12 more days

Posted on October 11, 2010 by Suzanne

There are 12 days left until the Des Moines Race for the Cure. My so-called “training” got run off the rails by a number of things over the last 10 days, but I’m somewhat sort of back in action.

Mostly, I’m freaked out by the fact that my race packet arrived the other day. They have 18,000+ runners signed up, and I ended up with number 15. I could have just as easily ended up as number 16,879, but I think it’s really kind cool to have gotten a number like 15.

You’ll notice that when I do pin on my number, I have a spot to write in how much I raised. The goal I set was $500, but in my effort not to be obnoxious and pushy about asking for money, it seems that I made it sound like I didn’t really need anyone’s help at all. Well, that’s not how I meant it to come out. So I’m going to try again, because I do need your help, but more importantly, the cause needs your help. A portion of the money raised goes towards breast cancer research, the bulk is used for local education, screening and treatment support services.

One of the reasons I ended up going quiet here on the blog was that my Grandma Humphrey passed away a little over a week ago. She was a breast cancer survivor, and I’ll be walking/running in her memory. I’m also doing this because I need to take better care of myself.

I know that times are tough, or maybe you are already supporting a Race for the Cure participant, or you have allocated your charity dollars somewhere else this year, but if you can help me reach my goal, I’d really appreciate it.

My personal fundraising page is here:

Suzanne’s Race for the Cure Page

When you click on the “Make a Gift” link, you’ll be presented with a bunch of radio buttons with “suggested” donations, the lowest being $25 — you can always type in your own amount, even as little as $5. And even if you can’t donate, please be thinking of me and my effort to convince my body that walking/running 5K is a good idea.

Thank you,

Suzanne

Counting Down: 24 Days

Posted on September 29, 2010 by Suzanne

24 Days until I Race for the Cure. (I still have a long way to go on my fundraising goal, if you can help, here’s my personal fundraising page. If you CAN help, I’ll be eternally grateful).

Today’s run/walk: 2.44 miles total, 1.04 running. I had Mark get my bike down — I was afraid I’d hurt myself, if I tried to pull it down. Plus, the tires needed air, and as it turned out, the seat needed to be raised — he had lowered it to let the boys ride on it one time. I didn’t actually decide to ride it today, I find I have to work into the idea of trying something new. Not that the bike is new. Good grief, that thing is…older than the boys, certainly. Actually, I can remember buying it at the Target in Cedar Rapids, so it must have been shortly after we got married — which makes the bike 14-ish. I never did ever ride it very often, gee, I wonder if that’s because I was out of shape back then, too? Or that I get excited about something, only to abandon it shortly thereafter? At any rate, it’s waiting for me to hop on it when I’m ready for it, as a cross-training option.

And…now I’m going to include a really cute picture of one of the boys right after he had gotten his first haircut, in order to distract you from the fact that I don’t have anything else. Wasn’t he cute? Doesn’t Mark look young?

Umm…and because someone’s going to ask, that’s probably Joe, because he was wearing green.

Counting Down: 25 Days

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Suzanne

25 Days until I Race for the Cure. (I still have a long way to go on my fundraising goal, if you can help, here’s my personal fundraising page. If you CAN help, I’ll be eternally grateful).

Today’s run/walk: 2.3 miles total, .75 running. I’m using a dailymile to track my run/walks — they use Google Maps and let you zoom in and trace out your route on the map. It’s pretty cool. Today, I walked out to my furthest point, and then ran part way back. I’ve been walking for about 5 minutes, and then running, and then having to walk back — that last part seemed to go awfully slow. Today’s effort wasn’t too bad. My lower legs still don’t know what to make of this crap, but they don’t start hurting as soon, and they stop hurting sooner, so I figure that’s a good sign.

Last night was another South Pacific rehearsal. Those are going pretty well — there is a lot of talent, and in some cases, what they lack in talent, they make up for with enthusiasm. They are also quite silly. Quite. Silly. Oh my.

One night, it was a handful of young men, with one girl, plus the director and myself. One of the guys came in wearing just a pair of shorts — he’d been at a pep rally, and had been covered in whipped cream. (By his mother… But that’s beside the point).

THe point is, that the OTHER young men all decided they didn’t want whipped cream boy to feel awkward, so they decided to have Shirtless Rehearsal.

And they did.

Like I said, silly.

They are still blocking, and learning lines and stopping and starting a lot — which means a lot of hurry up and wait time for me. As a result:
wpid IMG 0986 2010 09 28 11 19 Counting Down: 25 Days
Lots of knitting time while I wait.

