That Time I Kept On Running

{{{Another disclaimer: This post was written months and months ago! I think I wrote it in May.... I never published it because I didn't have any pictures, and I know that reading posts with absolutely not pictures can be boring! 

Plus, I had a life altering event happen in May and that totally threw me off my groove!!! So, sorry again for no pictures! If you don't make it all the way through the post, I totally understand!}}}

Have I told you about my power pole?

When I very first started running last June, there was a power pole off in the distance that seemed pretty far away. I came to realize that just beyond that power pole was my one mile marker and I often repeated to myself “just make it to the power pole, just make it to the pole.”

When I started running on the parkway in March, I repeated the same thing to myself. In the beginning it was hard…. really hard!!

Have you seen those Quaker commercials? There’s one with a little boy who’s riding a bike and imagines he is biking up a huge hill, and another with a girl who is swimming and imagines pirates and whales.

I had to do the same thing. That power pole has become Sleeping Beauty’s castle. 

I also started to picture myself running past certain places in Disneyland to help the distance pass.... I imagine myself running down main street..... underneath the castle....... around the rivers of America..... past Splash Mountain! Whatever it takes to get me to that power pole! 

I also had to change what I was listening to. I started listening to a Disney station on Pandora and it was been great! All I listen to when I run now is Disney music!

Sound cheesy? Probably!!

But it seriously helps!!

For instance……

“I’ll Make A Man Out Of You” from Mulan is one of my favorites! I sing to myself “I must be SWIFT as a coursing river, with all the FORCE of a great typhoon, with all the STRENGTH of a raging fire…”

And I love it when Pocahontas sings “Just around the river bend”...... since I am running right along side the river!!

Or “Dig a little deeper, you ain’t got far ta go” from The Princess and the Frog or “When your miles and miles from your nice warm bed” from Toy Story!

They seriously motivate me!! I think my two most favorite though are “Hawaiian Rollercoaster Ride” and “He Mele No Lilo” both from Lilo and Stich. I don’t know what it is about those songs but they just keep me going!!

I remember the day I ran two full miles without stopping!! March 2, 2013

 I had run more than a mile and a half and I was feeling great! I new I could make it to 1.75 miles! I made it to that point, still feeling awesome and a new song started on Pandora…… “The Gospel Truth” which is the opening song to Hercules. Do you know what one of the first lines in the song is…… “YOU GO GIRL”.

Awesome moment!! I KNEW I could make it to two miles and I did!!

On March 18, 2013 I ran 3 full miles without stopping meaning I had hit my half way point!

On April 11, 2013 I ran more than 4 miles!!

I think back to those not so distant days on the rec center track when I felt hopeless and realized that I’ve learned a few things:

1-       Some days will be easier that others. On those hard days, I have to remember that I CAN do it! I’m tougher than I think!

2-       I often have to remind myself, slow and steady gets you to the end of the race… eventually! It’s okay if I’m not super fast. It’s okay if someone can walk quickly and keep up with me. All that matters is getting to the end of the race!

3-       Running is slightly easier when you smile the whole time and keep your head held high.

4-       I KNOW that I will be able to run 6.2 miles by August 31^st ….. I can see myself making progress and I know that, with persistence, I will get there!

I still have a ways to go…..

My pace can definitely improve and at this point, each mile is still a challenge. One day I want to go out and run three miles like it’s no big deal! I still have days that I dread running, and there are times when I make excuses why I can’t go.

But slowly, and surely, I’m learning to love running.

That Time I Signed Up For A Long Race

{{{DISCLAIMER: I wrote this post months and months ago..... probably in May..... Oh...and sorry 

for the lack of pictures}}}

I don’t remember the first time I ever heard of the Disneyland half marathon.

I had a co-worker who ran it once. I remember thinking it sounded cool, but not giving it much thought beyond that because it was something I would NEVER be able to do!!

I casually looked into it last fall, right after doing my first 5k.

