Forced Taper

This morning I had plans to run somewhere between 16 and 20, depending on how I was feeling, and despite being advised strongly not to. My training plan called for 12, but last week had gone so well...
After some hard core jumping in the leaves last night my right leg had started to bother me so I decided it would be better to hang out near 16. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I had to cut out at 13 because I was having so much pain in my right shin, a weird burning in my ankle and some other odd thing in my left foot. I figure it's better to gut it out in two weeks in Richmond, walk if I have to and finish than it is to gut it out now when I don't technically have to and not be able to run any of the race. Goes to show you should listen to those who are more experienced than you.

I also have seen so very many posts recently about children with SMA passing away. My heart aches for their families and my passion is ignited to continue to try to raise funds and awareness of this terrible disease. Remember, the fundraising page is here. The donation is tax deductible and for such an amazing cause. Really, this race isn't about me, or my time, or my medal. It's about why I'm running and I'm grateful that the good Lord reminds me of this frequently.

Trying to Catch Up

I need to. I need to try to catch up on blogging AND training. The month of September was so completely overwhelming that I chose not to blog about it and share all of the negativity I felt during that month. Suffice it to say we had way too much going on and I was also dealing with an injury. Between life and limb (the right leg to be exact) I missed three crucial weeks of running. Like, completely missed them. No running at all. For three weeks. When I started back just a couple of weeks ago I wasn't sure if I'd be able to run on my bum leg to catch up, or be able to make up the mileage since it would require finding my way back to the 13 I'd built up to AND adding on enough mileage to get in a few decent long runs before taper and race. My first week back I subbed for two classes at the Y, and since I taught four days of cycle in a row I couldn't get in any mid week runs. Frustrated, I went out for my long run that weekend not knowing if I'd run two or ten. Luckily, it went great and I ran nine with no problems. I stopped at nine to make sure it wasn't overkill leading to re injury after my time off. I was thrilled and renewed. I came up with a make shift training plan for the last few weeks to build up to what I feel will be an ok mileage and was looking forward to twelve the next week. The twelve went horribly. After only five miles my injured leg was screaming at me, and whatever bug my family had been passing around was nagging at me, so I decided to try the walk run method so many of the ladies in my FB Women's Marathoner group recommended. So I ran 20 minutes, walked 5, ran 15, walked 5... It was brutal, but I finished having run more than I walked. I felt defeated, and beat up and frustrated that so many things have gone wrong with this training period.  I decided to try my hardest to stay positive, any finish at any time was better than not doing this at all. I've always said I just wanted to finish. Run or walk, it's still 26.2 miles. I did a lot of praying and reminding myself that my husband has been very supportive and helpful. He totally thinks I can do this (insert nervous laughter here). So many people have contributed to the fundraising end of this deal. I thought about Callie, and her family. Again and again GSF's  "Never Give Up" on my wrist, my jeep, my t-shirt, running jersey, water bottle. After a few days I wasn't as sore, we had another busy week with no time for mid week mileage, sigh, and Friday morning I went out for my first ever fifteen mile run, worried that this type of crazy, thrown together training plan would back fire. While I was aware of my Achilles, it never went into full on pain. My knee did something weird the first mile, but eventually settled in. I spent most of the run praying in gratitude for each mile completed and asking for a few more. At mile eleven I had kept an easy, even pace the entire time and was feeling strong. At mile twelve I decided to take a quick walk break to check for pain, and was surprised that the worst pain I had was when I started running again. My pace did slow after the walk break, but I still managed to finish my 15 in just over two and a half hours. Not the pace I had envisioned a few months back, but one I'm happy with now. One i hope to be able to muster for as long as possible on November 10th. When hobbling home I had a few thoughts: a. It sucks not getting a medal for this. b. ouch and c. I hope I can add 11.2 more miles to this :-! My last long training run (18 unless i can magically bust out a 20) is this next weekend, then two weeks of taper and the race. I'm crazy nervous and terrified by the idea of being forced to walk 8-10 miles after running 16-18. Just starting to realize what I'm supposed to be doing in 26 days. I probably won't find much time to blog between now and then, but hope to at least once. I would appreciate any prayers on my behalf, or good running vibes sent out. Or donations! ;) this post is already super long & wordy so, I'll TRY to update after next week's run.

