Happy New Year!

We just got back from our New Year's Eve dinner. We went to the Melting Pot, which is a fondue restaurant. We go almost every New Year's Eve to this restaurant, and even though we love it, this is the only night of the year that we go there. It's such a production to eat a meal there.
They bring all of the food to the table raw, and there's a little hot plate like thing in the center of the table that they put a pot of boiling beef stock based liquid onto. You skewer and cook all of the meat in this pot of stock before you can eat it.
We had lobster, fillet mignon, chicken, beef tenderloin, shrimp and a couple of kinds of ravioli. They also bring a cheese fondue to start the meal and finish it with a chocolate fondue for desert. We gorged ourselves to the point of feeling like we're going to explode.
As for the rest of the night...who knows? Some of our neighbors are planning a get together, but that probably won't start until around nine...and the way I feel now, I may be sleeping by then. I know, how lame am I?
We're not to keen on going over there anyway, as the men hang out in the garage playing darts and the women sit around the kitchen gossiping. I like good scoop as much as the next gal, but after a while it gets old. Can't the conversation have some substance already?
So, if we make it to midnight, great, but if not oh well, it'll still be 2007 tomorrow morning either way. Although if we stay home, I'll probably feel a lot better the first morning of 2007 than I would if I went out anyway, right?
Hope everyone has a great evening!

Bad blogging monkey...

So I've been AWOL for the last week or so. Between work, dentist and doctor appointments, and trying to get my house back in order; I've just not had time. Every night I think "Self, you need to blog today" and every night I manage to convince myself that sleeping is more important. Who'd thunk it? I've been exhausted all week. But after an early to bed on Friday and late to rise on Saturday morning, I'm feeling a bit better. A repeat performance tonight and all should be well in my world, I hope.
The short version is:
1. I haven't been running. Doc's orders. I either have a ruptured spring ligament or a stress fracture. Nothing shows up on x-ray, but that's not necessarily conclusive. The Rx: Rest, immobilization, and revisit the issue in six weeks. Ughhhh, that throws a spring marathon and probably a spring half marathon out the window. So perhaps we'll be looking at a summer race? Or just waiting until fall. On one hand I'm disappointed, but on the other I'm okay with it. Do you know how much more time I'm going to have?!?!? I'm sure extra time will lose it's novelty in a week or so.
2. I'm finally getting to where I feel like I've recovered from Christmas. I took the tree down today, and dear husband helped get the outside stuff down and put away. I was particularly glad to get this done, as it's slated to start raining here and continue for something like a week (which really means two or three weeks) and I hate to be one of those fuckers that still has Christmas shit up at Valentines day.
3. I've sufficiently gorged myself on cookies, candies, and cake that I think I've cured myself of my sweet tooth. Just typing those sweet delights out makes me a little nauseous. This is a good thing, as I weighed in just over four pounds heavier this morning than I weighed last Saturday before Christmas. God knows, I gotta get on the clean eating bandwagon if I'm not running, those extra calories aren't going to burn themselves.
So, that's the summary in a few short paragraphs. I'm getting myself back on track with the blogging business, effective now.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming

Christmas is over...finally. I cannot possibly begin to describe how glad I am to have this holiday over with. My husband's family spent the weekend with us, which actually went better than I had expected it to go. I sometimes hook horns with my father in law, as he subscribes to the school of thought that women should be seen and not heard and I, of course am extremely outspoken. I managed to bite my tongue though, and he was actually on pretty good behavior so it went okay.
The only dull spot in the weekend was my husband's mother (his parents are divorced). The background is that she has been somewhat wrapped up in the drama which is my sister-in-law's life as of late. So much so that she never asks how we are, but immediately jumps into the latest update on his sister's story. I'll spare the gory details, but it would not be remiss to say that we choose not to be around his sister because of the bad decisions she routinely makes.
So anyway, fast forward to this weekend. We had two options open for her to see us. She knew that Saturday early afternoon or today afternoon were the two options. She waited until late Saturday afternoon to call us and see "what we were up to" and then chose not to call today until almost seven...and then it was to tell us that "she was sick, but we could still come over".
Uhmmm, thanks but no thanks.
It's kind of lame that she was so focused on his sister and her kids that she couldn't make any time for us at all this holiday, but I guess that this is one of those things that we should just get used to.
Anyway, at least it's over with, so on to the next holiday. Have I mentioned that I love New Year's Eve?

