The Dramatic Twist In The Marathon Tale

So, just like a Hollywood movie, there always has to be a twist in the epic tale right? Some hurdle that the hero of the story must conquer before they can triumph? Well I have had mine this last week and a half.

Last Tuesday was when I first felt it, an ache in my left knee while running. I didn't think too much of it, these things happen, no big deal. Probably that was the moment when I should have realised that I needed a rest... I had just run 81km over the previous 9 days afterall, plus I was on nightshift. But no, silly me, so close to the finish line, and honestly, a little obsessed, went running again on Wednesday. That is when it started to hurt. By friday, I could only run a kilometre before needing to stop because of the pain. I had a massage after that on Friday, but then only managed 3kms the next morning.... that is when I realised, and heart sinkingly so, that it was time to stop, and heal.

On sunday I grimaced my way through Lollipop Markets, I had a great day, but I was in pain... so much so that immediately after arriving home I dragged my family down the beach so I could go wading in the water footballer style in the hope I could reduce some inflammation. Not suprisingly I got a lot of stares wading around out there with my trackie-daks hitched up as far as they could go.... it actually felt kind of nice though I will admit.

Because at this stage I'd put myself on a running ban until Wednesday I made arrangements to go swimming at the aquatics centre on Monday night with a friend... but sadly as my style is a bit crap, my kicking motion still made my knee hurt. That is when my friend convinced me to make an appointment with a physio. I couldn't get in until Thursday.

On Tuesday a care package arrived express post in my letter box care of the lovely Shan from Missy Melly . Shan is a woman of many talents, one of which is that she is a qualified acupuncturist. My care package contained adhesive anti-inflammatories and a diagram of where to put them and instructions explaining how to use them. I cried. Big gulping hard to breath cried. I've only ever "met" this beautiful woman virtually and she cared enough to send me this. How awesome is this world. How awesome is she.

Shan's method worked brilliantly for me and by wednesday afternoon I was relatively pain free.... until my test run of 5kms. It was highly uncomfortable. But still an improvement on the weekend. Could I run 42kms in this kind of pain? Maybe.

I sat with ice last night trying to will my knee better.

This morning I hurt again.

In my 17 years or so of running I have never had running related knee pain. To say I was starting to feel scared this morning is an understatement. But by now I'd made up my mind that I was doing my marathon no matter what.

I walkied into the physio today and said. I am running the Adelaide Marathon on Sunday, I seem to have developed runner's knee in the past week. I hurt, but I need to run this marathon. She said the words I needed to hear "Ok. Let's see what we can do".

So after an inital assessment of my knee, she said there was no damage to my knee and I "will be fine to run my marathon on Sunday". RELIEF. My problem turned out to be a ridiculously tight quad that was restricting movement in my knee cap, causing the pain. She suspected that night shift had made me too tired to recover properly..... stupid night shift.

I'd like to say she massaged my leg, but that conjurs some kind of relaxing, candle lit, soft music kind of senario... I would more liken it too tenderising a piece of meat. I love a tough massage but this was literally breath-taking, eye screwing up pain. Then she stuck in about 12 acupuncture needles and repeatedly pricked me with some kind of aparatus, kind of like aerrating a lawn. Then she strapped my knee, carefully showing me how to do it myself....and the best bit, gave me strict instructions to make my husband massage my thigh every night. Awesome.

I was then sent off, feeling immediately better and having been told to run tonight to see how it felt.

Adelaidians will know how the weather is tonight.... cold, pouring with rain and very windy. I strapped on my shoes and ran... some of the run was a little uncomfortable, but mostly it was fine, especially the further I went. WOW! I cried...as I do.

I suspect tomorrow I will feel like a train wreck in the thigh region, but right now, all I can do is smile. It was always going to hurt, now probably a little more so, but, that marathon is still within my grasp.

Moments Like This.

I had a kitchen sponge throwing incident today. I'm on night shift. Night shift makes me feel like I am walking around in a big fog, the cummulative sleep deprivation really starts to make me nuts as the week moves on. Currently I'm half way through, 2 nights down, 2 to go, so the sponge throwing was a little unexpected, it's more of a Thursday thing.

