The ups and downs

The last couple of weeks have been quite the rollercoaster in terms of mood. I was pretty down that I was injured, then up when I saw the doc and the prospect of knowing what was wrong loomed. Once I found out, I was very happy for a day knowing it was fixable, then down because I realize it'll potentially be April before I can begin to run again. Then I was back up for a while when Danielle and a few other people suggested I try swimming. I did, and I was cautiously optimistic when my knee didn't hurt and I didn't drown. I'd probably be really good at swimming if I didn't need to breathe, but I have to work on that. Today, though, I tried to ride the exercise bike in the gym for the first time in a few weeks, and after 5 minutes, my knee was really hurting, so again, the instant mood drop. I'm seriously bipolar right now. I'm sure I'm a joy to be around...

Under the knife

I had the follow-up with the doc today to get the reading of the MRI. I have two cartilage tears (one lateral, one medial). Surgery will be sometime in January; someone from the office is supposed to call me sometime today to schedule a time. It doesn't appear too serious. He's not sure if he'll be repairing or just trimming up until he gets in there (he said as a rule, he prefers to repair if at all possible, but he can't tell from the MRI for sure what he'll be able to do until he sees it), so I don't know if I'll find out if I'll be on crutches for 3 days or 6 weeks before surgery takes place...

At this point, I am happy he is the team doctor for a professional sports team, since he sees this type of thing a lot, and his job is to get them back on the field healthy and quickly.

Edited 2008-12-23 2pm: Looks like surgery will not be at least until February. I currently have an appt for February 5th, but that is only if the surgery takes an hour or less. The person who does scheduling hasn't gotten any paperwork from the doctor about me yet, so when she finally does, if she sees it'll take longer than that, it'll get bumped back even further. Woohoo! I have the Feb 5th appt because the doc told me I'd be scheduling an appt with her, so I called her, for lack of any other instructions. If I hadn't, I likely wouldn't have talked to her until next week sometime.

More Snow!

So I am not sure what is going on back in Iowa but out here in New England we are getting slammed with snow.

I seriously don't remember snow like this before Christmas since I was little.

I'd take pictures of the huge snowbanks but my camera battery is dead.

But anyway, I tried to run on Saturday up in Vermont.

Yeah... I made it about a mile and then I quit. Part of that was because nowhere in VT near our house is flat so I was running up steep slopes on unplowed roads.

So my long run this weekend? Didn't really happen.

It might happen tomorrow if I am sufficiently inspired.

But today I went downhill skiing.

Yay skiing!
Okay, this picture is from Winter Park CO in 2003, but who cares. Remember, dead camera battery...

Yeah, so I went skiing with my dad and a family friend today. The snow was gorgeous but it was frigid. Not quite the same workout as running, but my quads still burned.

But... now I am excited to live somewhere I can ski regularly again. I grew up skiing every other weekend or so when I was younger. I raced in high school.

Then I moved to a tropical island for two years.

Then I moved to the Midwest for SEVEN years.

So the skiing? A little rusty.

But there are mountains near Seattle!

Maybe I'll even get a season pass somewhere.

Cuz dude, skiing is expensive.

In other news, I got home and my grandmother who lives here died less than a day after I got here (literally as I was on my way over to visit her in hospice care). My mom works as a nurse, so this was the grandmother who used to watch us after school every day. She was really sick, so it wasn't completely unexpected, but I'm sad I missed out on saying goodbye bye by literally 15 minutes. Not that she has been conscious recently, so it was really for my sake not hers.

But the morbidly hilarious moment of the day on Friday goes to my mom. We were waiting for her siblings to get there before the funeral home took her away so there was this weird time-killing conversation between me, my mom, and my uncle as we hovered around my grandma. So my mom goes to my uncle:

"Will you ask her if she is dating anyone, because she won't tell me anything."

one pole, no protection

As Danielle so creatively pointed out. My car, a Rendezvous, had a rendezvous with a telephone pole. Apparantly, the ice doesn't count as a no fault accident, so indeed it is my fault that my car slid on the ice. I did a nice, slow thinking response. Steer with the skid. . . . . .didn't work. . . . .steer against the skid. . . . ..didn't work. . . . . . .hit the brakes. . . . .not a good idea, turns the car around. . . . .hit the telephone pole. And, I was on my way to the gym to lift weights before our work xmas party so I couldn't stop to call the police and make a report or I may miss the opportunity to see my only shoulder muscle reflected in the large mirror as I lift my punny weights!

So, Danielle listened to me talk to my insurance company on the phone all the way to the gym. And, then I drank a beer at the xmas party.

Do any of you have a car? If so, invite me to do things. Invite me a lot, take pity on me - I will be fun! All you need to do is pick me up. . . .