Cookies for Callie

It has been too long since I've blogged, but extra time these days is extremely rare, and normally doesn't last long enough for me to sit down and dedicate the amount of time that this post deserves. Having said that, I'm going to attempt it right now because Konnor and Mckenzie are playing Disneyland Adventures on the Kinect, and Parker is trying to break the vaccuum right in front of me...

Last weekend was Cookies for Callie, and it went great! I am lucky enough to know some really amazing people who had amazing suggestions, ideas, abilities, and items to donate. Several months ago Mckenzie wanted to do a lemonade stand for my fundraising so I wrote a little Facebook inbox to several of our friends with kids and asked if it was something anyone would want to be involved in. We had a great response and one of my friends, who is the biggest example of living life charitably, mentioned that she had planned on doing a yard sale later in the summer and donating all of the money she made to GSF. Everyone thought it was a great idea and we started planning. One friend called around to local churches to find a place to hold the sale. We worked through lots of different schedules to find a Saturday that we could make work, tossed around lots of ideas, and we set the date. Then we all got crazy busy with Summer vacation, kids, family, church responsibilities, work... you name it. These women are among the busiest that I've ever met. When I realized it was only two weeks out we got back to work finalizing plans, making fliers, advertising on Craig's list, and letting everyone know that if they wanted a way to get involved and help, but didn't feel they could donate money for whatever reason, this was the way to do it. We bought matching Never Give Up t-shirts, wristbands to sell and got lots of change for Saturday morning.

Let me say that this was one of the most amazing things that I've ever been a part of. People went all out for this. For Callie. For GSF. Some even for me. So many people had so much to donate that I had to go collect items on Thursday AND Friday before the sale. We had two friends bring their lemonade stands for us to sale our baked goods and drinks from. On Friday several of us went to the church to collect and sort. There were people I knew well, people I had never met, some I had seen once or twice. I got to the church at 5 o clock and never sat down once. Loads and loads of stuff were brought in. Some people brought things both days. We had several people sorting and pricing all night. We filled (and I mean FILLED) two big rooms full of stuff. Not just any junk either. People donated a Play Station 3, a Prada bag, Vera with tags still attached, a beautiful acoustic guitar, $400.00 shoes (several pairs, in fact), there were baby clothes, luggage, text books and hand made cards...almost anything you could imagine. Not to mention the beautiful home made cookies and cupcakes and truffles and... Several women asked if their husbands could come help the next morning, some people even volunteered to have their teenage sons come out. At 5am. On a Saturday. When we finally left at 9 that night most of our items were not priced, despite the hard work put in by a group of people working a maximum effort. When I got home that night I thanked my mom for keeping my kids, got them all ready for bed and to sleep and then sat down to make signs. I didn't even close my eyes that night. Parker was sick and I felt like I was too from being so nervous. At 4 am , I got dressed and loaded up two caffeinated sodas, a water, signs, markers, money and my nerves into Aarik's truck. When I pulled into the church parking lot a few minutes early I expected to be the first one there, and alone for awhile, but just ahead of me my sweet friend and her husband were pulling in. She's pregnant, and had other obligations that day AND her baby shower that evening that was planned around this event. Within minutes we had an army in. Moving tables, chairs, and boxes full of sale items. Organizing and setting up tables, pricing things and making magic. I couldn't believe how smoothly it went. We were ready to go before sale time and good thing since we had a few early shoppers. Everyone did more than their share of work and it was very obvious how much love they felt for Callie, and her parents, and grandparents, and for this cause. As tired as we all were the day of the sale was fun and went by quickly. There were a few times that seemed like things weren't going as we had hoped and there weren't many shoppers, but then it would pick up and lift our spirits. Callie came for a visit. Lots of friends and family showed up to help, and shop and make cash donations. One man came before work and then again afterward. One of the elderly women from our church ward came at 7 and stayed a few hours to help. Some of our kids stayed the whole day, some for a short while, and they ran the baked goods table (and one ran the show. Seriously, girlfriend was on top of things!) It was so beautiful to watch every person come and say "I'm sorry this is all I can do" "I wish I could do more" and then to see what it all came together to be. Beautiful to see that if every person would jut do as much as they can do, no matter how big or small they feel their contribution is, that something beyond great can be accomplished. At the end of the day we had another small army come back in and clean up and drop off leftovers to the closest Goodwill and just like that it was over.

