Injury, illness and hospital hill!

I know it has been a while since my last entry. Sorry.

Well alot has happened since my last blog.  First I had a day where I was very disappointed in myself.  I was going to meet my friend Katee for a run one morning in early May after work. At this point in time I was able to run 70 minutes without walking. That is a huge thing for me. I also had told Katee that I did not wheeze when I ran anymore.  Just to back up for a  minute last year when I ran with Katee she told me I had exercise induced asthma (which I denied) and she told me to he an inhaler (which I did not do) boy did I make a liar out of myself. So we meet and it is the first hot humid day of the year. I could not even run for 15 minutes without walking and I was wheezing. Katee said  "I thought you said you didn't wheeze any more." My response "I..ha..dnt...un...till...to...day!" What can I say gotta love Missouri weather. The more I have ran in the heat and humidity the more my body has become use to it. However I still prefer to run on a nice Spring day, but spring seemed to skip Kansas City this year.

I also suffered an injury in May.  I was training on some hills and as I was running down the hill my left knee started to ache. Now this normally would not be a big deal because when you run you always ache somewhere ask any runner. On this day it was a different kind of pain. I was limping and could hardly walk and I was in tears. This is a big deal because I have a pretty high tolerance for pain. So I limped to my car went home and iced my knee. One thing I learned from one of my favorite running magazine was running aches should never hurt when you are not running. If they do you need to rest your body. I was in severe pain even when I was working so I decided to take some time off from running for a few weeks so I would not worsen my injury. So as I was resting my body hospital hill race was getting closer. I called Katee and told her that I really felt I needed to run the 5k at the hospital hill run because I had not finished my training and did not feel I could run the 10k. We decided to think about it and would change the race if we had to at the expo when we pick up our racing bibs.

I want to take this time to tell you how awesome my friend Katee is.  She is an amazing runner and she always runs with me when in reality she could smoke me.   I appreciate her and her friendship and she is a great racing coach too.

So when we went to pick up our racing bibs we were still undecided about the race we would run. They told us we could change the race the next morning.  We decided we would sleep on it. The expo was so awesome they had vendors for Garmin, Nike the list goes on.  Addison was in love! There was so many things that little girl wanted. I can not blame her. There was so many things I wanted. I bought  a spibelt. If you are a runner I recommend one of these. It is a little belt that snaps on and it had a little pocket that is so stretches you can fit a whole pack of note cards in the belt. When I was running I had my drivers license, credit card, keys, and my Ipod and headphones because my Ipod DIED on me that morning! Anyway this belt is awesome and not bulky like the fanny pack.  Also I bought these headbands called Bondibands and they rock they absorb the sweat and they come in so many colors and patterns I could not decide so I let Addison pick them out. I bought 3.

So the next morning I decided to run the 5k. So now the problem was trying to find someone to help us change our race. Just to give you and idea there was over 7,000 runners in this race and they all had family members there to cheer them on. So finally I found someone and asked how to change races. He told me I could run whatever race I want but if I won the 10K and only ran the 5K I would not get the prize. I looked at him and said "That will NOT be a problem." I was right the person who ran the 10K beat me by 10 minutes when I only ran the 5k. I can not believe how fast some people are. Anyway the race was hard. I remember thinking I had ran "the hill"  then I saw "the hill and about lost it. Katee said its ok and handed me an inhaler...lol...so I was the asthmatic running up the hill with an inhaler. When I was running down the hill I hurt my knee again and figured out that I run down the hills to hard and the pounding causes pain. I finished and it was an amazing feeling the clock time was 45:00 min but my official time was 39:36. In a race this large your time does not start until you cross the start line but when you have 7,000 runners in a race you can not all start at the same time that is why each runner has 2 times. I will take 39 minutes.  Not bad for a knee injury and the first time on hospital hill. I whore my  "I conquered the hill" shirt with pride that day, as I will everyday. Then we ate free BBQ and I was home by 9am.

This week has been a tough one for my family and I. Tomorrow it will be one year since our beautiful Jase went to heaven.  I love that little boy so much and miss him everyday. I will never be the same because he died, but I am a better person because he lived.

Shellie

Hills...ugggh

Well my last blog I was talking about how running on Mondays was not my finest moment. However I have since overcome my Monday struggles. I ran yesterday for 60 minutes. That is the third time I had run this long. I have noticed every time I run an hour the distance I cover is a little farther each time.

I am now training for the Hospital Hill 10k on June 4th. I must say I am a little nervous about the race. Since I have started to train on hills I realized something. I hate running hills. I know hate is a strong word, and I repeat I hate running hills. Whenever I run hills my calves become tight or tighter depends on how far into the run I am. My calves are always very tight about the first 10-15 minutes of my run. I saw on  the Runners World  Facebook page quote for the day a quote i absolutely loved  it said: 

"What I learned from the miles of uphill my coach put before me was the simplest bit of math: The faster you run it, the sooner you're over it." - Sara Corbett, RW Writer at Large

I think that is a good philosophy. We will see how good when I run mostly hills on Wednesday. I think that if you push yourself up the hill hard you can recover on the downhill slope. I am open to suggestions from my runner friends.

