Patience; the new endurance sport.

Ran the pathway up into Zion's National Park really early in the morning.  It is spectacular weather and I am completely renewed by the majesty of the canyon walls.  We're hiking Angel's Landing at dawn.  It is always such a nerve wracking hike with 1,000 foot cliffs down either side of the ridge.  Should be thrilling.

I met an Australian ex-ballerina dancer doing Tai-Chi at the mouth of the Narrows river canyon in Zion's National park.  She was wearing Vibram 5 Fingers.  When she finished her excersize we had a conversation about the Vibram and how they changed her feet back into the right shape, and helped her offset years of damage from her dancing.  I'm never convinced about barefoot runing.  Maybe I'd try twice a week, or on grass.  I'd sooner run in crocks like Sasha.   I just don't trust my body to 'biomechanically' correct my running as the barefoot running theory goes.  My body has let me down a lot and I don't trust it at all anymore.  It was interesting though to talk with this girl about yoga, energy, and the reasons we get our hair cut.

I ran 100 feet sprints every other 100 feet.  Hoping to make up for the lack of distance.  I wacked all of my hair off, I mean ALL OF MY HAIR.  6 years ago I started growing it out and now it's clear I've moved on from that phase.  Last fall, I cut about 6 inches off, but finished the job today.  So what's left on my head is all fresh, uncolor treated, hair.  Shorty short hair.

So tired today.  But the late summer, early autumn morning crispness brings a renwed sence of wonder.  The change of the seasons always affects me, and none so much as autumn.  It's my favorite season.  But I am being punished for every time I ever made fun of people with hypoglycemia.  I always said that hypoglycemia was for anorexics who were just making excuses for why they were  weak and nervous when what they really needed was to just eat something.  I have been living with this for at least 18 months, and it's gotten progressively worse.  I get to see the endocrinologist next week to see why my liver's not working, or if my pancreas is overloading my body with insulin.  In retrospect, I muscled through so much exhaustion I can't believe I could do it.  It just proves mind over matter. But now I know there is something legitimately wrong with my storage and use of complex carbs/sugars I can trace back almost every episode to this condition.  I also always thought I was so tired and foggy during the day because I was doing too much running.  I can't believe how judgemental I am and how I am now paying for it.  I just hope I can learn how to adjust my eating to make running a non life threatening event. 

I have enjoyed playing Ultimate Frisbee the past few afternoons --I mean; I really, really like Ultimate Frisbee.  I played yesterday till all my clothes stuck to my skin.  I’ve also been relishing my morning jog—It’s so cool now and the weather so gentle.  Even the bit of rain earlier in the week was delicious.  However, this morning the wind at the mouth of the canyon was ferocious!  A lithe young runner glided past me and pointed out how the headwind was causing us grief…..it sure is, I said, practically crawling  & gasping for breath behind him as he disappeared into the canyon.  Man, I really hope to rebuild some stamina over the next few weeks.  Also, my piriformis hurts again.  Dr. Brady’s magic injection must be wearing off.   Adding to my litany of complaints is how much reading I’ve done now on hypoglycemia and marathon/distance running.  My refusal over these years to eat before running, or during runs, is no longer an option. There is only one available endocrinologist in Utah County so I have to wait to see her. But ever since I've been learning about hypoglycemia, it explains almost everything that has been wrong with me (exhaustion & dizziness, heart arrhythmia, headaches, weakness, extreme irritability, mental fogginess, faintness, etc.. ).  I have thought I was dying of cancer or something so many times in the past two years, I finally made them run every test they suspected I should take.  They’ve checked me for early menopause, for liver failure, for vitamin D deficiency, anemia---but after 10 years at the same doctor, no one ever said to me:  Hey! Do you ever feel like you’re going to pass out or get really dizzy and weak? Get headaches much?  Because we’ve noticed your blood sugar for the past 10 years, has been half of what it should to even be considered “Low”.   I mean, I thought was going to die of a heart attack a hundred times because of the arrhythmia.  I just assumed it would kill me, the same as it killed my Dad of a stroke.  But come to find out it’s hypoglycemia that causes it.  I've laid down on the trail and put my feet up in the air so I won't pass out a few times, or bent way over so the blood would stay in my head to keep me conscious.  No one has ever said anything except “your blood sugar is low” in an un-alarming, monotone way that led me to believe it was totally normal to have such low blood sugar.   It's never meant anything to me until it started to affect my running. I’ve lived with it so long it’s become normal, and I have such a litany of other complaints during the day that I just shoved "passing out on the trail" into the closet along with the rest of the crap. But it came to me in June, that the only things I enjoy doing (running and skiing) are jeopardized.  It hasn’t mattered that I’ve gone through the rest of my waking life half-dead and low functioning; it hardly makes a difference.  I’m just one of 6 billion human drones doing the same thing every single day, living through whatever misery or luck is thrown my way.  But do not mess with the hiking, running or the skiing…. please.