Hours later, I'm not exactly sure why I did it. The house was quiet, Delilah was at kindy, Mackenzie was down for her nap, I'd just gotten up from my 3 hour sleep to tide me over until tomorrow morning... I should have been all good. But no, one minute I'm doing the dishes, and the next minute I am going postal and throwing the kitchen sponge in my poor husband's general direction while ranting about everything that I felt needed to be done right that second and kind of hyperventilating. To Luke's credit, he stayed quite calm, and came and gave me a hug, and told me everything would be ok, I guess he's a bit used to me after almost 12 years. I ranted for a bit longer. Then calmed down.

I have moments like this every now and then, really it's not suprising I'm having one this week, no sleep, a big market coming up on the weekend and the Marathon only a week and a half a way, realistically a crazy moment was probably over due. However, it's always perplexing to look back on a moment like that, and just go "What was that about?".

Since that moment, I have done some crafting, had a coffee with my Mother's Group and been out for a walk along the beach at sunset. Now I'm calm again, and the moment has passed... I'm sure it won't be the last time though, but for now I'm ready to push on.

Fabric Addict

My name is Sam and I am a fabric addict, more over, I'm a :

I see it, and I need it. And what is worse my Husband enables me. He brought me home this all in one day last week:

And this is why we began Verri Vintage over a year ago. A means of constantly destashing so we don't become crushed my our mountainous piles of pretty, soft, retro, vintage, floral, scrummy (ok starting to drool..)fabric.

And while Ryan does say it's ok:

Sometimes it is best to share out the love a little.

Scared

I'm running the Hills to Henley tomorrow. It's a 30km fun run from Athelstone Primary School to Henley Sailing club. I am scared.

When I was at work on Tuesday I felt the first signs of a cold, my worst nightmare at this late stage in my training for the Adelaide Marathon.

I downed four cups of hot lemon juice and water while I was at work and woke up feeling fine Wednesday... then stupidly didn't bother to think about it again and unfortunately woke up on Thursday with a full blown cold.

I stayed home sick on Friday and went to see my Doctor, who raised his eye brows and shook his head at me when I insisted that I would be fine to run on Sunday. He sighed and said "You are going to do it no matter what I say aren't you?". He got a resounding yes, 30kms is part of my training regime and I *need* to do it this weekend. So with the promise that I wont try my hardest (LOL!) I'm allowed to run.

I tried a bit of this as medicine:

And I feel quite confident that it was the right idea.

I am stil scared though.... imagine how it's going to feel in three weeks time.

Sweet Dreams - Or Lack There Of.

This is my happy place...

My bedroom... or more specifically my bed. Now get your mind out of the gutter, it's because this is the place where I get to sleep.

Anyone who has known me pre-children will know just how much I like my sleep. I was the girl who would sleep late, read in bed in the afternoon, take a nana-nap if I thought a big night was on the cards (or turn into a pumpkin at midnight so I could head to bed), and I would sleep so soundly, not even an earthquake would wake me.

Then came Miss D. She was a typical newborn, and we had the standard first 8 weeks of sleep deprivation, entirely expected. What I didn't expect was that she wouldn't sleep during the day either. Around the 8 week mark she started to settle a bit and we started getting glorious 5 and 6 hour stretches of sleep, she still wouldn't sleep during the day, but it was alot easier to handle with a little extra sleep under the belt at night time. But alas, it all went pear shaped at around 4 months. No sleep, ever. And it stayed that way.

D had chronic ear infections which,as we all know, are absolute agony. Always so much worse when one goes to lie down. During the day I would get her to have a small nap lying on me (something she did until I was so pregnant with Miss M that at 18 months she would no longer lie down on me and started dropping day time naps.)Night times were just impossible. I have a vivid memory of passing out on the floor next to her bed one night because I was so tired, I was about 8 months pregnant, so to say I woke up uncomfortable is an understatement.

I remember just before M was born someone asking me how I felt going back to those sleepless nights with a newborn. My answer? "How could it be any different from right now?".

It was different, M fed every two hours and at 8 months was still having several feeds during the night. She was such a hungry little monkey (incidently that hasn't changed I hear say "I'm Hoooooongry Mumma!" about a 1000 times a day). The difference was that she slept really well during the time she wasn't feeding, and so long as she was in her own bed her day time sleeps were fantastic.

