Tag Archives: running

0

Eat More Chicken

|

imageIt’s been a little over two years since I was able to run a half marathon. It’s not been quite five months since I had my foot surgery and when I crossed the finish line the announcer said Rachel (didn’t touch my last name) from Arnold just finished her first half since foot surgery. It was an awesome feeling to cross the line and get a medal.

I woke up at five am to be ready to run at seven-thirty. Because of the construction on fifth street in St. Charles I thought it best to park in the casino parking garage. It was a mile walk to the start line. I got in line for the bathrooms and by the time I had my turn I ran up to the start and crossed the start line within one minute. Runners are always fun to talk to and in the bathroom line these two younger girls were doing their first full. They had bought into the hydration theory and the red-head had sucked down like 24 ounces of water and was working on Gatorade. She was doing the potty dance for fifteen minutes and was considering just peeing her pants. When they ran past me she said I wish we were running with you. Me too, sister, me too. And for the first five miles I was thinking about running a full in the spring.

When I first signed up my goal was to finish and then I signed up for Vegas race and realized I need to finish in three hours or less to have time to shower before we hit the road for six hours. (I know I will just ask for a late check out so I’m not pressured). However my friend Shelly wasn’t able to walk it with me so then I set a goal of less than three hours. I would have succeeded if I hadn’t had to wait for a bathroom for five minutes at mile four. It was my turn to do the potty dance.

Around mile six and seven we ran through new town. I finally realized it makes me think of the houses from the movie Edward Scissorhands. I even saw a dinosaur statue which would have been way cooler if it were a shrub. So I was trying to pick out which house he would stay at. And this folks is what I think about to get through this.

Well mile 9-10 was the horrible hill that is like three of mine. It goes on and on and on but after that it’s a nice downhill. I decided I was running the last mile straight and texted Meg to tell her so that I would do it. My last mile was a 12 which is pretty good for an average pace of 13:45 for the entire race.

I’ve been a little hard on myself for missing my goal by a little under two minutes. I have to tell myself to knock it off. I just had major foot surgery and only been back running for 14 weeks and started with 1/2 mile at a 22 pace. But you know my motto: the faster you go, the sooner you finish.

Mole moral:Never park a mile from the start. The walk back to the car seems like it’s 20 miles long and dying seems so much easier.

0

Small Group

|

imageI have been meaning to write this blog for three weeks but have had zero discipline to get it together.

Three weeks ago at church Herc was doing announcements and promoting small groups. The last time I was in a small group was four years ago when I was doing starting point with him. I had Dr. Veronikis surgery about week four of the study and that was such a disaster, I never made it back. After that I used my job hours as an excuse as to why I couldn’t join one. Well then Herc mentioned a 5K running group and a lightbulb went off in my head and I got that prompting Tom speaks of that said no excuses you are signing up. So I did and I saw Christy (Herc’s wife) was the leader-score. So about a week ago I got a group email and Jimmy (Christy’s brother) is co-leading. Double score as Jimmy was my first small group leader. I also saw that Heidi had signed up and she was in my first group as well. Then I found out there was a book to go along with it. I should have known this but sometimes I’m not as smart as I look. I was even more excited about the book  especially when I found out there are only three discussion questions each week

When I arrived tonight I found out Jenna was also a leader. I know her from Facebook only and knew she went to Oak Bridge. I can’t remember exactly how we became friends but I have always enjoyed her posts. So she shared her running story and I wanted to jump out of my chair and say we are sole sisters. Her story is similar to mine. But I figured I better keep it in check for a while. I will let these people discover how crazy I really am over a period of time. No sense springing full CR on them on the first night v

We did a thirty minute run/walk. Jimmy was in charge of keeping time. Some people ran the whole time and no, I was not one of them. My goal for the group is to encourage others and hopefully give them a love for running like I have. Running is my God time and I work through a lot of stuff I wouldn’t deal with otherwise. Sometimes I yell at him or attempt to boss him around. It never works but I feel better afterwards.

