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?

I'm not really Mysophobic.

Mysophobia: a pathological fear of contamination and germs. Also called germophobia.

Okay, I promise I'm not Mysophobic. Just because I wipe everything with Clorox, wash my hands until they bleed, offer up sanitizer whether you want it or not, and constantly consider whether my post-nasal drip is just allergy or something more sinister. Just because I turn my head and cover my face when someone coughs or sneezes, sometimes awkwardly try to get out of shaking hands, and make my children kiss mommy on the cheek please, when they are sniffly nosed, I am not a germophobe. Okay, maybe a little. It's just that, well, I have a race coming up and I don't want to get sick and mess up my training schedule, or WORSE, be sick on race day.

I am a little fanatical, especially during cold and flu season (which happens to be a peak racing season around here.) My kids have both had a bug that I have been frantically trying to avoid. So I do all the aforementioned things, plus I try to eat more garlic (friends and family love that, I'm sure) and take lots of Emergen'C to boost my Vitamin C.

Yum.

Fortunately, I recently read a study from the British Journal of Sports Medicine that found during exercise white blood cells and immunoglobulin numbers in the bloodstream increase for a short time, which may account for fewer bouts of colds and sickness in those that exercise regularly. In my interpretation, that makes a good workout like a mini germ cleanse. You boost those white blood cells, which can then fight off any random bugs that happen to be mustering in an attempt at a hostile takeover. Yeah, I don't know if it really works like that exactly, but it's fun to imagine a white blood cell army sweeping through and vanquishing all the bad guys in their path. A surge like that every day ought to help keep you pretty healthy. Right?

Just in case those extra immunity surges aren't enough, I'm going to keep using the Clorox wipes and sanitizer, and keep taking my Emergen'C to be safe. And try to get plenty of sleep. And try not to be  a total Mysophobe.

What do you do to help stay healthy during cold and flu season?

Click giveaway winner!

The last several mornings it has been really chilly in the early morning. I have gotten extremely addicted to the warm-up provided by the Click Spicy Mocha recipe. It has cinnamon and cayenne pepper in it, and it reminds me of a Mexican hot chocolate. The cinnamon makes it spicy and the cayenne gives it a little heat that you don't really notice until a few sips in. Totally yum. I wanted to experiment with a bunch of the different Click recipes, but I'm so hung up on this particular one that I haven't gotten any farther yet!

And without further ado, the winner of the Click Canister and blender bottle is Jessica Burke Langston! Jessica, I've sent you an email requesting your info so Click can ship out your prize. Congrats! Thanks to everyone who entered. I have a couple more cool contests coming up in the near future, so stick around!

Run for Sherry and run safe.

On Saturday the 9th, I ran in memory of Sherry Arnold, the Montana runner who was abducted and killed on her morning run on January 7th, 2012. The 2nd annual virtual "Run for Sherry" made me really think about runner safety. Safety is a big issue to me...I've blogged on it before, but it is such an important topic that I will likely talk about it again and again. Statistically, running is a very safe activity, but being prepared is an advantage. We pray we never need to use that preparedness.

I read several articles and some research papers today about self-defense for women and I learned a few things. Did you know that if you are in a situation where you need help (and there are others around to help you), if you just scream, "Help me!" most people will do nothing?! People often do not want to get involved when they hear "help me" because they may be unsure of what they are witnessing or be confused about what they should do. The article explains that people respond better when told exactly what is happening or what to do, so you should scream something like, "Call the police", "This person is attacking me" or "Get him away from me!" Tell people what you need and more people are apt to do something. (This made me think how we teach kids to yell, "help, I don't know this person," if a stranger tries to bother them. That explains to bystanders what is going on.)

I've read many times that most human predators are much like animal predators: they are looking for easy prey and they specifically look for those that look weak or distracted. If you run confidently, head up, looking strong, aware of your surroundings, most predators won't be interested. That means pay attention to what's going on around you. Take mental notes. Don't run with headphones blaring...wear just one headphone so you can hear what's happening.

I once ran up behind a lady in my community who was walking with her headphones on. They were blasting so loudly I could hear her music from at least 15 feet back. Not wanting to scare her to death, I started loudly saying, "On your left," as I approached her. At 3 feet away, she still hadn't heard me so I kept repeating myelf. As I went to pass her she leaped sideways and screamed, almost falling into the bushes. She yelled at me for being inconsiderate, and when I passed her on my return trip (thankfully heading towards her this time) she was still blasting away. The Incredible Hulk could've snuck up behind her and she wouldn't have heard him. Not a good thing.

In a self-defense class I took in college, I remember the instructor telling us one of the most important tools we have is our instinct. He told us we should trust our gut feelings. If something feels wrong, or off, there is a good chance it is. There have been runs where I've turned around or gone a different way because I didn't like the looks of a parked car or noticed that things were particularly dark because a streetlight was out. I do admit to once being ready to dial 911 after a truck coming towards me was driving erratically and kept slowing down...just as I was about to hit "send" and turn around to book it back home, I realized it was a newspaper delivery truck. Hey, better safe than sorry!

I thought a lot about Sherry Arnold as I ran in her memory last weekend. I hope she smiled down on the many, many runners that ran for her. I pray for peace for her family and that she continues to remind us to run safe.

What do you do to stay safe while you're running?  

I'll be posting the Click contest winner tomorrow! You can still enter up through midnight PST!