Numbers

I'm a numbers person, so this is a very exciting day for me:

This is my 200th post!  I'm not a big time blogger, but I enjoy sharing my life with many of you and learning about you along the way.  I've learned so much about running and enjoyed being able to look back on my development as a runner.  I still have to laugh for not considering myself a 'real runner' even after I ran 3 half marathons on my own; I was still too nervous to join a running group :)

Today I'm exactly 20 weeks pregnant and my baby is apparently the size of a banana!  I've had NO typical pregnancy symptoms (ie nausea, back ache, heartburn) and have loved my first pregnancy so far.  My husband complains it's boring, but I argue every time that boring is a good thing :)

I currently have 58 followers and have for awhile now.  58 is my hubby's favorite number - his football number in high school and our anniversary - May 8th, 2010.

6.5 miles is the longest I've run at one time since being pregnant.  And I loved it.  I still have the okay from my OB to run - as long as it isn't too intense and I'm okay with that.  I still love writing down my mileage on my running calendar on the fridge, even if there are week-long gaps from when I had to wait between doctor visits.

70.3 is the distance one of my awesome running buddies (above, in orange) covered this past Sunday.  Four of us made the 2+ hour road trip to cheer her on and it was awesome!  I would highly recommend spectating a triathalon to anyone that hasn't done so yet.  It was my first and definitely not my last.

Random Updates

Here's some random stuff going on in my head:

That's a maternity skirt from a long run about 3 weeks ago :)

I got clearance from the OB on Wed to run again :)  Just nothing too intense until my ultrasound in another couple of weeks.  I was so thrilled once I got out of her office!!

However, I still haven't run :(  It's been a busy and stressful week at work and all attempts to meet friends for a run were thwarted.  Not the end of the world - I'll get out there soon.  Just knowing I can brings a huge smile to my face!

This morning, I went to find a pair of workout pants (read: stretchy) and one of my husband's t-shirts to throw on to run a few errands.  I was elated when I found a pair of yoga pants that I had forgotten all about!  I always thought they were so sorority-girl but as soon as I tried them on I loved them!

I bought them 6 weeks ago for a field trip at work to go ice skating and forgot all about them.  I was like a kid on Christmas morning!  Now I don't think I'll wear anything else until the baby's born.

My hubby is all about having a boy - we aren't finding out until the baby is born in January - and keeps bringing home a bunch of boy stuff - football onsies, dinosaur pjs, you name it, he's bought it.  In turn, I found some fun girly stuff  to put on my wish list.

Wouldn't these just be so adorable!

As much as I'd like to think that these extra hormones won't get the best of me, I found myself in tears over Susan Boyle's first audition to Britain's Got Talent.  Don't ask me why I even watched that clip - my husband is a chronic shitty you tube video watcher - and I had never seen it before.  I just lost it.  The crowd was just so mean as she introduced herself and the she totally rocked it.  I was so proud of her and  crying like a baby at how great she was!! 

Maybe these hormones are getting to my head...

So Productive

I am so productive when I'm told not to run.  It sucks not running, but I still wake up bright and early at 6am on Saturdays, cause that's just what I do.  So this weekend I made it worth it.  I've been emptying our spare room to turn it into a nursery for two months now, slowly but surely and now it's time to speed it up a bit.  

We've lived in our house for almost 4 years and this spare room/office has become a catch-all for everything.  High School yearbooks?  check.  Drying rack for running clothes?  check.  books from childhood?  check.  Wedding receipts from 2+ years ago?  Got em.  Why?  I don't know.

Now that the room is just about empty, it was time to tear down one entire wall of wallpaper and a  room-full of ugly border.  The border was bordered (yeah, weird word choice) with trim nailed into the wall.  I started with that.  Thought it would be so hard to remove - yeah, it was styrofoam trim.  Who does that?  Needless to say, it came off easily. 

