California Dreaming

Sitting here...

Wishing I could be there...

It wasn't a bad weekend as far as workouts went. I did the 8 mile hike to Chasm Lake and the vertical, and it didn't bother me. Then Saturday I ran an hour, did a little lifting and core work, which has me sore today, but it's a good sore in the right places. My hamstring felt fine during the run, I only did 10 minute miles, and it was humid like Florida! I know that picking up the pace is not a good idea right now. But it was good to be able to do the run without a peep out of the hamstring.

Today when I got up, I did some more abdominal work that I didn't finish Saturday, and then I went for a 25 mile bike ride, without pushing the hills too hard. I decided to not run today and give the hamstring a break since I'd like to be able to run the next two days, for my sanity. I can run in the morning before work Monday and then Tuesday I'm off, so I figured this was a good time to rest it.

I won't have a lot of time to run this coming week and that will be good, it will force me to have another full week of down time from intense workouts. The hamstring has definitely improved and the groin does not seem to be any problem at all.

I was thrilled to read that Joe Fejes broke the Vol-State record, he ran the 314 miles across Tennessee in 3 days and 8 hours. Awesome job, Joe! And Lisa Smith-Batchen is doing a Badwater quadruple crossing this year. I know she'll enjoy every step of the way and do great.

Even if I'm not running Badwater, I always have the best time with the medical team, I am just as happy to do that instead of running the race. But I'm missing it, the magic of being there in that spectacular place, in that huge space surrounded by colorful rocks, cradled by salt flats, and covered by blue sky in the day and mind-blowing stars at night.

I really do wish everyone a fantastic time and that everyone has the fun, memorable, and safe race experience they worked so hard to achieve. It's painful to not be there, because I know how I feel every time I am there, and also how motivated and inspired I feel every time I come back. It always helps me put things back in their proper perspective.

Each time I come back from Death Valley, being surrounded by so many strong, positive, enthusiastic and supportive people, I realize again that the little stupid things we deal with day to day, like the pettiness of people who have no life outside of their power-grabbing, insecurity-induced fears, and relationally aggressive habits, are not what life is about.

There are so many of those people, who often rise to the just the right place and become roadblocks in their desperation to maintain control behind masks and facades that attempt to hide their self-loathing misery. If you're not careful, their sociopathic cruelty, lack of empathy and insensitivity can stop you in your tracks and make you question your entire purpose for going forward and existing.

This is a fact of life and the working world, unfortunately, it happens everywhere. But I find it awfully ironic that nurses do this to each other, and they're probably among the worst! So next time you hear someone refer to nurses as angels, not only is that a rather backward, sexist comment, but it's also as far from the truth as you can get. No, nurses are not angels. Many of them are hard-working, intelligent, kind people with good hearts who sincerely care to help other people, but there are enough mean girls out there to more than make up for the good intentions of any halo-sporting people in scrubs. Don't be fooled.

Life is about enjoying what you do. You have to be happy. It's important to be in a non-toxic environment, around people who are happy and secure enough in themselves that they don't play games. People who can feel joy in other people's successes, and can continue to believe in themselves without feeling like someone else's success somehow takes away from theirs. That is what is so great about ultrarunning, the supportive environment of athletes who understand that we're all just trying to do the best that we can as individuals, and that is what contributes to the positive energy that helps others push themselves to greater achievements.

Badwater is something I really need for my head right now. But I'll have to be content with what is. I go back tomorrow to work, and I'll be doing 5 shifts over the next 7 days, which will likely kill me, but in case I don't die, someone please put me out of my misery the following week, when I'm trying to recover from it. I just hope that they have plenty of support available through the entire week for all this new computer stuff. After a month I imagine it will become routine.

I can always have escape fantasies about Death Valley. Instead of driving down Lemay Avenue, I can be driving down this road.

It's been a quiet, low-key weekend. It rained some, and it got humid. Better than the bone-dry weather we had the past few years.

When the sky looks like this, Isabelle hides out in the woman cave.

