hives

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

2 miles

21:40

90 degrees

Today I added a line to the standard salutation that I write at the start of every entry: temperature. It was 90 degrees when I got back to my house tonight at almost 9 p.m. I feel like writing down the daily temperature might be a helpful ingredient in the narrative of my workout.

Anyway, today's entry is not another one that complains about the temperature. You're welcome.

My thoughts have been centered recently on my future plans. I'm almost a single woman now. I have my own apartment and a good job and now I have a dog, too. Now I wonder: what the heck am I going to do with my life. At one point, this thought was one that I thought with excitement, like, "I can do anything I want. I'm free!" Now it is more like "Oh my gosh I really have no direction. I have no plans. I am having a hard time committing to anything. What is the meaning of this life?"

First there is the question of my relationship status. (Before you aim for my shins per my previous request to kick me if I mention dating, hear me out). I am not talking about getting involved with anyone or dating or anything, but I would be lying if I said that I have not thought at all about what my life is going to look like whenever it comes to be that I actually, gulp, pursue another relationship.

Then there is my work and education. I have kicked around the idea of going back to school. I know that I really want to in order to advance my career, the question is really what degree I get. Masters in Architecture? Communication? Education? Higher Education? I even briefly considered massage therapy as an educational option. The only thing that all of these vocational threads have in common: their ability to illustrate how incredibly lost I am.

So we have my non-existent romantic life, then my completely directionless pursuit of post-graduate education. And finally, we have Levi. Levi is a year and a half old mutt I just adopted from a rescue shelter. He is super cute and fun to play with and a great little running buddy on short workouts. He also nips like a puppy (ouch), he gets really mad at me when I try to crate him during the day, and he jumps on my white couch even though I know he knows what "Levi! Off the couch!" means. All of that is tolerable and I am sure we are capable of growing through this adjustment period. What is not tolerable and pretty much out of my control is the fact that my eyes are watering, my nose is running, my ears are itching, and (this is a first even for my allergy prone self) I am breaking out in HIVES. So unsightly... and itchy.

The point of this entry, the thing I thought most about during those grueling 20 minutes in 90 degree heat after dark, is the fact that this life is kind of not in my control right now. I am considering a lot of different options, many of which I am clearly not ready for, and I may

need to listen to God, my good senses, and my histamines if/when I jump into something and I am not ready for it.

holy moly it is HOT!

Monday, August 22, 2011

4 miles

37:19

Okay. I love Tucson. I love the weather. I love the blazing hot summers and the balmy winters. But I am claiming my reserved right to complain tonight. This heat just might kill me.

I have made a few subtle references to how I feel as though I am aging in Pheidippides, and right now I am going to make one more: I never remember sweating this much in my life. I realize that, yes, I have only lived in this inferno of a desert for three years. And yes, I have never run so intensely throughout the summer any other year. Even so, even after dark, I get utterly soaked in perspiration. Gross. I do not know if this is a sign of aging or of weight gain or both, but it is wholly inconvenient and completely unbecoming.

Anyway... that was just a pointless rant to fill the void of my totally uneventful workout and my subsequently uninspired entry. I ran my usual 4 mile route and did so in decent time. I was totally gassed for about the last .75 miles, but it was still the kind of workout that makes me want to do it again, which is ideal.

Maybe my next entry will be about an awesome run I do at 6 a.m. and the minimal sweat that run produces. Stay tuned to find out. :)

what to say? (a lot, i guess)

i won't bore you with the details of every run since my last post. just know that there were several.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

2 miles

21:21

So I have not posted anything for a while, mainly because I do not think I have anything incredibly profound to write about. Life has been pretty ordinary. Thankfully.

I ran this evening for about 2 miles. There was really nothing special about it. I do not even remember what I thought about. I guess whatever it was, it was not that exciting.

What has been exciting is seeing what happens when you allow God to take care of your life.