I found an awesome homemade mixture of ammonia, fabric softener and water that helped the paper come off so easily, all in perfect little sheets just about.  Thank you, Pinterest!  It worked way better than any store-bought thing I've tried in the past.  Best $5 I've ever spent.

The border was a little annoying, but made much easier after I woke up my husband and took him to Home Depot to buy this:

So much more helpful than this dinky thing we bought when my nieces and nephew were staying with us and couldn't reach the sink.

Truth be told, I really wanted a Home Depot hot dog with warm melted cheese.  That's why I woke my husband up and then I thought about the platform ladder thing.  And yes, the hot dog was thoroughly heated so I wasn't introducing salmonella or whatever hot dogs carry to my unborn baby. 

After washing down the walls to get the last bits of glue, all I have to do is patch up the holes where the crappy trim ripped the drywall and we'll be ready to paint.  We already have the color at home and ready to go, so I have no excuses :)

I find out tomorrow morning if I can resume running and I of course hope my OB says yes, but my husband hopes for no so I continue to be this productive around the house!  Screw him, we still have five months for the room to get ready!

Wish me luck :)

Spoke a tiny bit too soon

Thanks guys for all the pregnancy love!  We're just so excited and I wanted to be sure I met with everyone I wanted to tell in person before going "live" on the blog. 

As soon as I hit "publish", we had our first set of mini-complications with this pregnancy.  Nothing major and you all don't want me to go into detail, but I spent a lot of Monday at the Women's ER making sure everything is okay.  And it is.  Thank goodness.  Baby's heartbeat is strong and he or she even kicked the ultrasonographer a couple times.  I haven't been able to feel any movement yet, but the ultrasonogrpaher was certainly that's what the loud thud was.

So now I'm off running until my regularly scheduled OB appt next Wednesday.  It's only a week from today, but it seems like forever.  I really shouldn't be mad, since running is NOT more important than this lovely baby growing inside me, but I was just getting back into it from almost a month off and I don't want to stop.

Hopefully the appt next week will clear me again and I'll be back running soon.  Until then, I'll be walking (although clearly you all know that it isn't the same feeling after a good run) and a friend gave me a pregnancy yoga dvd that I'm going to try.

This is just a minor bump in the road.  Up until now, I've felt great!  Everyone keeps asking me how I feel and if I'm nausous and it almost annoys me now since I've been feeling so good :)  But I know that I'm very lucky and I hope this pregnancy continues to be this simple.  A week off from running is a piece of cake.

Great News!

The reason my hip and glute were bothering me is the same as why I haven't been very active on my blog lately:

We're Pregnant!

Yeah, I totally peed on that and then took a picture of it to show everyone :)

We're so excited for our first child!!  We're due January 10th and couldn't be more thrilled!

All the hip/glute pain I had in early June was all due to pregnancy hormones that loosened the tendons/muscles/ligaments in my hip and pelvis to make space for the baby.  My PT and OB seemed to agree that it just happened quicker than normal to me than in most women, causing some discomfort early on.  

Since the end of June I've been pain-free and built my mileage back up slowly but surely.  My long run is up to 6.5 miles and I've been feeling great!

So far, other than the brief hip/glute pain, this pregnancy has been a piece of cake!  No nausea at all.  I was ravenous for a couple months - eating everything in sight - and then really tired for a few weeks.  As of now, I feel great!

I got cleared from the PT last Monday - which was really exciting!  Instead of running on the alter-G treadmill that day, my PT put me on the real treadmill, which left me grinning from ear to ear :)  I walked 5 mins to warm up, run 30 seconds and walk 4.5 mins for a total of 35 minutes.  It wasn't as boring as it normally would be, since I was so excited to be running again!!

I planned to run a couple slow miles on Thursday with the group and then 4 for my 'long' run on Saturday with the group as well.  I got to the Thursday run and knocked out 3 SLOW miles, but they felt like crap.  My butt was tight the entire time, not painful, but tight and sore. 