Six miles of lumbering

Okay, at least I am up to six miles. That's something! Even if they were 11 minute miles. I think I may drop back to five mile long runs again, mostly because I get discouraged when I run my long runs in the 11s. I only wear my heart rate monitor so I don't know my pace until I finish. Okay, whine whine whine, boo hoo, I run so slow. Done.

Anyway, maybe I ran so slow because this is Day 9 straight of working out. Seriously! You'd think I was a machine or something! Normally I give myself a day of rest once a week, but Kori has been guilting me into working out, mainly because her car had relations with a telephone pole and so she can't get to the gym unless I drive her. So in the past nine days, I have had 4 short runs (2.5-3.5 miles), one long run of six miles, three spinning classes (two of which turned into bricks with 1-2 mile runs afterwards), and three trips to my weight class at the gym (lamely called Group Power!).

The last track at Group Power is the shoulder track and the music sounds like it came straight out of my Nintendo Dance Aerobics game. (Okay, I guess game is a really bad name for it, since it is dancing).

From 1988.

Yeah, we were doing Wii Fit way before it was cool.

The best was that they had this Track and Field game that was superfun. Of course, we would always cheat on the long jump and jump off the pad and then jump back on to land. And these guys here? There was many an hour of doing this in the basement in front of the Nintendo. If you have never played, I'd like you to note the movements during the 100-m dash, where you go fast by having quick turnover... which when running in place means picking your feet like an inch off the ground. Ah, such a skill to be mastered!

Next up, MRI

Went to the orthopedic today. He said the ligaments are fine. There was also an interesting, reproducible pop when he torqued the knee a certain way, though while amusing and loud, it's apparently nothing more than entertaining to the doc, so I guess I'm not worried. At this point, he is leaning towards some sort of cartilage problem. He is cautiously optimistic that it's not a breakdown of the support the meniscus provides, because on the x-rays they took, there is good symmetry for all 4 points of contact across both knees, though the x-ray don't show enough detail to be sure. I have an MRI scheduled for Thursday (because the radiology lab needs 3 business days to get pre-approval from my insurance, even though there was an opening Monday at 9 a.m.; yay insurance). So I get the MRI, go back to the ortho, and see what it says.

I really like doctors who deal with athletes (the ortho is the team doctor for DC United), because first thing he said was, "so, the goal is to get you to run marathons again, right?" He didn't tell me to stop running long distances because they damage your body. So now I just wait a while longer [insert Jeopardy theme here]...

I'm addicted to Mary Jane(s)

So here is where I am totally using this blog for my own personal gain.

Over here, Keen is doing a giveaway.

For any of their products.

Now, in case you didn't know, I am kinda a shoe addict.

And I am addicted to expensive shoes.

Not like Carrie Bradshaw shoes.

But hello, I own about five pairs of Keens, five pairs of Chacos, and five pairs of Danskos (to my credit, I snag a lot of them for like 50-75% off at Steep and Cheap).

I seriously have a problem.

I especially have a bit of a Mary Jane addiction. How can you not think these are not adorable?

Anyway, I get an extra entry into the contest if I link back to it from the blog.

Yes. I am a shameless shoe whore.

Oh! And in some running related content... We had our running group Christmas party tonight.

There was a white elephant gift exchange.

I put in an entire box full of Howard Dean pins and stickers that I have left over from 2004.

In return...

I got...

THE GERMAN CHICKEN HAT!!!1!!1!

The German Chicken Hat hasn't even been worn since I wore it last year for Living History Farms. In fact, it still has leaves stuck in its feathers. Oh I'm so happy that the German Chicken Hat is moving to Seattle with me!!!

Snow!

So I went cross-country skiing four times this week.

Most excellent!

I did manage to run a few times as well, although I am not a fan of trying to do hard runs on the icy sidewalks. So I am only doing my long runs outside and I do my shorter runs inside on the treadmill where I can feel the pain.

I did about 4 miles today for my long run (you know, after a tough week peaking at 5 miles last week, I needed a rest week). But then right after I went skiing with my friend Jaymi for an hour:

I also went to spinning class twice last week with Kori. Lesson learned: I'm really lazy when it comes to spinning at 5:30 in the morning - I don't turn the tension up as much as when I do it at night...

In other news, I think I accidentally went on two dates this week.

Seriously.

I mean, I'm friends with boys like it's my job. (PLEASE tell me about the girl that you like that doesn't like you back AGAIN). So I don't actually think much about it when boys I know ask me if I want to grab a beer or coffee or something.

On Tuesday, I met someone for (what I thought was friendly) drinks and at 11pm he was trying to get me to go back to his place.

To meet his ferrets.

For real.

Saturday was much less weird so I won't get into it, but gees I'm excited to get out of this town!

Of course Seattle doesn't have Libertarian cowboys or boys with cute accents.

But at least a real city has shear numbers going for it.

And I believe a disproportionate amount of crunchy granola boys.

Who'll probably go cross-country skiing with me.

And we come full circle.