my birthday

My birthday was Sunday.  Which means it was also my brother-in-laws birthday.  It was his year to pick what we did, so we headed to Wendover.  We took the Fun Bus, which smelled like dentures.  You don’t know what dentures smell like?  Be thankful for that.  Clearly we had too much fun.

I may or may not have been holding him to keep him from falling.  Again.

I had never been gambling.  I put a dollar into a game I didn’t understand.  I got bored and did the same thing to a different machine.  I had ten cents left in it, I was sick of gambling already, so I bet it all.  What can I say, I’m a high roller.  Slowly the machine made little tinking noises.  I was around seven dollars when I kind old woman told me I could push any button and it would just go straight to what I won, instead of penny by penny.  $100!!  On ten cents!  Yeah baby.  Everybody’s biggest mistake is they get cocky and keep trying.  Not me.  I was done.  End it well.  Jamie and I walked around the casino, people watched, hockey watched, and stopped for some coffee around 1 am.  The coffee was horrible so we had nachos instead.

The ride home was eventful.  Five of our friends couldn’t get on the bus because they were drunk.  Apparently they thought letting everybody drink the whole way down and then dropping them off at a casino would result in sober, responsible people.  Clearly they were wrong, and realized this as my drunk husband fell and tackled the lady who was yelling at everybody.  I pushed him on the bus fast enough that she couldn’t stop us.  What a long ride home that was.  Usually drunk people make me laugh.  I like always being the sober one watching a bunch of idiots drunk people.  Clearly two hours on a bus with a driver worse than me and my husband elbowing me in the face (twice) doesn’t put me in the best mood.  Weird.  Going to bed at five in the morning on my birthday meant I slept most of the day.  I heart sleep.  It was a good day!

Saturday I went back to the gym for the first time since the marathon.  It felt so good and I got an awesome work out.  It was a boot camp gym and she kicked my ass.  I planned to start off this week back into a regular routine, but sleeping all day means not sleeping much all night.  My foot hasn’t given me too much trouble either, so maybe I’ll try running this weekend!!

I may not be posting much the next two weeks… I started my internship last night and I don’t have much time to do anything.

my body

I really think the human body is amazing.  The way it’s able to heal and take care of itself it a miracle.  My body has been through hell.

When I was 15 years old (I can’t believe that was seven years ago!), I was walking through the parking lot at my high school.  I was at the top of a hill as a kid drove up it.  When the kid was a few feet away, the rising sun blinded him, and instead of stopping he continued on, going 50 mph.  The car hit me from behind, right in the knees.  It through me up in the air and I bent backwards so fast it broke my spine.  The back of my head met the windshield, shattering the windshield, cracking my skull, and causing my brain to swell.  My head stopping on the windshield made my feet fly upwards, causing me to do a backflip, landing behind the car on my broken back and elbows.

The next four years were hell.  My passion at that time was rodeo.  The last rodeo I ever did I took 1st place in barrels and 2nd in poles.  Having a broken back meant no more riding my horse.  I wasn’t even allowed to vacuum.  I couldn’t stand for more than ten minutes, I couldn’t sit for more than an hour, and even laying down was painful.  I could no longer be active and I gained weight.  Between the weight gain and the trauma, my knees were shot.  They would grind with every step and constantly caused me pain.  The cracked skull caused seizures, memory loss, and I don’t know what to call it other than stupidity.  If asking what the power button does on a vacuum doesn’t make you feel like an idiot, I don’t know what will.

Before my accident I was never sick.  I never had aches, never got colds, and I was always at a healthy weight.  Since the accident I get colds 4-5 times a year.  I had liver failure for two years.  I am pre-diabetic, which my doctors treat just like diabetes, and expect me to eventually be insulin dependant.  I developed anxiety.  For the last year I have had insomnia.  My weight fluctuates like crazy.  I don’t even remember the last time I didn’t have a headache.  It is a 24/7 thing.  I have this strange, crippling pain on my right side, about eight inches below my armpit that no doctor has ever been able to figure out what it’s caused by.  It comes and goes randomly.  I will go six months without it, then have it every second for two weeks.

