With a half-marathon only a week away, I spent yesterday on the up AND down side of what is (I believe) literally the only mountain in the state of Oklahoma: Elk Mountain, in far SW Oklahoma. Total elevation is around 2300 ft. over about a 6-mile distance. Since Oklahoma is, by and large, extremely flat, the view from the summit is amazing.

If I could figure out how to insert photographs, I'd put a pic here so that you'd see what I mean.

I went with the church's youth group and challenged any of them that felt up to it to run the trail with me. Naturally, we spent a good amount of time walking -- the trail can be steep and rocky -- the idea of a broken ankle right before my race wasn't appealing -- but I pushed the pace as much as I dared.

Only one girl took me up on my challenge -- and she stuck to me like glue, all the way up, and all the way down.

Time was a different issue; very slow on the 6+ miles going up, but faster (of course) coming back down. With a couple of rest breaks and one long stop at the summit while we waited for the rest of our group to make it -- about 3.5 hours total.

This hike killed me last year -- I was almost as sore afterwards as I was after my first half-marathon.

Today? Only the tiniest bit of soreness in my calves. Even better, this run didn't leave me trembling and exhausted, which was how I felt at the end of last year's hike. Where, incidentally, I drug behind most of the teenaged hikers. This year, I was either ahead of them OR leading the way. ..graemlin:;)--> Even the youth minister noticed and commented that I was in better shape this year than last year.

Good stuff all around. This was my last long run before my half-marathon, and I feel very relieved that I finished it feeling strong. Training has gone well, and I finally feeling pretty excited about next weekend.

Good grief, I'm a humongous klutz....and now I'm gonna have a really cool (yeah, that's sarcasm) scar to prove it.

I set out for my run yesterday morning in great spirts in spite of the fact that the 80-degree weather had disappeared in favor of 28-degree weather, forcing me to dig out my winter tights. I've been running through different neighborhoods around the university where I teach, and for some reason, it's reinvigorated my joy in running. I dunno why -- maybe I've just been spending too much time on the same old routes. Whatever -- I was just cruising along, nearing the 1.5 mile mark, thinking my own thoughts and having a great time.

I looked away from the road for just one second to admire a stately old home, and caught the side of one shoe on a patch of roughed-up pavement.

Yup, you guessed it -- down I went, in a fall that was probably worthy of the best piece of slapstick comedy ever produced. (You know, complete with flailing arms and surprised squeak). I hit the ground first on knees, then briefly on hands, and finally -- I'm not kidding, I promise -- on one shoulder. When I fall, I fall.

No one was around (or at least no one started laughing out loud at me), so I picked myself up and hobbled off a few steps, trying to see if I was hurt. I checked my shoulder -- no injury. (cheer) I checked my hands -- minor scrapes, no blood. (whew!). I pulled up one leg of my tights and looked at the knee. Big purple goose-egg coming up on the inside, but no blood. Gonna be a GREAT bruise, though. (OK. But it's still not as bad as it could be...). I pulled up the tight on the other side and revealed some scrapes, some blood, and what was going to (eventually) be a pretty decent case of road-rash. (Sigh. Not that's gonna talk to me later). I tried a few running steps. The bruise hurt, but not too bad, and everything else seemed fine.

Thank goodness I wore my tights, I thought, and took off again (a bit more slowly), determined to finish my run. Mostly under the assumption that, once the bruise arrived and the road-rash finished swelling, I wouldn't be so keen on running.

About 3/4 of a mile down the road, I noticed that the leg with the road-rash was....well, damp feeling. It didn't hurt, it just felt like my knee was wet, which at first made no sense at all. Then I remembered I hadn't looked at that knee -- I stopped investigating when I saw the scrapes.

I stopped again, unzipped the leg of my tights, and eased it all the way up over my knee. Oh. WOW. And yuuuuukkkkkk. It was a huge, bloody mess; I couldn't really even tell what I'd done, but it sure didn't look good. It didn't hurt, though, in spite of a pretty good amount of blood.

