I Thought I was Fit

So, my knee hurts. (Doc) Hubs says tendinitis. No running, cycling, squatting, etc. for at least a few days. Well, great then. What am I gonna do now?

Yesterday, I did an all upper body weight lifting session. Usually, I do short, heavy, full body sessions on non running days. It was horrible, but I kinda hate weight lifting. So, that’s really not anything new except that I feel like squatting does more for me than dumbbell curls. I mean, I don’t run with my arms, and everybody knows it’s your butt that makes or breaks the way you look in a swim suit, not your arms. Not that that really matters because I spend my pool days with tons of kids and other moms. Nobody cares what my butt looks like in my swim suit as long as it’s properly covered.

Incidentally, my favorite thing to do in a swim suit is to actually swim, like for a really long time, and that works with my knee issue. That’s not an option for me right now because of our end of the year schedule. I can’t go swim laps with a 9 year old in tow. At least not at the pools open right now. I’ll be able to at our neighborhood pool once it opens. But, then I’ll have the kids and the moms and the sun screen, goggle fixing, toy retrieving, floatie blowing up duties to attend to.

Anyway, today I decided to try this fascial conditioning program on one of the apps I use. I read the book Natural Born Heroes by Christopher McDougall (good read), and I’ve been fascinated by anything ‘fascial’ since (I just noticed the spelling of fascinated and fascial are similarly spelled but not even close to meaning the same thing). So, I decided to try this program while I’m not running. I mean, it’s like yoga. I’ve done yoga. How hard can it be? Ha.

I am now reconsidering my actual level of fitness. First off, the program is taught by a tattooed former military guy who can bend himself into a pretzel. I was distracted a little by the tattoos. Tattoos on muscles are awesome, but I, for real, was trying to make out what they were, wondering about the stories behind them. Not really paying all that much attention thinking I can just follow along and figure it out. Then I was out of breath, my muscles were burning, and I had to modify the modification. It wasn’t cardio. It looked simple enough for my kids to do it, but I was struggling. I ended the video in dandasana (sitting on the floor with my knees crossed) drinking my water and watching him finish the exercises.

This may have been complicated by the fact that I ate half a bag of animal crackers (not the individual size) with strawberry milk and chocolate (it was dark chocolate, so that’s not totally bad, right?) just before the workout. Don’t judge me. It’s May. May is a black hole in my universe. It sucks all sanity, sleep and nutrition out into the abyss leaving me crazy, exhausted and either hungry or on a sugar binge. I looked fantastic in my swimsuit on Spring break in April. This Summer, yeah, I’m just gonna have to get used to letting it all hang out. Literally.

You can’t skip the cardio while eating like a giant 5 year old and keep the bikini body. Life doesn’t work that way, at least not after having kids.

I’ll be doing the next video tomorrow because I need exercise AND I refuse to be beaten by something that looks so simple. Maybe I’ll be more springy and mobile once I finish the program, OR maybe I’ll be back to running in a week and just quietly forget this ever even happened. Here’s hoping.

The Fit Friend

Do you ever wonder about your perception of yourself? Is it accurate? Do you see yourself better than others do? Or worse?

Me? Well, I’m confused. It is not uncommon for someone I have recently spent time getting to know to comment that I’m not how they thought I would be when they met me. I usually just chock that up to the fact that I’m a slow warmer (takes me a while to warm up to people and feel comfortable around them generally). More often than not it’s a positive thing they’re trying to say. They think I’m funnier or more fun than they thought I would be. They think I’m smarter and more articulate than they thought I would be. Etc. I’ll usually comment that my inside doesn’t match my outside, and I wonder just what kind of vibes I give off upon first meeting. I mean, do I look like a boring idiot? Should I change my hair? Anyway, the point being people usually tell me things about me that are good things. Most people are kind and don’t want to hurt people on purpose. So, I think this has a lot to do with that, but most people aren’t gonna make that junk up, either.

What do I think of myself? I’m generally pretty confident in who I am at this point of my life, at least in the aspect of accepting myself so I can grow. If I were to describe myself, though, I would tell you I’m socially awkward, weird, OCD, anxious, incapable of telling a joke (in person), ditzy, plain, slow, weak. I could go on. Negative first because those are the things up front and center in my mind because I want to work on them.

