first race back

ok, so clearly I need to start taking this running thing a little bit more seriously. not as in have less fun, serious, but train more. because after my 3-month hiatus, I jumped into a 10k after two 2.5 mile runs and came in first in my age group. http://www.lmjs.org/results
granted my time of 57:23 for a flat 10k isn't incredible but it sure is a boost to come back to running and do pretty well.
I'm off to do a barefoot run on the beach (in the soft sand, not the packed sand by the water--apparently it builds ankle-hip co-ordination really well. I'll let you know) and then I'll be running a 12k on Angel Island this weekend.

resting up, but for what?

I'd planned to be training still, but I've been so tired from the antibiotics that I gave myself the week off from doing anything physical. It's much needed because last week I had this weird foot thing going on (finally got an x-ray and no, its not a stress fracture, but I'm going to blame it on the cipro, which I'm now off of) and a whole lotta celebratory craziness. I finally graduated, b2b, my birthday, all that jazz and then some. and because the antibiotics are killing me. I just generally feel like crap all the time and there's no end in sight so I do try and be social but sometimes it just doesn't work. last night I went out to a party and it was a fabulous crowd with good music, good food and amazing dancing. I love to dance, more than anything, and it usually kills any funk but last night I could hardly pick up my feet, I was that tired. My stomach was all twisted up in knots to the point that I could hardly stand upright. I left early and spent til about 4am puking. awesome. what a great weekend. I'm burned out on this, for sure, I've already done this being sick thing and I'm really ready to dive into living but every time I make the move too, some weird sickness rears its ugly head.
but the puking has me thinking. 90% of the immune system lays in intestinal health and if the antibiotics--already. one week into the six week course--has me this tired and in this much abdominal pain, how much harm are they causing? its a necessary evil right now, I know. and I know that its much easier to balance out my gut in five weeks than it would be to stay off them and let the lyme run rampant, but. its really hard. I'm really tired and I don't want to fight so hard anymore for the little things, for putting one foot in front of another. It feels like I'll never get on my feet this way.

Bay to Breakers at 100!

The best celebration on legs ever! and no, we didn't even consider for a second that we'd run it. wearing a feather mohawk was enough.










                                                                                                                       

correcting imbalances

I have decided to take the next few weeks and train smart. I know that I have all these imbalances (left leg is stronger than my right; hamstrings very weak, glutes don't kick in when they should, general ankle instability) and I've decided to train them for the duration that I have to be off the pavement.

I don't want to use any added resistance because of the way that Cipro compromises tendons + ligaments, so I'm just going to be using my own body weight and see how I run when this round of treatment is done.

running pause

I just did my last run for a few weeks, a 10k trail race in Sequoia park. I have to go back on antibiotics for the Lyme, Ect. again and one of the antibiotics, aimed at Bartonella, can weaken tendons and ligaments and put them at risk to rupture. I’ll only be on it for a couple of weeks, but I see no reason to create any unnecessary stress on them. So for the time being, I’ll be beginning Qi Gong, meditating and walking.

It was a rough run for me. I think back to my first trail race two months ago and how I practically flew that day. As I was running, I felt that this was exactly what I was built to do. And today? It was a struggle, like somebody was clinging to me and pulling me back. I felt like I really should have stayed in bed and rested today though lately I feel like that every day. That’s the nature of running, you can’t always count on hitting the high note even though you do all you can in your training to set yourself up to hit it. And it’s also the nature of dealing with a chronic illness. I can do all that I know to do to keep me healthy, strong and energized and then it knocks me back again.

I had so much fun today on the trails (no matter how hard it is out there, it’s always so beautiful), but it was brunch with my running crew + friends afterwards that was the real highlight. A table full of bright people, tons of ideas and so much laughter. I needed that infusion of inspiration into my life.