Basically I am a wreck.

I started to run again, off and on, three years ago.  I got sick of always feeling like crap and wanted to get back in shape and lose weight.  It’s been about two years now that I have run consistently, since my husband talked me into seeing a chiropractor.  It has been a really rough road.  I have had ups and downs and a lot of pain.  Running hurt my back and knees so much, but it was worth all the other things that started to feel better.  I got sick less, I lost weight, my mood improved, my anxiety decreased, my blood sugars became more manageable.  Every day I could feel my body getting stronger.

At the start of this year I started to take running seriously.  I started to fall in love with it.  I started to eat healthier and take care of my body better to fuel it properly.  I haven’t had to take a single anti-anxiety medication since I started training.  The back and knee pain caused by running didn’t go away until I started running in my Vibrams.  Since then I have noticed all these improvements, and less pain.  Winning.  The last six weeks my running mileage has dropped because I had pulled something in my hip, and then recovery from my first marathon.  My blood sugar has been crazier than ever the last few weeks.  My anxiety has been ridiculous.  My back is killing me.  I’m moody.  And this is why I am dyyyyying to get back out there.

I miss running.  I miss feeling healthy.

I just have to remember that our bodies do heal.  I went from a broken back to running a marathon, something I never thought possible.

a solution to my Vibram problem

My foot is slowly getting better.  Sometimes I go a few hours pain-free.  I hope to be back to running in the next couple weeks.  I want to go completely pain-free for an entire week before running again though.  I don’t want to push it and make it worse.

The doctor still never knew what was wrong with me.  I got a second opinion from my uncle, who is a physical therapist.  Obviously he couldn’t x-ray it at a family party, but he did say my plantar fascia isn’t even located where my pain is, and I don’t have any of the signs or symptoms of it being inflamed.  My foot has slowly started to feel better though, so I haven’t gone back to the doctor.

My first visit to the idiot jerk moron doctor he did say something that has stuck with me.  He said a lot of people try to wear their minimalist shoes just for running.  All the benefits of these shoes, like your arch supporting itself and going back to a more natural run, are negated when shoes are worn for everything else.  Well, I HATE shoes.  I am barefoot the second I get home, and as often as possible, even outside.  I do work in aerospace though, where steel toe shoes are required so I can’t do it 24-7.  But I am allowed to wear whatever shoes I want at my desk.  So I only put my work shoes on when I have to leave my desk or area, so about seven out of eight hours I am in these.

I am in love.  I have been wearing them everywhere.  They keep my feet warm, but they have no cushion, and no support.  They don’t even have soul sole  That sounds like the opposite of what most people want in a shoe.  Just what I am looking for.  I plan to spend every second possible with minimalist “shoes” and preferably barefoot.  You just wait.  My next marathon in Vibrams will be epic average with a lot less blood and pain.  I do plan on running barefoot a lot this summer too.

education frustration

I’m pretty frustrated with the whole education situation right now.  I just found out the radiology program I was accepted into, and already paid for, is limited scope.  Which means the things I’ll actually be licensed to do are limited, the most exposure to radiation, and the least pay.  For some reason I’m not exactly jumping for joy at this news.  Weird, right?  Ugh!!  So now I am looking at all other options.  I have a meeting today at 3:30 with a different school to set up (basically) my life.  This whole planning your life out years in advance is rough.  And stressful.  Especially when there are so many undecided variables that don’t even have anything to do with school or work.  Hopefully by 4:00 tonight I will know what to expect from the next few years of my life.  School-wise anyway.

I’m still doing my limited scope program.  I mean, it is experience after all.  Plus I hope it will make it easier to get in to the program that gets me my associates degree.  I can do my limited scope and find a job doing that or phlebotomy while I work on my degree.