I’m almost always surprised when I hear someone compliment me or comment on me in a positive way. Even if it’s something I know I just aced.

I recently participated in a local 5k. I got a PR, and generally crushed it without much intentional training. I signed up just a couple weeks before the race, right before the T-shirt cut off date. Still, crushing it for me isn’t really all that fast, at least not in my mind. Someone I met at the gym I go to asked me about it when I saw her next. She said she saw me at the start line and decided she would try to keep up with me. Keeping me in sight was her goal. Me. I was shocked at her comment ALL day and obviously it left a big enough impression to be writing about it now.

I recently posted a video on my social media called My Fit Friend vs Mewhere a very fit woman is balancing on a board on a foam roller while rotating a weight plate around in front of her. One of those balance plus coordination plus strength things that few people can master. Then there was a shot of a less fit woman attempting the same thing, slipping off the roller and the board flipping up to hit her inner thigh. I posted it laughing because I saw myself as the less fit woman. A friend of mine, one of those amazing people who is able to be honest with me in a positive and growth inspiring way, texted me to say, “you know you’re the fit friend, right?” I stared at her text wondering who she really meant to send it to. Then she said, “you’re the fit friend, dummy.” I’m the fit friend? Nuh uh. I’m the forever chasing fit friend.

The inside most definitely doesn’t match the outside. My inner perception vs reality. I set goals, chase them, and crush them without much fan fare because by the time I achieve them, I already have a new goal ready to chase. I don’t think that’s a bad trait to have, but maybe I should allow myself to see the progress for what it is. Maybe I should allow myself to be the fit friend. I catalog negative traits and work toward changing them because I want to grow and be better than I was yesterday, but maybe I should allow myself to feel more proud of the positive traits, especially if they used to be negative. Maybe I should put a few of those positive traits up front and center in my personal description of myself.

Bottom line of this rambling post: if you see or think something positive about someone, tell them. Even if they seem like they must hear it all the time, your voice might be an incredible source of encouragement and strength they need to fight their internal negative voice. AND, Try accepting those positive comments about yourself as truth. Try seeing yourself a little more like the people who love you see you. They’re not lying.

Train Dirty, Be Clean

I go to one of those chain gyms with hour long classes that rotate through stations. It’s a GOOD workout doing things I’m not likely to make myself do on my own. I like to run, stupid long and slow. I like to swim, also stupid long and slow. Most other activities are done in an effort to help me do those things better. OR to look better in my jeans. 😉

I enjoy the program at this gym for my cross training. I feel fitter than I ever have, and I PRd my last race. So, I would say it’s awesome! The nature of the gym and the times I go, it’s mostly women who populate the classes.

When I talk about it, I will sometimes hear from men, or women relaying info from some of the men in their lives, that it looks like a great workout, but they’re not gonna workout with a bunch of women. There were lots more men when I was a member of a crossfit gym, and they had no problem working out with women. But, I get it. It’s cool with me. I just have to say, I always cringe inside when I hear that.

Why? For real. Is it because they don’t see how it would be challenging enough for them because, if a bunch of women do it, then it must be easy? Pink weights and stuff. Are they intimidated that one of these women might show them up? Are they worried about getting distracted? Do they think it’s just one big gossip session? Are they just not comfortable with it? I really would like to know.

Then today happened. I went to workout at a different time than usual. Different location, different coach, different patrons. The workout was awesomely hard. The coach was great. There were several men in the class, which was cool. Until it wasn’t.

You rotate through stations using a number, sharing the station with one or two other people. So, one is on the treadmill while another is on the rower or weight station, etc. I shared the station with a man, a man with large feet who must have worn his shoes to do yard work yesterday because there was grass and dirt all over the foot plates on the rower and all over the floor underneath. Because his feet were big, I had to adjust the plates and straps every time I got on the rower. Grass and dirt sticking to my sweaty hands. Grass and dirt on MY shoes now. I even found grass in the cup holder of my car after I left because it was sticking to me. Gross.