Lately, I’ve been keeping a very low profile, just trying to keep it together to go to work and take care of myself. Chronic illness requires constant management. I’m always checking in with myself and evaluating just how much energy I have and if doing more than the bare minimum is worth the aftershocks of poor health. I keep one eye constantly turned inward and have that much less attention and energy focused on the world around me and my place in the world. When I began getting sick again this time, I felt like a shadow had passed over me and wouldn’t move on. I felt heavy and polluted, weighted down and held back from living fully. I had forgotten just how hard it is. Sometimes, when I go out, I get an insight into how healthy people live and how unfettered their lives are and I become acutely aware of how much illness has taken from me.

Which isn’t to say that I don’t also see it as a blessing. It has been, in many ways, a gift in that it has forced me to turn inward and become more honestly myself. I’ve learned so much about the body and about healing and it has set me on a quietly spiritual path. I have made peace with death so live with a little more presence than I did before. It has fostered a thirst to experience all that I can from life. That said, when I began to get sick again, it scared me so much that I couldn’t even deal with it for the first six weeks. I finished a two week course of antibiotics and the fevers, the chills, the sweats, the fatigue, the headaches, the arthritis and muscle cramps went away. I’m due to start the next course and as much as I hate being on antibiotics (as they create a whole host of other problems), I’m looking forward to being on them again as the scary, neurological symptoms are beginning to rear their ugly heads.

This past year is when I have come the closest to being completely healthy. I had two glorious months of being full of energy. In this journey towards health, what I find the most difficult is how awkward I’ve become around people. I sometimes feel like a child among adults, that I missed out on pertinent information that everyone else is privy to. And I’m still coming to the point where I work a full week. I meet more and more people these days because I am beginning to rejoin the world in a very real way and I find it difficult to explain myself when people can’t know what I’ve been through. People pass harsh judgments easily and I don’t exactly fit into any societal norm anymore.

Going back on antibiotics feels very much like I’m losing ground, against Lyme, Ect., in my life, with my running. I can hardly believe that I’ll be able to tie my shoes on again with any confidence anytime soon.

SUCCESS!

I won! I came in first of all the women: 58:40 for a 10k with 1100 elevation gain.
not bad for my second race and week 8 of training.

and! It was so, so much fun. I met a fellow runner at a party a few weeks ago and we headed over to Redwood Park in Oakland together. It was freezing, but so sunny and beautiful.

I ran so easily, just exactly like I was built to run. I walked on some of the uphills and stuttered downhill (I need to learn to run downhill. I think that it has to do with stronger hamstrings and glute medes and a willingness to lean into it, but I'm not sure). I didn't even know I was in lead until the 10k path crossed the 50k (yea, I know. amazing. and crazy, altogether at the same time) path and a bunch of people started cheering. and then I passed a family and one of the girls called out, "first woman, first woman!" and I slowed down and looked back and asked if she was kidding. Nope.

I had enough left that I sprinted the last 200m in and, surprise!, was chased down by some office to get a cap and a medal.

its kinda hilarious and kinda amazing, I think, that I just did that. I was BUZZing afterwards, so wound up with energy and excitement. I went to a party last night and all I could do was talk people into running with me. And then around eleven pm, I crashed. I had no more energy left and just stopped talking. good thing the people I went with were ready to leave too.

wow, I can't wait for the next one!

snow forecast in the bay. wtf?

I signed up for a trail race in two days. I have yet to run six miles but I'm not really worried about that--I'm worried about the COLD! now they're forecasting snow? I hate being cold and I really don't have the gear for it. I run in cotton yoga wear and really old shoes. hmm. I guess I'm going to have to make a trip to sports basement.

5k results

14th in my age group! nice. 24:44. 7:59 pace.

the race!

IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!! a festival with legs! I get that running is addictive, but racing takes it to a whole new level!

I biked to Golden Gate Park from my house and met up with my friends at the start line. We weaseled ourselves in to the front of the pack and took off.

It was hard, I haven't run at all since I started the antibiotics, but that's probably for the best. Rest is, after all, when you gain strength.