Dennis was busy working on the area where we will be putting raised beds for the garden. He was practicing for when we go to Manhattan Beach, working on his tan and beefing up his runner's body for the Cuervo girls.

Peaceful Morning at Chasm Lake

At 4:30 am I knew I needed to take advantage of the day. I tried to go to bed early last night but couldn't fall asleep and was up until past 11 pm. I set my alarm for 4:30 so I'd get up in time to get to the Longs Peak Trailhead before the whole world arrived.

I almost fell back to sleep when the alarm went off, but I did make myself get up. It only took an hour to get from my house to the trailhead. Just before I turned off highway 7 to the Longs Peak road, there was this huge elk that crossed the road. I pulled over and took a few pictures.

I started out walking on the trail, I needed to figure out right away if my hamstring was even going to tolerate it. But there was not a peep out of the hamstring or the groin, and I began to jog the flat sections, being careful on the steep parts to not overstride.

When I got to the junction of the Chasm Lake/Granite Pass trail I decided to go to Chasm Lake, because there was less vertical involved, and I didn't want to overdo it.

I took a ton of pictures on the way up, the morning was cloudy, but the sun came out enough that the light was constantly changing, I wished I had been able to drag myself up earlier and catch the sunrise.

I continued along the trail to Chasm Lake and at one point I could see the waterfall between Chasm and Peacock Lakes, and so far there were plenty of wildflowers, but nothing breathtaking. Suddenly I turned a corner and there was a whole hillside full of freshly blooming columbines!

Fortunately there were not a lot of people out this morning, I needed the peace more than anything. There was one loud and obnoxious group of young boys below Chasm Lake but once I got to the lake I couldn't hear them anymore. I had the lake to myself. When I got to the end of the trail before the final climb up to the lake, which is slightly more technical than running, but slightly less technical than bouldering, that was the challenge for my body. Once I felt my groin and a couple of times I felt the hamstring as I climbed up the rocks, gripping small ledges with my hands. But it was nothing that lasted, it was just an awareness of these vulnerable places in my body.

I think it was a total of 8 miles and maybe 2400 feet of climb and the same of descent. Not much, but enough to challenge my flatland-acclimatized body. The hardest part of the whole thing was whenever I get on rocky stretches of trail and something causes my ankle to twist, causing eversion of my ankle, I am in serious pain. And it happens a lot on trails. That peroneal tendon injury is still there, but at least I don't feel it on the flats and running smooth surfaces anymore, but rocky trails kill me. Just a small twist is excruciating. I wonder if that's a permanent thing or if I can rehab it further. I hate to think my trail running days or even hiking days are over.

I was out for about 4 hours and I took a gazillion pictures.

This weekend it seems like everyone is at Badwater, Hardrock, or Vol State. This was my wimpy attempt to have my own little adventure run, a measly 8 miles, before I go back to work Monday for a week of way too many hours and who knows what chaos will ensue with the new computer system, which goes live tomorrow.

I'm feeling better about things psychologically. I've done a lot of talking with trusted friends and colleagues the past few weeks. As one of my nurse friends pointed out, there is a lot of physical, mental, and spiritual abuse that goes on in nursing. It's something you have to come to grips with if you're going to stay in the profession, and decide what you're willing and not willing to tolerate. And that's really what I've been struggling with. Right now it's more in the spiritual realm for me, though 12 hour shifts make it feel physically abusive to my body and definitely aggravate all the other factors.

And my friend Chris who has been my nursing mentor since the day I started, reminded me that it's good practice to let go on a daily basis.

I need some balance back, and I think I needed more of a break from running than I gave myself. Jumping into June with 2 marathons, even as easy training runs, was not the best idea. I can tell because I am enjoying the little forced break from running, I have not been obsessed at all with maintaining fitness at an intense level. One more week of extra time at work, and then I can recover and move on with my own stuff.

Maybe all the little aches and pains will disappear then.

Brighter and Hotter

I'm sitting here in the 95 degree woman cave, getting a little heat training in. Just sweating a little. Might turn on the AC later. But it can be used as a sauna.