I was also wondering some peoples suggestions on another subject...stretching. I was reading in my Shape magazine this month about stretching and it said you should not stretch before a run. It also said there is no evidence that this prevents injury. A year ago before I started running I would have said it is totally insane to not stretch before you run. However since I have started running I have really changed my mind. I have experimented with this, I have ran without stretching and I have ran after stretching and I came to a conclusion. No matter how much I stretch before a run my calves become very tight about 3 minutes into the run and remain tight until about 15 minutes into the run. After 15 minutes it really works itself out and the pain disappears.  I heard a saying at one time stating "if you feel good after a run you did not push hard enough because it is suppose to hurt." I can believe that. Running always hurts at some time. Ben told me last night when I was icing my knees "you are worse than a baseball catcher icing your knees." I told him "run for an hour and tell me how your knees feel." I believe he got the point :)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. It was a little tough on us. I enjoyed watching Addison  hunt for Easter eggs at three different Easter egg hunts, however I kept thinking how much fun Jase would have had searching for Easter eggs.  He is in the presence of the reason we celebrate Easter and that is a amazing comfort to me.

With mothers day this weekend I am going to try to keep busy. I am heading to moms house on Friday night to visit my grandparents. When I called my grandma last week and she had to ask "who is this" I realized it had been too long since I have seen them. One thing I have learned is life is too short and we are not guaranteed tomorrow. So a special trip to visit them is taking place. Saturday its back to Kansas City. Addison was invited to her first birthday party, and she is so excited. Saturday night is a night I have been looking forward to for a long time. One of my best friends Chelsi is coming and we are going to see Water for Elephants. I can not wait!

I am debating on if I should run the mothers day 5K on Sunday. We will see.

Happy Mothers Day







Addison and the Easter bunny



Easter dress



Addison and me before some egg hunting!





This is one of Jase last spring...he loved jumping on his daddys back.

Addison coloring some easter eggs



Mondays are not my best running days

So as I mentioned before I ran my first 5k on Saturday April 9th.  Well I was so excited and could not wait to run on the following Monday.  I had a lapse in judgment that day, and decided that I would take a strength training class before I ran that day.  I once took a pilates class before I ran and that turned out to be a horrible idea.  My legs felt like jello while I was running and up to that point it had been the hardest run I have ever done.  I had taken a strength training class at the YMCA before and it was a great class that only really worked my abs and arms so on this Monday I thought what can it hurt?  I found out it hurt me more than I imagined.  About 3 minutes into this class, I realized I made a BIG mistake choosing to take this class before I ran. Every move and I mean EVERY move including squats and heel raises. I knew the run on this Monday morning would not be a pretty one.  I had too much pride to leave the class 5 minutes into it.  I have seen people leave Zumba classes 10 minutes into the class and I always think "poor person can not keep up."  I was not going to be that person.  So as I met my  friend Monique following the class I think the first words out of my mouth went a little like this, "I do not know how good I am going to be, I do not know what I was thinking taking that strength training class.  All she did was work my legs the whole hour!"  Now one of the best things about having a workout partner is the encouragement.  She just said, "That's cool, we will just do what we can."  Then we were off...for a minute.  It was not too long into the run I just felt like my legs would give out so I had to slow down to a walk.  Then I would run a little. Then I would walk.  This went on the whole workout.  I felt horrible not only because I had just ran a 5k and it was an amazing accomplishment for me, I felt like I was holding Monique back from doing her best, and I also felt like I was letting Jase down.  One thing that Monique said to me when we had finished our walk/run (but more of a walk on this day) was this, "Shellie you are going to have good days and bad days and this was just a bad day."  What a great friend!

Before I go on I want to add that we are night nurses so we not only run...but we run after we have worked all night...just had to throw that in there.

So I woke up that Monday night to head to work and I could hardly even walk on my Right foot that night.  I had the phone in my hand to call in twice, but I am not a person who likes to call into work so I just sucked it up and went.  I would like to say this was a running injury but I am pretty confident that it was from the squats and heel raises from earlier in the day.  So I went to work and was in a large amount of pain at the beginning of the shift, but the more I walked on it the more it worked itself out so by that morning I had a minimal amount of pain.  End of injury.

So with my "injury" Ben told me I had to take Tuesday off. Tuesday is a cross training day so I was going to take a Zumba class. Going is the key word. I was a good girl and listened to my husband.

Wednesday was a running day.  I met Monique at a park that has a beautiful running trail.  I believe our workout was to run for 30 minutes.  I ran with no problem this day.  It amazes me what your body can do from one day to the next.  Just two days before I could hardly run 5 minutes.  Then on this day I could have probably ran more than 30.  We are training for the hospital hill 10K.  This morning we decided to go downtown and check the route out. In my mind I had pictured this huge hill that you could not  see the top of it because it was in the clouds.  So I am glad we decided to go check it out.  No hills to heaven on this route.