I got to run with Cath this morning at 6.  She's been lucky enough to find a running friend close by who runs closer to her pace and is also training for St. George. So she doens't have to do her long runs alone now I'm a party pooper.  I take that as a sign that I really have made the right choice to forgo the ST. George.  Darn the luck, getting in this year and now not using my number.  I need to get better though.  I have to figure out how to maintain a healthy weight, eat right, and keep doing what I love.  I'm especially excited about experimenting during ski season. There were times last winter where I'd be really working hard, and I would just crash (energy wise). My thighs would burn and after that burn, I'd be down for the count.  So I want to know if I bring and actually EAT the cliff bars I stuff into my ski parka pockets really can bring me back to life, or if I snack on them conintually during \the day if it will keep my stamina high. 

Did my running at the gym with my kid on the treadmill next to me.  I taught him how to do all his abdominal exercises--singling out ab sections including his abductors. It wasn't entirely successful. It was harder than I'd imagined helping him locate and focus on where to isolate the work. He also wasn't 100% convinced I knew what I was doing. Who can blame him, I'm so flabby you would have never believed I grew up in a gym working out with Mr. America 1976 (my father).  We did have fun though running next to each other watching the Miss Universe Pageant and commenting on the hilarious things the announcers would say (and the intonations they used) when they said things like “Miss Paraguay was studying to be a doctor until she realized that the sight of blood makes her sick….Being a doc, doesn't rock with.......Paraguay!"  I was reminded while we were watching all these beautiful girls how unconscious he is in his attraction to the dark skinned women.  He doesn’t make a point of it or even realize it.  He just stops and looks more carefully, and for longer, if the girl has dark skin.  I just think it’s interesting and wonder how that came to be, and if it will translate into his dating years (a few years down the road).

This cool autumn weather takes my breath away and reinvegorates me entirely. The sun doesn't even come up until nearly 9 so the flowers are still fragrant and dewy and the air sports a fiesty chill.  The only sad part is that  my hip/piriformis bothers me again.  I did  as much grass and dirt running as possible along my route--including a few 100 feet repeats at Vintage park. 

The injections Dr. Brady gave me, I am 100% sure now, were exactly the same as getting a cortisone shot.  The effect has completely worn off, and my piriformis is more painful than it was before I went in July.  So basically, the anti-inflammitory worked for 6 weeks allowing me to further injury the injury while I continued to run (even at my new reduced and overly moderate schedule).  He told me the shots contained oxygen and B vitamins to promote healing.  The truth is, the injury is worse. Even after resting, even after the elliptical.  Today's little run hurt so bad going up and down the hill I had to stop and catch my breath.  It made me realize I've been living with this hip, piriformis,hamstring injury since 2008.  It's been a tough year starting with not making the Boston Marthon sign up last Fall and then not getting into the New York City Marathon for this November.  Which reminds me......I have a race number for St. George if anyone needs it. 

Ran around the temple.  Not loving the piriformis action.  It was a bit chilly this morning, which reminds me how much  my tendons love the cold.

 I must be the only person who ever got tendonitis on the eliptical.  I had a great work out though--sweated more and breathed twice as hard than when running.  I'm prone to tendonitis anyway.  Yoga gives me tennis elbow.  I'm about ready to give up.

Todays jog was brought to you by entire hillsides covered with sunflowers (Black Eyed Susan's).  I swear, running up the foothill to look out over the valley and see the stillness of the lake saved my life this morning.  My thingy hurts still when I run. I'm sick of my thingy.

Bleechk. Running today was icky.  I had 10 -- yes 10 vials of blood drawn earlier.  If you saw that much of your own blood spilled (on the pavement for example) it would make you sick.  There is just something wrong about seeing your blood outside of your body in a neat row of tiny vials. 

