Just checking in. I’ve had so much going on in the World Wide Web, I haven’t had time for all of it! I suppose I should update on how I’m doing with my goals. Yes, I had a lot of goals, an No I’m not accomplishing all of them at the moment… But like my friend John said, You don’t have to wait until New Years to set a goal….

Areas I’ve slacked the most: ChiRunning looseners, and Core Class. I’ve been on and off with the looseners. Sometimes I just forget to do them! I don’t have anyone there to remind me, and if I”m in a hurry I forget! Or I’ll remember while I’m running and say “I’ll do them when I’m done”… and sort of miss the whole point… And just occasionally I have stopped mid run and have done them. But Ryan is a big fan of gradual progress… and that’s kind of the idea behind ChiRunning… SO this is okay.

The core class thing? there have only been three weeks, and I missed the first two. This is because we didn’t have school on Mondays, and so I didn’t meet Ashley, and so I procrastinated. This week I didn’t meet Ashley, but I got in some yoga on my own. I think I may need to redefine this one, and figure out what exactly counts as a core workout if I can’t get to a class. Gradual Progress

Areas I’ve been Successful: Green Smoothies everyday and No Sugar.This has just become part of my routine. Part of why I think this has been so successful is because I was working it in prior to the New Year which gave me a chance to iron out the kinks.

Things in Progress: I made a spreadsheet to keep track of my finances… and as an experiment I’ve really just bought whatever I felt like this month (within reason) and as a result I spent nearly $500 on food so far! No doubt I’ll hit $500 by February. Sort of impulse buying gives me a chance to see how to rework some of the numbers. I need a lot more for food than I originally thought (maybe not THAT much… but more than I budget for) and I need a lot less for other things… like gas believe it or not… and utilities. I’ll get a lot back on my taxes next month and that will help me clean things up a bit.

Big Surprise: I said I wouldn’t launch my website until July thinking I wouldn’t have time or energy to put anything up… BUT I’ve been featured in TWO wedding magazines. One made the cover! So not only have I launched my website by I also have a facebook fan page, and a twitter account (don’t ask me how to use that thing. I just have it auto update from facebook. Twitter scares me.) Please Please, PLEASE visit my site and become a fan! Share it with your blogs, your friends, the world! Then I wont need to worry as much about the food budget.

Last but not least, Running: I’ve become happily complacent lately. I’m not excited to run, I’m not dreading a run either. I’m just… doing it… which I think is healthy for me right now. Last week I ran my long run at 1:00am because I was unable to sleep.Best Run Ever!

Which is ironic because The week before that I fell really bad on my long run and had about a 12 inch bruise just from the impact radiating down from my knee. WORST Fall EVER.and through it all…I’ve just been taking it one step at a time. The brakes have gone on for a few days though. I just finished recovering from a TERRIBLE stomach bug that kept me out of school 3 days. My mom actually rushed over one morning to check if I were alive (I had my cell phone off), because I had called my sister in the middle of the night completely delirious and dehydrated… and unable to hold any fluids in. I wasn’t able to eat, but I kept licking the salt off of pretzels hoping that I would retain fluid better that way. My biggest fear was passing out and being alone. Which is why (I think) I called my sister… but I never passed out. My mom’s first reaction was “You need sugar!” but I never had it. I told her I would definitely have some if the coconut water didn’t help… but it did. I was able to do some yoga the second day… just real gentle twists and childs pose to help my stomach.

Tomorrow I shall pick up where I left off. I’m feeling pretty good now. Happy to be healthy again and ready to get back on with it.

So, THAT’S THAT!

I should have made a goal about posting on my blog. Clearly… I did not. and neither did AyeDee.

RUNNING GOALS:

I feel like these are sustainable goals. I’m putting the biggest emphasis on the Green– those are the primary objectives. The secondary objectives are things I feel will stem off from the primary objectives… or will be a good way to achieve the primary objective (I wasn’t really consistent with my outline process… I apologize)I want to race at least 12 times this year (which isn’t actually a lot for me, but considering 2011… 12 is plenty)… Already got one done!

NUTRITION GOALS:

These seem like the toughest to most people… But I actually do all of these already and have been for over a month.. all except “Grow Herbs”…  I often end up buying some, using it, then it goes bad and I waste, so growing will be better… I also decided there were going to be a few cases where I would eat sugar: 1. If it would be rude not to 2. If the choice is “starve to death” or “eat added sugar” I won’t starve… but will still make sure to choose the best possible option for me.