My house, and my medicine cabinet, are 70 miles away, but my office -- equipped with the world's greatest deptartment secretary -- is only a couple of miles away. So I lower the leg of my tights and start limping back toward the office. I could still run, but  running seemed to make the bleeding worse. The whole way, the knee didn't hurt, but I could feel blood running down that leg. (Double-triple yuuuuukkkkkkk)

I got to the office and totally freaked out both the secretary and my deptartment chair, who sent me to the University health center. An hour later, I left with six stitches in that knee, a brand-spanking-new tetanus shot, a set of X-rays for the OTHER knee, and some assurances from the marathoner nurse-practicioner that I'll be able to run again in a few days.

I gotta say, though, that last night, as I was nursing my owies and icing everything that looked even remotely swollen, that I doubted.   But this morning came with slightly better news: the bruised knee is colorful and swollen, but not terribly painful. The stitched knee is stiff and hurts to bend -- I can feel the stitches pulling -- but I can walk almost normally.

The Redbud Classic 10K is next week. I'll still have stitches, along with an assortment of bruises and sore muscles. <sigh>. Anyone see a PR in my future? ..(Sigh)....

First, I need to get this out of my system:

AARRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!

Thanks. I feel much better now.

OK. Southeastern OK is not supposed to get snow and ice. Ever. And if we do, it's supposed to melt quickly. I've lived here for 11 years, and have not once been stuck in the house for more than 24 hours.

This, my friends, is day number 5 of "Terry-gets-to-go-nowhere." No. Where. Not the store, not the video shop, not the freakin' post office. Nothing. Nada.

My workplace is 65 miles or so west of here, where they got mostly sleet and very little freezing rain/ice. Further, it's a major metropolitan area with (get this) ice removal equipment. So THEIR roads are hunky-dory. Heck, even the highway a mile from my house is OK. Not great, but passable.

But not me. Nope. I have 3-4 inches of compacted ice and sleet all over the road in front of my house. I can't even see the pavement, and no one (and I mean NO ONE) can drive a vehicle on it. I live in a valley between two fairly steep hills, and there is just no way for me to get enough traction to climb the hills so that I can get to the highway. So that I can leave the house. So that I can get to work, where (interstingly enough), they haven't closed the university and they still expect me to teach those classes.

I spent a solid hour this morning in my husband's SUV, trying to get up one of the hills, to no avail. Finally, I got stuck half in and half off the road, fortunately near home, and had to call my husband to come help me get the vehicle back down the driveway. Where we parked it, presumably until the roads are once again roads. As opposed to large, rambling, ice-skating rinks.

I called my dept. head, who's agreed to cover the classes....or something. But I can tell by the tone of her voice that she thinks I'm being a wimp....or perhaps I just don't want to come to work. I dunno.

My county commissioner tells me that they have just one piece of ice removal equipment that is operational, and that they *might* get to my road sometime before the spring thaw.

Maybe.


And, of course, to top it all off....I can't run in this crap, either.

I repeat:

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!

Sigh.

I love teaching. Really. Anyone who hasn't had a front-row seat to watch as some dorky little freshman..sort of blossoms....right before your eyes, just can't understand it. I love watching that; I love lecturing in front of what amounts to a captive audience; I love teaching students to *think* -- something many of them haven't really ever done before.

And then the end of the semester comes, bringing with it the two kinds of students I hate. The ones who suck the life out of me and make me yearn for the relative peace of my summer job of (no kidding, really) delivering pizzas: the grade-grubbers and, even worse, the plagiarists.

It's the end of the semester right now. Sigh.

OK. First, we have the A/B students who "just have to know" how they did on the final exam/speech/paper/project/whatever. Not later, when it's graded. NOW. They hover around my office and (again, no kidding) follow me down the hall to the Scantron machine. And they argue over every stinking point.

Example: Student "R." A potentially brilliant but not terribly motivated speech student at the Community college. Really good at picking interesting topics; not so good at, you know, researching them or organizing speeches around them. R wanted to do a persuasive speech over "why cheerleading isn't a sport." I told R that I wasn't sure it met the "who gives a shit" test....but if that's the subject burning in R's heart, well, R should do that speech.