Anybody wanna meet me at the swing set after work?  Let’s build a sand castle and play all day.  This being a grown up stuff is hard.

last week of freedom

I am normally freakishly busy.  I took April off for the marathon, and I only have one week left.  Then it’s back to reality.  My reality includes waking up at 4:30 to be to the gym by 5:00 am.

Showering, but never having time to wash my hair.

Prison Work from 7:00-3:30.

And various other jobs from the second I’m off work until I go to bed around 10:00.  If I am lucky.  These include the many cake orders I have this summer.

My internship for phlebotomy from 4:00-8:00 every week night for two weeks.

Radiology lectures from 6:00-9:00 and labs from 6:00-8:00 when I don’t have lectures.

On top of all of that, trying to be the best wife I can be.

Good wives keep messy houses, never make dinner, and fall asleep in the middle of conversations, right?

Poor guy.  He must truly love me to put up with me.

happy easter

Happy Easter!!  How do you celebrate?  We started off with coloring eggs with the kids.

Getting both my nephews to smile at the same time is just too much to ask.  Look how happy Kasyn (on the right) is!!  I love those litte guys.

My sister looks like she is being the meanest mom ever, I mean who yells at their kids during egg coloring.  But I promise we are just teaching Kasyn his colors.  When he didn’t know she asked him what color his shoes are.  He looked at his stocking feet and said, “none.”  None is my favorite color.

Cierra, my 16 year old sister likes it as much as the kids to.  I do too, but this was too close to after a marathon to really get into it.  So last night we did the egg coloring for the real child.  Me.  Hi, my name is Kara.  I am four, and I hope I never grow up.

Our colors were really weak so we decided to let them sit for a bit, while we made Easter beer.  We were just going to do this for my brother-in-law, Danny, but it was too cute to not do for my mom too.  Beer is their crack candy.  Can you guess which ones my husband did?

Yes.  The little note on the beer says “bitch.”  Brotherly love at it’s finest.  And that is a quarter super glued to the top.  We are big spenders.  I had more fun with my mom’s… you get to make things for girls… er… girlier.

All that was left to do was load them up in her Easter basket.

By the time I finished my back felt horrible, so we started a movie.  Like six hours later we realized our eggs were still just chilling in the dye.  I guess eggs left in the dye for hours turn speckly and awesome.

I am just headed to my sister’s to watch my nephews find their eggs, while my husband sleeps in.  Sucker.  Then we are headed to my Grandma’s on my dad’s side to say hello.  We Josh is making Easter dinner (holy pressure) so we are heading to his mom’s by noon.  After that we are heading to my dad’s house.  Divorced families=hectic holidays.

Easter is my favorite holiday!!  Actually, whatever holiday is next is my favorite.  So after today my next favorite holiday is my birthday.  What?  IT COUNTS!!

How was your Easter?  What did you do to celebrate??

somebody’s snorty

It’s been a rough day of laying in bed and relaxing.  I’m exhausted.  This guy has been extra obnoxious snorty today.  I know pugs snort, but he has never been this bad.  I am on the other side of the house and I can hear him loud and clear.

She’s sick of it too.  She’s asked for earplugs twice.

This whole not running thing is driving me insane.  It has only been a week.  I don’t know if it’s the nice weather or what, but  I really want to get out there.  Each day that passes I am more sure the pain is not caused by the ligament in my foot.  It is starting to hurt up the side and on top of my foot now, above where the pain started, nowhere near the ligament.  I guess we’ll see.  Has anybody ever stress fractured their heel?  It’s so weird because in the morning I don’t really notice it.  It is achy, but bearable.  By the end of the day it is THROBBING.  I had a nice massage yesterday!  She came to my house, massaged for an hour and finished up just as Josh got home from work.  I crawled off the bed and headed over to hug him.  He was so excited to see me that he grabbed my hips and yanked me to him.  It bent my lower back backwards so fast in the same place I broke up.  I think I might be dying.  I can hardly move without causing tears to start pouring down my face.  I don’t know if it’s a nerve or what.  I don’t think being so relaxed from the massage helped either.  I am thinking I won’t be doing my breast cancer 5k in two weeks.  I feel so broken right now.  I feel like I am never going to be able to use my birthday present.