I worked out next to a guy who spread out into my space doing his own thing, setting his things on my station, acting like I could just move over.

Grassy shoe guy got lots more grass and dirt all over the treadmill we were sharing as well as the floor around our weight station. He left his used wipes and his card (to record times) on the treadmill. It looked like he was there with his wife or S.O. which made me wonder, did she notice the disaster he was leaving behind? Does she care? I mean if she lives with him, I’m sure she’s used to it. I don’t know about the guy with no sense of personal space. I couldn’t tell what he was doing much less who he was with.

Then I decided I was glad more men don’t workout with my “bunch of women”. If you can’t handle common gym courtesy, you can stick to your “manly” workouts and stay away from mine.

I know women can be just as gross, but it hasn’t happened to me at the gym before. I’ve never had to consider asking any one of them if they could at least wipe off the mess they left before moving on to the next station. The one or two men who join the “bunch of women” I usually workout with have more common courtesy, and I love them for it.

I bet the guys I encountered today are the kind that don’t wipe down or rerack their weights after lifting, IF they even lift. I bet they blast their own music and hog equipment like no one else exists. Sigh.

My PSA of the day, don’t be that guy (or girl). Train dirty. Be clean.

I will happily rejoin my regularly scheduled gym programming very soon, and think twice about switching times and locations again.

Bye Felicia (Monday)

I passed a woman in the toilet paper isle at Target. After she caught me staring at her chest (reading) and smiling, she smiled back and then did the beauty queen/hand model motion from shoulder to shoulder before going about her day. Awkward is kinda my thing, and I love when I accidentally find other people like me.

Her shirt read “I wanna be Felicia. She’s always going somewhere.”

I wish I had called out “Bye, Felicia” as I turned the corner, but alas I’m no good at being witty in the moment. It was, however, the highlight of my day, and a nice way to say “Bye Felicia” to Monday.

Food and Balance

 

Sometimes my meals look like this.

flatironsteak
Flat Iron Steak with Potatoes and Green Beans

And, I feel very accomplished as a cook even though it’s probably one of the easier meals to cook. I mean, one pan steak and veggies cooked in the oven. I really don’t know how much easier it could get and still be homemade.

Sometimes my meals look like this.

EggsPotatoesGreens
Fried Eggs with Sweet Potatoes and Spinach

This would be my absolute all time favorite breakfast. No biscuits and gravy for me. Give me eggs, greens and potatoes any day.

And…. Sometimes my meals look like this.

PBJ
Crustless Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich with Strawberry Milk and a Banana

This is the meal that most makes me feel like a tall five year old who’s just really good at pretending she’s an adult when she has to, crustless PB&J triangles with strawberry milk on a pink plastic plate. Yeah, this doesn’t look like an adult meal at all. It’s my favorite meal to eat before a long run, though, minus the strawberry milk. I drink that after. It’s my go to fast food to take with me on the go. I actually eat a lot of PB&J in various forms. It works for me.

I’m all about balance. My whole life is a balancing act. I’m always juggling a dozen different activities, running in a dozen different directions, planning around five different people’s food preferences, trying to sleep and exercise, attempting to shower and dress half way decent without giving up my sleep or exercise. Sometimes, I just need a crustless PB&J and some strawberry milk.

Approximately 620 Calories with 19 g Protein, 21 g Fat, 70 g Carbohydrates (that’s a generous estimate for the peanut butter and the jelly and before cutting off the crust ;-).

What’s your balance food?

Goals

I was pretty disappointed in 2017. It absolutely did NOT live up to its full potential. 2018, though, I’m making that sucker my year, y’all. My list of goals? Here they are.

  1. Keep the young humans alive.
  2. Stay married and refuse to consider murder
  3. Avoid being featured on an episode of hoarders
  4. Run more than the dishwasher
  5. Try not to eat all the things

I am very happy to report that currently I am 4 for 5. I’m only counting half for numbers 3 and 5 because my basement and garage are still completely full of useless crap, and I’m sitting here at my computer with a box of Girl Scout cookies and a Starbucks refresher. I want to say I won’t eat an entire sleeve all by myself, but I know better.

