Thankful.

Happy Easter! I have so much to be thankful for right now. My heart is full!

Now, c'mon people! Where are my plank challengers?! There is still plenty of time to get in on it and comment to win some Salonpas and some other fun goodies that I've rounded up. I'm up to 1 minute and 10 seconds today. Haven't done it yet and am dreading it a little. One minute was HARD. Hard, but I did it! Two minutes still seems scary, but one minute seemed scary a week ago. Like building up running mileage, one step at a time and suddenly you're exceeding what you thought you could do. I'm thankful for the encouragement from those of you that are doing it with me! (Don't forget to post your progress back on the plank challenge post itself. That is where I'll pull a winner from!)

Yesterday I ran two miles. I haven't been so thrilled or thankful to run two miles since back when I first started running and two miles was further than I'd ever been. I wanted to cry for the joy of it. The knee held up fine, but felt a little stiff during the run and a little swollen afterwards. I put ice on it immediately, then did a hot epsom bath, then more ice. The swapping between hot and cold therapy really seems to help, and by the afternoon, it felt totally fine. I am easing the mileage up very slowly. My plan is to run a mile or two a day for a few days, then try three and inch towards four. With some rest days sandwiched in, of course. There is still that fear lingering that I'll reinjure it by overdoing, so I'm definitely going slow. I'm hunting around for a training plan for returning from injury because if you know me, you know I like to have a plan. I'm just so grateful that my my knee is healing and running is coming back to me.

I am also thankful for my running pals, two of whom took it upon themselves to pick me up at my house during their long run and run with me for two miles before returning me safely home again, then continuing their longer mileage. Having their friendship and support is amazing, and I don't know what I'd do without them.

As long as I'm on the subject of gratitude, I'm super thankful for my amazing family, for my awesome job and co-workers, and my wonderful friends. I'm starting a gratitude journal again just to remind myself of the blessings big and small that come my way. I hope you, too, have a heart full of thankfulness this Easter!

 Does anyone have a return from injury training plan to recommend? And what are YOU thankful for today?

Plank Challenge.

Good news! It looks like I can try to run again within a few weeks. I have to start out VERY light, with walk/jog intervals, but if those go okay, I can try to ease back into regular running. I should be able to do the elliptical again at the very least. I have promised everyone, including myself, that I will stop immediately if I have ANY pain. I'm so glad the meniscus tear I have seems like it was relatively minor and is healing on its own without the need for surgery!! Blessed, blessed, blessed!

During the downtime, while I was unable to find a good cardio exercise that I could do, I started doing some strength training. I've always known I have weak hips, which probably contribute to not-so-great form, which probably contributes to how I ended up getting injured. I slack in the strength training area largely because I find it incredibly deadly dull, so to keep myself from being bored, I would invent little challenges for myself. (Goal-oriented, you know!) I would try to see how many crunches I could do in two minutes, and better it the next day. I'd do a stair step set of hip drops and see how high I could go. Then I started trying to increase my plank time every day. THAT gave me an idea. To keep me motivated, and maybe motivate a few others, I decided to try doing a Plank Challenge!

Just to be perfectly clear, we are talking about planks like THIS, not planks like this.

The challenge is to plank every day for 2 weeks, building your planking time from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. If a 2 minute plank is easy for you, increase the hold time to something that challenges you. Frankly, a 2-minute hold time currently seems impossible to me. Thirty seconds has me shaking at about a 4.0 on the Richter scale, which shows how much I need this challenge!

I'm posting the schedule I am planning to use, but feel free to adapt the hold times to whatever you want to use to challenge yourself. If you want to work towards holding a plank for five minutes, go for it! And I don't care what kind of planks you do, either. Knee planks, high planks, stack planks, it's all good as long as you're making it challenging for yourself.

To participate, favorite this post and come back to comment every day when you complete your challenge for the day. To make things more exciting, I will assign every comment a number, then use a random number generator to select one post to win a prize! So the more times you plank, the more posts you make, the more chances to win! (I will only count one post, per person, per day, though!)

And the winner? Well, the winner gets something to help out with those sore post-planking muscles, of course! One of my favorite products, Salonpas Massage Foam. I'll even throw in a "Run Happy" sticker and maybe something else fun, too. So join me in this plank challenge and help me keep from going off the rails while I'm not able to run! Good luck!

Join any time, but the cutoff for posts eligible for the prize draw will be 11:59pm April 6, 2013.

Waiting is the hardest.

I wish I had a better update on my knee injury. It is still likely a torn meniscus, based on Urgent Care and my wonderful Chiro/ART therapist's evaluations. I have not been able to get in for the second MRI yet. Gotta love HMO's! The bad news is, just about every form of cardio is still too painful. I can't do anything that requires impact or too much bending of my knee. The good news is, in the almost two weeks that I've been "resting" it (as in, not running or doing any weight bearing cardio) I have regained a great deal of my range of motion. I can bend it much further than I could two weeks ago. It still makes an awful clicking, crunching sound when I bend it, but I can bend it further before it starts to be uncomfortable. I can also walk almost normally, though a bit stiff legged on that side, without using those hateful crutches.

I'm trying to stay positive...meniscus tears are a common injury and lots of people get back to sports after recovering. I will run again. I am using this time to strength train, which is something I've needed to add in to my training for a long time. I will come back stronger. I know this.