Being bombarded on Facebook with tales of pre-Badwater preparations, people running Vol State, and other things I'd rather be doing right now, has been pretty rough, but I'm enjoying the stories. Vol State is one of those bucket list races that I'd like to do sometime just for fun, but I'm not overly excited about it at this point. Not yet.

Yesterday afternoon I went out for a walk so I could think, and I got no more than 50 feet from my house when I ran into Phil, an ultrarunner neighbor of mine. He's training for Leadville. I asked him if I could jog along with him to the corner, to test out my legs.

I ended up running with him for about a mile and my groin did not bother me at all. It doesn't feel worse today, either. The hamstring, I could just barely feel that, it was the kind of thing where you know that it's okay as long as you stay at a certain pace, but if I tried to stride out or run fast, I'd feel it.

My mind really needs a change of scenery, so I'm considering making a part-day trip to Estes this weekend and hiking up the Longs Peak trail, if my hamstring will allow it. If not, I don't know what I'll do. I need to get out and move forward, and see something different than the inside of a woman cave and my house and the streets of Fort Collins.

All my inner turmoil is being quelled somewhat. I find it helpful to talk to people I trust and respect when I lose my way in the world. It helps to bounce these crazy thoughts and ideas off several of my close friends and get their input, and I find out that no, I'm not so crazy despite the wacky things I've been thinking. There are some parts of this that I need to let go of, and I need to practice that. Some of it I'm willing to pursue but if it becomes necessary, I'll let go.

So after a very validating and positive coffee meeting this morning, I felt a bit recharged. I need a long walk, hike, bike ride, or something to run all this junk through my brain and out the other ear.

I looked at the calendar and I think as long as I can keep the hamstring on a healing trajectory I should have enough time to salvage my training before October. The race in August is looking iffy, but I won't worry about that for now. Might end up just being a training run with a new place to check out, or not at all. I'll worry about that after I get through THIS month.

Work Hangover Wednesday: In A Handbasket

The week of disasters started a week ago and is still going strong. First there was the exhaustion from work and feeling sick. Then there was the hamstring strain. Now there's the groin strain. I tell you, this is all hazardous to my health. I'm falling apart.

I think I strained my left hamstring doing the Rock Repeats, I'm not quite sure, because it could have been the Tabata workout intensity instead, but I'll never know because I didn't feel it happen. I had a left hamstring strain a few years back, the year I first ran Badwater, but it healed up on its own with some rest time that happened after.

I was feeling my hamstring all the end of last week, not bad, just nagging, and then told Wheaties Boy about it, and he advised me to rest it now, sometimes you just need to hear it from the right person. So I did. I stuck to the bike last weekend, and nothing hard. I just finished two long days of work and haven't run since last Friday. I was going to blow off another week of running and ride the bike this week, and now it looks like I'll have to.

Monday morning I was squatting down on the floor to clean something up and the floor surface was slippery and my foot twisted underneath me, and while catching myself before I fell, I felt this intense pull in my groin. Shit. It hurt for about an hour. I had to work so I couldn't walk around with ice on it, but I did take some ibuprofen.

Today I could feel it only at certain angles, it doesn't hurt when I walk or try to jog around on the floor, so maybe it won't count as a running injury, but still, between the hamstring and this, I should probably stay on the bike for a week, and then the following week is my work week from hell, so I won't be able to do much anyway.

There goes another month down the hole, the month of July is pretty much lost. But I'm so distracted and scattered with all my thoughts and ideas and frustrations that I might as well use the time to pull my act together and figure out where I'm headed and why I am in this handbasket. I'm having a full-on existential crisis.

Oh shit. Is this a midlife crisis?

I know why, though. When there are too many things going through your mind and you're unfocused, distracted and discombobulated, shit happens. I need to pull myself together and spend time figuring out what I really want to do. I need to find my compass.

So to add insult to injury, I finally officially arrived at needing reading glasses. It was almost like it happened overnight. I realized it when I went down to the blood bank to pick up blood for a patient, I was standing there reading the labels on the blood to the blood bank person, and I couldn't see it. I had to drop it down on the counter so it was further away from my eyes. Things look blurry on the table in front of me, where I've always been able to see them.

