I Love a Challenge

Last month I signed up for a challenge on Map My Run. The goal was to run 100 miles in 30 days. It sounds easy enough--that's just an average of 3.3 miles per day. My regular route is 3.4 miles and I usually run 4 miles on the treadmill if go to the Y. When I started running again after my big event, I was running every day unless something very drastic occurred. Finally late this fall, I cut back to 5 or 6 out of 7 days because I was starting to see signs of overtraining. So I thought this challenge would be a piece of cake.

Snow and ice cut into my outdoor running time so I had to go to the Y to run more than I liked. I hate the treadmill. I get bored, even with my headphones on. So I started trying to get the ones that were turned towards to the TV. That helped, but I still find myself watching the display on the treadmill, wondering why it takes so longer to run a mile on the 'mill than it does on the road, even though I have the speed set for a pace that is a full minute faster than I run when outside. Mind tricks. In spite of my grousing, though, there have been some positives. After enough time, I finally got kind of used to it. In the past I always allowed myself to quit running on the treadmill, but this time the challenge pushed me on and finally entered a kind spiritual agreement with the treadmill and my body. Just do it. Get it over with. Set the pace even higher so it's over with sooner. I also met a woman who runs with the local running club and finally got hooked up with them.

Which leads me to the next desperate measure I took in this challenge. Running 4 miles 5 days a week just won't get you to 100 miles in 30 days. Six days a week won't either. So I had to add some longer runs in. The running club goes out on Saturdays and Sundays. Most of them are training for the Boston Marathon, but some members do run shorter distances. So first I went out and ran 5.6 miles by myself to make sure I could do that distance. Then I ran 7 miles. Finally I joined the group and ran 8 miles. And then I started wildly thinking about training for a half marathon.

I made the 100 miles (in fact, I ran 105 miles). Without that challenge in front of me, I never would have tried that. I also wouldn't have pushed myself to run more than 4 miles (or I would have always come up with excuses not to). And I certainly never would have thought about a half marathon.

I signed up again for the 100 mile challenge, but it doesn't seem as daunting right now. I've also challenged my running partner to run every road in our little town. We're working on the logistics of it. There are only 90 miles of town-owned roads here (the rest are owned by the state) so it won't take us a long to complete, but it will take us places we've never been. Can't wait!

Just say no to fear!

Ice sucks.

And I can't ski on it.

I'm not saying that it's icy here at Sunday River, but there are some icy patches along with hard packed areas. I fell down a lot on Tuesday, mostly because I ski from side to side on steeper terrain. When I hit those areas, I tend to slide down the mountain with my skis pointed to the side of the mountain. It's weird and scary so I panic and try to dig in--which achieves exactly nothing. Then I get more panicky and usually fall down. I know I should point my skis downhill and get over it, but taking the plunge is so hard.

Eventually, between the fear of the ice and the fear of falling, I lost my nerve on Tuesday. It was a struggle to keep skiing, but I knew I couldn't give up or I would never go back out again. We ended the day skiing the greens so I would feel better. I tried to go out on Wednesday with a new attitude and it mostly worked. On a few occasions I was even able to point my skis down and glide over the ice rather than try to carve ice sculptures with my skis.

I gave it some thought and realized that part of my problem is that I'm afraid to go fast because I'm afraid that means I'm out of control. And I do like to be in control (now there's an understatement). I rationalize my careful maneuvering down the mountain by saying that I never go faster than I think I am capable of handling. See how responsible I am? But in fact, I'm probably going a lot slower than I have to in order to maintain absolute control and avoid fear.

The key today will be to let go and push the fear off to somewhere else. I will have to look to my teenage son for a clue on that. He's overcome several fears by sheer force of will.

Wish me luck!

Bienvenue à Paris!

I finally made it to Paris! It’s been on my list of things to do since I was 14 years old. I never thought I would have to wait more than 30 years before it would happen. And it turned out to be much closer than I thought it would be. In fact I only had to drive 4 hours north of our home in Massachusetts to get there. Naturally I saved a lot of money this way.

Oh. What did you say? I’m not in Paris, France? I’m in Paris, Maine? How can that be? And are you saying that the sign to Norway was kidding, too?