CAREER GOALS: 

I have two careers, so these goals reflect teaching and photography. The first two are completely for teaching, the third one is mostly for teaching (but hey… if I win an iPad for Autism, I can use it for photography, too) and the last two are for photography. Help me win an iPad by buying an autism awareness product from the iPad Challenge! Put my name down (Caitlyn A. Clark) as the Challenger. I need 60 points to win, and I have 22. It will help in my class so much!

FINANCIAL GOALS:

Plain and simple… I’m not good with money. I always manage, but I waste a lot with late fees, and stupid additional charges (like $10 extra on todays race for post registration… not off to a good start)… I just don’t keep track of things as much as I should, and I think if I save receipts etc it might just bring my awareness up a bit.  I make enough to get by, but that won’t always be enough. This is all just to collect baseline data to make better goals next year.

So today is my first day… I did the ChiRunning looseness first thing. Had a green smoothie on my way to my first race, Raced the 10k in a new PR (37:44.6) I’m extremely happy with this considering in the past 8 weeks I’ve only run one week over 37 miles. Not Too Shabby. Ate a beans, rice, and veggie wrap with Matt… The wrap itself probably had added sugar… but I was starving, Matt was starving… and we were on our way somewhere else. This was actually a GOOD thing for me, because I’ve been quite anal with the no sugar added goal thus far, and part of my goal was to make this whole process more functional… I’m not going to stave myself over 1g of sugar. We came home, I worked on photography… (to help improve my photography skills I’m doing a 365 photos project with a daily photo challenge), ate a brown rice meal with a bunch of amazing leftovers (not even a gram of sugar added this time), Made green smoothie #2, and am sitting here typing this up. Probably should be paying bills… but, I guess that’s next.

Successful Day!

What are your goals this year?

Photo 1 of 365

Updates.

Rehabilitation has come to a screeching halt, as I cannot bear the pain in my lower abdomen any longer, and my left side is getting worst. So, it has been back to the doctor for me. I see my second surgeon the first week in January. So much for starting 2012 off on a positive note.  My vitamin of choice (formerly Vitamin I)  has since been replaced with Vitamin V.

Goals.

I have tried to make a renewed commitment to being positive, and I am making small strides (See: instead of writing “I am failing,” I have tried to replace it with a positive statement, even though it means the same thing to me).  

Misc.

Besides running, it seems like everything in my life has been affected by these injuries.  It makes getting up everyday painful, and though I have tried to keep a level demeanor, it has drained me of what seems like everything. On Christmas day I was in so much pain I just laid on the couch crying for a couple hours. I think over the last year, I have cried more than in my whole life combined. I went into work today, but no one was there, so I left. I am supposed to go in tomorrow morning, but I am contemplating quitting — just the old “not show up,” and write an e-mail, saying “see ya’ never.“ It hurts to sit, and sitting at work, and sitting at school has made everything even more unbearable. It has come to the point where sitting gives me anxiety. Just the thought of sitting makes me cringe.
2011.

At the start of 2011, I told myself that I had spent all of 2010 making mistakes it would take me all of 2011 to correct. I was wrong — I underestimated the mistakes of 2010. There is now 5 days left before 2012, and I have yet to scuff the surface of correcting these mistakes.

I am nine weeks post-operation, and I have been tirelessly doing Physical Therapy. Strength, stabilization, and stretching, everything you would expect. I have good days, and I have bad days. My left side hurts on and off, and it worries me a lot; I do not want to have it operated on.

I have no power coming from my right abdominal muscles right now, so I have been doing things to try to get them to fire, and work. Right now, the efforts have been all futile.

I can walk though; not as good as the Physical Therapists wants me to, but I am slowly correcting my gate. I know it will not ever be perfect, but hopefully some day it will be close to perfect. I wish I could post a video of how I used to walk, but I do not really have any film of myself. I have some running footage, but you can’t see the defect as well when I run. Anyone who knows me though is all too familiar with the funny little gate. – It’s been a part of me for so long that sometimes I think people won’t even recognize me anymore without it. – Ian has been video taping me walking, so I can see what I am doing wrong, and this helps me ‘correct’ it.

I have two more follow-up appointments in January. I cannot wait for the day that I do not have to be in doctor’s offices anymore. Sometimes I think that I’ll just wake up normal again; that in a couple of weeks or something all the rehabilitation over the passed nine months will finally kick in, and I can put one foot in front of the other and run. Like, I’ll just run out the door, and not stop running, maybe like Forrest Gump or something.