My kids and husband are still alive. I am still married. I have not yet received the call from A&E. I’m on target for my running goal, and up until the Girl Scout cookie season, my nutrition has been on point. So, bam, take that 2017.

I guess that’s what happens when you lower your standards to just above bathing and breathing.

Seriously, though, I’m a list maker, a box checker. I like having a set goal and a plan laid out that will get me to that goal. I’ve lived my whole life that way, and I’m not gonna stop now because I didn’t get to cross off as much as I wanted to in 2017. I’m having real trouble with 2018, though. I have goals, and plans, kinda. Really, they’re just the leftover things from 2017 I’m still sore about not accomplishing.

I wanted to start a new blog last year, then I spent the whole year stuck on logistics. The fact that you’re reading this means, I accomplished that goal in 2018. Let’s see if I can follow through and keep it going.

I wanted to do more creative things in 2017. I’m currently about 3 chapters into a novel I started in January. So, that’s something.

I wanted to work on hospitality, growing and strengthening friendships in 2017. The hospitality part may not happen until I have an empty nest. You have to be home to have people over.

I wanted to read through the Bible twice last year. I only made it about half way through once. A lot of that is because I got stuck in a few places and dove in, or I was only able to read and digest small pieces at a time because my days are too full.

I wanted to read through the Quran. I’m not changing religions, but I know that I get super frustrated with how the media and non-Christians who have never actually read the Bible portray it. I figure it’s the same deal with Islamic scripture. I’m curious about what is actually in there and what is misrepresented. Once again my curiosity leads me down some interesting paths. However, this is proving difficult for a person living in the Bible belt who only speaks English. And, I thought the English Bible versions and translations were confusing to navigate. I’m gonna figure it out, though. Eventually.

I wanted to chip away at my 50 marathons in 50 states goal, but I didn’t run a single race longer than 6.2 miles last year. I barely ran 500 miles total for the whole year.

I wanted to run an Ultra marathon. Obviously, that didn’t happen either.

These are all rolling over into 2018, but I’m now thinking about more long term goals, things I can’t check off in a year, things that require building over time. In my searching, I ran across an article (that I can’t find now that I’m sitting down to blog this) that suggested reading some obituaries, imagining what yours might say, and typing it out. If you don’t like it, rewrite it. Make a plan to accomplish the things you want to be written in your obituary. When you get stuck, revisit that section of your paper and revise yours again.

I sat there with the article in front of me, and paused. It was a long pause, and then I decided I would do it.

What a powerful exercise. You hear things similar to this all the time. “Live your best life.” “Live like today is your last day.” “You can’t change your beginning, but you can write your own ending.” Lots of sayings like this because I feel like it’s a universal truth. You will die. Live how you want to be remembered. I’m telling you, though, sitting down to actually see it, to read it, to picture your life summed up in a paragraph on a page in the paper most people don’t read, to attempt to write it, it’s life changing. Try it.

I’m currently working on my revision, and I’ll let you know how it turns out. I may even post it. We’ll see.

Musician Arrested

If you could choose any profession and know you would be successful, what would it be?

Me? There are a few off the wall things floating around my head from childhood, like being an astronaut or a marine biologist. One dream was abandoned watching the Challenger explode on TV and the other I gave up because it required too much math. [I know both of those would have required a lot of math.] I want to write a book, and I’m working on that. I want to live like a grown up, and not just like a tall five year old who knows how to pretend she’s a grown up when she has to. Those would be nice. But, one of the abandoned dreams that still haunts me is music. If I could do anything and not fail, I would sing.

Most people in my life now met me after college and don’t even know I sing.

I started singing, as my mom likes to say, before I could talk. If I had a piano to play and someone to sing with, I was in heaven. I can remember singing for hours, until I got hoarse, and then being sad I couldn’t sing more. I used to spend hours creating melodies and writing songs, often with a tiny keyboard and headphones sitting in my bed into the early morning hours. It was probably my favorite thing to do, and up until college, the one thing I was most confident about. I didn’t know what else I would do, but I knew I would never stop singing.