Uh oh

Small catastrophe, or maybe it's a large one. Today I was scheduled for thirteen miles. Want to guess how many I made?
Try three. Then my right foot started screaming at me. I'm a pretty tough cookie. I usually have to be bleeding, puking or otherwise almost dying not to finish a run. I just could not finish though.
I've been having foot pain on and off ever since Chicago, but figured that I'd be okay, as I usually am able to run through it. Long story short, my foot has been hurting along the medial (inside) aspect, right near my navicular (that sharp pointy bone on the inside of your foot. I figured I had either sprained my spring ligament or developed a little posterior tibialis tendonitis. It hurt like hell when I curled my toes, and let's not even talk about curling my toes and plantarflexing (pointing my ankle down).
This morning I started out with medial foot pain and about a mile in started having lateral foot pain and anterior calf pain...no bueno (to quote Little Miss Runner Pants.)
I couldn't figure out a way to push through this...which is probably a good thing, so I cut my run short, will take tomorrow and Monday off and hopefully be able to sweet talk my orthopod into squeezing me in on Tuesday. Let's keep our fingers crossed that this is nothing serious.

I love me some ranch dressing

Best condiment ever. Red Robin has the best ranch in the world. Hands down, this stuff is the best. Tonight we headed there for dinner and somehow managed to get the waiter started talking about their ranch and how much I loved it.
He sent me home with a big ol' vat of the stuff. Gotta love that.

Why are my Thursday runs so much slower than my Tuesday runs?

Is it because I'm so much more tired by the time the end of the week rolls around? Or just cause I'm a lame-o? My ten miles today went well, although the pace was a full 32 seconds per mile slower than it was on Tuesday. I try to run my Tuesday and Thursday runs at the same pace, and I run in the same area, I just can't seem to pick up the pace at all on Thursdays though. Oh well, at least I got it done.
I was exhausted when I got done though. I've decided that part of the reason I didn't do so well in Chicago this past fall was because I wasn't really prepared well enough. I can tell a huge difference between my last training plan and this one, and I'm only two weeks (not even two full weeks) into this plan. I think it's going to make a big difference running fewer days but more mileage, I hope.
I kind of think that maybe I got a smidge dehydrated on the run today too, as I've felt like ass pretty much all afternoon since I got back. I didn't carry my fuel belt and it was fairly close to sixty degrees today. I know, what's up with that? You've gotta love these warmer winters. I've got it on good authority though that the niceness won't last forever though, so I've got to enjoy it while I can.
On a different note, I tried to make my coconut creme pie for Christmas Eve today. It's cooking as I type. I'm less than convinced that it will turn out well, so I may be making an emergency trip to the grocery store tomorrow for a store bought one that I can pass off as my own. I know, that's cheating, but trust me, it's worth it.

Can it be?

That my catchphrase...that I've been using all freakin' year came from Grey's Anatomy...which I've never watched. Damn you People magazine's year end recap, for pointing this out to me! So seriously, this is the last post during which I will use the word "seriously" as a transition. So be seriously prepared, as I'm seriously going to use the hell out of this word to take away the shiny attraction that it holds over me.
I swear I've never watched the show, I may be the only adult in the nation who has seriously never seen Grey's Anatomy, so I seriously did not jack the phrase from them...but seriously, why must they use my vernacular? That blows some serious goats.
Today is the official middle of the work week for me. Unlike some of you lucky ducks, I seriously have to work all damn week. Makes me mad. I seriously hope that many of my Friday afternoon patients wake up and realize that it's the day before a holiday weekend and that they are seriously too busy to come to therapy. Sad, huh?
I've got a light day scheduled tomorrow, and I'm planning on trying to hit the library and the grocery store at some point tomorrow. I'm also planning on trying my handing a baking the coconut creme pie for our big dinner on Sunday tomorrow. We'll see how that goes. I may find myself making another serious trip to the grocery store for a backup dessert if this one goes seriously wrong tomorrow.
Okay, I think I've broken myself of the "seriously" habit. Notice I only used it twice in the above paragraph and then I really had to try to get it in. You all now have permission to whip me if I use the word again. Seriously. (Okay, last one...I promise)

