  My estrogen has been menopausal for a while now.  Apparently estrogen is good for the nervous system.  I'd rather get to the cause first then work on a Natural solution.  I am sure you all wanted to hear about this.  But I am a nurse.  I can talk about just about anything.  Bodily functions discussions during dinner don't phase me.  And they usually don't phase runners I noticed.  Tried to run and my left hamstring was on fire still.  So made .22 miles at 10:52 and called it a day.  Probably just bike tomorrow. 

AP 9:10 per course tool.  No garmin.  Just my good ol' watch on my good ol' route.  Felt like the last 3 miles of the marathon all over again.  Probably not a good thing.  But I have been sad lately.  On Monday morning my husband went over to help his step-father after falling at 545am.  He ended up in American Fork Hospital spiking a fever to 107 degrees last night.  We went over there and my coworker Nathan was so nice to want to explain things medically to me and all  I could do is look past that to his breathing condition.  Very labored on BiPap, unconcious.  I began to sob and take his hand.  And talk to him.  But no response.  He was soooo hot.  It was hard to see him struggle to breath and Troy's mother sobbing as well.  Then Nathan told me about numbers a little later and I regained some hope.  I mean 50/50 odds are good, right?  But not if you are a lung cancer survivor, 82 years old and have a current infection in the body.  It was just his time.  We drove home around 930 pm and I told Troy I wasn't sure if it was his turn to go, but if it were, it would be better for him to fall asleep and peacefully go then to drag out his time with each difficult breath.  And that's how it went.....at 238am the phone rang and a nurse from AF hospital told us he had passed away, he just stopped breathing, and that Sheri (Troy's mom) wasn't doing very well.  Troy left and I stayed with this pit in my stomach in my bed at home.  All our conversations passing through my mind and guess what most of them were about?  RUNNING!!! Running of all things he was so very interested in my races particularly my marathons.  Here is a guy who smoked for 30 years, drank for more, had part of his lung cut out due to cancer over 20 years ago and then a relapse two years ago, fighting through chemo and all he wanted to talk about was running to me.  Sometimes politics but really about running.  On Mother's Day he told me he was going to be buried at Camp Williams (he is a war Vet) and I told him I jog by there when I jog on the JRP and I love the view and that I would come visit any time I jogged up there.  We talked a lot about Camp Williams and its view.  He must have known.  He told Sheri two weeks ago to put her name only on the accounts.  On Saturday after the marathon I got a call in the afternoon from Sheri. " John needs to know how your marathon went.  He keeps asking about it."  Then Monday night as I walked into his room he said "hello there kiddo how did your race go?" and that was the last of much more coherent conversation as on Tuesday he just got worse.  His last few years have been hard.  I spent the last few hours cleaning his room and sad for how he felt he had to live--- in the dark, with tin foil on the windows.  Rarely did he leave the house.  Sheri took such good care of him for so many years.   His children don't even want to come to the funeral.  Years of regret/anguish.  But this man has changed over the past few years...more mellow and more sincere.  I got in my car this morning to take my daughter and her friends to school and of all songs to hear play on Troy's oldie favorites was:  Bye Bye My friend its hard to die.  When all the birds are singing in the sky....We had joy we had fun we had seasons in the sun.....Its the Torcher for Tears song.  I just began to sob.  Sob for all that have lived and loved and passed on in my life.    And then....I realized why more and more that I run.  I run to get emotions out to turn my life around when things are hard and to show myself I can make it through anything.  What now?  I plan to run my 50 miler in dedication to John as he lies peacefully on the other side.  I know he is feeling much better there.

Okay not a real 14 as it was on a bike. 1 mile was running however.  Does anyone know how to switch to different types of exercise without changing your blog name?  Rode my bike up 1100 North (big uphill) to the canal and road up to the Cedar Hills Golf Course.  Quite the doozy of a headwind today (at least 25mph) but it felt refreshing and finally I have my strength back.  I am taking an adrenal gland supplement and avoiding chocolate and sugar.  And taking my probiotics more strictly.  Is it too early to actually feel a difference in two days?  I felt so good on this bike ride.  Free!!!  Lower back began to ache but if I sucked in my gut it seemed to help it a bit.  Obviously I need to work on my core.  Melanie already stressed this to me yesterday, since  I don't do any core at all.  My AP for 14 miles on my mountain bike over hills and through the woods was 4:30.  I kept my legs spinning the whole time as I wanted to work out all the kinks.  Even when I slowed or went downhill I kept spinning.  Sometimes I am a wimp on the turns and downhills so I come to almost a complete stop but I just don't want to crash.  I have a big fear of this on a bike.  That's why I ride a mountain bike for more stability.  I am way tooo scared of a road bike.  One mile run at 8:07.  After riding for so long it felt like an 11 minute mile.  It's like your head is still biking so everything looks like it is in slow motion. 

  Well, things are getting worked through.  The funeral is next Tuesday, being a state owned cementary they are not opened on Fridays and Monday is a busy day there already.  I slept really well last night.  We had to break the news to our sensitive 9 year old about grandpa.  She cried the night before during the prayer before he died.  We had her read the scripture in Alma  of the Book of Mormaon that tells where our bodies/spirits go after this life.  It helps to know that he is in a state of happiness and peace and has gone back to "that God that gave him life" and that has given us all life.  How glorious the resurrection will be when we all see each other again!!  

530am left house with Kim in her car.  Wore shorts.  It was raining all night and windy.  Drove to meet Melanie at mouth of canyon where we picked up Ericka followed by JulieE, Amanda, and Desiree for A Great Adventure Run.  It started just past the town of Wallsburg almost to the start of the marathon.  It was snowing.  The wind was blowing at least 20mph.  I brought Disneyland rain ponchos.  Some of us wore garbage sacks.  My legs were bright red within the first mile and never warmed up and remained numb the entire run.  I currently have petechiae all over my thighs to my pelvic bone.  They are still burning 5 hours later.  I guess I was almost frostbitten or was in the early stages.  My legs were so cold I was doing cryotherapy while running.  Makes for an ineffective leg turn over.  I could not squeeze my hands together.  My gloves were sopping wet after the first few miles so I had to ditch them.  It was crazy busy on a Saturday on the highway around the dam.  Several 18 wheelers blew us over.  We (Kim and I ) ran together the whole time--Melanie and the others were runnig a tempo run.  By mile 10 my legs were to stiff and glycogen was depleting.  My pace slowed and I was shivering.  I stopped at mile 13.2 where JulieE was with her car so she drove me to mile 15.5 while Kim ran there on the trail.  I have to say I was tired of the rain/snow/wind/no water/fuel/ no fun really.  Thankfully Kim was there to "laugh" with.  We were both revisiting our run down AF canyon that was actually wayyyyyy worse.  So I guess we should count our blessings.  Of course when we finished the rain had stopped and the sun came out from behind the clouds.  The air remained cool however.  It was one of those moments of "what is this all for?".  The only good came out of it is that it gave Melanie  a great tempo run and confidence for her big day at Utah Valley Marathon.  We drove back to her truck and picked her up at mile 21.  She ran quite the tempo run.  My legs are pretty much still healing from the marathon.  But I got to spring into action for my biggest of all runs coming up.  It just better NOT snow or rain.  Ran 13.2 miles at 8:10 pace.  There were several great hills to climb but some nice down as well.  It was ALL with a HEADWIND so that of course was very NOT nice.