It’s funny though, that by nature I’m shy. Asking me to say my name and something about myself in a small group setting would send me into a panic, but asking me to sing on stage with a microphone was exciting. I sang my first solo when I was 6. I forgot the words and sang the same verse 3 times. Even though I messed up the song, I had discovered the joy of being on stage, and I began to crave it.

Someone told me later, everyone gets nervous, but some people are able to channel that nervousness into positive energy and use it to perform. Others allow the nervousness to paralyze them. I guess I can channel one kind of nervousness but freeze with the other.

Most of my life, I heard only praise for my voice. Things to improve, things to work on, but never really bad things. Most of the time I heard how amazing my voice was. I had family and friends that used to tell me they couldn’t wait until they were listening to my voice on the radio. Up until my freshman year of college, I couldn’t imagine a time in my life that I would quit singing. I wanted to improve and learn, and as time passed, I could only see myself loving it more.

I was one of those kids torn between all of my loves: animals, music, and art. When I was planning college, I decided to major in art and minor in music or try to double major, but there was a mix up with my admissions paperwork, actually a mix up in the admissions department explaining to me how those two majors worked. When I arrived on campus, they had me majoring in art, specifically graphic design which required a minor in advertising. So, music wasn’t even in the mix basically because at that school, you didn’t combine those two things. When I met with my admissions counselor (the future Dean of Communicative Arts, and the most influential professor of all my time in undergrad), he encouraged me to stick with everything the way it was and take music classes offered to non-music majors.

I decided to listen to him. Here’s where we get to the part of the story I don’t tell often. Usually I’ll say the rest is history. Cut to that professor and a few other’s unparalleled influence on my life, me finishing my undergrad never having changed my ‘mistaken’ major, getting married then starting my graduate degree, ultimately ending up where I am now.

I love design and art. I’m good at it. At least I was before I quit to take care of my kids and became a full time special needs parent, but I had quit singing back in college except for the shower, some choir and specials at my home church. I refocused myself on my major classes and left music behind.

The reason for the switch in focus and the loss of something so very precious to me came down to one teacher, one phrase, and one moment I just couldn’t overcome.

During my freshman year, I took a piano class and a voice class. The piano class was amazing. I learned so much, I left class every day wanting to practice and get better, and I did. The voice class, though, was a struggle.

The first couple of class periods were used for a kind of audition, a chance for the instructor to hear everyone’s voice so he knew what he was working with. I was more nervous than usual because it was a small class in a small room, queue shy girl panic. I was shaky and pitchy, I knew that, but I was not expecting to hear what he said. He told me, while shaking his head, I sounded like a bad country music singer, but maybe he could fix that. While I tried to process what he said, he then began a monologue about how so many of us must have sang for small home churches or schools and were told we were good singers pretty much just because there wasn’t much else to choose from. He intended to help us either improve or give up singing. I struggled with every assignment. He was teaching classical method, and I didn’t like the changes he was making. With shaken confidence and a lack of desire to sing the way he wanted me to sing, I dreaded the class and by the end gave up singing almost entirely.

This post isn’t about my voice or whether or not I could have ‘made it.’ It’s about the fact that I never tried to pursue music in any way going forward because I believed him. That one sentence. The words that followed. I believed him over every other positive word, every other person telling me I should sing. I decided my voice wasn’t anything special, that I had just been a big fish in a small pond, and that I didn’t have what it took to keep singing outside of my little pond. No more auditions. No more volunteering to sing every opportunity I had. I only sang with friends for fun, in the shower, and in my home church choir and a few specials when I was asked. It was so rare, I can still remember my oldest son, at least ten at the time, walking into the kitchen while I was singing, and with a surprised look on his face said, “Mom, you can sing.”

As a juxtaposition, the admissions counselor I spoke of earlier, he was my freshman drawing instructor. He’s one of those people whose gift for teaching is evident the moment you meet him. He could essentially tell you your work was garbage (although he would never actually say that) in a way that encouraged you to learn from it and inspired you to to work harder and do better. No unnecessary flattery. Just positive instruction that lead all of his students to be better artists. I don’t think I ever heard any of his students say they didn’t love him as their professor. I left music behind to continue improving in art and design. Looking back, I believe it all boiled down to the one dream crushing instructor and the one dream building instructor.

