Marathon Mom

Overall 2008 was a pretty good year in both running and non-running life. Here are some highlights of the past year... -Went back to grad school in January and am 1 semester away from finishing. -Fun travel: my first trip to Europe (Dublin and London), a winter vacation to Jamaica and weekends in San Francisco and Duluth. We've got a cruise planned for February, can't wait. -Overcame a tough recurring ankle injury to run a great 10K in September, finish Grandma's in a decent time and kicked butt on the run part of a duathlon. This taught me how much I enjoy running and how thankful I am that I can continue to run. -Overcame my fear of biking after the 2007 crash and finished my first tri, duathlon and bike ride. I even got aerobars for Christmas. -I discovered how fun biking is and learned that it makes me a stronger runner and duathlons are fun. -Matt started running and got a new road bike, he's now planning his first tri. -Reconnected with some friends who I had lost...

Looking back on 2008 at my goals... -Drink less Diet Mt. Dew I quit drinking all diet pop in late last winter and have been successful except all the diet Mt. Dew I drank during the Relay, I needed caffeine to run on minimal sleep. -Eat less sweets Not sure I will ever accomplish this. -Get healthy and stay injury free I am still healing, but nothing new. The low mileage months and cross training have been good for me. I think I'll be 100% to start marathon training in a month. -Qualify for Boston at Grandma's Marathon Nope, but did fine considering I ran after only being back to running 6 weeks after almost 4 months off -Finish my first multi-sport events (a Duathlon and a Tri) I finished both, loved the duathlon, not so much the swimming part of the tri. -Keep up with the cross training once I'm back to running Not so good at this, was biking 2x week and swimming 1x week for awhile, am just getting back into biking again after a couple months of strictly running. -R...

This weather lately has not been great for running, below zero temps and even worse wind chills plus piles of snow and wind. To make things worse, I think that the city is taking the holidays off from plowing the sidewalks and trails. Each outdoor run I have done this winter has involved climbing snow piles and ending up with wet feet. After taking a few days off due to pain from the stupid toe I have been forced to do way too much running on the treadmill. The good news is that since yesterday I am pain free. Strangely my toes doesn't hurt to run, but still aches when I walk. Maybe this is telling me something.

I have lost nails in the past, just a consequence of running. In the past they have always been smaller nails and fell off on their own. This one was different, it was my big toe and had some help, okay a lot of help, from the doctor to come off. I have been dealing with an infection in my toe and nail and 6 weeks of antibiotics hasn't helped, it is even getting worse. Running makes my toe throb for days and the redness and swelling makes it look like it is ready to explode. I gave in a saw a podiatrist this morning with hopes for a simple solution. His solution is 6 more weeks of antibiotics and removing the nail to relieve the pressure and get the infected base out. You're kidding, right? No, he wasn't and I now have one less toenail. I have seen a lot of things in my life that most would consider disgusting, but this was by far the worst. I have an extreme hatred of feet and watching this actually started to make me ill. I am crossing my fingers that this works and I soo...

My treadmill first broke back in July during a storm where I tried running inside to avoid the lightening. We of course forgot all about it not working until a few months later when Matt thought he could fix it. The company even sent us a new motor to try, which Matt finally installed last month without good results. We eventually gave in and had someone come look at it. It took him 2 visits to fix it, which I'm sure he was not thrilled about since Morgan scared to crap out of him. Kind of funny to see a grown man terrified of my cute, cuddley dog. I am so happy with the latest cold and snow to have this working again. I am a cold weather wimp and prefer to run inside in anything under 20 degrees. I have even gone as far as running a 20 miler on the treadmill 2 years ago when training for a January marathon, that was tough and I was going crazy by the end, but I guess better then freezing.