Anyway, that was day 1 of our trip. It took 5 hours to get to Sunday River because we made a couple of stops and the last 30-45 miles are on a 2-lane highway filled with travelers trying to get to ski country for February vacation.

It was raining/sleeting/snowing when we arrived so we kept our fingers crossed for the precipitation to turn to snow. No such luck as we woke up to rain on Monday. We skied anyway. The rain ended rather early. It was a bit drizzly the rest of the day and we were often skiing in fog. But life-lemons-lemonade-seeds. The last isn’t traditionally part of the saying, but we like it. We don’t know what it means metaphorically, but we’ll stick to it.

Happy Valentine's Day

I'm so glad to be able to write this. Looking back over the last year, I know I am one lucky girl to be able to say on this Valentine's Day that I am married to a wonderful man who has stuck with me through thick and thin, till death almost parted us and beyond. I could ask for no better partner in life and I hope that I have been as good to him as he has been to me.

To celebrate my birthday and Valentine's Day (and maybe our anniversary which we think we never got a chance to celebrate), we went to our all-time favorite restaurant, Blue Ginger in Wellesley. It's almost embarrassing to say this, but we had a food orgy. We ordered the tasting menu--eight courses of pure gustatory titillation. Each course is delivered and explained; Ming even delivered one (later he autographed a menu for us--now I have two). Our taste buds went into overload with the various flavors and fusions.

When it was time for dessert, I felt like the diner in the Monty Python movie, The Meaning of Life, who after completely gorging himself is handed a mint ("just one thin mint"). Upon eating it, he explodes. I am sure we were ever so close to exploding when they brought the dessert. But we managed to get it down. We waddled to the car shortly afterwards and made it home. The bed sank a little lower last night, but we were content. Good thing we only do that once every 18 months or so.

Cross Training

I've been thinking a lot about changing up my routine because, well, basically I'm bored. I've considered the elliptical machine (looks dangerous), the stationary bike (looks too easy if you can read a book), and the stairmaster (looks even more boring than the treadmill).

But now I think I've found the machine for me. Watch below:

Just say no to Crestor

I started taking Crestor last summer after my Boston cardiologists decided the my C-Reactive Protein (my CRAP level, as I think of it) was slightly elevated. Elevated CRP levels are indicative of inflammation of arterial walls and are used as a predictor of future heart disease. Atrial arrhythmias have also been associated with higher CRP levels. So they put me on a statin (Crestor) because these seem to lower CR-P levels in addition to lowering cholesterol levels. My cholesterol levels weren't bad before I started Crestor--my bad was not too bad and my good was really good.

Shortly after I started taking the statin, I had a number of symptoms that were alarming--high fever, body aches, etc.--so I stopped the drug. I turned out to have Lyme Disease, and 3 weeks on an antibiotic (that caused its own set of problems), I was fine. I went back on Crestor around the end of September.

Since then I have noticed that my dreams are very vivid, sometimes disturbingly so. There's hardly a night that goes by that is completely restful. On top of that I have gained nearly 10 pounds since I came home from the hospital last May. While I might be able to attribute part of it to an increase in physical activity that may be building muscle mass (weighs more than fat blah blah blah) and another part of it to increased fluid retention because of either the calcium channel blocker or the nitroglycerin I take, it still seems rather drastic to me. I've had horrible moments where I sink into despair that I keep gaining so I increase my running then I gain again. It simply should not work this way.

And then there's Tara Parker-Pope's articles in the New York Times ("What That Cholesterol Trial Didn't Show" and "Great Drug, But Does It Prolong Life?"). The upshot is that for people with no heart disease but high cholesterol, the statins have not been proven to extend life. So what could it possibly benefit me with no heart disease and normal cholesterol?

So I'm quitting. For now. It's my birthday present to myself. I am going to take a month off from it. If I drop 5 pounds mysteriously and get lots of sleep and get my groove back (did I mention that I feel tired and unmotivated most of the time?), then Crestor is history! If all I get is a few weeks of good sleep, then I'll have to think about what to do.

Hopefully I'll remember to post updates (did I mention that I forget to do things? could be the event, could be the Crestor, could be that I was always this way but I can't remember).