During a time when my support system was changing, when I was having to grow away from my family and friends, when I had to begin to build my own internal support system, truly believe in my own abilities and base my confidence on that belief, there was a voice that shook that unstable foundation and changed the course of my life.

I don’t know if anything would have been different for me had I chosen a different school, a different major, had different instructors, or hadn’t taken what he said to heart. There would have been other discouraging people along that road for sure, and I don’t know that I would have been strong enough to withstand their discouragement either. There’s a pattern in my life of confidence lost, faith shaken, and life altered, and to follow a dream and truly succeed, you have to be able to push through the negative voices and trust your own. The purpose of this post, though, is to share just how big an influence our words can have.

I don’t know where that instructor is now. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t remember me or what he said to me. I can guarantee it doesn’t keep him up at night. But, it is still with me. I can still hear his words as if he had spoken them yesterday.

I gave up something I had loved doing for most of my life because one man told me I wasn’t good enough. One man.

Discouragement far out weighs encouragement. Out of all the positive I heard, that one negative influence impacted me so much more.

Teachers, instructors, coaches, these people we trust to help us grow and learn, these people we show our weaknesses to in hopes they can help us grow stronger, their words have the power to change the course of our lives.

If you are one of those people, a teacher, instructor or coach, please be aware of the power you hold and strive to be the voice that encourages your students or athletes to reach deeper inside themselves and work harder to develop their abilities even if those talents and abilities lie in another arena. Speak life. Try to be the voice that still inspires them 20 years later rather than the voice that crushed their dream and haunts them decades down the road.

I won’t be attempting to break into the music industry in my old age. I won’t be studying or teaching music. Closing in on my fourth decade of life, I’m good singing in my kitchen and Sunday School classroom, and I look forward to holding grand babies and singing the lullabies I wrote when my babies were small. Maybe I’ll go back to singing in church when my kids’ schedules no longer make it impossible to make practices, that is if I decide to stop teaching Sunday school (which I can’t imagine quitting right now).

Even though, I’m ok now, in those moments when I allow my mind to wander “what if?” I can still hear his words, and I wish so much I could have withstood his judgment. I wish I was writing a whole other story today, maybe one of failure, but one where at least I tried and failed rather than gave up without a fight.

Turning one marathon into fifty

Woman runs a 5k, doesn’t die, decides to sign up for another.

Woman runs a 10k, doesn’t die and starts thinking about longer distances.

Woman decides to run a marathon and figures a half marathon would be good to mix into training. She also decides to mix in a 30k. Gets injured training for these races, but runs them anyway, hobbling a lot.

Woman persuades unsuspecting friend who has never run more than a half marathon to run the full marathon with her.

Woman and friend run marathon. Woman runs injured. Has to walk a lot. Reaches 20 miles in considerable pain. Stops for a quick pic. Crosses finish line in tears. Finds her friend, goes directly to the food, then goes home to collapse into her husbands arms swearing she will NEVER run another marathon again.

Woman wakes up the next day feeling like she could conquer the world, signs up for another marathon.

Woman has to stop running because of her injury. Woman has lots of time to obsess about running.

Woman trains like a pro, foam rolls and eats like a pro, stays disciplined, focused, and determined to make this marathon what the last one couldn’t be because of injury.

Woman has tiny panic attacks all night before the marathon, and nearly can’t make herself leave the hotel for the start line. Vomiting never happened, but was a real possibility.

Woman runs the marathon like a pro (albeit quite a bit slower than one), never walks, never really struggles, climbs the course’s big hill like a boss, finishes with confidence and finally feels like a marathoner.

Woman remembers meeting a woman from North Dakota in her first marathon. This woman planted a seed in the new marathoner’s heart, 50 marathons in 50 states.

Woman runs two more marathons and plans to follow in her new friend from North Dakota’s footsteps, almost literally.

50 marathons in 50 states before 50 (years of age).

Woman has 12 years and 3 months to make this happen.

Helpful Tools or Instruments of Torture

ToolsTorture

My relationship with these objects is complicated. It is most definitely love/hate.