I'm not sure what my time was but it was so much fun!

I did see a few people with form that screamed "injury in waiting" at me. I wanted to go up to them and give them my card and tell them that I could fix it. maybe I'll make shirts for the next one?

Ok, and now back to the thesis. I need to find more balance with this thing. I keep working on it all at once and then not at all. a lil bit, every day.

ugh. the catarrh.

I've been sluggish and feverish and this chest thing that I've had and never quite gotten rid of is back with a vengeance. I checked in with my naturopath and also with my chi nei tsang practitioner, and both yelled at me to go get some antibiotics. (I have a huge resistance to antibiotics. I moved home from NYC when I was 25 because I was so sick. nothing left, type of sick. skeletally thin, hair falling out, yellowed eyes, creaky, broken body, couldn't remember my sister's name sick. Sick. I had a PICC line in and hooked up to an IV twice a day. Granted, the antibiotics saved my life, but they also gave me a whole host of other problems and I'd be happy to never go back on them again.)

ok, ok, I said and dragged my feet over the the medical clinic. I shoulda just listened to my mom and gone days earlier.

I just got back from the doc's armed with antibiotics and mildly concerned because my doc was concerned that it won't go away.

I'm super bummed about this because these two amazing artists who run got me signed up for my first race. A 5k, but still. I signed up and everything. And its this Sunday and I will STILL be on antibiotics. eeeergh. I'm going to make it work, somehow.

I start things a lot and don’t finish them. Right now I have a tiling project, three sewing projects, a guitar, a painting project and about a million stories and poems and essays lying around, waiting to be finished. My room is disorganized even though I like to believe that one day I’ll learn to put everything away after I use it.

I keep showing up to run. Consistently. Even when I don’t feel like it, even when I’m really tired or feeling sick, I show up to run. And I enjoy it, no matter how much of the course I have to walk, I love every second of it.

I realized this: I don’t care how I perform when I run, I just go and enjoy the moment of it. With running, I have no expectations. But with everything else that I do—teaching or writing or even the things I do for pure fun, like dancing—I constantly judge where I am with it and apply such a force of pressure to succeed that I’m surprised that I haven’t suffocated yet.

Finally running

TODAY! I finally ran 5 miles, easily. Ran the whole thing, hills and all. I feel accomplished.

Welcome to my world!

I sat next to one of my cousins at Christmas dinner last year. We hardly see each other except at holidays (that’s what they’re for, right?) and I only vaguely know what he’s up to, but he’s always up to something good. This past year for him, it was triathlons. We started talking about them—I’ve always wanted to do one, but haven’t because I’ve been struggling with chronic illness due to a series of tickborne infections (Lyme, Bartonella, Babesia, Errhlichea, if you really want to know) which I’ll refer to as Lyme, Ect. going forward. Training was never an option, I was so tired all the time. I was an athlete, I am athletic but Lyme, Ect. had me on my ass.

This past year has been incredible. I have ventured way out of traditional American medicine and into a variety of alternative care and have made leaps and bounds in health gains. So when my cousin suggested that I do a sprint triathlon with him in May, I said sure, with more desire than conviction that I could train that consistently again.

I went on my first run this week. It was excruciating. I am humbled. I live in a really hilly area and set out on a 2.5 mile loop around my house. I barely made it up the first hill. I walked more than ran. My breath grated. My quads shook. It wasn’t fun but I felt fantastic after I finished.

I took a nap (really?! I’m so out of shape that I need a nap after 2.5 miles?).
I went out again two days later. And again, two days after that. It’s painful but so rewarding to see the little increments of progress and I feel so good when I’m done.

I am really loving this and I’ve decided to start blogging about training with a chronic illness and about all the alternative health care that I use to stay well. Expect to read personal updates, rants and raves about training, interviews with health practitioners whom I hold in high regard and tips to staying injury-free while training.