So R did. Well, sort of. R DID stand at the podium and expound on the idea that cheerleading isn't a sport for around 10 minutes. No research. No source citations. No particular organization. You know, all those "teacher things." R got about half credit for the assignment, which truthfully, I felt was pretty darn generous.

R emailed me NINE times over one weekend, complaining and arguing about the grade. Not a bit interested in learning anything -- R just wanted assurances that R could still get that coveted damm A in the course. Once I ran the class averages and showed R what to do to GET that grade, R disappeared from my office and e-mail account, perfectly satisfied.

And some small but vital piece of my heart was gone forever.

Then, of course, there are the plagiarists. Nothing if not amusing, though. This semester, I've turned in a record EIGHT students for doing the old cut&paste Internet job, and then standing at the podium and reading their speeches out loud, word for agonizing word.

Best example(s) so far: In the space of 3 weeks, I heard the same speech about "aggressive driving" coming out of the mouths of 3 different students at two different schools. I know that speech so well that, by the time Idiot #3 got to the podium, I was able to mouth most of the speech right along with the student. Yessirree, "we have a problem. It's called aggressive driving, and it's on the rise." 

Fuck aggressive driving. What about aggressive teaching?? There's an idea. The next one of those little fuckers who goes to some idiotic website with a dead-giveaway name like "E-cheat.com," and then fucking reads the speech to me, I get to run down with my car, in the school parking lot. All while laughing maniacally and quoting great pieces of the offending speech.

Sigh.

But I'm not bitter or anything. Really.

Chalk one up to pure-D stubbornness for me. Last summer, I registered for the Tulsa Rt. 66 Marathon and started training in earnest. I even learned to manage the dreaded treadmill for runs of 5 miles or under. Got through summer in good shape and started ramping things up so that I could be ready for my marathon debut. And immediately started battling various injuiries and ilnesses.

I developed chronic bursitis in one hip. I had a stress fracture in the arch of my foot. I got the flu. Followed rapidly by a two-week bout of bronchitis. Every injury and every illness took me off my feet and out of my training schedule for several days at a time. I managed a small handful of longer runs -- 12, 15, and 18 miles. Nothing longer, and the weekend before the marathon, I decided to change from the full -- which I thought was questionable -- to the half-marathon, which I knew I could do.

So Mike and I left last Saturday (11/18) for Tulsa. Here's where it gets interesting.  I never changed my registration from the full Rt. 66 to the half....and when I got to the Expo, I just couldn't make myself do it.

So I stayed registered for the full. Met up with my brother and some other running friends before the race started, right at the 5:00 pacing sign. (No, I didn't think I could run a 5-hour marathon....but the pacer had a huge sign and red balloons. Made him a really easy target to find.) It really was a great day for running: cool, not too windy, bright sunshine. Honestly, for 18 miles, this race was everything I wanted it to be.

My brother and I split up at about the halfway point; he's much faster than me, and keeping to my pace was horrible for him.I hit the 13-mile turn around (it was mostly and out-and-back course) in about 2:45, a little off pace but feeling really strong. Right up until mile 18, I was passing people and feeling good.

My hip started huring right around mile 18, which slowed me to a run/walk combination...and everything kind of fell apart after that. By mile 23, I couldn't run at all, and I could tell that even my walking was getting relentlessly slower and slower. Every time I brought my right leg forward, it felt as if my hip was going to come out of its socket. Literally. But I didn't stop. Like I said, stubbornness trumps all, apparently.

By mile 24, I contemplated just sitting down on the curb and waiting for one of the many, many police cars to eventually find me and carry me back to the finish. I didn't care about finishing anymore -- the finisher's T-shirt, medal, and cheap plastic sandals had lost whatever marginal appeal they'd had earlier in the day. I just wanted to be done and to spend the ride home from Tulsa curled up in the fetal position in the backseat of my car. In tears, possibly.

But Providence (or something) stepped in, in the form of a bright and cheery runner named Leslie. She's already finished her half-marathon, and had been running back along the course, looking for friends who were struggling to finish the full. She found me, instead.