My endorphin's were kicking in and I felt invincible. OF COURSE I could jump from a 5k to a half marathon in only a mater of months!!

And then, I stopped running and thoughts of the half marathon went away.

In January I got on the Run Disney site again and found that registration for the 2013 race would open in only two days. I watched a couple videos online and my motivation was back! I wanted to do a Disneyland race so badly! But with only eight months until race day, I didn’t know if 13.1 miles would be feasible. Luckily for me, Disneyland would be hosting an inaugural 10k race.

There was a lot of scrambling, but in the end, my mom and two of my cousins signed up to up to run the Disneyland 10K with me.  That was January 22^nd.  There were 220 days to race time!

The only problem with signing up for a race in January, is that the next couple of months are FREEZING!! And it was especially cold this year!!! We're talking single digits!!! There was no way I could go outside and start running! So I went to Gold’s Gym almost every day after work to run on the treadmill! It was tricky in the beginning because I had let myself fall so far behind with months of not running. But I eventually go to the point where I was running three miles on the treadmill!! I was pretty dang proud of myself, especially since I was doing it at a slight incline.

In February, I decided I need to get some practice running NOT on a treadmill. I knew that running on pavement would be different from the treadmill and I wanted to see how I did. So my mom and I went to a rec center with an indoor track to run.

There was a sign posted on the wall near that track that said 10 laps= 1 mile.

I could do 30 laps no problem…. Or so I thought!

I started running and realized THE TREADMILL IS A BIG FAT LIAR!!!!!

There was no way in heaven or hell that I could actually run a mile on that dang track, let alone THREE!!!
I think I only ran about six laps before I gave up and walked.

It was bad…..

All the excitement and momentum I’d felt at the gym was completely gone.

I felt defeated

That feeling of “you’re not a runner” came back full force and I wondered what the heck I had gotten myself into!!

I knew standing on that track that there was NO WAY I’d be able to run the 10k…..
I wasn’t meant to run……

It was a few days before I finally went back to the rec center.

On that second visit I told myself I wouldn’t stop until I got to one mile….. even if my lungs exploded in the process.

By some miracle, I did it. That gave me a small glimmer of hope.

It also helped that I played Ke$ha's Tik Tok over and over and OVER? Why? Because the first time of the chorus says "DON"T STOP"!!

My running from the middle of February to the first part of March was pretty sporadic.

I didn’t really love the rec center and there was NO WAY I was getting back on a stupid treadmill.

I just had to make it to daylight savings on March 10^th when the sun would still be up after I got off work so I could go outside and run.

That Time I Got Really Really Lazy

My first 5k was in July of last year.

The second was in October.

I ran for awhile after that…

And then I do what I always do…..

I slacked off.

I didn’t have any races planned and I let myself fall back into my old, lazy ways.

And then winter came to Utah. Just in case you are not from Utah, I have to tell you that our November through February (sometimes as late as April) weather is not very conducive to running outside.

Especially not this last winter.

The temperature hardly got above freezing and there was no way I was going to drag my fat lazy self out to run in that!! 

I wasn’t that dedicated!!

I told myself I wasn’t really a runner anyway…..

I didn’t run the full 3.1 miles in my first 5k and I didn’t do it in my second either.

I was kidding myself to think that ME, of all people could actually run races. 

That Time I Pounded the Pavement

A few months after my first 5k, my brother and sister in law asked us if we would be interested in running a 5k called Pound the Pavement for Parenthood. Each runner who signed up got to enter a name into drawing for a couple hoping to do in-vetro. My SILs brother and his wife were really hoping to win and needed as many votes as possible.

How do you turn down such a cool race?!

So my mom, my sister and I all signed up to do it!!

I was more nervous about this race, mostly because I hadn’t been as faithful to running as I had been before! But it was for such a good cause that I couldn’t’ say no.

This race was both easier and harder than my first race.

Easier because they accidentally messed up the course at the very beginning of the race so it ended up being less than the 3.1 miles in a standard 5k.

