Two Ears One Mouth

Yesterday was a bad day! I woke up at about 4:30 in the morning with some really bad pains in my lower abdomen around into my low back. I figured it was a pulled muscle or something and tried changing positions. Pain. Pain. Pain. So I got out of bed and went to the bathroom. No change. Walked around the house for a little while. No change, in fact, worse. I called my sister. It's convenient having a nurse in your pocket. She gave me her usual advice after the barrage of questions, "If it's the worst pain of your life, go to the ER." Now I have a severely skewed pain scale not entirely attributed to my endurance activity habit. A few years ago I managed a bout of meningitis which is by far the worst pain I could ever have imagined so my pain scale is often 1 to meningitis. That scale puts a broken leg marathon at a 3 if that gives you any indication of my perception. I try to use a "normal" pain scale when appropriate and that would make broken leg ...

Earlier this week I tweeted  a question to my followers (p.s. You should be one!) asking how I would spend my last free Saturday before inviting in the marathon monster. Upon further investigation I found that since I ended up changing my mind about which race I was going to do I was already a week behind. So last  Saturday was my last time to sleep in. Which I didn't do, if you'll recall that little swim I did. It was mildly disappointing but last night I decided to suck it up and spent a few minutes updating my play list so I could actually enjoy myself. What is it about new music that makes you really excited to run and listen to it? I mean, realistically I could just listen to the songs whenever I want.    source Anyway, in an attempt to do it right from the start this time I was up around 5 am so I actually had time to eat before I ran. I didn't do a great job at it today but at least being awake early will serve me well when I really need  to...

How many of you have had a training injury or a chronic injury that impedes your training? I'm sure there's some kind of statistic that says the likelihood of injury among those who participate in regular physical activity is relatively high and actually it's probably not too far off from the statistic of those who are injured performing everyday activities. Our bodies are not invincible despite their ability to endure repeated punishment in various forms. Perhaps the best part about our bodies is their adaptability followed closely by its ability to repair itself. Everyday, cells are dropping dead and even the healthiest of people are experiencing some kind of harm to their bodies whether it's just breathing in toxins or aging yet we still manage incredible feats every single day. There's no way to completely shield yourself from harm but what's more important is to not further the damage or let your ego be its cause. No athlete likes to rest. It's ...

Hello again! We all obviously know that I've been away for a while so let's just move on shall we? One of the things I've been doing in my absence has been swimming... a lot . Or at least a lot more than I ever have. I signed up with a relay team for Ironman 70.3 Muncie and I was dumb enough to be the swimmer so I spend about 4 days per week in the water in hopes to not be pulled from the race due to not making the time cutoff (which is a very real possibility). Since it's warm enough to be wetsuit free I'm trying to take advantage of as much open water time as possible and that included signing up for a 2k swim at Freeman Lake in Elizabethtown (just like the movie, except this was real life and we were all less attractive). source This wasn't a race, it was officially called an open water swimming clinic so very few of the people there had the normal intensity that can be seen in races. There were the serious athletes of course but I think we all k...

Can you believe it? I take a total hiatus from blogging and win an award! Kind of. I should quit blogging more often. More importantly, my good friend over at Press On and Run  gave ME the Liebster Award and every award winner must do their diligence to follow the rules and of course give an acceptance speech. Except this speech is really a blog and it's just answering a few questions. So without further ado... The Rules 1. You must link back to the person who nominated you 2. You must answer the 10 Liebster questions given to you by the nominee before you. 3. You must pick 10 bloggers to be nominated for the award 4. You must create 10 questions for your nominees 5. You must go to their blogs and notify the nominees And now, my answers: 1. Your favorite piece of running equipment? Oh boy....shoes maybe? I have an obscene amount of running shoes from working at that running store but it's all for not if I don't have a good sports bra. My current fa...

I don't feel that I've taken true advantage of my Vegetarian in the Ville name so I did a little recon over the weekend to bring you a fun new (to me) little vegetarian friendly restaurant right here in Louisville. Vietnam Kitchen is a little restaurant located in the South End and is apparently kind of a big deal. What can I say? I don't get out much. But we were being spontaneous and adventurous so we hopped in the car, pulled up the map app and typed in Thai food. Nothing withing 5 minutes. So we switched to Vietnamese. The first restaurant we got to was closed. The app said they closed at 9 but it was actually 8. Which in real time meant they locked the doors at 10 till. Alright. Back in the car for the next closest place. It was a cool little place and had two very  important attributes that make it a new staple in my diet. A full page of vegetarian dishes (talk about overwhelming) And ginger ale...because I'm 60. At least. I started with the mos...

I started writing this on Thursday...please excuse the delay in posting :) It's 11:27pm on a Thursday and I'm not in bed. Instead I'm in horrendous traffic, freezing cold and riding back from Indianapolis. Today I played stage mom. Only not really. As you know, I went through a long period of racing a LOT. Weekend after weekend all spring and summer long. And who is always by my side, carrying bags, finding parking, juggling water bottles and generally containing my crazy? The Colonel of course! So now it's my turn. Part of my retirement which is still in full force (well partial force) is to be more supportive of the people in my life who have always been so supportive of me in my endeavors. This means watching more and to some degree doing less.  Tonight The Colonel had his first Golden Gloves amateur boxing match! It was something he's always wanted to do and this year got serious about it. He's been training like crazy, eating like crazy and most i...