What a great run

Today I did 8 miles with 10 x 100 meter strides. It went well. Much better than the workout last Tuesday went. I completed the mileage in just under 72 minutes, which put me right in my target pace zone at a 9:00/mile pace. I ran the same course that I ran for my two weekday runs last week. I never realized exactly how many hills there are in my neighborhood until I started running them regularly.
My only complaint was that it was slightly colder out this week than it was last week. My face still feels chapped from running into the wind during the first half of today's run. I'm always shocked when I go outside and I get cold while running, as I've been completely spoiled by the higher temperatures so far this winter. It's got to end sometime, so why am I so surprised when it does?
Doctor Stephanie tagged me today, so with no further adieu: The game is this. Go to the closest book, type it's title and author into your blog entry. Then turn to page 123 and find the fifth sentence on that page. Type the next three sentences. Tag three more people.
What is the point of the game? Got me. But I'm a sucker for a chain letter game, so here goes:
The book is Mary Mary, by James Patterson. My lines are as follows: Late that same day, the Storyteller was driving north on the 405, the San Diego Freeway, which was moving okay at about forty or so, and he was working over his "hate list" in his mind. Who did he want to do next, or if not next, before this thing wound down and he had to stop killing or be caught? Stop! Just as suddenly as it had begun.
Yes, I love me some serial killer fiction. The more gruesome the better. I'm a sick puppy. But the book is very well written and extremely entertaining. I highly recommend it. Thanks to the good Doc for the tag.
I'm tagging Firefly, Sonia, and Arcaner. Come on, you know you want to play!

Fastest way to end an argument

Call your significant other the devil. As in: "You are the devil, woman." Guarenteed end of the argument right there. Possibly because your significant other will be laughing so hard that he or she will not be able to fabricate a snappy retort.
The holiday stress is catching up with us at my house, we spent most of the weekend at each other's throats. Hopefully after next weekend things will get back to normal.
Today was a cross training day. I got up early and rode the stationary bike. I don't have patients until nine today, based on that I thought this week would be pretty light, but the rest of the day looks like a mad rush and most of the rest of the week looks busy too. Even Friday. Damn that 5:30pm patient...don't you realize it's the day before a holiday weekend and I don't want to stay late. Curse me for being so flexible with my schedule.

Who knew?

That recovery runs would almost be harder to pace then regular long runs and aerobic runs? I sure didn't. I did a four mile recovery run, and I thought that I'd just run on the treadmill this morning. It was sprinkling a little when I thought about getting started this morning, and I wasn't really feeling the outside run anyway.
I figured it'd be easier to pace on the treadmill, as you can just set the speed and go...but I kept feeling the urge to turn the speed up, as the 10:00/mile pace that I'm supposed to run for recovery runs felt really, really slow to me. I forced myself to stay at the pace, but I really struggled to not go any faster. That's a good thing, right?
Last night's neighborhood Christmas party went well. We had great food and a pretty good time. It's nice to get to see that crowd, but after spending a few hours with them I'm pretty much done for a few months. They sure know how to party. Every time they get together it's a drunken lovefest full of smack talkin' and dirty joke telling. There's one guy who ends up taking at least some portion of his clothing off every time he gets drunk...fortunately we left before this took place yesterday. It's an interesting crowd.