I used a foam roller to recover from my anterior tibial tendinitis, and to maintain my life during marathon training. There is absolutely no way I would have survived dropping my kids off, running 20 miles, picking my kids up, making dinner and getting everyone to their activities without my foam roller. I am most definitely an advocate for their use, however I loathe using them.

Rolling around the floor on a giant pool noodle — ok, not really but thats what I thought it looked like when I bought the first one, an aquatic flotation device — it’s just not a graceful comfortable activity. Why can’t it feel more like yoga, where at least if I nail the pose I can feel like I accomplished something beautiful and strong. When I’m done with a good foam rolling session, I feel more like the noodle.

Leaning on the pool noodle is the ‘jaws of pain’ aka the R8 Roller. That’s the weird thing with all the fun looking wheel things on it. They’re not wheels, and they’re not fun. They’re connected by springs. You put your leg in between those wheels. It hurts. A lot.

I use the lacrosse ball to roll my shoulders. I put it between my body and a wall or the floor, and that actually feels really great. However, when I use it and a dumbbell to pin the fascia in my hamstring as I stretch my leg out, that doesn’t feel great.

That funny looking striped ball is for my foot. Different levels of hardness within the same ball helps me get into the tricky spots on my ankle and my heel without bruising them.

The stick with the giant beads on it is what I use in my car (and the lacrosse ball) to roll while I’m sitting in car rider line waiting on my kids, at practice waiting on my kids, at games or tournaments waiting on my kids. It’s nice and portable, and earns me lots of weird looks from other parents parked and waiting on their kids.

These instruments have spent most of their life with me in the corner with my free weights and yoga mats. I’ll stare at them, knowing I should pull them out and use them, feeling some kind of weird guilt, like I’m wasting their gift and will be struck down with a horrible injury any day. Or it’s more like I know they’re good for me, but I hate using them so much. I avoid them, that is until I can’t.

I’ve had other injuries before, but plantar fasciitis, that one is the worst. It isn’t the worst really because of pain or level of injury, but because of its persistence. It just wouldn’t go away. I was back up and running after abdominal surgery faster than with the plantar fasciitis. I took off more than 3 months, and that was about 6 months after symptoms started. It’s a booger.

After a while doing the runner thing, “if I ignore it, maybe it will just go away.” I then decided I would get serious about treating it. I had dry needling done. Massage. PT. I was doing the exercises the PT gave me at home. I avoided any activity that involved pushing off with my foot, running, jumping. Pretty much just avoided everything fun. I broke down and saw a podiatrist. I gave up my “barefoot” shoes and had custom insoles made, which I think made a world of difference. However, I feel like the key to my recovery, is the fact that I dedicated myself to foam rolling and stretching every day. No excuses. Every day.

I stopped ignoring the injury, saw the doctor, did what he said all while I tortured myself with these helpful tools consistently for a few months. Now I am running again pain free. Coincidence? Not likely.

It’s still a complicated love/hate relationship, but I don’t think I could sever these ties without giving up running. And, let’s just be real, I become the worst version of myself when I’m not running. So, I can either endure the torture and be the happiest me, or lose my sanity because I don’t like the stupid tools. It’s complicated.

Weird Food

I buy weird food.

I cook weird food.

I eat weird food.

I love weird food.

I tell people that I’ll eat anything, but that’s not really true. I base that premise on the fact that I will eat weird and/or gross things because there’s a benefit to be gained. I most definitely won’t eat anything.

I will pretty much eat any vegetable that exists. Some textures are tough for me. Like mushrooms, depending on how they’re cooked, sometimes I can’t eat them, other times I love them. That’s kinda the deal with all veggies for me, though. It can depend greatly on how they are prepared. The only one I just won’t eat ever is eggplant. Not my thing.

I prefer to eat vegetarian, although I have slacked on this since my family is so busy, and preparing two meals all the time is exhausting. If I could get my kids to like eating their vegetables, that would help. Right now, veggies are just the bribe for desert. However, if I personally have an option, I will choose meatless every time.