Then Saturday was a long run.  A 40 minute run.  Did I mention how cold it was outside on this day?  It was cold.  No running outside for me.  So off to the Y to the indoor running track.  Now 40 minutes on this track was probably over 50 laps. Yes 50.  The only thing that kept me from being too bored is that I could see Addison playing in the kids center.  She is so cute.  Just thought I would throw that in there.  The only mishap I had on this day is that I had to stop to tighten my knee bands.  Yes I wear knee bands.  I am old.  I ended up running over 3.5 miles.  After we ran they had an Easter egg hunt for the kids.  It was so much fun to watch Addison hunt the eggs.  She told me last night, "Mom I need to hunt Easter eggs again because I am good at it."  How cute.  If anyone knows of any Easter egg hunts in Kansas City or St. Joe this weekend let me know so Addison can show off her mad Easter egg hunting skills.

Then back to yesterday, Monday and as you can probably guess from the title of my blog that this was not a good day for me.  I told Monique that she could run on her own or wait for me.  Robert Pattinson was on Regis and Kelly so I had to watch that first.  She thought I was nuts and decided to run on her own.  I understand no love lost.  So after Regis I headed to the trail.  When I took my Ipod out of my bag I realized that I had left my receiver for it at home.  It is the device that tracks my runs.  So I headed home.  Now I could have run without it, but I like to track my progress and I do not log a single mile without it.  So I came home and ran around the seminary campus.  It was windy and there are some hills.  It was hard.  I had to cut my run short because my legs could not go anymore.  I was dripping with sweat.  I did not feel as much like a failure this day because I realized that on our long running day I need more than a day of rest in between. It is not that I failed, I was just listening to my body.  So I texted Monique and said we have to change our running days.  So we are going to mix it up a bit and see how it goes.

I just want to wish everyone a Happy Easter. While Easter egg hunts and Easter bunnies are fun. Lets not forget what we are really celebrating.

Then the angel said to the women. "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here he has risen just like he said."
Matthew 28:5-6

Happy Easter
Shellie

Jase last Easter. We sure will miss him this year.

Jase hunting eggs with daddy last year

Addison and Jase hunting eggs last year.  In Kansas City last year it rained so we had to do the Easter egg hunt inside.

Why I am doing this blog

On June 10, 2010 my life was forever changed! My beautiful  19 month old son went to be with Jesus. Nothing can prepare a parent for the death of a child and I would not want anyone to ever have to experience it.  Jase was a sweet, caring, and beautiful little boy.  He passed away peacefully in his sleep from a rare virus. He showed no symptoms and did not suffer. If a parent has to lose a child...I could not think of a better way to lose him.

Now lets back up to earlier in the summer of 2010. I decided that I would TRY to run.  Crazy I know.  I used see the same lady run down a busy highway everyday and think, "SHE IS CRAZY!"   So I had started the program Couch to 5k. On June 7th, I remember running around the seminary campus thinking, "Why am I doing this exactly?" When I was done for the day and walked in the door Jase and Addison were both so happy to see me I had my answer...  "I am doing this for them."

After Jase passed away I wanted to run more than ever. I had started something and I was not going to quit because I did not want to fail him.  During the summer I was improving at running and I could run almost 2 miles without walking and to me, that was a big deal.  Then winter hit. Winter in Missouri is not good for runners...its cold.  Cold and I do not get along. I never quit running, but I ran less and less.  I hated treadmills.  I tried to run on one once  and it turned out to be disasterous.  Let's just say it is a good thing I do not go to the gym to impress people because no one was impressed that day!  I was always thinking to myself  "I wish I had an indoor track to run on."

 I started a new job in December. One day one of my co-workers had come to work and was talking about the gym she joined had an indoor running track.  YES! I knew I wanted to join. Not only did it have an indoor running track it had an amazing area for kids and that is important because I wanted to be able to take Addison to the gym too.  I came home and talked to Ben about it and he told me to make it worth the money I would have to go to the gym 5 days a week. Well ok then!  I joined the next week!  The co-worker I had talked about is not only a co-worker, she became a dear friend. We started running together.  I restarted the Couch to 5k plan again.  I remember how long the 5 minute run seemed, but the runs became easier and easier!

Now fastforward to yesterday.  I reached my first goal, and ran my first 5k with my new running partner/friend.  My time was 34:36.  Now to some that probably seems slow but to me it was a huge acomplishment!  There was a fairly good size hill on this run that I was not anticipating, and there were times that it seemed like I could not go on.  I would just picture Jase's sweet beautiful face, pray to God for strength to go on and I did!  He gave me the strength to go on as he has many times since that day in June.

I named this blog Running for Jase, but I run for Addison too!  I am going to make a runner out of her and someday we both will be running for Jase.

They loved each other so much



Handsome