The hardest part for me right now is not knowing how long I will be sidelined. As a goal oriented person, I feel like having a date to look towards would be helpful. On the other hand, part of me is afraid to face how far out that date might be. Maybe it'll be soon. Maybe not. I will finally see an associate at my Primary Care doctor's office on Monday. Hoping for some positive feedback...

What are some ways you have coped when sidelined with injury? What kinds of cross training did you do? I need ideas!

And then, out of the blue...

This happened. One minute I'd just finished a great run and felt fantastic. The next I tried to stand up from a chair and my knee hurt. And it got progressively worse. I'm still waiting for a final diagnosis, but the initial diagnosis is not great: most likely a meniscus tear. I'm trying to keep things in perspective. I'm not dying. It could be worse. I just finished my "A" race AND got a PR. Though I've thought about several upcoming races, the next for sure race I was planning is AZ Women's Half...about 8 months away. Probably I'll be running again before then. I hope. Praying for healing. I will keep you posted when I know more. For now, hey, at least the crutches are giving me an upper body workout?? Bummed, but trying to keep looking up!

San Diego WHM Race Report.

Last Sunday I traveled down to San Diego for the Women's Half Marathon. This is part of a series put on by Women's Running Magazine, and for the last two years I have run the event in Scottsdale, AZ. Okay, wait, let me restate that. It USED to be put on by Women's Running Magazine, but was bought by Competitor Group last year. I was worried that might change the way the event was run, but last year's AZ event went off extremely well even under the new management. I really look forward to running the WHM AZ each year. In fact, it's my favorite among the races I enter. I haven't ever done a race report on it because I was failing at blogging the times I've run it, but it is a great race with a great course. I was a little hesitant to jump aboard for the San Diego event, though, only because it's a brand new addition to the series. We all know that inaugural races can sometimes be, well...let's just say sometimes the first time is often when they figure out where the kinks are that need to be worked out. I don't like being a guinea pig!

I'm happy to say that the San Diego race was everything I'd hoped: small, well-organized, no visible kinks. Plus it had the bonuses of a beautiful course, perfect weather and some amazing members of law enforcement on the job during race morning. (No kidding, I saw many SDPD officers cheering for the runners, calling out to us by the name on our bib, and really getting into it. They were the best.) One thing they do at this race that stands out as incredibly smart to me is have Emergency Medical Teams (dubbed "Race Guardians") running right along with the runners. They appear to be spaced in pacing groups throughout, but I saw a couple of people in need of assistance and literally, someone was RIGHT there. If you just stopped and stretched, Race Guardians would materialize out of the crowd to see if you were okay. I like this approach. If someone falls or has a medical problem and it is a mile or more to the next medical tent that isn't awesome. By having the EMTs running, they were never far from anyone in need. Major kudos on this one, WHM!

I loved the course. Ah. Maze. Ing. It was flat and mostly gorgeous, running along Shelter AND Harbor Islands where the views are incredible. The first 7 miles ticked off super fast and I felt fantastic. There was a stretch between miles 7 and 8 that was less than stellar (Passing the airport. Boring and stinky from exhaust and jet fumes, but only for a mile) but everything else had spectacular scenery. I heard some folks were complaining about the "surprise" hill going over a bridge near the end...but though steep, it was a short hill, and good grief the whole rest of the course was pretty much a pancake. The last half mile was a little twisty turny and I had one brief moment of panic because I couldn't tell where the finish line was and I was SURE I should've been able to see it. I probably need to apologize to the nice SDPD officer that heard me blurt out some not so nice words at that point. Still, because I was nailing the PR I've been training my BUTT off for, by the time I finally did see the finish I am pretty certain I was pumping a pure adrenaline/endorphin cocktail through my veins. I seriously crossed the mat screaming, "I did it!! I did it!! PR!!! PR!!!" over and over. (There is a not so flattering race photo of me doing just that, mouth agape, arms flailing, horrid form. Wait, that describes about 99% of my race photos...) I'm very sure some people at the finish line thought I was a total lunatic, because as soon as I stopped screaming about my own finish, I turned around and started screaming for my friend who was finishing right behind me. My throat hurt from screaming. I'm sure they were glad when I moved on from the finish area.

For any ladies considering this race or this series, you should know that the medal includes a charm that can be detached to make a necklace. This is very cool...and less weird for your non-running friends than when you wear your medal for three days because you are so excited about your accomplishment. (I really wanted to sleep with my medal on after getting this PR, but the charm necklace had less chance of strangulation. Did I mention the medal is huge and heavy?) There is also a cookie buffet at the finish line. Here's a tip: do not cross the finish and immediately Hoover a chocolate chip cookie unless your stomach is much stronger than mine. (I learned that one running my first AZ WHM. Yeah, it was ugly.) Men are allowed to run this race, of course, but they don't qualify for any of the overall or age group awards.

I will definitely be back to run this one next year. Big thanks to the folks that put the WHM series on. It's a keeper! (And getting a new PR didn't hurt how much I liked it!) The only bad thing about it is I have to wait a whole year to run it again. 

San Diego WHM charm and AZ WHM charm

What's YOUR favorite race or race series? What do you like most about it?