I’m not super big on breads. I like bread with dinner when we go out. I’ll eat sandwiches on bread. I like tacos on flour tortillas. I don’t really like cake. Not super big on pancakes or waffles or biscuits. I know, I’m from Georgia, what’s wrong with me? It’s not like I won’t ever eat bread, but once again, given a choice, I prefer bread free meals. For example, give me scrambled eggs and greens over biscuits and gravy any day. Given my love of vegetables, I actually like zoodles and other vegetables used as vehicles for great sauces better than pasta. That doesn’t mean I never eat pasta, it just means, given a choice, I like the veggie loaded option.

My weakness is candy. Sugar is my nemesis. I could go on and on about this addiction that plagues me, but there’s not much candy I don’t like.

I will eat foods I don’t like just because they are healthy.

I will refuse to eat foods I do like because they are not healthy.

My definition of healthy, though, doesn’t always come from popular opinion or science. It’s about my body, how it feels, and what I want it to do.

I am always reading and learning about food, the good, the bad, and the ugly. How food affects performance. Ancient foods, foods from other cultures, I’m a ‘listen to everyone, follow no one in particular’ kind of girl, a food agnostic to use a term coined by Matt Fitzgerald (Diet Cults is a good book; you should check it out.)

Sometimes, I find a health food and LOVE it. Sometimes, I like the health benefit enough to overlook the less than desirable taste or texture. Other times, I imagine I’ve discovered the reason the food didn’t make it out of ancient culture and into modern popular culture.

This is where the weirdness comes in, I think. For example, just because some ancient Greek messenger people ate a particular berry for energy and health on their hundred mile runs across difficult terrain, I decide I need to try it, too. I’ll search for it and eat it even if it tastes like dirt. True story.

That berry is called sea buckthorn, Hippophae. It’s super pretty, and kinda looks like it would taste like an orange grape or at least a grape tomato (two things I love). I read about it in The Road to Sparta by Dean Carnazes. They apparently contain more than 190 different bioactive compounds, and are one of the only known natural sources of omega-3’s, 6s and 9s in a single food. I HAD to try it.

I found it at a little natural foods market next to the place I workout, and bought it in ‘juice’ form. I use that word lightly because this was more like crushed up pulp, which is good, more fiber, using the whole food, etc. It was thick and dark orangey brown. It coated the measuring cup that came with the bottle. It coated anything it touched and stained it a bright orange. I don’t usually like to smell weird foods that are probably not gonna taste good before I eat them, but there was no avoiding it with the way this smelled. Just to round out this description, this is what I found on the internet with regard to it’s flavor, “astringent, sour and oily, unpleasant to eat raw.” I’m thinking to myself, “Yeah, for people who don’t like weird food like I do.” “Whatever, it can’t be worse than drinking apple cider vinegar like a shot.” (Which I do sometimes.) But, see, I didn’t know what I was getting into.

I kinda wish I had filmed the whole thing. If there had been video, it would show my ecstatically happy face (a face like you’re about to realize all your athletic dreams, and finally be fast and strong and run like the Greeks, yeah that face) turn to pure disgust (like I had just put ancient Greek compost into my mouth) the very moment it touched my tongue. Then the wheels start turning in my head, “I’ll put it in my orange juice.” Now the orange juice tastes like ancient dirt. “I’ll mix it into some oatmeal.” Now the oatmeal tastes like ancient dirt. “I’ll just hold my nose and chug it like medicine.” Cue the gagging and spitting the contents of my mouth into the kitchen sink. My stomach revolted. My esophagus went into reverse. My tongue was searching for a way out. This stuff was NOT going down. Perhaps my entire body had decided at once that it would now exact revenge on me for all the crazy dumb things I had forced into it, and I became physically ill. There wasn’t any kind of eating of any kind of substances at that point or for the rest of the morning. I had to forgo my workout, and didn’t eat anything until lunch.

Apparently, this little berry is much more palatable when fermented or cooked. You just can’t get it fresh where I live because, well, I don’t live in Greece. I hear a similar berry grows out on the west coast of the U.S., but I don’t know that I’ll be trying it any time soon. I think I’m just gonna have to get all the benefits of this “oily and unpleasant” berry from other foods, and I can add it to the list of things I WILL NOT eat. So, that’s eggplant and sea buckthorn. For now.