DANG

my jeans are very very tight.

no bueno. 

coming clean

and letting go of "ego" regarding a podium finish for a time that is my slowest [and was my most miserable] 13.1 finish, ever. 

the very rough and very all over the place and very grammatically incorrect report follows: 

well, with the information i received on friday, my goals for this race had shifted. to be honest, with how id felt [the past few weeks especially] my goals for this race had shifted a while back.

a parasite, salmonella infection that i never kicked, and a pretty sufficient zinc deficiency has my body fighting nonstop all day, without throwing a half marathon in 90% humidity and stiff sustained 20mph winds.

dw and i had talked about shifting the focus to being competitive, taking the first half easier and then on the second half picking people off... it didnt quite work out that way, well, it didnt work out that way at all.

i was alone or by one or two other runners for the majority of the second half of the race [because, as i would later find out, i ended up in the top 25 OVERALL...and was the second place woman. seriously, the elites mustve been racing st louis or boston this past weekend :)]

regardless of where the results had me, i wasnt thrilled with my time, but i do realize that i had a number of things working against me and thus, am able to take solace in the fact that, despite my obstacles, i put my ego on the line when i was not feeling confident or healthy at all... and thats something that i need to do more often.

i didnt sleep very well the night before, due more to the fact that there were drunk hotel guests making a racket in the hall until 2 am than race anxiety..although there was some of that: i was afraid i would feel so bad and get so discouraged that i would quit.

my overall time wasnt HORRIBLE, but it was slower than the first two:which honestly i expected: ----time has been omitted, because as my readers know, i dont post things like that on my blog.  the course was about .4 of a mile short, by my calculation but i could be wrong.  i had to stop and walk [oh yeah, i walked...] a few times from about the half way point onwards... it was quite a bit hillier than i expected and that, combined with the wind kept sucking the life out of me. every time i would turn a corner, id think id be done with the hills [except for the end, which i thought was about 1 mile uphill and it turned out to be about 3 miles of up and up and up, with the wind at my face and to my right]...and the wind. geezus. 

had i thought the race through when i woke up [checked to see what direction the wind was coming from and figured out on what parts of the course it would be in my face, at my back, etc etc], perhaps i couldve paced myself better: however, i was in total denial mode in the days leading up to the race and especially on race morning. i was afraid if i studied the wind + the course direction too much that i would psyche myself out... this ended up being a bad decision on my part. 

the next race, should there be a significant wind factor, i will definitely take it into account.

i was not able to run negative splits at all, but it was a day that i will never forget: it was a slug fest, but one that was very rewarding in the end. at the start line, i did size up the folks around me... there was a crew of pretty serious people up front [including a lady that ran in those little running briefs that look like a bikini bottom, holy hell. her confidence amazed me]. the gun went off and i did start off feeling pretty good, which was surprising.

there was one point, before what i thought was the one "major" hill on memorial drive between miles 1.5 and 3, when i thought "maybe im pushing too much too early?"

i wonder if i had held back a bit if i would have been able to avoid the unraveling that occurred after mile 6 and lasted through mile 13...at mile 4 i wondered if my mothers comment at 645 this morning asking me if i was going to take my cell phone with me while i ran 'in case you dont feel good and want me to come pick you up' was a premonition of the struggle to come...6-13 were a struggle on and off, into and out of the wind, with some longer gradual hills and false flats: i found myself stopping at points to massage my very crampy and pissed off abdomen and get some water. i couldnt believe i was doing that, this stopping and walking bit. but, it allowed me to finish, and i think ultimately helped my head because i learned on this day to forGIVE MYSELF. i gave myself the little rests i needed: when i would stop, i would use that opportunity to clear my head. i didnt think about how it would influence my final time, or my average pace... at all.

as you will see, the splits reflect the struggle:---again omitted: but they ranged from  6-8 min/mile 

i cannot erase what happened and i am thankful i have been able to look at this day as a learning experience rather than a failure. that, in itself, is progress. it was the hardest thing ive ever done. hands down....and the sense of accomplishment i felt at the finish was unlike anything else i've experienced.  

that, in itself, is the reward. 

p.s.

