Getting my son excited about races!

I'm a little behind on the blogging.  I've been sulking since I'm grounded from running and cycling.  Let me catch you up on the last week and a half...

I went back to the ENT doctor last week and she said everything seems to be healing well but I should take the time to heal even more and not run or cycle for 2 weeks so that maybe I'll be okay for the Flying Wheels this coming weekend.  So I've been grounded.... and I'm going crazy.  I also went to the dentist to check on my teeth and both the dentist and my oral surgeon said I didn't do any permanent damage.  My teeth shifted a bit when I fell but they'll shift back into place.  They already feel better than they did 3 weeks ago. 

I did the Adventure Run and walked AGAIN (I need to stop injuring myself before the Adventure Run each month!) but it ended up being a good excuse to bring my 9 year old along.  He had a lot of fun. 

My kiddo and me with our raffle tickets

VK Sista' and me

My cousin's clan

Haha.  He had to stay out of the beer garden.  :)

Saturday night was the Electric Run at the Puyallup Fairgrounds, and since Cousin is an ambassador for the run, she gave me a coupon code for a free entry so that my son could come.  I couldn't stand the excitement... so I jogged.  I just couldn't cross another start line and walk!  I kept a 12:30 ish pace the whole time.  My son not only kept up, but he wanted to run faster.  He had a blast.  He says he wants to do more 5Ks with me.

This run was so much better than the Neon Run that I did last year.  (And you don't get covered with yucky colored powder!)  My son especially loved the candy section with giant blow up gummy bears, ice cream cones, cupcakes, etc.  There were fog machines that made it smell like candy as you went through, and they gave you gummy bears at the end!  I thought the barn decorated like the ocean was really neat with bubbles and jellyfish.  I'd definitely do this run again. 

I had a little bit of sinus pressure but all in all I felt fine!  It felt SO GOOD to run... even if it was a slow jog.  It's weird that I feel like I need to exercise as much as I need to breathe now.  I can't just sit around on the couch and watch tv.  I'm like a crazy person with a ton of anxiety if I don't run.  I see a lot of running quotes going around like, "I run to burn off the crazy" and "I run because punching people is frowned upon", etc.  I totally get that now. 

I was talking to a friend the other day and she asked me why I feel the need to run a marathon.  She said, "What's missing in your life that you feel like completing a marathon would fill?"  This bugged me for days.  Is there something missing?  Is it wrong to work towards a huge goal?  I talked to my MA BFF about it and she said there's nothing missing and I just have no drama in my life.  I've been happily married for 13 years, two awesome kids to come home to every day, a stable job, great friends and family.  I race because it's a challenge.  This is my excitement.  My hobby.  It's healthy, motivating, and I have a blast at all these races spending time with my husband and friends....(Running and cycling) And now my son too!  I wish I could remember the way she worded all of this because she's freaking brilliant.  She made me feel better. 

So... then I caught my daughter's cold.  I spent Sunday and Monday pretty miserable with sinus pain but I've been downing vitamin c and zicam and I feel much better now.  (Not 100% but much better!)  Everyone went cycling without me over the weekend.  VK Sista and Cheetah went on Saturday and Monday, and Husband, BFF's Husband, and another friend went over the pass on Sunday.  I'm bummed to be missing out but I really want to try to do the century tomorrow.  I don't think I'm ready though.  I haven't trained enough for it, I'm still healing, and I'm still pretty scared to get on my bike.  We'll see how it goes.  I have 10 hours to do it and I'll be hanging back with my mother-in-law and Cheetah.  We'll go as far as we can, and BFF is awesome and will pick me up if my face falls apart!  :)  Maybe next year my son will come along!  
 

I'm tired of kicking ass

I still think I'm going to lose a toe nail from walking the 1/2M...

(Please excuse the chipped polish and the need for a pedicure.)

I finally put some mascara on for the first time in 2 weeks.  Felt so much more human and less like a zombie...