So I made it almost 49.5 years without needing reading glasses, but I have arrived. Good thing I bought these glasses for The Bella last week. Now they're mine.

I'm With Stupid...

I deserve the Darwin award today. It's day 5 of this crazy attempt I made to drastically limit what I ate and I officially feel like crap.

I knew this would be difficult, and the hardest part is my energy levels. Not just for running but everything. I've been a walking disaster for the past 3 days. So today officially I'm ending it and going back to less restrictive eating.

I thought the hardest part would be missing certain foods but I had no cravings whatsoever. I didn't miss anything, except margaritas and beer, but I'm planning to continue to avoid both, because they aren't the culprit here.

So I tried the Joe Fejes approach and it didn't work. Maybe it's not a good time in my life either, given all the stress I've been experiencing with my work schedule and my increasing feeling of hopelessness about a viable future in my current so-called career. It doesn't help that I'm working nearly twice as much as I normally do, that saps my energy more than anything, and this was a really dumb time to attempt this.

The Fourth of July was a disaster. I planned to run the 5K and then help out with the kids' race afterwards, and then do more miles later in the day. I slept 13 1/2 hours on Wednesday, so I thought I'd be recovered. But I went to bed at 10 pm on the 3rd and planned to wake up at 6:30 and go to the 5K.

I woke up at 1:30 am feeling like crap. I was having a bizzarro dream too, about a doctor throttling me and yelling at me because I left part of a patient's orders undone. I dreamed that all my coworkers and all the other doctors I work with were all there while he was doing this. The doctor yelled at me, "You see how this feels? This is how the patient feels when you don't follow my orders!"

I said, "Take your hand off my throat now." So he did, and moved it to the side of my neck and continued trying to strangle me. I yelled, "I'm reporting you to the Board..." and everyone gasped out loud, and they all left the room. Then I went into a big auditorium where all of my colleagues were watching a video and when I walked in the room everyone ignored me.

After that vivid dream I felt sick to my stomach, and hung out in the bathroom for a while thinking I would puke but nothing happened. I felt nauseated until about 3:30 am, and I finally decided there was no way I was going to the race, I would need sleep more than anything.

Eventually my stomach settled down and I went back to bed. I slept until 10 am, and it was hot outside and I felt completely drained and unmotivated to run. I ended up doing not much of anything all day and even needed a nap. I slept for a while in the afternoon in the basement, I crashed on the floor after giving Iris a haircut. The butt cut.

When I woke up I felt a little better and talked Dennis into going to the store with me so we could get the ingredients to bake pupcakes for Isabelle's birthday, which is today. We decided to celebrate her birthday last night, before the fireworks got loud and she got scared. The pupcakes were a success, and the girls were happy. Our neighbor Stan came over and wished Isabelle a happy birthday and brought us a Thai basil plant that he had started from seed. I'm going to plant it in the herb garden.

I slept well last night and woke up at my normal time this morning. It rained overnight. Then I took iris out for a quick run but she didn't want to go very far. I brought her home and went out to run, and I was dragging ass. About 13 minutes into my run when I had stopped twice to pee and hadn't even covered a mile, I started walking. I thought through what I was doing and it made sense that this was a really dumb idea to try to do this combined with running and working this crazy schedule.

So, give me the Darwin Award, and don't worry, I didn't contribute to the gene pool, my girls were adopted. They are much smarter than me anyway. They eat pupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

I will try eating a little more food today and see if my energy is better tomorrow. I hate to write another whole week of shitty training, but it looks like this month will be no better than June, given that I have another work week from hell coming up the middle of July, which will take me days to recover from. So frustrating. It's my own fault though.

I did attempt a half-assed weight workout- my triceps, biceps, and lats are sore now. And I did my abdominal workout, and I feel it! That's something, I guess. And my legs, they're still sore from the Rock Repeats on Sunday! I am a disaster!

What I really need is a week vacation in Death Valley. DAMMIT!