Before I forget to write this down (thus sealing it in my memory banks, hopefully forever)....I found a very useful apparatus at the gym it's called the Stretch Trainer.  It's basically a mini 'stretch cage' like they have at the Physical Therapy place, but it's all ham, glues, quads.  That and also this bend over the top -backwards pull up machine (working back, hips & glutes)-- I hope to both strengthen and stretch my glutes & hamsrings.  They both feel so good.

Trying to find something to replace running -- is exactly like trying to get over your last boyfriend (the one you dated for 10 years). To move forward, you go out with friends (the gym, swimming, biking) or people who are new (cross-fit, PX90) doing your best to be open minded and generous in trying to give others the chance to grow on you. But really, your eyes glaze over while they are talking and you look out the window, wondering what the weather is like on the trail you can vaguely trace with your eyes along the bench of the mountain--remembering what it feels like and sounds like to run strong.......I had dream last night about running the last .2 miles of the St. George Marathon.  I was running  (with beautiful, fluid, strength) down that  bit of road after you turn left on the corner to get to the finish.  There was the crowd, and I was getting closer and closer to the chute--but then I would close my eyes as I made my last effort to the finish, and when I opened them,  the finish line would be farther away, and I'd keep running until I'd wake up.  I did that a few times last night with the depressing realization that I'm single again (as far as this metaphor goes).

I didn't have the time to get to the gym before work so I thought I'd try a little "real" running (it's been about a week).  I so enjoy this weather, the clear calm pre-dawn sky, the manicured landscaped gardens around here. I am happy to report that cross fit and extreme elliptical work outs have vastly improved my cardio vascular health.   However--I'm pretty sure my piriformis is beyond repair.  It plagues me during the run, and for the remaining hours of the day as I sit at my desk.  The only place I can comfortably run at a decent pace is on the grass.  I may try a trail on Saturday to console myself that I am missing Catherine, and being in St. George.  But this '08 piriformis injury is not going away.  It really started to bother me again while training for the Utah Valley Marathon.  The injections and stretches Dr. Brady gave were a temporary fix.  The pain of running on it has now become equal in seriousness to my passing out at various intervals during the day (we'll find out what that's all about in the next 3 weeks I hope).  Doing cross fit, and going to the gym is growing on me.  I'm getting stronger in new and different places, my cardio threshold is higher/better, and performing highly challenging, high intensity work outs (that don't hurt my hip/butt/ham) are rebuilding my confidence.  It's nice to be working on other muscle groups.  And being in the gym reminds me of the years I spent working out with my father whilst he was doing his best to keep me (his adolescent daughter) from being as large as his 350 pound mother.  But working out-- just doesn't light my fire the way running does.  I'm watching the leaves turn color and enjoying the temperate weather while patiently biding my time until the snow comes, allowing me to lose myself on a mountain of powder.  

Got myself a personal trainer today.  I am kind of excited to learn new excercizes and how to use the free weights and machines at the gyn.  I've enjoyed feeling my the muscles on my back and rump get more firm.  My strenghthened hamstrings/glutes feel as if they are protecting the injury there. I've been 'running' on the ellpitical going at about 6.5+ MPH (it equals about 9 minute miles and I go at about a 15 level).  A hard work out on the ellpitical feels good when I'm done.  After an ellptical work out, my body doesn't hurt or feel arthritic the rest of the day or night. It leaves me feeling the way running used to feel when I was younger, and I did it just for fun or excersize (before marathoning).  The ellpitical allows me to breath much harder and push my self without hurting anthing.  I can close my eyes when it gets intense (or I want to ramp up the speed into the 7's) and unlike running, I can't run off the trail or into other runners (as I am wont to do).  I can go wild, and NOTHING HURTS --not during or after.  I just have to be sure I've eaten about 30 minutes before I work out, and have a few sips of juice right after to keep from getting light headed before the rest of the work out.  My Personal trainer was a pretty good body-builder once...Not my favorite personality type, but he'll push me.  I have a fitness evaluation on Monday. They are doing the whole fat caliburation, VO2 max/Threshold test, etc.  I'll set some goals and see if I can get fit again wihout my leg breaking off my torso.