When we first decided to do this, I hoped we would spread awareness and make $500.00 or more. With all of the hard work put in I changed that goal to $800, just enough to reach the $2000.00 goal I'd set several months back. We actually raised $1970.00 for Cookies for Callie alone!!  Amazing! I wish I could thank each person individually, though no one did it for any type of praise. People kept saying that I was in charge, but really this small army of people made this whole thing happen. Good people, with big hearts, who want to make the world a better place however they can. I can't speak for Josh and Aimee and Callie or any of the other local SMA families that helped with and were thrilled about this event, but they were so grateful for all of the work that went into this event. We are planning to make this an annual event and are so excited for next year! I'm going to post a few pics and then I have to run (literally). I've missed two weeks of long runs between sick Parker, seriously painful shin issues and the exhaustion of the wonderful weekend this event brought on. Hope to find time soon to post about my recent issues with clumsiness and losing important things, more about running, my new job teaching cycle and Konnor and Mckenzie starting soccer!! Thanks again to everyone who made this happen!!

Tomorrow (and a few other days)

Tomorrow I will run 14 miles. That is the farthest I've ever run, and it's been almost two years since I've run that far. If it weren't for my mean right shin I would be so excited to have finally made it to this point. Well, I'm excited either way because,with all of the injuries so far, I never thought I'd get to this point. Last weekend I went out to run 12 and in my attempt to not be a hood runner (** see note) I added too many extra roads in and wound up running 13. While this shin has me running MUCH slower than I would like, the pace was such that I could have kept going a while longer and been fine. I also had to cut out one of my short runs this week in hopes it would help my leg, or help it not get worse. So I'm accepting that this time around with training I'm very injury prone, which means the best case scenario for November 10th is that I'll be in Richmond and toe the line very undertrained because of the time  I'll probably continue to take off to nurse these things. It's so frustrating to be physically capable, in every way but one, of doing something you want terribly to do. It really makes me think about what it would be like to have SMA and be fully mentally functioning and know how to do things, but not be able to do them. Which then makes me grateful to just have injuries from doing too much, or doing something wrong. I'm just hoping to go up there and run, walk, crawl or roll 26.2 miles in less than seven hours. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Things are starting to come together for our rummage sale, "Cookies for Callie", that's one week from today. This is going to be one heck of a crazy week. All of the last minute preparations for what looks to be a huge event, Aarik is switching to second shift Monday, I'm required to start going to the Y two mornings a week for training until my classes start the first week of September, adjusting to putting the kids to bed by myslef when it's really been a two person job so far,  it's supposed to be a 30 mile week (4, 7, 4 and my first ever 15), getting ready to have some major work done on our house, then add in the normal cooking, cleaning and preventing disasters, and the rummage sale itself. A week full of great things that, combined, are a little overwhelming. But, come Saturday night we'll hopefully be in rest/celebration/happy mode. If there aren't any updates until then, I'm sure I'll be excited to update after Cookies for Callie.

If you're wondering, we DO still have our three kids. They still do funny, busy things every day, and they are still wonderful. Right now it's just easier to shoot a picture onto Facebook or Instagram to update family about how Parker, who is barely one year old, is climbing EVERYTHING in sight. Like things that adults and monkeys can't climb. Or to quickly type a status update about how my 6 year old Konnor figured out how to crack the family lock code on Netflix. I can let everyone know at the same time that if they see us out in public Mckenzie picked out what she's wearing, bless her sweet heart. It certainly was not my idea. But, to hold you over until we start school the first week in September and Mckenzie starts soccer, and Konnor starts swim lessons and Parker starts... whatever craziness he starts next, here are a few random pics from lately.

**This is my own made up term for running only in neighborhoods. Every other time I have trained for a race I have been a hood runner. This time I am slowly venturing farther out with each run and am determined not to be a hood runner. The most I stay in the neighborhood anymore is about 2.4 miles, then it is out on main roads to stretch my legs and avoid most dog traffic... MOST. You can expect to see this term used in the future on this blog.