My favorite part about the post above is that they call it as it is. When you are fat, you are fat. Seems like now-a-days we’re so PC that we’re actually lying. Fat is fat. Unhealthy is unhealthy…. And excuses are excuses. That’s just a side note though…. and that’s, like you know, how our society is. We have no conviction anymore to avoid controversy or something… This guy will tell you…

Back to sitting: SITTING IS LETHAL! But not just because it makes you, you know, fat. A huge part of my injury: Sitting; a huge part of Ayedubbs injury: sitting. When you sit, you shorten the tendons in your hips and lengthen the ones in your butt… then your biomechanics get all sorts of screwed up, and a physical therapist needs to bail you out and teach you to walk again. Yes, that’s right… WALK again.

Walk correctly, that is. I’d write more, but I’ve been sitting for too long. Time to run.

Get off your butt and do something!

Not a whole lot of comments lately, but our stats are still steady, so I know you’re out there!

My boyfriend (and health counselor) just informed me that I was mentioned in our mutual friend Ryans blog. Ryan is a member of the Sisu Project and is a ChiRunning instructor here in Massachusetts. He was the first ChiRunning instructor in the state, and has made quite a name for himself. He’s even been mentioned in Chris McDougall’s blog (you know, the guy that wrote “Born to Run”).

His post reminded me that when I was practicing ChiRunning, I WAS GETTING FASTER! (and was never injured. Check the chart below… 2008=ChiRunning)

Another thing I was doing was EATING SUPER HEALTHY since Matthew was in nutrition school, and the three of us lived together. It was a killer combo! Now, living by myself, I have to figure out how to put these pieces back together.

This is my third week of no sugar and daily Qt of green smoothies. There are not enough words to express how amazing I’ve felt. My skin is healthier, my hair is softer, my body feels more energized, I digest easily and smoothly, I sleep soundly, and because of all those things my students are showing so much progress since I am on my A game EVERYDAY for the whole time I am with them, not just part of the time. Also, for some reason I suddenly have this impulse to keep my external world as clean as my internal world feels. I’ve organized my closets, been on top of the laundry, dishes never sit for longer than 30 minutes (when I’m usually cleaning countertops and the floor)

I also must inform you that I easily survived 3 Christmas Parties and 3 weekly treat days at work. The last Christmas party, my stomach cringed at the thought of eating anything with sugar. I was perfectly content eating my sugarfree cookies made with bananas, oats, walnuts, and berries. I was only tempted once, but then looking around me everyone had their hands on their stomaches, were slouched on a couch, and were complaining about feeling “stuffed” and “gross”… Meanwhile I had endless energy, and came home feeling exceptional.

It has taken me a while, but I think I’ve finally figured out how to keep my diet in control and at an elite level without having Matt holding my hand through each and every meal. I’ve had to step up to the plate and take control of my own eating habits… this has allowed me to string together a few good weeks of training, with no illness in sight.

WIth that in mind, it is now time to be sure to keep the injuries at bay. The missing link is the ChiRunning!  Getting back into ChiRunning and completing the equation that made consistent training possible (which in turn made all the PR’s possible) ChiRunning is a gradual process, but one thing I can certainly start doing again is the looseners that I used to do religiously EVERYDAY!

As 2012 approaches, my life is starting to finally clean up, and I’m finally feeling like I have a grip on things and that I’m actually in the drivers seat instead of a passenger hanging on by a thread.

Plus… there are three pay periods in December, so I will even have my finances in order and finally pay all those medical expenses from my injury. I don’t want to have those EVER AGAIN!

2008 was my best year of running to date. Set PRs in every event from the 800m to the 10 mile.
2009 wasn’t bad, but was not good by any stretch of the imagination.. But I posted one sub 18 5k… not terrible.
2010 was looking great. I ran my first half, got my mileage up higher for long runs, PRed in the 12k, (the 10k enroute) and PRed in the 8k… but struggled to keep momentum as the months got shorter and colder.
2011 had many, many, many lows. I wanted to break 5 in the mile (finally) but I ended up running 5:04.99, 5:05, and You Guessed it! 5:05… So at least I was consistent in that respect…. but then I got injured, so that sucked. ONE high I can truly take away from this year is that my November was the highest November I’ve had since graduating college (and maybe ever… November was usually a low mileage month in college, too)

Since taking sugar out last week, I’ve felt 99.9% better. I don’t feel sick at work, don’t feel sick after work, and therefore don’t feel as much like I have to FORCE myself out the door. I actually feel great post work, so I WANT to run.

I’ve set myself up for a good December. This December will definitely be a challenge with the adjustment to no sugar, but I’ll use this as a transition phase and look forward to being fully adjusted when 2012 rolls in!

2012 is going to be a GREAT YEAR for me… I know it!