Harder because there were SO many hills! And not just little hills, some of them seemed enormous!!!

It was still a fun race though and I had a good time.

Unfortunately, my SILs brother didn’t win the drawing. I felt really bad for them, but I would definitely do this kind of race again if it meant giving them another shot!

 

**These pictures are totally stolen from other people since my have completely disappeared!

That Time I Ran My First 5k

Last July my cousin-in-law (is that the actual term? I do I just call her my cousin? Or it is it do I say my cousin’s wife) posted something on Facebook about how she had just signed up to a 5k. I asked her asked her a little bit about it and found out it was going to be a nighttime race and she was signed up with my cousins. 

The more I started thinking about it, the more I wanted to do it. Not only was it a nighttime race, but it was GLOW IN THE DARK and it was on Friday the 13^th! It just sounded so awesome!!

I talked to my mom about it and convinced her to do it with me. I originally didn’t tell my cousins we had signed up….. I sort of felt like I was crashing their family time and I didn’t want to impose!

I Googled a couch to 5k program and started going out on the Jordan River Parkway almost every day. I was slow…. SUPER slow….. I felt like little old ladies with walkers could keep up with me!!!

 But I forced myself to keep going.

The program was a 9 week deal. And there were only about 6 weeks until the race. I was SO afraid that I wouldn’t be able to do it. My original goal was to run the whole race…. but then I realized that probably wasn’t as important as just running what I could and making it to the end.

I kept telling everyone about the race because it was going to be awesome! My sister in law signed up to run with us and so did my aunt.

We eventually told my cousins we would be running with them and I am SO glad we did. It turned out to be a blast!! There were 8 of us running and it was great to have other people cheering you on!

 

Everyone was really creative with their glow sticks! I even tried weaving them into my hair! The coolest part was probably our customized shirts!!

That's right!! WHAM!!!!!

 

Hayley and I were "HA"

The race began and I was so nervous, but also extremely excited.

I started to run…..

And I kept running….

And I even passed people!!

Before race day, I think my longest running streak had been a little over a mile.

On race day, I ran a mile and a half without stopping!
It’s pretty awesome what adrenaline will do!

For the last mile and a half I did a walk then run combo, but I made sure to save enough energy so I could sprint across the finish line!

It was an awesome feeling!! I had finished my first 5k!! I hadn’t run the whole thing, but I had run longer than I ever had before and I FINISHED!!

Me!! Crossing the finish line of my very first race!!

They gave out awards and my amazing mom was a medal in her age bracket!! Way to go!!

And my cousin and sister in law won in their age division!!

 

I was definitely on a running high!!!

I wanted to do more!! 

 

The Aftermath

After the Color Me Rad race, I went home to ice my left ankle and right knee. I kept ice on them all day and even put a brace on my ankle! Later that night, when I took the brace off, I was stunned to see that my ankle was even more swollen than it had been at the race!

I stayed off of it Sunday, hoping that would fix what ever the problem was! I would ice my ankle, while keeping a heating pad on my knee. Then I’d swap them.

It was Sunday that I started to get pretty worried about my knee. It was horribly painful to go up and down the stairs….. to the point that it almost brought me to tears! But I figured if I could still walk on it, it couldn’t be that bad!!

On Monday my parents convinced me to stay home and make an appointment with an orthopedic specialist. I didn’t want to go the doctor because they were starting to feel a lot better. I figured I go in, they’d tell me I twisted my ankle and bruised my knee and send me on my way….. feeling like an idiot for paying $35 for that assessment!

But I went anyway, and I waited in the stupid doctor’s office FOREVER!! And by forever I mean it was seriously almost two hours before I saw the doctor!! When I finally met with her, she moved my knee all over the place and pushed on my ankle. I felt stupid, because they really were aching any more and I felt like I was wasting her time.

Then she sent me back for x-rays.

That’s when it got bad.

My left ankle was fractured……not good.