I cannot wait until next week. I have asked for Wednesday’s off or to work 7-3 only. Hopefully it works out. I’m pretty much willing to work whatever days or time needed so I think it will work out. After all this was God’s prompting so he’s in charge of my work schedule!

Mole moral~God is smarter than he looks. He had Jenna create a running bible study group to get me back in small group!

0

Ten days post op

|

IMG_8048The past ten days have been a living nightmare. As usual I thought I would wake up from surgery and just be my normal self. As if that would ever happen. If I had pain, I didn’t really notice it! I was way too busy being nauseated, dizzy and a raging headache. I even called the doctor office on Thursday and asked for Zofram. Which by the way did NOTHING. So yesterday in one last-ditch effort before I off myself I decided to go to the store and get the over the counter medicine for motion sickness. I always have horrible issues with post op nausea and vomiting. I expected to feel better within an hour. Like that didn’t happen either. So I went to be at ten last night and slept 11 hours and feel 100 times better. I wish I would have thought of this like last week. I swear I will need to be at death’s door before I consider surgery again. There are many days I think I should have just stayed fat and on the couch as this all started from running. If I wouldn’t have run, I wouldn’t have wanted my bladder fixed. Then I wouldn’t have had a hysterectomy and the stupid pathology report on my uterus. My adhesions wouldn’t have moved putting me in the worst pain ever. I wouldn’t have had repeated left-sided inflamed muscle pain. Then I would have never had the giant wart removed off my foot. I wouldn’t have bought into the minimalist running movement and caused plantar fasciitis in both feet requiring surgery a year apart. However, without all the running my resting heart rate wouldn’t be 48, making me a “finely tuned athlete”. My husband calls himself that because his heart rate is the same. However, he is on a beta blocker so it should be. BAHAHAHA

Mole moral~ Is it time to go back to work yet? It’s hard to keep a crackhead down!

 

1

4000

|

image4000 is the number of miles I have been trying to reach on my Nike+ running app since my last 1/2 marathon in September of 2013. At that time I was only 250 miles away and was sure I would reach it by the end of 2013. And then plantar fascitis reared its ugly head and I have been battling that ever since. I had surgery a year ago in May to fix my right foot and being told that 95% of the time when you fix the worst foot, the other gets better on its own. Well as usual nurse curse reared its ugly head and by October (five months after surgery on my right foot, I was begging for it on my left.) Of course nothing is ever that simple. I had to have my foot injected and do stretching and blah blah blah before hand. So after about two months my foot still felt great so I started walking/running again and started a couch to 1/2 marathon training program. About two months into it and after a six-mile run the injection on my foot wore off and I was back to square one. I decided I was done with it, and went back to Dr. Anderson and said nothing has helped so fix it like my other. He does these surgeries on Fridays and since my birthday is on a Friday this year, I decided that would be the best gift I could give myself. To be able to enjoy my job without wanting to hack my foot off and to be able to get back outside and to my God time.

imageI had noticed on my Nike app that I was about 15 miles away from 4000. Since I am on a prescription anti-inflammatory, I decided I was going to meet my 4000 mile goal before surgery. My friend Theresa had started going to a personal trainer and walking every day so we found a 5K to do and I adjusted the walking schedule so I hit my mile goal by the end of the walk. Hopefully it doesn’t take me another year and a half to do 250 miles. I am hoping after 12 weeks, I can get back to walking three or four times a week. I would really like to see the next color which is yellow. I am currently in the black color which is really boring for a background. It’s all about the little things. A lot of my friends switched to Garmin because it is more accurate. However I am not a professional runner and this does the trick for what I need. Keep track of my distance and how many runs I have done. Plus I have fond memories because in the early days (July 2009 was when I started) when it was my iPod with a little thing I stuck on it with a thing it my shoe that tracked the distance. It’s hard to believe now I can use my iPhone with GPS tracking. And although it may not be total accurate, it’s close enough to keep me motivated to continue running and meeting distance goals.