She came right up to me and asked if I wanted some company to walk with. I nodded -- for some reason, just her offer got me all choked up. She asked if I was hurting, and I nodded again. "OK," she said, falling right into step with me, "we'll just take it one step at a time."

And we did. She talked about her kids, and asked me questions about mine. We discussed running in general and hip pain specifically. (She made me promise to visit the medical tent once we crossed the finish line). Somehow, miles 24-26 went by and I was still moving. She stayed with me until I could see the finish line, gave me a quick hug, told me to run it in strong, and left, still searching (I suppose) for her friends.

So I ran it in, as well as I could. Every step hurt....I was immediately out of breath....I wanted to cry. But I went across the finish line, under my own steam.

At 6:30:54. Frustrating ONLY because until mile 18, I was on pace for a 5:40 finish.

But I'm home now, finisher's medal and shirt on my dresser, nursing what is easily the most tender and sore hip/groin area that I've ever experienced. On Sunday night, the only way I could walk was to keep my right leg planted on the ground and sort of slide it forward with every step.

Yeah, I should have stuck with the half-marathon. My time for the half was great, and I would undoubtedly be feeling better right now. But, given my personality, I don't know that I could have made any other decision.

BTW, I did visit the medical tent afterwards. Whoever the guy was who was on-duty pulled and stretched at my legs so hard and so forcefully that I found a brand-new use for my Lamaze breathing (which I haven't used in nearly 12 years), but it didn't work any kind of magic on whatever is hurting me.

Today, 3 days later, most of the muscle soreness is gone, but that hip is still wonky and fairly painful. I'm afraid to go back to the doctor, because 1) he'll give me more grief for running injured, and 2) he *might* confirm my own self-diagnosis of a hip stress fracture to go along with the one in my foot.

I can't believe that this is what I do for FUN.

Well....maybe not down.....but it's hurting, I guarantee it. Although maybe not as much as I am.......

Anyway, here is my race report from my first half-marathon. I ran the Oklahoma City Memorial half-marathon. For those who don't know, the race commemorates the lives of the 168 people who died in the 1995 bombing of the Murrah federal building in OKC. The site is now a national memorial, and the race starts and stops at the memorial itself. It also began with 168 seconds of silence - - one second for each person who died, and features (among other things) 168 banners along the race course, each one with a victim's name on it. There were around 11,000 people entered in one of 3 races: marathon, half-marathon, or 5K. It was a very moving experience, and something I plan to do every year that I'm able.

Of course, I'm an Oklahoman, and a native of Oklahoma City...so I may be a bit biased in favor of my hometown.

Now, about the race:

The race was awesome - - it was just one of those days that I felt like I could run forever. It took me awhile to pick my way around walkers, since I was staged at the back, but after the first mile, I was running consistent 12-minute miles. Until mile 4, that is, when I had an unexpected and undeniable call of nature. I *could* have run another mile or two with my full bladder.....but it would have been a huge distraction, so I stopped then and waited. There were 4-5 people in line ahead of me for the only 2 porta-potties out there. So add 6-7 minutes  onto my time for that.

I expected to be walking at least part of the time by mile 7, but felt surprisingly good. I walked through water stations, but other than that (and my potty break), I ran the whole time. Until mile 9, when the Vaseline wore off under my arms and I started to chaff. Again, I could have ignored it and run for a couple more miles, but it would have been an even bigger problem later. Add another 3-4 minutes onto my time while I *found* someone who understood why I wanted Vaseline......*found* an aid station with Vaseline.....*found* the Vaseline....and then put it on.

(And no, I am *not* a pervert. Vaseline just keeps me from rubbing raw under the arms when I run. For your information. Geez -- get your minds out of the gutter, willya?)

I only walked once, outside of water stations. I had planned on walking between mile 11-12 so that I would be able to run the last mile to the finish. I'll be dammed if I'm going to walk across a finish line unless I'm injured. So I stopped running at the 11 mile mark and started walking.