July

August

September

October

November

So after going to the doctors a few times, I have “nothing” wrong with me, but I know my own body, Something is wrong with me. Basically I’ve had non stop sinus issues ranging from earaches, to post nasal drip, to strep throat pain (but not strep throat) with sores on the back of my tonsils. Constant headaches, body fatigue… but after my episode in Philly (flu symptoms for a few hours… then fine), and then yesterday where I could not have anything touch my skin because everything felt like pins and needles, I decided to detox.

It’s been just over 24 hours, and I haven’t had solid food. I’ve been drinking smoothies, and suffering through some serious sweating and headaches, but the pins and needles are gone. Clearly I’ve got some built up toxins keeping me down. Tomorrow I’ll start eating salad and raw vegetables again.

Hopefully this works! Not feeling so hot right now, but I haven’t been feeling too hot in months!

Right now, I can do small exercises, that can barely be called exercises, and I have a second follow-up at the end of November, after which I can start physical therapy to regain strength. My massage therapist broke his collar-bone, so I have not yet had the chance to work with him (not to turn his problem into mine, but whatever can go wrong in this rehab. will go wrong). — But I am glad that Scott is okay.

Today, is my second day walking, and the more physical activity that I do, the more I am getting similiar pre-surgery pains. What is positive is that even on my second day walking, I have less of a limp than on Friday.

When I got off the crutches, I originally had planned to start swimming five minutes at a time, but I am going to hold off for a couple more weeks, until I get really comfortable walking again. I am taking the smallest baby steps possible, and trying to find victories in small things, like, sitting for a couple of hours without pain, or being able to sleep without having to feel as though I need to reposition my hip.

I look forward all the time now. I never look back. And I keep repeating the promises to myself that this is a clean slate for running. Nothing before this matters anymore to me because what worked before this, wont work now.

And I am patiently waiting to exhale.

Training hasn’t been great. Since giving up Philly, I’ve had very little motivation to train seriously. I’ve just been going through the motions and just… doing it. My runs have been… depressed.  sluggish, and jello like… no purpose behind anything I did. But eventually things will click. I felt like getting into a race might wake me up from my slumber, and although it wasn’t the best race– I’m awake now!

First race Back!

I went out really conservatively, as I always try to at Franklin Park… but as we approached the mile mark, I should have settled into a group and instead I willingly chose no-mans-land because I felt like doing a time trial…

I ran bearcage with more confidence than normal… but that could also be because I was about thirty seconds per mile slower than normal. I also ran the grass portions stronger than normal… what was strange is how terrible I ran Wilderness, which is usually my best loop. Up until mile 2, I was basically going through the motions with short surges of racing… but heading into the wilderness running along the wall of stone, I was woken up.

I’m NEVER passed in the wilderness loop, so I had no other choice but to respond. as we turned left into the wilderness I regained the lead…. Then she passed me back after we pushed the incline and looped towards the hairpin turn. Then I passed her again after the hard left… I held in front of her until we reached the grassy portion (playstead). She passed me on the steep downhill heading toward the back stop… but I passed her again as we turned left to head back to bearcage hill (For those of you who don’t know the 6k, it is the same as the 5k up until the back stop… at this point we turn left and repeat bearcage hill and then come back down to the finish)… as we headed up bearcage, I remember Matt yelling for me to stay strong. I thought about the time I qualified for nationals and held off a pack of wolves from bearcage on during DII Regionals. At this point we were passing other runners like they were standing still and it had become a race between two midpackers…. I was passed as we started up bearcage, but thinking of Regionals helped me upsh up the hill and I passed her hoping to break her so I could just gradually press to the finish. Unfortunately I didn’t break her. We raced down the hill and she went by me. Damn it… At this point, however, I had realized that I was much stronger than her on the flat ground, and she was only really passing me on downhills… so I started to pull ahead as much as possible. All we had was the loop on the fields, I can’t remember if I was passed again, but I know she was right on top of me because I could hear her (and because she’s in the picture)… I felt less than confident in my mile speed suddenly showing up and just before heading into the last straight away I had some negative thoughts “there’s no way I can out kick anyone right now, I have NO speed, and this girl wont quit”… but somehow another voice said “well, don’t quit… at least if she beats you, you know you tried” At some point I actually got comfortable with losing to her so long as I kicked as hard as I could… and next thing I knew I was not only out kicking the girl I had been battling with for half the race, but I also passed another girl in the process.

My time was 23:42 and my goal was under 23:30… but even though my time wasnt great, I think my execution was okay… I think if I had raced once before this, I could have dropped time dramatically, and probably been a bit more awake in the earlier parts of the race. A lot of the sluggishness was just rust, and fear… and I think I’ve at least got some purpose now. So many people in front of me that I should be competing with, and I want to be there again.

So, that’s the recap.