FMM: School Days (and an injury update that's good!)

Buckle in, I’m in a hotel room with no reason to rush out the door, so extensive weekend notes prior to FMM…

While it seems like I could choose a lot of words to describe my weekend: family, fun, vine, restaurant-week, puzzling, lake, the best word is actually relief.  I did my long run yesterday, 20 miles, and it was all without leg pain.  It sucked to take the majority of a week off this close to my race, but it seems to have done the trick – knock on wood.  I can’t even tell you how happy it makes me.  And I had a totally awesome weekend, so the fact that my long run almost overshadows it is very telling as to how much it was weighing on me. 

My brother got into town on Friday (for work this week) and the three of us went out for lunch.  I finished up work, and we hung out for a while, then we went to pick up one of our neighbors (a guy who just moved here and I found out when I met him, works for the same company as my bro).  The four of us went out for drinks at one of my favorite restaurants, right by our house (Abacus), then we came home and dropped the neighbor off and went out for a late dinner (at Bijoux).  It was restaurant week in Dallas, so we’d made reservations at places that offer special limited restaurant week menus, 3 courses (app, dinner, dessert) for only $45 per person, part of which goes to a good cause.  So delicious meal Friday night, complete with dessert. 

Saturday we slept in a bit, had breakfast, ran a couple errands and decided to go to the lake and rent stand-up paddleboards.  Sadly, they were all booked for more than an hour, so we made afternoon reservations since it was a mild (for Dallas in August) day.  We ran another errand and then headed out for a restaurant week lunch (at Nosh).  We got home, worked on the puzzle a bit, and then went back to the lake.  My husband did not like the stand-up paddle boards.  He stood up and paddled for a while, but ended up being happier basically laying on his back on the board and napping as he floated around the lake.  My brother and I paddled about halfway down the lake to the bathhouse, and then paddled back.  All told, we spent about 90 minutes paddling. 

Lots of people had told me it was a good core workout, but my brother and I agreed that either we were doing it wrong, or it was out of shape people saying that.  My feet were a little sore (a lot of pressure standing on the board, balancing, not lifting your feet at all).  But no core soreness or even arms. 

After our SUP experience, we basically got home and it was time to shower and head back out for another restaurant week dinner (at Hibiscus).  It was also very good, and even though our reservations were fairly early, I was completely beat when we got home and went to bed early to be as ready as possible for Sunday’s long run. 

Yesterday was my first 20 mile run on the schedule.  And since I’m doing a fairly abbreviated schedule, it was an important run.  My schedule only has two runs of 20 miles each, and one longer one (about 22-23 miles).  Last week I ran with my friends at the track on Thursday and my leg was fine.  We had 800 meter repeats at half marathon pace (so slower than yasso pace).  I did them all and felt good, but just to be safe, I got a ride back to the starting point instead of running any cool-down miles, and then I decided to push my luck and do a very slow and easy run to work (another 3.75 miles).  Before I was even halfway to work, my leg hurt.  Same place (upper calf on my left leg), and it was bad.  It hurt even to walk.  I was starting to panic, thinking I’d really done it.  Pushed too hard and done real damage or something. 

Well, somehow on Thursday, I managed to scratch my eye with my contacts very severely.  It turned all red and puffy, and by Friday, I was at the eye doctor, a total mess.  Friday morning, I went to boot camp but didn’t run at all.  But it was almost like my eye hurt so much that I didn’t even notice the pain in my leg.  Long story short (heck, long story long at this point), I am supposed to wear my glasses until tomorrow, and then if I’m back in Dallas, I have another appointment and he will try some new contacts for me.  Of course this particularly sucks because we’re supposed to leave town on Wed. morning to go to my high school reunion.  In glasses?  Ugh.  I’m not a particularly vain person I don’t think, but I really hope I can wear contacts for the big event.  Though I really need to get a dress or something too!  I haven’t put much thought into it (aside from trying to make long run plans and being excited about seeing about 15 people who I really miss). 

Anyway, back to yesterday.  My brother said he’d go with me for the run, and in my mind, that seemed like a good plan.  While I figured there was no way he could run 20 miles (no offense to him, he runs, and he’s in great shape, but lately he’s been training for a 100 mile bike race and only running about 25 miles per week), I also thought it was very unlikely that I’d make it 20 miles.  So we met up with my running buddies Sunday morning and we set out for 20 miles, not knowing how it would unfold.  We held back a bit on the pace, and my brother said he was thinking of turning around at about mile 6.  Well, mile 6 came and went and he was still there.  As we ran, he said he was now thinking 7.  Then 7.5.  At that point, I was pushing him to go 8 miles before turning around, since there was a water stop at 8 and I thought that even though it was cool, he wasn’t used to the weather and could easily get dehydrated.  Well, at mile 8, my buddies egged him on.  A bunch of the guys talked trash and told him it was only 2 more miles, then we’d u-turn.  And my brother caved and stayed with us.  WTH?  Did he give in to peer pressure like that in high school?  I’d expect more.  Haha.  He probably gave in because he really thought 20 would be do-able with virtually no running base, particularly since he was going at my slower pace. 