 

Mole moral~No fancy gadgets required for this simple girl with a desire to spend time with God while out running and or walking!

0

A life changing event

|

232323232fp93232>ydnjthgqubwsnrcgu8243>nu=3235>844>978>WSNRCG=3-94445564324nu0mrjIt’s hard to believe that ten years ago today the RN strike started against St. Johns Mercy Medical Center. In some ways it seems like just yesterday, and others many lifetimes ago. It was certainly a life changing event for me. I was picket site #6 (why do I remember this stuff?) and met a lot of new people over the almost six weeks we were out in the freezing cold. I remember Christmas Day being extremely cold and since I would have worked 3-11, I did four hours on the picket line. Then on New Years Eve it was so warm we didn’t even have the fire barrels fired up. We certainly turned the medical center into shanty town. I remember that some people who lived there complaining about it. It really was monumental. I do believe we were the first nurses union in the state of Missouri and certainly the first to strike.

During this time, we created an email chain and would send out emails for support and to let each other know what was going on. Well since I love to write, you can see that I became heavily involved. It is how I became fairly well-known all over the hospital. Now this totally cracked me up because you see ever since I was a little kid, I would hide out in the corner hoping no one would notice me. I am still that way most of the time. My sister-in-law worked at Dierbergs and people would come through her line and say I know your sister-in-law Rachel. It was crazy.

The emails were turned over to management upon return to work. We eventually found out who did it and although it was infuriating at the time, as time as passed it really no longer matter. Everyone that was out on strike had to go to meetings before they could return to work. I am not sure if they thought all the people who stayed out the entire time were going to break the legs of people who worked during that time. I certainly had no intention of it. However, I was not allowed to attend one of those meetings but had a special one on one meeting with HR and my nurse manager. They had to access my level of anger to see if I was safe to return to work. I remember talking to my father after the meeting and he said he would have walked in there and told them to F off. I however played the game because I really just wanted to come back to work and resume taking care of the heart print patients. (moms who lost a baby). And so I promised to be good and stay out of trouble. And that lasted about two shifts at work. Management put a note on the dry erase board stating we could no longer chart at the main nurses station but had to chart at the pods. So what did I do? I wrote spare me next to it. The next shift I worked I got called into the office and talked to by HR like I had just sold heroin to kids on the school playground. I was informed I would be formally counseled for this to which my smart reply was great I will bring a union rep. Our secretary was a union person and she honored the picket line and never returned to work. So Holly was our new secretary. I walked up to her and said do you smoke and she said yes. I said I’m Rachel and we are going to go smoke a cigarette. So after not smoking for six weeks while out on strike I was back at it. I also made a great friend in Holly that day!

The nurses union would be voted out three years later and not return. I became involved with CNA (California Nurses Association) now called NNOC (national nurses organizing committee.) until the union was voted out. I was then finished with it and ready just to focus on nursing.  I became good friends with those representatives as well who also constantly told me I was a leader. I still don’t see myself as a leader but since everyone else seems to, I try to behave these days.

After the strike was over Laura talked me into signing up to do a 1/2 marathon with Team in Training. She ended up becoming pregnant and did not do the marathon but I did. I smoked all during the training and would actually smoke to and from the way to the track. It would be another 4 years before Erin would talk Jennifer and I into doing a 1/2 marathon. It was the Lewis and Clark half and my number was 2319. (Yep the monsters inc code which i was totally excited). Erin ended up not being able to do it because that is when our computer documentation started but it triggered my walking and then running obsession.

A lot of good things came out of the strike. I made some great friends especially Kathy, Jean, Carol, and Jane from the surgery center. I found out I am seen as a leader of sorts, no matter how scary that might be. I eventually started running and got into the best shape of my life. And I still work at Mercy despite my constant paranoia that I will be fired at anytime.