Then Friday was a sore day.  Not quite limping like the original injury, but sore.  So I punked out on the Saturday morning 'long' run until the soreness subsides.  The last thing I want to do is go back out there too quickly and re-injure it.  I'm a little up in the air about the GR full in October, but there's still currently 16 weeks until the race, so I've got time.  (or at least I'm going to keep telling myself that)

So, what have I been doing for three weeks with essentially no running?  Lots of crap around the house.  And lots of sleeping :)

I painted out upstairs spare bathroom - well, my husband's bathroom.  I primarily use the one in our bedroom and he gets bounced to this one.  After I finished it, I still have a bit of jealousy since his looks way better than mine now.  

When we bought the house, this bathroom was so bright, the color was very 'coral'.  Bright pink and obnoxious, so it had to be painted right away.  I can't even find a picture of it originally; it is entirely possible that I never took one.  Here it is with 2 layers of primer before I bought a roller or decided on a new color.

Pat chose a green color and we painted it right away.  The problem is that the green was very bright, very 'shamrock shake' from McDonald's.  After four years of that, and never completing any other decorating in the room, I decided to change it up again.

The new bathroom is now our 'Sayulita' bathroom.  Sayulita is a little city on the west side of Mexico, where we went on our honeymoon.  We brought back a few cute ceramic critters and wanted to display them somewhere and this turned out to be the perfect place!

We took some of my favorite pictures from our honeymoon and blew them up to 8x10s.  I looked all over for frames to fit the theme, but I couldn't find anything.  So I bought plain white frames and bought acrylic paint that matched the ceramic lizard, pajaro, turtle and frog.  I'm so happy with the way they came out!

I'm still looking for the perfect shower curtain and window curtain, but that will come with time. 

Now all I have to do is try to have my husband keep it clean :)

Still not running...

Yeah, that's right.  I haven't run since the 2 miles I put on the Alter G treadmill last week.  Yuck.  I go back to PT Monday afternoon and will get the good word then as to if I can run outside yet.  The good news is that I haven't had any pain in my hip or butt for over a week.

I've just been resting and relaxing since I got injured - which I've never done!!  In the almost 3 years I've been running, I've never taken more than 3 days off, so this feels weird.

I've found all sorts of crazy things to do in my extra time: sort through and organize our bookshelves, clean the kitchen cupboards, bake a batch of sugar cookies every night, clean out the garage, paint and re-decorate the bathroom... you know, all very important things!!  Good thing I work at a school where everyone eats the cookies so I haven't gained a bunch of weight yet.

I'm hoping for outdoor running clearance on Monday.  I'd really like to get back outside next Saturday with the group; I miss them all!

Alter G Treadmill Running

So just one week after my hip/butt muscle pull thingy while on a run, I was up and running again on an Alter G Treadmill at PT.  My PT is very confident that I'll heal just fine and soon, too!  I'm happy to report that I haven't had any actual pain since Wednesday and have only been in slight discomfort a bit since then.

Friday morning I rocked out 3 hours at PT!  Heat, stretching, 40 mins of elliptical (BOOOORING!), 20 mins of some leg lift/recumbant bike thing, more stretching, ice and then 30 mins on the Alter G.  It was so cool and so weird at the same time!

Pic borrowed from this informative Website

Imagine getting into a pair of spandex shorts over your own, with an inflatable water ring around your waist.  Then step into a vinyl/nylon enclosure on top of a treadmill and zip said spandex to the enclosure.  That's weird in and of itself but then the machine inflates and it gets even weirder.  Air all over from the bottom of the treadmill up to my butt.

The weird thing is that the shorts pull away from your waist, so it 'pushes'/connects to you around the mid of your butt cheeks.  Weirdest feeling of my life.  So running with only feeling 50 % of your body weight is so COOL and WEIRD!!  It felt great, pain-wise on my body, but was the weirdest feeling ever, like I was drunk!  Clearly, I'm not that great at describing the feeling.