Be Careful What You Wish For & Lots of Thanks

So last week I posted about how cool it looked to barefoot run and that I'd like to try it some time. Technically, we've probably all done the bare foot thing, as kids. But for some reason, as adults, it becomes an odd thing to do. Well, we have had complete insanity in our house the past couple of weeks. Aarik is now working six days a week, and his new schedule has been quite the adjustment for all of us. We've also had tons of people in and out of our home, which means lots of cleaning for me, and my niece has been staying with us for a week now, which means more cleaning for me. :) With all that's going on I'm quite tired and kind of out of it, and finding the need to rearrange my training days- not a good combination. Friday night, after another insanely busy day, I pulled the treadmill down for the first time in months and was running around the house trying to hurry up and get dressed to do a "quick three miles". Somehow during what should have been a simple task, I slammed my last two toes on my left foot into the bottom of the toilet. After the temporary black out that comes from doing something stupid and painful, I gathered my emotions and called a friend who's husband graduated from med school recently and got his opinion over the phone. After deciding not to go to the ER on a Friday night, I tried to put my tennis shoes on and was writhing in agony. So I took off my shoes and ran 1.5 miles on the treadmill. Barefoot. My toe only bothered me when it would jut out to the side (shudddder) and I stopped at 1.5 miles because I've always heard you have to be careful to ease into barefooting. By the time I got in bed a few hours later my little toe was very swollen and all sorts of fun colors and it kept me up all night. I just didn't feel good about taking Ibuprofen while I'm still nursing. I spent several hours at PrimeCare the next day and was told that "while it was hard to know for sure because of all of the other issues (breaks) I've had" they are pretty sure it's not broken. Take a little time off for the swelling and bruising to go down, ice it, cross train and get back on the horse. So I did the time equivalent of eleven miles on the elliptical (not fun btw)  and will just repeat this last week's mileage, running, this week. SIGH. Aarik and I just keep shaking our heads in disbelief that one person's feet could be under attack constantly. It's really becoming frustrating not knowing from one day to the next if I'll even complete training for the marathon, much less show up to run it. Just trying to remember the Gwendolyn Strong Foundation's "Never Give Up" motto.

Last week we reached 50% of our fundraising goal!!! Thanks to all of you wonderful, caring people who have donated so far and to Victoria Strong who has been so supportive and helpful. Thank you for helping me reach a personal goal to be half way before the half way point.  This fundraising is SO important for many reasons, but the thing that keeps coming to my mind is that with this disease parents are told there is nothing they can do to fight it. By raising this money we are doing something! This is really the only way these families can fight back. By funding projects that give their children better quality of life and research that will one day find a cure we are doing something. I'm so grateful to all of you who have given that to Callie's family by donating in her name. You're all so wonderful & you can't know how much the support means to us all. I can only imagine how it feels to Josh, Aimee and Callie to see how many people love & support them in all they're doing as well. Thank you all again!

One last thing, Laura over at mommyrunfast.com, is a wonderful running and health food blogger. I've gotten some great advice from her blog and have been keeping up with her for a little while now. A while back she asked if I would be interested in doing a short guest post for a segment she does on Sunday's called Purposeful Running to talk a little bit about why I'm doing what I'm doing. She worked as a social worker before she became a SAHM, and being aware of what SMA is/was, wanted to help get the word out and help with the fight. Of course I jumped at the chance! She has a wonderful blog and lots of wonderful followers and this is one great way to spread awareness about Spinal Muscular Atrophy and our fundraising efforts for GSF. The post is supposed to be up this coming Sunday, July 22nd, for any of you who are interested. In the mean time, if any of you are runner's or looking to be more healthy with your eating, go check out her blog! BIG thank you to Laura!!

The Zoe Birthday Project

It has been a crazy busy couple of weeks here, and I haven't had time to sit down to blog. I actually just sat down to eat dinner at 9:45 tonight (not something I encourage). I had been having some pretty serious pain with my right foot, which is the foot I've never had any trouble from, and I decided to take a week off of running. Probably for the best for lots of reasons because I can't imagine how hard it would have been to fit the running in. My foot is still bothering me, but not when I run, and not any worse after I run than before I ran. Yeah, I'm confused too. Trying to avoid a trip to the doctor's office with three kiddos in tow. We'll see what happens, I guess.

The main reason for this quick post is that I wanted to help spread the word about the Zoe Birthday Project. This is a simple, free way to help improve the life of a little girl with SMA. These kids are so special and they touch the lives of everyone around them. It's cool to find a way to make them feel as special as they are. I thought it was pretty awesome that Daughtry got involved on this one too. You can check out the Zoe Birthday Project on Facebook here and see the picture they sent in. So, if you have a minute, take a picture and post it! Let me know if you do! I'll try to catch up on all of the past weeks events as soon as possible!