Walking at that point hurt worse than running -- when I walked, I could feel my feet swelling and my hamstrings tightening. After about half a mile, I started running again, and ran the rest of the way in.

My chip time was 2:52. I really think that without the stops, I might have been looking at a time that was closer to 2:30 than 3 hours, which means I might be able to complete a marathon in under 5 hours. What I can't get over was how easy it seemed to run -- after the first mile, I didn't struggle to breathe, I didn't feel tired; it was great.

Now, 4 hours after the half-marathon....I was telling a different tale. I took a shower, ate, and drove an hour and half to get back home. Then, since my morning started at around 4 AM, I took a two-hour nap.  When I woke up, I literally couldn't walk without help. OUCH!! The tendons along the outside of both legs got so stiff and tight that I couldn't straighten my legs fully OR support my weight on them.

I went to bed fearing that I'd crippled myself, but of course, I woke up Monday feeling back to normal. I'm going to lose a toenail on my right foot -- I'm told this happens often in distance running -- but other than that, I feel great.

Onward and upward.

Sunday was my first 10K -- the RedBud Classic in Nichols Hills. For those of you who don't know Oklahoma City, this is *the* rich neighborhood -- very old money indeed.

First, it was hot. Very hot. Hotter than anyone predicted. Too hot, actually, for the pants I was wearing for my debut as a racer. Fortunately, to everyone's great relief, I decided to keep them on anyway.

Second, I am slow. Slow, slow, slow, slower-than-you-can-possibly-believe slow. So slow that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish my "running" from my "walking." Slow enough, in fact, to be passed by walkers.

Third, 6.2 miles is *every* single bit as long as it sounds like it would be.

But those are just details -- window dressing on the actual event. The gun went off at 2 PM. *I* passed the starting line about 10 minutes later, just ahead of (naturally) the parents pushing decorated strollers. We ran for a mile. There was a water stop. I wasn't thirsty, but I'd been warned "DO NOT miss a water stop" by the race officials, so I drank some piss-warm gatorade anyway. Mmmmmmm.

Turned out to be a good thing -- there wasn't another water stop for 3 MILES. Yup. That's right. No water at all until mile marker 4. To be fair, there *had been* water stops -- there were empty cups all over the pavement, and at one of them, I actually saw people folding and carrying away the tables. There just wasn't anything to drink by the time I hauled my ass to that location. (The charitable part of me assumes that they just ran out of stuff to drink....but I'm not sure. Maybe they were just tired of waiting for us f****ing slowpokes. I dunno).

At mile 3.5, I couldn't take it anymore. Ahead of me,  there was a little boy with a water hose, cheerfully spraying down runners as they passed. (Did I mention it was hot?). I stopped, waited until I had his attention, and then flat-out begged him to let me drink from his water hose. I believe I even told him that it was his water hose or the puddle in the middle of the street.

I was embarrassed....until I noticed the growing line of thirsty runners forming behind me as I hunched over the hose.

Long story short (too late)...I finished in 1:23 -- not exactly Olympic time, but I was upright and still kinda-sorta running.

 

It's probably just me, running ssssslooooooowllllly up a hill. Please don't call 911 -- my face is supposed to be this color. Really.

OK. So I've been running for nearly two years. I usually run alone, mostly on cross-country tracks or on the abandoned oil lease roads behind my house. This helps me preserve the illusion that I fleet, graceful, and swift. It's good for my self-esteem, anyway.

And then yesterday, I was passed on the track while I was running. By multiple people: By a group of young runners, four abreast, deep in conversation. (Yeah, yeah, yeah). by a young guy (OK, that one I expected). By a sorority girl in a designer outfit and perfect hair. (kind of a bummer, but still). By a middle-aged man with a beer belly. (dammit) And finally, by a mom pushing a baby in a stroller!!

Yeah. I wish I were kidding, too.

So, next week, I'm "running" the Redbud Classic (6.2 miles o' fun). And at the end of April, I'm entered in the Memorial half-Marathon (13 miles, but who's counting).

What the hell am I thinking, anyway?? Someone, anyone, please.....just point me in the direction of some good, strong anti-psychotics, 'kay?