Work Hangover Wednesday: The Mother of All Work Hangovers

I barely survived my last day of my long work streak, wrapped it up with a 13 hour day and stumbled home, within an hour I ate a little food, took a shower and was in bed by 9 pm.

I slept until 9 am. By 11 am I was ready for a nap, but I had a lunch meeting, and when I got home my brain was totally fried, I did some grocery shopping, laundry, and dishes at home until my eyes were closed enough to take a nap.

I slept another hour and a half, then went for a 2 mile run. That was all I could deal with. My legs are still sore from Horsetooth rock, I was so groggy I could barely move, and in the morning I am running a 5K! That will be interesting.

I'm running the Firecracker 5K, at City Park. It sounded like a good idea when I signed up. But this is easily a two day work hangover, so we'll see...

Someone is setting off fireworks in the neighborhood and Isabelle is scared. I hate that. I don't understand the appeal of making noise, especially when it terrifies animals. If they could see our little trembling Bella, would it even make a difference? Probably not.

Isabelle's 12th birthday is on the 5th and we're going to have a party for her. Poor thing always has her birthday on the day after she's been scared and freaked out all night.

I'm doing pretty well with the food thing, I'm sure I'll get sick of salads after a while. I'm hungry a lot, but haven't been ravenous yet. I just need to run more than 2 miles, now that I have a few days off.

New Fiscal Year: A Day of Epiphanies

Today, the first day of July, was like having many mystery packages appear on your doorstep, and when you open them, you're opening new doors to everything, even where you never expected.

Epiphany 1: Food

If you must know, I'm pulling a Joe Fejes. If you want to find out what that is, suffice it to say that he lost a bunch of weight before taking a big jump in his performances by sticking to a rather strict raw food regimen for about a month. He doesn't recommend trying it at home, and I'm warning with the same thing myself. I'm actually not being quite as hard core as he was but pretty close. I will allow myself protein shakes and some fish but I'm laying off the alcohol, carbs other than raw fruits and salads, and I don't do sugar. I do have to make it through my work days so a Lara bar and a protein shake will keep me going for brain fuel on those days.

I've just decided that I'm disgusted with carrying around the equivalent of a lead brick and I want to get rid of it. I won't do it past July 31. If I can't lose a decent amount of weight in 4 weeks of doing this, then it's hopeless.

So I started out this morning by getting on the scale. 130 pounds. Okay, I can deal with the reality of that. It's a scary enough number for me, and at least I wasn't OVER 130 pounds.

I had a little protein and fat: a tiny piece of leftover salmon and half an avocado, plus fruit for breakfast before work.

Driving to work, I said out loud to myself, "I'm hungry."

I replied, "So are 5 billion other people. Get over it!"

Leaving my car in the parking garage, I said, "Please let me get through the next 36 hours without biting anyone's head off."

It was sketchy for a while there, but I made it through. I was surprised, I thought I'd be starving constantly but it wasn't too bad. Throughout the day, I had one Lara bar, a banana, an apple, a salad for lunch, and one packet of rice protein powder mixed up with some juice in a bottle which was the most disgusting thing I've ever imbibed in my life. Scratch that kind of protein powder. I found it at Sprouts on sale for 99 cents. Barf me out of town.

But I made it! Made it home, we had more fish and salad for dinner, and I sniveled as Dennis drank a Corona in front of me.

"It's your choice, you made the decision to do this." He lectured me.


Epiphany 2: Work

I have fiscal year on the brain because it is that. There was a generalized palpable tension at work today, it was busy this morning but not out of control like it sometimes feels. But there were a lot of people wandering around wearing suits and dressed more seriously than business casual. I'm not sure what that was about but it was probably something to do with our impending switchover to EPIC. That's the new computer system where we will be keeping our electronic health record.

It's Epic, all right. An epic headache, nightmare. But really, the most aggravating thing about Epic for me, personally, is that I don't get to go to Badwater this year because we aren't allowed to take vacation in July. Other than that I could not care less.