And I haven’t even had my birthday yet.  I also haven’t had candy in four days now.  I swore I’d never give candy up for anything but my blood sugars have been super ridiculous lately and the doctor said if I don’t get them under control I will be insulin dependent.  I guess I hate needles more than I love candy.  I even ordered some protein powder to start making shakes.  My doctor said if I get more protein in it will help keep my blood sugars steady, instead of skyrocketing then dropping like crazy.  I am scared they are going to make me gain weight though.  Anybody else do protein shakes??

I woke up this morning craving cereal like crazy.  The peanut butter crunch was stale though.  I guess that’s what happens when you let opened cereal sit in the pantry for months.  Who knew?  So I made a sandwich.  Words to live by… every condiment should be in EVERY bite.

I worked at Wendy’s to buy my first car and I used to get in trouble for putting too many toppings on burgers.  Nobody wants a tomato that covers 1/4 of their burger!!  Sometimes you gotta use a whole tomato.  And if you haven’t tried this…

…buy it.  NOW.  And thank me later.  Sooo good!!

I am still working on getting all my pictures that were taken before and after the marathon.  Looks like I won’t be sharing my splits with you though because I don’t know what they were.  I didn’t realize I had to put a setting on my Garmin for it to record my mile splits.  Next time, right?

What’s your favorite sandwich topping?

Do you drink protein shakes?

shaken

My husband has this little habit of opening things for me.  Doors, jars, drinks, bottles… everything.  It’s sweet really.

It would be a lot sweeter if I didn’t have a habit of shaking everything.  I shake my chocolate milk before pouring it.  Every time.  I shake ketchup when it comes out of the fridge.  Every time.  I shake salsa before I eat it.  Every.  Time.

It would be nice if one of us realized the other does their little habit.  Every time.  Maybe he just likes seeing ketchup all over my glasses.  Or buying salsa six times before we actually eat any of it.

why doctors are such idiots

I hate doctors.  Hate them.  Maybe it’s because I go more than any person should have to.  After my accident I was at the doctor at least twice a week for two years.  During my liver failure I was at the doctor at least once a week for two years.  That is four years.  Four horrible, miserable years with doctors who couldn’t fix me, and didn’t seem too concerned with trying.  Whenever I had a suggestion because theirs didn’t work I was being dramatic.  Apparently being upset over a broken back, fractured skull, seizures and liver failure is dramatic.

I went to the doctor for my foot yesterday.  Something isn’t right.  It grinds with every step and my ankle is so swollen you can’t even see the bones that normally stick out on each side.  It’s starting to bruise.  I was less than thrilled with going, but I’m freaked out.  It started off with the nurse asking what was wrong, leading me back to a room and sitting at the computer.  She asked me how I hurt my ankle.  I told her it was my foot.  She kindly replied with, “Whatever.  What did you do to it?”  She then proceeded to ask me what medications I am taking, then asked about the ones that show as prescribed in the computer.  As I said no to each one she clicked the mouse and moved on, but it seemed to offend her that I wasn’t taking my birth control because she asked “Why not?” in a really pist off way.  How about because it makes me a crazy, emotional wreck, so we use different forms of birth control??  Better yet, how about none of your freakin’ business, it has nothing to do with my damn foot.