M arriving, and sharing a room with D had an amazing effect on her, she began sleeping through the night. However by this time we had such a firm ingrained bed-time routine, we found that it was impossible to alter it even slightly with out getting a sleep-less night from her. This is something that has remained, and now even at 4 we find that if she has a slightly late night, sleeps in a different bed or even doesn't have a cup of milk before bed we pay for it for days.

In four years it is safe to say that we have only had a handful of full nights of sleep, most of them recently. I realise that many others have experienced, or are experiencing this now.... it's nothing new or special. What I will say though is that it has had a profound effect on Luke and I. We have both become quite sensitive about the subject of sleep. When out, we like to have dinner early, so we can get the girls home to bed at the right time. We will often have friends over for late lunch rather than dinner so we don't mess up bed time, and if we are somewhere and our kids are tired, we will leave, no questions asked. Sometimes I get cross with myself for being so regimented about it all and throw caution to the wind and mess with the routine. It always, always backfires.

There have been some upsides, now when I do nightshift I find that I can (usually) withstand a week of literally no sleep with out bursting into tears. I can function really well on so much less sleep and have discovered that there are so many more hours in the day to get things done. Most importantly, I will never again comment or pass judgement on the way another parent deals with bedtime.... I say do what you have to do to keep everyone happy. If, in this house it means that sometimes we have to cut a night out short, or leave a party because M needs a nap, to ensure a semi-decent night sleep, We will do it.It wont be forever after all.

My Own Fun - No More Borrowing

I was directed to a very interesting blog post yesterday by Natatsha Burns about image theft and copying. You can read it here

It got me thinking about my own use of images and how I had inadvertantly been theiving the work of others by posting images and not referencing them on Facebook. It was of course something that had never occured to me, saving a pic found on Pinterest here and there and then posting them on my page, I never saw anything wrong with it. Then I read this article and a slow blush crept up on my face and I felt sick realsing what I had done.

Now honestly I am a bit of an over-reactor, I take things pretty hard, and I really do need to learn not to stress so much, but this realisation really got to me. I have been copied before, I have also had my own images shown but not referenced and these are things that rather than have made me angry have actually just plain hurt... and I really just felt I should have known better.

So after having a bit of a stress and getting in a bit of a fluster, my usual style, I thought, what can I do about it? Especially now that this kind of accidental theiving is so unfortunately common? Easy. I can make my own stand, even if it's just me alone. So as of today I pledge to only post my own created image or if I share another's work, it will ALWAYS be appropriately referenced, so that if you like it, you can find where it came from and the right person gets the credit.

Anyone else going to make their own fun?

The Finish Line

I am on nightshift this weekend. One of the only good things about nightshift is that I get a glorious Friday all to myself before starting work at 10pm that night. Lately with all the running training the friday morning is taken up with a long run, which then paves the way for a very quiet book reading, movie watching nana-napping kind of an afternoon. This morning was no different, despite the ice on my next-door neighbour's roof being a massive turn off I laced my shoes for a 20km run.

So what do I do when I'm runnning, do I listen to music? No. I look around me at all the beautiful things. And I think.

This morning while running next to the ocean, along the river, underneath low flying planes near the airport, past the fancy mansions at the marina and eventually back home I spent the two hours mostly thinking about how far I have come in the past two years.

Over two years I have lost almost 18kg and have progressed from 7.5km being an epic run, to a regular 20km jaunt on the weekends, I even managed 30kms for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Yes, it has taken a long time, and no, it hasn't been easy. But I have done it.

I am only weeks away from my very first marathon now, and the thing I am starting to find the hardest is the mental fatigue. While I have become physically very strong, I am finding that my mind is beginning to waver. I constantly hover between believing I can do this and wanting to throw it all in.

The travel down memory lane that my head did this morning was very helpful. My brain reminded me that how I feel after a 25km run now, is how I felt after 14km a year ago. It reminded me that this time 12 months ago I was 7kgs heavier. It even reminded me how only just two months ago getting up at 5.30am in the middle of winter to fit in a 10km run before my girls wake up would have been unthinkable.

So I realise now, that the finish line is so close. I have come so very far, and yes it's hard, but I won't be giving up.