A quick recap of the weekend thus far

This morning I got up at five thirty...yes, that's five thirty in the AM, on a weekend. I wanted to get some things arranged for the family Christmas dinner that I was hosting this afternoon before I headed out for my twelve mile run. I got a few things done, went out and had a great run. Met up with a group of six regular runners on my way back and had a nice time talking to them for about a mile...until we hit the mother of all hills. (I need to take my camera with me sometime and take a picture of this hill for you all. Words do not do it justice) I was keeping up with them very well until this hill, at which point they proceeded to completely school me. I got my ass kicked, and then some.
Then I came home, got cleaned up, ate a quick something (string cheese, powerade, and gummy bears...three of the four major food groups, right?) and headed out the run Kristi's taxi. I had to pick up my two grandmothers and my godmother. None of whom really get along, so you can imagine how much fun this trip was. I brought them back to my house and then scrambled to finish dinner. Fortunately I left detailed instructions for my husband and he follows directions very, very well. He got the meat started. I had done most of the prep work last night, so really all that needed to be done was potatoes boiled and casseroles/stuffing warmed up.
We managed to get dinner on the table by one, and then sat around letting food digest for awhile. We then opened some gifts, had dessert and I made the rounds taking old ladies home again. Overall, it was a pretty good time, and by doing it this weekend it will take some of the stress out of next weekend. Next weekend we'll have my husband's dad and stepmom in town and we'll have to find time to go see his mother at some point.
In about twenty minutes we'll be heading out to one of our neighbor's homes for the neighborhood potluck. With any luck, we'll be home soon from that, as I'm dragging already. The holiday's just wear me out.

I am so tired...again.

Today was nine miles per the Pfitz plan, a nice steady pace around 9:00/mile was my goal. I managed the first half at that pace, but slowed down to almost 10:00 miles on the way back home. That wind was brutal...even though it was almost sixty degrees here today! I ran in shorts! How awesome is that?
I am totally and completely beat right now though. My legs feel good, although I do have some shoulder soreness, leading me to the conclusion that I must have been shrugging towards the end of my run.
So far, I'm loving the Pfitz plan. The whole idea of only running four or five days a week is really appealling to me. I've been finding a lot more time in my mornings this week. I'm used to getting up early and running every morning before work, but with the longer runs I'm having to do them in the afternoons on my shorter days, which gives me that much more time in the mornings...which I'm loving so far. We'll see if I still feel the same about it in three or four weeks.
Tomorrow is a rest day, followed by 12 miles on Saturday and Christmas with my side of the family...at my house. I'm currently baking pies and cakes for this weekend, and tomorrow I'll do all the prep work for the dinner. It's going to be a busy weekend.

First Real Running Day

Today was the first "real" day of the Pfitz plan. I had seven miles with 10 x 100meter strides on the schedule. It actually went great. I was a little fuzzy on what exactly my pace should be because I hadn't yet managed to ask for some serious help from those in the know. I ran the seven miles at a 9:00/mile pace, which after emailing back and forth with Leah, I think is pretty much right on target.
Let me just add how much Leah rocks to this post. I was so incredibly confused and she managed to get my paces all squared away and making perfect sense for me! I am amazed at the talents of my fellow RBF'ers every day.
I'm feeling much more confident after today's run. I ran a good course, it was an out and back of 3.4 miles and then I finished with my striders in the street in front of my house. I actually ended up doing just over seven miles, because I miscalculated how far 100meters translated into in tenths of a mile. I'm so not good with numbers.
I thought that I was going to have a beautiful day for running outside, as I had been out running around all morning while doing some marketing to physician offices with one of my coworkers. Alas, by the time I got home and scarfed down a smidge of lunch, the temperature had dropped. I was cold at first in my shorts and a long sleeve tech shirt, but I quickly warmed up. I was not counting on the wind though. I'd forgotten how much more work it is to run in cold weather with wind than it is in warm weather with wind.
Tomorrow is a cross training day, and then Thursday has 9 miles general aerobic on the schedule. Hopefully that will go as well as today went.

Day One: Pfitz plan

Day one was cake. All the schedule called for was some cross training. It's weird not to run on a Monday. The only times I've not run on a Monday were the two Monday's after my last two marathons.
I did some light stationary cycling today. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Tomorrow's schedule calls for seven miles at a comfortable pace. I'm thinking this means at lactate threshold, which if I'm interpreting my charts correctly means should be around my 1/2 marathon pace...which would put me just under a 9:00 mile. That's what I'm going to shoot for at least. Hopefully this will go well.
I'm still just a little sore from my long run on Saturday and my race yesterday. My hamstrings were screaming last night. I'm hoping if I stretch a bit tonight that'll loosen 'em up a bit.