By the time the doctor came in I was already pist, thanks to his sweet nurse.  I might have poked her in the eye on “accident” when she took the blood pressure cuff off.  Oops.  He came in and he actually seemed ok.  He wasn’t breathing fire and I don’t think he had a cricket inside his head that controlled him.  He checked out my foot and ankle and told me I have plantar fasciitis.  Basically the ligament that goes from heel to toe and supports the arch in my foot is inflamed.  I was pretty impressed he knew this before even asking any questions, but hey, he’s the expert so I went with it.  I decided to trust this guy.  He asked me a bunch of questions, and I answered no to most.  I asked him if that would cause the grinding I can feel and he said no.  The pain and grinding are completely unrelated.  They are in the exact same place, so that sounds about right.  How could one possibly have anything to do with the other?  He then told me that it also could be a stress fracture in the middle of my foot, but he didn’t want to do x-rays.  He told me this plantar faciitis would cause at least a month of pain, but to come back for x-rays in a week if it didn’t feel better.  Um…. what?  Please tell me that makes no sense to you either.  Why not just x-ray the damn thing NOW and not just guess at what is wrong with it?  Apparently pointing out the contradiction was rude because after that he told me that completing the marathon with blisters was proof that I am dysfunctional, and that all runners have something mentally wrong.  You know me.  I always believe the jerk who just called me dysfunctional.  I’m not saying he is wrong about the ligament, I’m just saying why not check both things?  Especially since I’ve been doing research and the plantar fascia isn’t even located where my pain is.  It must be the drama queen coming out again.

My pain isn’t even where the plantar fascia lies.  In this picture my pain to the left of it, just above the heel.  Any others with the same pain?

Any other runners out there wanna come with me to toilet paper this guys house?

Salt Lake City Marathon

I’m officially a marathoner.  How does it feel you ask?  Like death.  Like awesome, awesome death.  Now that I am some-what alive again I’ll tell you all about it.

We got on the train at the time we wanted too, but people kept running up and stopping it so by the time we left we were over 20 minutes behind schedule.  I wanted to have time to pee and check stuff out.  I got there minutes before the opening ceremonies and the lines were at least 30 minutes long for the bathroom so I decided to wait for the first aid station.  I looked around and saw tons of people wearing Vibrams.  I was so excited!!

1-5 I felt fabulous!!  My lungs felt good, I was laughing.  I was finally doing it!!  Every aid station had lines for the bathrooms though, so I decided to skip it.  I started to feel blisters around mile 5, but it wasn’t a big deal. 

At mile seven I felt them burst.  It stung a little, but blisters are nothing.  I did notice that I slowed down though.

At mile eight I looked down to see the red blood stains on my shoes.  I had bled through them and I could feel the blood pooling in my shoes.  It still wasn’t bothering me much, but I was looking for somewhere to pee.  There were a lot of bushes and trees around.  So tempting.

At mile thirteen, for the first time in my life, I wished for a penis.  Why were there men waiting in line at the porta potties in the woods?  Hello!!  You can pee standing up, which means you need very little to hide your junk.  Do it.

Around mile fourteen I saw a construction site with a bathroom and nobody was using it.  Score.  I was back on the road within two minutes.

At mile fifteen it started to downpour.  It felt awesome!!  But I noticed that I really started to slow down.  I would push myself, feel like I was flying and check my Garmin only to see a ten minute pace.

At seventeen my capris rode and I bent over to grab the ankles and pull them down.  I got told I have a heart-shaped booty.  Twice.

At nineteen the sun came out and dried up all the rain sweat on my skin.  For the first time in my life I really chaffed.  I don’t mean the little bit I get from my bra.  I mean I ripped my armpits open.  I felt like I was flying and looked down to see 13 minute pace.

At mile twenty I was not happy and my blisters were really starting to affect me.  At times I was at a 16 minute pace.

At twenty-one all I could think was I couldn’t wait to do this again.  Then I dropped my last shot block.  I ate it.  Rocks and all.  Judge me.