I have decided in the past to not go into the intimate details of my divorce on Pheidippides out of respect for my ex's privacy. I also have not said much because the ordeal is really too complicated to squeeze into a small digest and too painful to hash out every detail. What I will say is that the process got much more complicated than I thought it would when some financial matters were disputed. What could have been a clean break that ended about two months after the original paperwork was filed back in April has turned into a long, confusing, and potentially expensive process that will not be over until October of this year.

For the first two months of this revelation, I was beyond devastated. This has collectively been the most heartbreaking, humiliating, and exhausting experience of my life. It was difficult enough to finally make the decision to legally end our relationship, but the thought of hashing it out in court would have been laughably cliché if it didn't infuriate and devastate me all at once. Through many verbal confrontations, heated arguments, and downright nasty emails, both of us got across to one another how unfair they thought the other was being. And through all of that, I was torn. There has never been a single part of me that genuinely wished any harm for him. I do not want to be married to him, but I did not want to hurt him either.

I just wrote two lengthy paragraphs about the pain of the last couple of months, but I erased them because the details are not what is important. What is important is that each day, I lived the day. I got out of bed, and some days this was much, much harder than others. I talked to friends, a therapist, and my pastor. I cried. I prayed. I ran. I wrote. And one day I woke up and realized that it had been four months since I filed and it would be just two months until it is finally over. I filed a ton of trial preparation paperwork yesterday-- something that I had been putting off because it made me so angry that we are even going to trial-- and that is the last thing I need to do until October. Now I just need to keep living my life. Get out of bed. Pray. Run. Write. Occasionally cry. And one day I will wake up and realize that I am moving on.

So today's post is appropriately titled, "what to say? (a lot, i guess)" because so much just came pouring out when I (finally) decided to write a new post. Now, moving forward, I feel excited to live, excited to write, excited to move on.... and very excited to run. :)

how did i ever do this?

Monday, July 25, 2011

3 miles

35:57

Really Noel? 35:57? As in 12 minute miles? Ugh.

It is hard to believe that just a few years ago I could fly through 3 miles as a fun run and today I was dripping with sweat and gulping down my Gatorade/water cocktail from my camelback and praying that I could make it home in time for The Bachelorette.

It is Tucson and around 6:30 when I got back home it was about 90 degrees, but still. Aren't I used to the desert heat by now? Isn't that why I carry a camelback? Should that really impact my ability to run 3 miles?

Anyway, these are the types of questions that come along with making myself run every day (or almost every day). I have to do the kind of thing that I coach my families to do at work: anticipate obstacles and make sure I know how to deal with them should they arise.

Read: Figure out my game plan if I get ridiculously overheated.

One option is something I had been doing before: running at night. I suppose I could go back to that. I had been running around my neighborhood since I returned from Colorado, and my neighborhood does not have as much lighting as the park where I used to run.

Another option is to accept that my body might have some limitations and that if it gets overheated, it is okay to stop and re-hydrate and stand in the shade. I did that today a couple of times, and maybe that might have to be a reality for a while. Tucson is not going to be scorching for much longer. When the weather changes so that the temperature is 80 degrees at 6:30, my hard work now might just pay off and I might actually be able to keep a decent pace.

Now that I have brainstormed possible solutions, maybe I can use both of these alternatives to overcome this dehydration/heat-exhaustion dilemma and continue enjoying this hobby of mine.

slowing down?

Sunday, July 24, 2011

2 miles

22:21

as well as...

Saturday, July 23, 2011

2 miles

21:12

I ran about ten miles this week. Last week it was about 17 and the week before it was around 14, and I had hoped to build up to about 20 miles per week by the end of July. This week, however, the motivation and drive that I had been building just was not there.

Why? Could be energy, motivation, diet, stress... I honestly have no idea. I do know that I am going to try harder to throw in some high mileage runs this coming week. It has been a lot of work to build up to exercising every day and I do not want to get out of that rhythm.

All I really have to write today is that commitment: I am going to be better next week. More running, more writing, more growing.

Stay tuned.

:)

running in the rain.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

2 miles

19:43

I started to write today's post about my failed relationship and the legal ramifications of that failure, but I erased it all because I had a fun run in the rain tonight and I want to talk about something that makes me feel as happy as running does: work.