Then she showed me my right knee cap.

I’m no orthopedic expert, but it was pretty easy to see that

a piece of my knee cap had been chipped off….

Bad…. really bad.

And the appointment went downhill from there.

She put my in a huge stupid walking boot and told me to keep weight off of it for two weeks. It was that or put a hard cast on it for four weeks!

Then she started talking about locked knee braces. In my head I kept trying to picture how a locked knee brace would work out when I couldn’t put weight on my left leg and had to use crutches. Luckily, she decided a neoprene brace would work, giving me the ability to still bed my knee.

Like so many times during the race, I could feel the tears coming.

But I didn’t want to cry in front of this lady….. so I bit my lip and nodded as she gave me the rest of my instructions, which included no running for four weeks.

I made it all the way home before I completely lost it.

My Disneyland race was only eight weeks away and I wouldn’t be able to run for four of them. Which meant the chances of me actual running the race were slim to none.

Major meltdown!

I cried for a long time….

For the money I felt like I wasted……

For the unfairness of my stupid weak ankle……

For the fact that I had injured BOTH legs…..

My grandparents were at my house when I finally made it home from the doctor, which ended up being a really good thing. My dad and my grandpa gave me a blessing and I felt slightly better.

I realized I would have to be patient…..

And I would have to work really hard for four weeks…..

So now the countdown is on!! 

Being patient is tough!! 

If only walking weren't so hard!

Color Me Rad

My third 5k!!! 

I’d seen advertisements and pictures from people who had run the Color Me Rad race before and I thought it looked awesome!

When I signed up with my mom and my cousins, we did it under the team name M&M (Macks&Markus’), awesome right??

I was especially excited for this race because I knew I would be able to run the whole entire thing! My first two 5ks were a blast, but I did a lot of walking and I couldn’t wait to watch all of my hard work pay off!

Race day finally came and I was prepared with hot pink running capris, purple sunglasses and, of course, a white t-shirt! 

 

We parked downtown and started walking the one mile between the car and the starting line. We talked excitedly and decided we would all run together since it wasn’t time.

We were almost to the starting area….20, 30 feet maybe!

Then it happened…..

One minute I was up.

The next minutes I was down.

And I went down hard.

As a sprained ankle expert, I knew this wasn’t just a “walk it off” kind of injury. Not to mention my skinned knee and the scratches all over my arm from falling into a thorn bush.

My fantastic cousin had ibuprofen in her bag so I took some and decided to “man up”.

I limped the rest of the way to the starting area and found the first aid booth, hoping they’d have an ace bandage.

No such luck! I did get a nice big band-aid though for my bleeding knee!!

We were part of the 8:20 wave so we had a while before we started running. We took some pictures….

 And then made our way to the starting line.

It was then that I was very VERY unsure about running the race. My ankle AND my knee were throbbing. No… more like aching!

I could feel that it was pretty bad. Every step hurt and it took a lot of self control not to break into tears! 

But the music was blasting, colors were flying, adrenaline was pumping and everyone around me looked like they were having such a good time! Not to mention I had already paid for the race and my t-shirt was still white! So I resolved then and there to finish the race!

 

They counted us down and as soon as my toes touched the starting line, I started to run! For a brief moment I thought I could do it….. I thought I could run the whole race with my twisted ankle and skinned knee!

But after a few blocks I knew that would not be possible… and I had to walk.

We hadn’t even reached the first color station and I was in agony. And not only that, I was walking….. My goal had been to run the entire race and I couldn’t do it, even I wanted to!! Again, I was holding back my tears!

Luckily I have the world’s most fantastic mom! Instead of taking off and finishing the race in no time, she walked with me… The.Whole.Way! I was so grateful for her!!

We were pelted with green, orange, purple and yellow and the longer I went, the better I felt. As the end got closer I decided I wanted to come across the finish line running! It wasn’t very far, but I did it!

I had made it through the whole race!! Sprained ankle, bum knee, burning scratches and all!!