At twenty-two there was the temptation station.  A big sign that said, “Anybody can run a marathon sober.  Just screw it!” followed by the Nike check.  What did they have?  Shots of tequila.  I would have died right there on the pavement if I had done a shot, but it did make me smile.  I realized I needed to keep smiling and entertain myself so for two miles I sang.  Outloud.  To myself.  And to some guy who looked like he was struggling.  Best motivation song ever… New Radical, “You Get What You Give.”  “We’ve got the dreamers disease,” “Don’t give up, you’ve got a reason to live,” “Four a.m. we ran a miracle mile.”  That was on repeat for the entire remainder of the marathon.

Miles 24-26.  My goal was four hours.  I packed four hours of shot blocks.  Along with being a genius, I am also diabetic.  My blood sugar got low, I got dizzy, and my other personality that is caused by low blood sugar came out.  I call her Crazy Bitch.  Don’t tell her though.  She is scary.  I was FURIOUS.  Not that it took me an hour longer because of the blisters, not because I should have planned better and brought more shot blocks, not because I was in pain.  No reason other than I was just pist.

26-26.2 I was ready to be done.  I sped up real fast to finish the .2 which of course had cobble stones.  My blisters loved it.  Jamie ran that last bit with me and I stopped after we crossed the first mat.  Then she told me that wasn’t the finish and there were two more twenty feet away so I sped up again.

Immediately after finishing I inhaled two cookies.  When my blood sugar still wasn’t high enough I inhaled two more.  Then I took my shoes off and about died.  There was no way those shoes were going back on so we headed to the medic tent where they gauzed and wrapped my feet.  Blue coband is a new style, I promise.  On the way home we stopped at McDonald’s to use the bathroom and Jamie tried to make me eat.  I choked down two chicken nuggets before giving up on life and crawling to the car.

I wanted to throw up the whole way home.  I took a nice hot bath, slept for half an hour, took another hot bath and then we had a family emergency so we were in the ER until midnight.  I planned on waking up feeling like death.  I woke up hurting everywhere, but my fever and nausea was gone.  I can deal with physical pain.  I will take a good stabbing before I’d ever agree to deal with nausea.  It is the worst kind of pain in the world to me.

I loved my Garmin.  I drive myself a little crazy with it though, because I check it too much and it’s just as bad as watching the time on the treadmill.  I also got this really pretty, elegant feature from my mom where my wrist bones poke out really far, causing people to ask me what happened to them.  Ever seen Napolean Dynamite?  “Do these birds have large talons??”  My mom’s friend started calling her wrist bones talons, and that is what we have called them ever since.  Apparently I need to wear my Garmin higher on my wrist because OMG it bruised the bone in my talon.  That thing hurts so bad!!

I have gotten a lot of negative comments about my Vibrams because of the blisters, but it was not the shoes.  It was the hip injury.  Not running for four weeks before the marathon caused all my callouses to disappear and that is why I blistered.  My feet just weren’t used to running by then.  That being said, I probably won’t run another in Vibrams, but not because of the blisters.  Something is wrong with my foot.  I can’t put any weight on it, something is grinding inside of it, and my ankle and foot are very swollen and black and blue.  My work shoes are very loose because I’m too lazy to tie my shoes every day.  Today my right foot barely fits in it.  I hope it’s just sore, but I think I might have a stress fracture right in front of my heel.

I learned a lot from this.  I learned that even though I would have done great four weeks ago, taking four weeks off just doesn’t cut it.  I probably shouldn’t have ran after doing that.  My body was NOT ready.  I didn’t meet my goal.  I didn’t do nearly as well as I wanted.  I am not proud of my time, but I AM proud of myself.  I finished.  I did my best.  I was miserable and I didn’t give up.  My official time was 5:15:20.  1:15:20 longer than I wanted.  Pace 12:02.  69th of 81 in my division.  1,064th of 1,197.  411th female of 478.  2:17:05 at the half.  10:07 pace in the first half.  I slowed down A LOT.  My splits were all over the place.  I’ll have to download them from my Garmin and post them tomorrow.  Splits and pictures.  I didn’t do as well as I wanted.  But I know what to aim for next time.  I know what to do differently next time.  There WILL be a next time, and I WILL do better.