And now, it’s time, once again, for me to quit mucking around and get some more quilting done. Unlike yesterday, though, I have a pretty picture to share, with some progress:

wpid IMG 0989 2010 09 28 11 19 Counting Down: 25 Days

Counting Down: 26 Days

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Suzanne

26 Days until I Race for the Cure. (I still have a long way to go on my fundraising goal, if you can help, here’s my personal fundraising page. If you CAN help, I’ll be eternally grateful).

Today’s run/walk: 1.89 miles, .73 running. I think that a month ago, in addition to it being too hot, I was running too fast, pushing too hard, gasping for breath while my heart pounded it’s way out of my chest.

I certainly didn’t FEEL fast, but I wasn’t sure I could go any slower and not have to just revert to walking. Now, I’m concentrating on my feet, trying not to let my heel strike, and I’m going much slower — consequently, my perceived exertion as far as heart/lungs: much, much lower. I could have carried on a conversation today, which I wouldn’t have been able to do even just a few days ago.

Now, if I could convince my legs that things are better, we’d be golden.

Speaking of legs, or rather feet: wpid IMG 0984 2010 09 27 12 34 Counting Down: 26 Days
I finished my watermelon socks last night. I love this pattern, it’s called Cabletini and can be found on Wendyknits.net, under her free patterns. The yarn is Zauberball. I’ve had them on all morning, and my feet are quite magically happy today.**

Do you think I could get away with walking around with my pants rolled up?

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

I did start a new pair of socks (well, restarted, I think I’m on the 3rd try for the toe on this new pair. Sheesh), but I also got this great idea that I need to make Mark a scarf for Christmas, so I started that this morning, too. Shh, don’t tell him.

And now, I need to get some quilting done. In addition to falling off the exercise wagon, I ran into a brick wall known as a quilting block, and I’ve only just gotten through that (it was a customer quilt, I let it take too long, I made it harder than it needed to be, and every time I touched it, it was like I didn’t know what I was doing. It was ridiculous. I did finally finish it last Friday, so now….I should be quilting every minute of the day to catch up on my backlog. Sheesh, again.)

Happy Monday!

**Zauber is German for “magic”

Counting Down: 27 days

Posted on September 26, 2010 by Suzanne

About a month ago my exercising ran off the rails. My calves and shins hurt, I hit a weight plateau…and then I went to Salt Lake City, and then I had a cold and then, and then, and then.

And then, suddenly, I have only a month to go before I’m supposed to run in the Race for the Cure in Des Moines. 5K. 3.1 miles. The whole time I wasn’t working out, I was never accepting that I had given up, and finally this past week, I climbed back on the elliptical and got back to work.

Surprisingly, I don’t feel like I’ve lost as much ground as I might have expected. One key data point: pushups. I can’t remember if I’ve written about this or not, but awhile back I was bragging to Mark about how my pushups were actually getting to be quite good-ish. Back in April, when I started, I could barely manage 3, at the time of the conversation I was up to about 15. I was excited to tell him about my pushups, but what he apparently hadn’t understood was that I was doing bent-knee pushups. The look of disdain on his face when he discovered this was…infuriating.

Oh sure, he backed up and redeemed himself, but I wasn’t really angry with him. I channeled the anger into going downstairs and doing “real” pushups.

I think I did 3.

Badly.

But I kept going, and adding more until I was doing 10. (Still badly, but hey, at least I kept going!)

Fast forward to Friday morning, and after my run, I wasn’t sure my lower legs were going to support me, so I did 10 bent-knee pushups.

Omigosh, they were an absolute BREEZE.

Having actual proof that I’m getting stronger more than compensated for the fact that my calves and shins were talking about going on strike.

So, with 27 days left until, where I am at? Well, I still haven’t run more than a mile at one time, and frankly, I have no idea if I’ll manage to run the entire 5K. I will be OK with walking part of it, but I’d like to run as much as humanly possible.

I’m finding that it’s much easier to run when it’s mid 50s vs. mid 70s (or more) — a month ago it was my heart, lungs, calves, and shins that were complaining — now it’s just mostly those pesky lower limbs. Today I managed a total distance of just over 2 miles, .78 of which I ran. All at once, without stopping. I feel totally justified in munching down the handful of M&Ms I’m currently snacking on. I have to keep up my energy, right? Right?

To sponsor me in the Race for the Cure, you can visit my personal page.