A much better outing

Today's run went fantastic. Now granted, it was only a 5k race, but it still felt good to have a decent run despite the cold weather.
I ran a 24:22, which won me a third in my age group. I was the fourth female to finish overall, and the 31st finisher out of the entire field of 100 or so. I'm so comfortable with the shorter distances now, hopefully in eighteen weeks I'll be as comfortable with my marathon as I am with the 5ks...and hopefully, this time around, I'll actually be able to do as well as I think I'll do. (Unlike Chicago, where my physical preparation did not measure up to my mental preparation.)
Last night was my work Christmas party. Lame-o. I work in a small office which is part of a larger company. Although I know everyone who works in the other offices, because I don't interact with them daily I'm very much on the outside of their inside jokes. There's definitely a clique of "cool" kids and I kind of feel like the band geek out of the group...not that there's anything wrong with being a band geek.
At the end of the night, I was just glad to go home. I made my necessary appearance to keep the gossip-mongers at bay. We all know how those folks work...the second you don't show up somewhere that they think you should be they come up with some fantastic rumor about you. Gotta love that junior high behavior. I'm just glad it's over with for another year.

Uhmmm, I thought I was ready

To start training again. Today's run just proved to me how severely my running skills have diminished over the past six weeks of three miles a day, six days a week and no long runs. Not good.
I went for a ten miler today, although I did not meet my goal of getting back out at seven on every Saturday morning. I was really on a roll there for the past two marathons. Today, I rolled over and looked at the temperature gauge...it said 24 degrees and I said no thank you to running that early. This is a very bad habit to cave into.
I was going to blow off the run entirely, but managed to give myself such an amazingly heavy guilt trip that I went out this afternoon. It did not go well.
I ran five outside and five on the treadmill. I just flat out gave up after the first five outside. I managed to convince myself that five was enough for the day. Then I gave myself another massive guilt trip and forced myself to finish the last five on the treadmill. Yet I'm still not happy with myself.
Although my pace was good (around an 8:40 average) I just didn't feel good about it. My lungs hurt, my face felt totally windburnt, and I just felt sluggish. Not very good for building up my confidence regarding tackling a higher mileage training plan than I've used in the past.
I'm going to still try it (I think) but I'm very uneasy about it. I'm not sure if it's the ambitious plan that's got me spooked or if I'm just burnt out. There were a couple of times today when I actually thought about not doing a spring marathon, and maybe just aiming for a half instead. That sounds so weak to me though.
I'm hoping that I get my head in the game a little bit more in the next couple of weeks. I'm ready to physically I think, but mentally I'm just not there yet.

Dear Insurance Company:

I follow your instructions, I complete your mindnumbing, idiotic busy work to get my patients' visits paid for, and you repay me by sticking your head so far up your ass that you won't ever be able to pry it out again. Thanks a lot.
I love that I need preauthorization to treat your patient because their group number isn't on your magic "exemption list" that includes all of three companies in the country, including one that only has one employee, another that employs trained gorillas, and a third located in the beautiful backcountry of Alaska. Seeing as how my practice is located in Missouri, that list really does me a lot of good...but I appreciate how generous you are to have offered an exemption list.
I also love that I faxed paperwork to continue my patient's care on the 22nd of November and here it is on the 8th of December and you still haven't authorized additional visits. What, you're not sure if the visits are medically necessary? Of course they are, I'm telling you they are and so did the doctor who wrote the damn prescription. What, your degree in marketing or accounting qualifies you to make decisions about what is "reasonable and necessary"? Exactly how long is that program? I see, four months of business school means you must know more than me about how I should do my job. Fuckers.
So, now I've faxed my paperwork to you no less than five times. You were supposed to call me when you recieved it...yes, I'm speaking to you Robert...as this time I was smart enough to ask for you name and "direct fax number". I'm going straight up the chain when I don't get satisfaction from you, and I'm naming names when I do.
How silly of me to assume that when you said "I'll call when I get it" that you would be calling me right back. How convienent of you to wait until five minutes before you left for the day to call and tell me that you "never received my fax". And how insane of me not to understand why you couldn't possible walk over to the fax machine and stand there for the thirty seconds that it took me to refax my paperwork...for the tenth time. Your excuse of "it's in a part of the building I don't have access to" tells me why your system doesn't work.
You might want to send out a search and rescue party, as I'm pretty sure that the backlog of paperwork that you all have steadfastedly been ignoring for the past two plus weeks has finally overtaken your "fax receiving department" and they're either buried under a pile of faxes desperately trying to claw their way out, or they've given up all hope of ever catching up and are now cheerfully filing my paperwork in their shredder.
Perhaps this is where your "system breakdown" is occurring. Fuckers.
So now that I've decided that either a bunch of poorly trained circus animals or extremely slow fourth graders is running your company, I'd like to know what time you'd prefer for me to have the patient that you denying care to's surgeon call and ream you a new one. Because rest assured that I'm not going to be the only one getting bitched at...if I'm going down, you all are going with me.
Here's a tip...if you do what I need you to do, which isn't unreasonable (it's only your crappy job) than perhaps "that bitch from Missouri" will stop calling and interupting your valuable nap time. Psst...for those of you that are slow (which is everyone employed at your fine establishment) that means that I'll stop bothering you.
Have a nice day.

The disgruntled therapist

It's decided

I've decided that I'm going to train for the St. Louis marathon. Even though I've run St. Louis twice already, I can't pass up the home court advantage, nor can I pass up the chance to train on the actual course. Plus, it's a financial decision at this point as well. I'd like to take a nice vacation at some point this year, and unfortunately Nashville, Louisville, and Cincy don't really fit my definition of nice too well.
Training starts the week of the tenth...Holy Crap, that's next week. I'm going to use the Pfitz plan, which is kind of scary, as it's singificantly more mileage than I'm used to running during training. I'm going to have to fine tune/adjust the schedule a bit though, as there is no freakin' way I'm running eight or more miles on the dreadmill during the week.
I like to get my training runs done before I go to work, and since I work from seven to six three days each week, I'd pretty much have to get up at four every morning to get some of those midweek longer runs done. I've got Tuesday and Thursday afternoons open right now, so I'll probably try to shift the schedule so that my longer runs fall on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
I'm a little concerned that tweaking the schedule is going to make me more prone to injury, but I guess that's one of those things that only time will tell.

This is the part I don't like

The sitting around waiting part. Of course it was nice that it snowed a ton last night. What wasn't so nice was that there was at least two or three inches of ice underneath the snow. Of course, since I only live a few miles from my office, I really didn't have any excuse for not making it into work.
I loaded my crap into the car and headed out. It took me almost thirty minutes to drive the less than five miles to my office. And now that I'm here, I'm just sitting, and waiting...and waiting. Apparently people aren't really sure if they're going to make it into their appointments today, so they're waiting until ten minutes before they're supposed to be here to call and cancel.
In three hours, I've seen one whole patient. I have however talked to eighteen of the twenty patients that were scheduled. Twelve of them have cancelled, and several of the others have decided that if they come in, they'll come in early.
There is no freakin' way that I'm going to sit here until six o'clock this evening waiting on people to come in.
Okay, the first half of this post was written while I was sitting around waiting for something to do. As it turned out, I only ended up seeing four of my twenty patients today. I was home by one this afternoon. Not such a bad deal.
As I was driving home I met the world's biggest jackass. I was driving along, at a nice slow fifteen miles per hour when out of nowhere, this dumb bastard in a suburban gets right on my ass. And by right on my ass, I mean so close to my rear bumper that I could not see anything other than his windshield and about an inch of his hood. We were driving down the highway access road, which is one lane in either direction, covered in ice, and goes up and down two or three big hills. Apparently, I was driving too slow for his liking, as the first gap in oncoming traffic that he found, he floored it around me...and promptly spun out into the ditch. Serves you right, genius. Perhaps you've learned that just because you have four wheel drive, doesn't mean you're a winning Indy driver.