I have to get up early tomorrow to attend a two hour meeting about Epic, before I go to work all day. But we're supposed to be all smiley and positive about it, and I am just laughing, because it's deja vu. I know it will be a pain for the first few weeks until everyone learns the basics, and we'll find out that all the hype and training and apocalyptic e-mails reminding us that the end of the world is near will seem silly in retrospect, and we'll all get used to it and it will have its own set of glitches and kinks to be ironed out.

It's been rough at work, morale is really low and you can see it everyone's eyes. I think they really bit off way more than they can chew with all these changes at once, it's wearing on everyone. It's one thing to be an administrator making decisions about what changes to make, but it's entirely another thing to be in the trenches, having to change everything and adjust to a gazillion new things all in a short time, and still keep the patients safe and happy.

The top guns try to pacify us, they send their messengers to meetings and bring up these nifty constructs from organizational psychology like "change fatigue". Hell, we haven't even been in this change long enough to get fatigued! How about some bringing up some other constructs for a change: disposability, burnout, morale. Let's talk about THOSE constructs instead.

I had at least 4 different people inadvertently remind me today that I'm not going to Death Valley for Badwater next week. EPIC is a four letter word, as far as I'm concerned. So it's a good thing that I have three extra shifts the week after we go live with this thing, because I'll need to work the living $%@# out of myself so I don't have the brain juice left to remember where I should be!

So far all I can tell about Epic is that it's a little easier on the eyes, but the tabs are all on the left hand side of the page as opposed to our current system with tabs on the right hand side. Time will tell if this new thing really is as great as they have been selling it to be.

So today, one of the nurses who is leaving the department had her last day at work, they had a potluck for her. I am sad to see her go but she landed a great deal of a job, and I am excited that I'll be able to join her on runs because she gets long lunch breaks at her new gig. And I saw another one of our nurses who is leaving, too. I will miss them both. People do get to the point where they want to move on, though.

After work I stopped by Sprouts and got some veggies for salad and some salmon. There I ran into two nurses I used to work with in ICU, one has become a family nurse practitioner and loves it, the other has moved to a different department part-time in the hospital and does some things on the side. I noticed both of them looked quite relaxed and happy. I felt like a rag. I was barely standing up, the weight of my basket was pulling me over in the grocery store, and I didn't even have anything heavier than lettuce! I'm sure my eyes were half-closed, and I was probably scowling from exhaustion.

Epiphany 3: Happiness

So I got home from work and found the orange and yellow flowers are starting to take over the garden. I arrived at the doorstep to find a box from UPS, it was some shampoo and conditioner I ordered, something I discovered at my parents' house in the guest bathroom last time we stayed there.

It smelled like coconut and reminds me of the beach for some reason. I decided to treat myself to that, at least at night when I get home and take a shower I can fill my nostrils with coconut and get rid of some of the less enjoyable aromatherapy of work...

I took a shower and used the new shampoo and then went outside when Dennis drove up in the driveway. I let the girls out to see him, and at the same time Wendy drove up in her truck and dropped off some protein shake samples for me. Wendy is a triathlete and coach in town, she's a great athlete, and she also works out with Wheaties Boy.

She's been doing some ultras, and as I stood there trying to have a conversation with her in my half-dead state, I could feel her enthusiasm, energy, and happiness. I thanked her, and we are going to get together and run soon.

I realized I was a zombie, standing there in my driveway, looking at her, listening to her talk. I was feeling positive affect, but unable to express any of it, beyond a smile. I felt zapped, completely wasted and used up.

After she left I went back in the house and I said to Dennis, "What was I doing when I was happiest? Do you remember?"

He reminded me that when I had my own business, I had a lot of freedom and control over my schedule. And that I was happiest when I was able to be out, doing things, riding my bike, running, being outdoors. I wasn't exhausted.

Seeing Wendy there was like an epiphany in itself. I've been coming to it for quite a while, but I think this fiscal year, this one now, is going to lead me in some positive directions. I've lost something very valuable from my life, and I need to find a way to get it back.

Maybe it's the low blood sugar that's making me think differently, but I think maybe there's something to that. Maybe I'm going to find some clarity of thought in this semi-fasting state.

Whatever it is, I like it.