Yes, I know exactly how lame that sounded. I guess if I read that last passage I might think "she has really sunk low if work is the thing that makes her happy." But the truth is that it really does. I picked a profession where I know I am never going to make a ton of money or climb some corporate ladder, but that gives me joy whenever I am working. I feel like I am making the world a better place, and I am good at what I do, and that can be the difference between just tolerating and truly enjoying what you do.

So I am talking about work. I feel like my vacation to Colorado and New Mexico was exactly what I needed. I came back and here I am, week three back in Tucson, feeling so energized and so focused on what I am doing. On top of that, I just got some pretty exciting news today. I interviewed for a position this morning that would be a second job at the same agency with a few extra hours per week.

Let me start by explaining my current position and how I got it. I work with a program called Healthy Families Arizona. I work with 15 families with children ages 0-3, visiting them once a week or every other week to teach parents about their children's development and positive parenting techniques, as well as teaching families problem solving and goal setting skills. I got the job because my previous job with an early literacy non-profit had a long standing relationship with the program. When the funding for my previous job was coming to an end, I sent my resume out to all of the people and agencies that I had worked with in the past two years and inquired about any open positions. That is how I got such an awesome position with Healthy Families.

Around the same time I was transitioning into my new job, the Operations Director for another agency I worked with at the early literacy organization had also gotten a job with a brand-new program at the agency that manages Healthy Families: Child and Family Resources. Now fast forward about 8 months and that same former colleague is hiring for part-time, seasonal instructors for the after school program she is directing: Tech Girls. I told her I might be interested in the position, sent her my application, and got the interview!

After the interview, the program director went to my supervisors to talk to them about if they would be okay with me having the second job, and if I would be able to balance the workload. Then, later in the day, she came to talk to me to let me know that everyone is supportive of me taking on the second position, that the agency would allow me to have a few more hours to complete all my work, and that she would love to have me on the team!

So now you may see why I prefer to talk about this than the other less-than-perfect parts of my life. It is also why I named this post running in the rain because I also enjoy running in the rain more than I enjoy thinking about the tough stuff. It does not rain all the time, and I do not always have the opportunity to run through it without getting struck by lightning, but I definitely loved it tonight.

I loved running in the rain tonight just like I loved the prospect of this new opportunity today, and I love writing about it now. I just want to be happy and celebrate the small things. Even though there are some big, ugly things hanging over my head right now, I want to celebrate small victories. So to today's interview and to tonight's run, I say "Nike!"

going the distance.

Monday, July 18, 2011

4 miles

41:38

and

Saturday, July 16, 2011

4 miles

43:45

I have decided that after this last 8 weeks or so of running regularly I am going to increase my mileage. I'd like to have 20 mile weeks by the end of the month, and hopefully increase to 30-35 miles per week in the coming months.

I am still having trouble with my legs, though. My knees are no longer in pain while I'm running, but I feel like the supportive shoes that I am wearing now are cutting off the circulation in my little toes... ouch! Maybe I'll try switching back to my old shoes.

Last week I really started seeing a change in my body. I am becoming more toned and really feeling more fit. I am not craving fast food or big meals anymore, and I feel like I have been shopping smarter.

For anyone who's ever hung out with me in person, all this talk about body image may seem confusing. I have always been slender without any real weight gain issues. Unfortunately, that has changed recently. I have gained 20 pounds in the last year-- about 10 of which in the last three months or so. I started eating out all the time around May of this year, which was not only brutal on my bank account, but on my body, too. The turmoil in my life over the past few months have been hard on my soul, so it made it all the worse to look in the mirror and not like what I saw and not feel like the person that I had once been.

So the change that I see in my body are not the observations of a really shallow person (well, maybe a little), but I am becoming satisfied with what I look like and what I feel like again, and I think that is important in the healing of my soul.

I will conclude today just by saying that I am continually excited and motivated by the change that is taking place, and I am hoping that God will continue to guide that change and help heal my heart.

Here's to 4 more miles tomorrow!