So good news I got running again, but it was so weird.  Hopefully I'll be back to 100% soon.  I LOVE the guys at the Running Institute - they clearly know what they're doing and will stop at nothing to get you back out there.  Just Friday, there were TWO olympic trial contestants and then an old man having trouble keeping his balance - LOVE the variety of people in there.   


So to fill my running-less weekend, I found an awesome cake shop with lots of fun cookie cutters and I went to town this morning with sugar cookies.

For my husband's next poker night and so annoyed I can't rotate the pic properly

I originally purchased these to make for my dad for Father's Day (which I still will), but I made them today to thanks the Buildings & Grounds crew at school for being so awesome all year.  

 And here's a little something for our running group since I finally found number cookie cutters!

Hopefully I'll be out on the actual road in a couple weeks, but until then, I'll be rocking out all weird-like on the Alter G!

Much Better - FantASStic in fact :)

Today, I've had no pain in my butt!  Hooray :)  My right hip and glute are still tight and a bit sore, but I haven't had any movements that dropped me to my knees since early Wednesday.  Talk about progress!!

My insurance covers PT - which also includes running on the alter-gravity treadmill - so I'm heading in first thing in the morning.  And if I come out like a sweaty mess, I've made plans to head to my friend's house to shower before work.  Good thing she works from home, near my office :)

Thanks for your tips and tricks and all your support.  It's amazing that I feel like I 'know' all of you and we're real friends!  Thanks for that; it's really helped me stay positive throughout this really annoying week.  It is weird how much time I seem to have now that I'm not running.  Not that I've done anything productive, just read more blogs and wasted many hours on pinterest!

Update on my butt

It still hurts.  

I got into the Running Institute/Michigan Rehabilitation Specialists Tuesday morning and met with the best PT they have.  He thinks I have an SI joint (sacroiliac) injury.  It's my right hip/glute that is tight and painful.  However, as he did all the stretches and tests, it all hurt WAY more when he manipulated my left leg.  I jumped off the table a couple of times it hurt so bad.

After some preliminary tests, he put a huge heating pad on my butt for 20 minutes and then had me loosen up on the elliptical for 25 minutes.  Now, good thing I stopped in on Monday after my MD appt to set up my first appt here.  I saw everyone in work out gear, so thought I better wear that too.  Had I just called, I would have showed up in my work clothes, ie a summer dress, and looked like an idiot.  

So I packed my work clothes and got all sweaty on the elliptical.  Man that thing was so boring for 25 mins!  There is nothing to look at except the receptionists not doing any work and complaining over and over about how slow it was that morning.  25 brutal minutes later, I was done.

I foam rolled (kinda dumbly, I'm not good with that thing yet) and then had the PT stretch me out a bunch more.  Two hours after I walked in the door, I was sweaty and on my way to work.  The good news is that my PT thinks this is totally fixable, in fact he wants me running on the alter-gravity treadmill right away.  He thinks I'll be just fine, which is promising.

I'll be seeing him three times a week for awhile and my biggest issue is how I'm going to go to work afterward and not stink all day.  They don't have showers at PT (I asked) and we don't have any at school, either.  I can't go sweat my butt off in the morning and then change into a summer dress and rock a sweaty pony tail all day.  And they're closed by the time I get out of work in the evening. 

The good news is this is what I'm most concerned about, not the injury itself.  I've been running almost 3 years and this is the first injury I've had.  Not too bad.  I consider myself lucky so far.  Since it's muscular I figure it's gotta be fixable, or at least more fixable than a broken bone.

Here's my hubby and me hammin' in up for a pic at last night's Tiger game :)  We didn't win, but that super rope around my next was DEEE-licious!

I'll live.  And I'm not too crabby yet :)  First step: get muscle pain in my butt to go away when I walk.  That's a priority.  In the meantime, I'm keeping my head up and not getting too crabby.