On Not Running

It's been awhile since I talked about running here, and it hasn't been out of merciful restraint but rather because I haven't been doing much of it due to a tibial stress fracture in my left leg. The pain started back in April, was ignored until May and it wasn't until June that I started to take it somewhat seriously. So from June through august I pretty much stayed off of it, did the wretched elliptical trainer instead, and gradually added a few minutes of running at a time. By September I thought I was good as gold and started to run outside again on my old route - lots of hills and little self control, which meant I was running 12 mile stretched on asphalt after doing 5 or 6 on the tready. Needless to say, this sent me back to the gym pretty quick. It's the end of November, and I am still taking what feel like very tiny baby steps. I am at a tenuous 25 miles per week, restricted to the treadmill.
It is also exactly one year to the day after running my first marathon. Yesterday was the Philadelphia Marathon, which might have been heartbreaking considering that at this time last year I was averaging 80 miles per week, not a measly 25. I was also leaner, in better shape, and over all felt that it could only get better from there.

But yesterday was not sad, or heartbreaking - it only delivered a small stab of remorse that I couldn't at least run it for fun, without regard to time. The one thing about these last 8 months of being "sidelined" is that it's given me a lot of time to think about why I got injured. The tibial stress fracture was the second one this year alone. I got one in my right leg in January, although I didn't know what it was. I had also gotten a stress fracture in the same location each of the previous two years, again undiagnosed. These pieces only came together after I had my bone scan in August.

The bone scan that also revealed that I, a 26 year old female in "optimal" health had osteopenia - a precursor to osteoporosis. The self proclaimed health nut's structure was crumbling, and far too soon. I should have known, and really I did know, I just didn't want to hear it. I knew that when 4 months had passed without getting my period that this was a warning sign. I even went so far as to call my doctor and her whether she thought this would eventually lead to bone loss. She told me not to worry about it for four years, unless I decided I wanted to have children. Not to worry for 4 years. Of course, this is exactly what I wanted to hear: keep running like a maniac and eating like a waif!
So I kept going and didn't get my period back to normal until January, when I got my first stress fracture of 2006.

This weekend I made the full admission to myself, and to make it for real, to R: I was caught in the notorious female athlete triad. Disordered eating. Amenorrhea. Bone loss. The hardest part to admit was the disordered eating. It just isn't becoming of an educated, confidant, low-maintenance woman with and low levels of self absorption to eat skimpy. I guess my stint with anorexia in the seventh grade taught me the valuable ability to skirt around the look of insecurity.

So for the past 8 months I have been trying to accept that 1)what 89i had previously thought was normal was a problem, and 2) if I don't take my body seriously I will eventually will never be able to run again. This has been the longest recover from injury I have ever sustained, and frankly it has scared me back to me senses. Each time I push it too far - even by running 5 minutes too long or too hard - I start to fell the pain again and have to back off for a few days. I had been hoping to run Boston in 2007, but I will be more than satisfied if I can just run outdoors.

I am the Witch in this club, baby...

It really says something that I can't remember the last concert I went to. I think it might have been Medeski martin and Wood in Albany, way back in my freshman year of college. I had no idea who they were, but since I was invited to go with some people who were way excited to go see them, I figured I'd go.

It took me about 1o minutes to learn that I hated Medski Martin and Wood. The last time I remember being so bored at an event where everyone else is having a blast was when my parents would take me to the opera at the Masonic Temple in Detroit when I was a kid. I hated the opera. I didn't get what all these old people thought was so great or moving about it that it made them cry, and just didn't care. This is how I felt at the MMW concert. I didn't get what everyone was dancing to, what was so great about these never-ending 'jams', and why on earth the concert had to last 3 hours. The worst thing is that I was totally alone in my misery. The other 5 people I went with loved it, and raved about it the whole way back to Bennington. What am I going to say - that it was lame and boring? Remember I had just turned 18, and was with a group of older girls, some of which were very hot by the way. I wasn't about to sytand alone in the party-pooper corner of the car.

I tell you all this because today I bought tickets to see Quintron and Miss Pussycat. I am excited beyond belief and ashamed that it's been 8 years since I have been to a show, and longer since I have been to a good one. They play with Peaches at the Troc on the 25th, and I am dragging R's clueless ass with me. He definitely does not share my admiration for Mr. Quintron and his lovely wife, but being my date is his job. So there.

All this makes me feel really old and I have an image of us showing up at the Troc and being the oldest people there. But really, in my heart of hearts I know this can't be true. We are not old, and you can't really tell by just looking at us how lame we are. It takes a few minutes of hard observation for that.

Sorry to leave all y'all in suspense of what I got R for his birthday - it was a camera. An awesome camera. And he loved it. He loves it so much, that he swaddles it in lint free cloth before putting it in his camera bag (which is actullay a lunch bag, but we won't get into that - that being the manufacture of lunch boxes sturdy enough to store tissue samples in dry ice for a week). But yeah, really good work on my part.

I desperately need a haircut. It's not the length that is making me batty so much as its territorial behavior over evrything we own. My hair gets on everything: on post it notes, the refirderator, the car's gear shifter, and this morning I pulled two long blond hairs from out of my clothes. Whethere those came from my head or someone was playing dressup with my sweater, I'll never know. Anyways, it's a good thing we don't have better lighting in the kitchen because then we'd have to actually see how much hair we were swallowing with our food.

I desperatly need a haircut, but just spent all my money on R's camera. So Sunday, instead of dilligently studying green building standards in Germany, I dillingently studied every single celebrity hair photo on the internet. I have seen more pictures of Mary Kate Olsen and Lindsey Lohan than I feel is healthy for the mind (by Sunday night I had somehow absorbed a better method to use eyeliner, and how to minimize redness on your face; I even stood in front of the mirror and braided my hair. And I used a comb.)
In my little adventures as a tart day I discovered:
1) There is a dearth of usefull information on how to actually cut your hair in a style, rather just trim it, and
2) The jokes on Britney are right on and fucking hilarious, especially this.

It's utterly amazing how much material is available about celebrities - yet it is really all the same bits of information processed over and over again. Like Britney's cheetoes.

Anyways, Sunday was a day poorly spent. I did trim my hair though, but my way - not the confusing non-illustrated way that everyone else seems to offer.

My boy's birthday

Today is R's birthday and I, for the first time, am actually more excited than he is. Not that I don't get excited over his birthday - I do - it's that usually beginning October 1st he begins the countdown. By the end of the month everyone knows it's going to be his birthday. Even the Wawa girls remember without being prompted and have a present ready for him. This year he's been more mellow about it - not talking about it every day, and generally not so kid-in-a-candy-stor-ish.
But, that might change after he gets his birthday surprises. It better - and before you get too carried away in your naughty thoughts you can rest uneasy that I won't tell you what I have planned until, well, atleast until R see's what I have planned. You never know - he might decide to read this post, today of all days.

All this anticipation is making me extremely unfocused today. I have to run a gel but they are very very bubbly, and that's no good at all. To add to the mental chaos, I have another project to do this weekend and I am running in my first race since the stress fracture. It's only a 5K and it was free, so why not. I am seriously crossing my fingers that I don't wake up on Monday morning feeling like my leg is being wrung throgh a printing press.