...and i also found out, i do have celiacs...

always trust your gut

its been awhile since i posted anything substantial and im not going to make excuses.

this is where i stand.
ill start at the beginning, as best i can.

two years ago, after my dr was puzzled as to why i kept getting sick and i wasnt absorbing calcium and iron [amongst other thigns], i was diagnosed with a gluten, dairy [milk protein, caesin], and soy allergy. it was not determined at the time whether or not i had celiac sprue and to be honest, all i really cared about was being healthy. i took all measures to ensure that my diet was clean. i did "cheat" every now and then. the time that really stands out was my 27th birthday when friends who didnt know about the gluten allergy brought me treats from quacks. that night i proceeded to eat the oatmeal cookie, the sugar cookie, AND the fruit tart. i felt like crap for 3 days afterwards. but, other than that situation, the most gluten or dairy or soy that i have had has come in the form of a bite of cake or frosting once in a blue moon. anyhow, because i had spent my entire life eating things that i was ultimately allergic to, my intestines were pretty pissed off. i began supplements and probiotics to build back my immune system. last fall, i was well on my way to having a normal gut.

the day of my grandfathers funeral [christmas eve], i got sick. it started off with nausea...then it progressed to me feeling like i was dying... for the next 3 days, i struggled. upon returning to austin, i took a trip to the ER. they did a ct scan [i thought i had appendicitis] and noticed that i had major inflammation in my intestines, a result of what they could not determine. they advised i meet with a gi specialist [which i never did]. 4 days later, i got a head and chest cold that lingered for almost the entire month of january. i spent most of january feeling weak. february was the same. march rolled around and i found myself sick again. i traveled up to the mayo clinic for an endoscopy to determine if i had celiac sprue [which by the way was inconclusive because ive been on a gf diet, so of course the biopsy they took would be negative] that i had irritable bowl syndrome and thats probably why i had been feeling so bad. i didnt believe it; i was already taking all of the dietary precautions that they advise for people with both celiac AND IBS...so knew there was something else going on. i was tired all the time and my running times were really struggling. my stomach/gut didnt feel right most days and i started noticing that i couldnt taste certain foods. by the beginning of this month, i was very anxious that there was something wrong with me: i wasnt running well [or much] at all; i had little to no energy; i wasnt sleeping more than an hour at a time; i was having horrible nightmares; my appetite was so bizarre and i still couldnt taste food very well; everything around me seemed 'dull'; every day was a struggle. i would struggle to get out of bed in the morning and would be thinking about a nap. i forced myself to maintain 'normalcy' as best as i could. i kept running. i kept going to class. i kept up social engagements best i could, but inside, i knew something wasnt right, and it had started to stress me out. big time.

i was at my wits end. i was despondent; i couldnt live like this. i was really starting to get down on myself and i was jealous of everyones energy around me.  

last week, i traveled to kc for the lawrence half marathon [my running of it, by the way, was a dumb dumb idea] and that appointment with dr d. she had ordered a number of tests and she gave me the results on friday.

the dx? a parasite. and salmonella that was still festering in my intestines. lovely. both of these things completely wiped out the good bacteria in my gut and thusly my immune system. additionally, because my gut was so screwed up from fighting both of these things for, as best we can determine, the 4 months since my trip to the ER, i have not been absorbing zinc [a major immune system mineral] and other substances from food [including fat]. she made sure to tell me that had my diet NOT been as good as it is and had i not been as conscientious about my health, that these things would have really destroyed me further than they did. i know i had told some people how tired i was all of the time and how poorly i had been feeling, but i dont think people realized just how BAD i felt. my father kept telling me [especially after the trip to mayo], that if something was wrong with me, i wouldnt be able to keep running...and dr d said that most people wouldnt have been able to.

so that folks is why ive been feeling so shitty for 4 months... its not that i dont take care of myself... its not that i dont eat well...its not in my head...

its in my gut.

and i felt it all along.

lets run

I wish I could figure out how to loop this video...I would watch it continuously: mesmerizing.