Well, by mile 12, he was not loving life.  He said his legs were heavy and I could tell he was slowing down.  He had directions and he told me to go on without him, that he’d run a bit further, then he’d take the sag wagon.  It blew my mind, but he made it to mile 16!  And equally mind-blowing for me was that at mile 16 I was still pain free.  He and one of my friends grabbed the sag wagon, and I continued on.  By mile 18, I figured that if I could go another half mile, then I’d just tough it out and finish the 20 (but if it hurt by 18.25, I’d turn around to the water stop and take the sag wagon).  But 18.5 came and went, and then 19, no pain.  Around 19.3, I felt a slight twinge in my calf, but it was gone so quickly I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it.  Bottom line is that I got all 20 with no calf-related pain!  Sweet!! 

I stretched for a while, went out for tacos with my bro, went to buy 40 pounds of ice, took an ice bath at home, packed up, and then he and I went out for lunch (hubby was at work).  We did a restaurant week lunch (at Central 214) and I was definitely hitting my max on eating out.  The food was good, but dessert was almost too much (don’t worry, I ate the entire piece of cheesecake, but I kept thinking I’d stop).  Got home from lunch and transferred laundry to the dryer and hung up our running clothes, then I was out the door for the airport, saying goodbye to my bro.

The airport was the biggest disaster ever.  I got parked about an hour before my flight, cutting it too close, but at DFW, that should have been fine.  15 minutes for security (had boarding pass on my phone), then 15 minutes to get to the gate and buy a bottle of water before boarding.  But as soon as I walked in the terminal, my plans were foiled – there was a massive line for security, 45 minutes they said, so I hauled butt down to the next security line, about 15 gates away (a long haul).  A much shorter line there, but I was nervous about not making my flight.  Finally got to the front of that line and they couldn’t take mobile boarding passes there.  I almost died.  I ran (literally) back to the other part of the terminal to print a boarding pass, but it was too late to print one.  The flight was LEAVING in about 20 minutes.  The attendant where I was trying to print a boarding pass said the nearby security line could take mobile passes, so I went to the line and proceeded to BEG people to let me cut in front of them.  Thankfully, there were about a million kind souls in line.  I don’t know what I would have done otherwise.  I bypassed probably 50 people, rushed through security, ran to my gate, and boarded as the last person less than 90 seconds before they closed the doors.  Yikes.  I am so angry at myself for letting that happen.  I should have known that Sunday afternoons can have huge lines, I just should have planned so much better.  I definitely need to pay a big one forward – I feel like I owe about 500 favors to random strangers. 

So this morning I’m sitting in Philly, here for work again.  Hopefully going home tonight, but it will depend what unfolds today.  Hoping to settle a very stupid case.  The problem is that since it’s so stupid, I don’t want to pay much to settle it, and since I don’t want to pay much, of course there’s a chance I won’t be able to settle it.  We shall see…

I have about another hour to kill before I have to leave for the conference, so plenty of time for FMM today!

It's a perfect topic for me since my high school reunion is next week! 

If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

School Days

1. What was your favorite subject in school? I would say Social Studies or History.  Or French.  In high school, it was definitely debate. 

2. Did you attend elementary school and high school in the same town? No.  Elementary school through fourth grade in Milwaukee, then another state for 5th and part of 6th, then the KC area for the end of 6th through the end of high school.

3. Are you still friends with anyone that you met during school?  With a few people from 7th grade onward.  One of my best friends was a year ahead of me, and we stay in touch and she came to our wedding, as well as a guy who was my year and another best friend.  There are a couple other people that I am occasionally in touch with, and back when I was on facebook of course, it was easy to keep up with about 100 of them that I'm connected to. 

4. What activities were you involved in as a student? My main activity was debate (I was really destined to be a lawyer).  As far as sports, my main activity was tennis.  I also liked French Club.

5. Did you bring your lunch, or did you get it at school? I think I usually bought it at school but I don't have strong memories.  In elementary school, there weren't choices (it was a single meal for everyone), so then I looked at the menu and told my mom what days I wanted to bring my own lunch.  But by high school, there were options and there was something I wanted. 

6. Did you enjoy shopping for clothing and school supplies?  Not really.  I didn't end up with tons of new clothes (large family, lots of hand-me-downs in the early years), and lots of begging for the school supplies I wanted (trapper keeper, etc.). 

7. Name a song or a band that reminds you of high school.  Here comes the hotstepper.  There was a dance group or spirit squad or whatever and I remember wanting to be on it initially.  They were called the starsteppers I think, but then I heard people calling them the star-heffers and I was appalled (I hadn't made it through the try-outs).  On some petty level, I think that nickname for the group made me feel better about not having made it. 

8. Did you like school?  Yes, for the most part.  I had good friends, but of course I didn't really like homework or waking up.  But I liked the learning part and was lucky to do well without a lot of effort. 

9. How long have you been out of school?  20 year high school reunion is this coming weekend!

10. What did you like most about school? What did you dislike most about school?  This relates more to grad school, but I liked being in school (and not working!), and of course I loved having a network of friends.  I guess I most disliked homework. 

Now it’s your turn to answer this week’s questions. Don’t forget to come back and link up in the comments! Happy Monday.