My black eye is almost completely healed.  I don't get as many double-takes when strangers look at me.  I'm still a bit worried about the road rash though.  I completely expect to have a scar in my eyebrow, but I'm afraid I'll have spots on my cheek forever.  I have gone through almost an entire container of Neosporin.  The road rash on my elbow from the first crash 5 weeks ago is still discolored so it freaks me out that's going to happen with my face.

The broken maxilla still causes some sinus pressure but my headaches have been mostly staying away.  My ENT doc said to wait at least 2 weeks to ride again so I waited exactly 2 weeks to the day and did the Haul Ash on Saturday.  She told me to stop if I had any pain at all.  

So about 13 miles in, I gave up.  The path was really bumpy with tree roots underneath and I knew from doing this trail a few times before that it wasn't going to get any better.  Every bump hurt.  It made my eyebrow sting and feel puffy, and my sinuses felt like they might explode.  I was also really really tense being on my bike for the first time since crashing, so that probably didn't help.  I wasn't having any fun.  

It was a really crowded ride and I saw two other people on the side of the path who crashed along the way.  Also, one of our friend's dropped his phone and when I put on my brakes to miss it, I got yelled at by BFF's husband to not brake.  Pshaw.  Not brake?  He should know not to draft behind me...and I wasn't about to hit a phone and fall off again.  

So when I pulled off to the side in pain, stressed, and miserable I told my husband I didn't feel like kicking ass anymore.  He agreed it was probably a good idea to turn around.  We found out our beer tickets were good at the finish line so that sealed the deal.  A 25 mile ride instead of a 42 mile ride, and 2 beers at the end while we waited for everyone else.  

I was bummed sitting there checking out Facebook and Instagram seeing our friends post pics from the halfway point wishing I made it that far.  But my eyebrow looked like it was bruising and I knew it was good we were done.  

Here's a pic of my husband and I when we got back to Red Hook:

And here's a pic of our clan when they got back and joined us:

I love this pic.  So much going on!  

Anyway, since the ride I feel like I'm starting the whole healing process all over again.  Sinus headache is back.  It hurts to have normal facial expressions.  My teeth hurt and feel like they aren't aligned correctly.  Husband and VK Sista' both said it looked like my eyebrow was bruised again.  Ugh.  I'm afraid if I have to take it easy and not run or ride, I'm going to lose all my endurance and all the training I've worked so hard for.  When I can run again is it going to feel really hard to run a mile?  Will I go back to feeling like I can't breathe?  Will I lose muscle?  How am I going to do the Flying Wheels and the STP?  And I'm so bummed I'm going to have to walk the Electric Run and Adventure Run this week.  Do I even bother going?

I really feel like just giving up and going back to that girl who sat around and watched tv and ate chicken strips.  I know that can't happen though.  

I saw this on Pinterest the other day... I like it...

Injured fairy couldn't fly but everything happens for a reason

I forgot to update my blog with what the ENT Doc said at my appointment on Thursday.  She told me I absolutely could not run a half marathon.  She told me if I insisted on doing it, that I had to walk.  No running.  No jogging.  Just walk.  She seemed more concerned about the deep laceration on my eyebrow than she was about my broken maxilla bone.  Luckily I don't need surgery or anything.  It'll heal on its own.  She removed my stitches, told me not to blow my nose, and make sure I sneeze with my mouth open.  She said to take Sudafed and Afrin before the flight to help with the sinus pressure.  She also said I had to stay away from any jarring rides while in Disney (Indiana Jones, Tower of Terror, etc)  And that I had to buy a big "Audrey Hepburn hat" to keep the sun off the road rash on my face and use a ton of sunscreen.  

Here's a few pics of the healing process…

So I was looking and feeling a lot better by the time I left for my trip.  Still colorful but not as swollen, and my sinus headache was pretty much gone.  It's amazing how quickly a facial injury heals.  Before I left I decided I'd shred one of my fairy wings since I wouldn't be able to run.  I thought it would be symbolic and it would match my black eye….

We got up at 3:30am to fly down to Cali on Saturday morning, and headed straight from the airport to the Health and Fitness Expo to pick up my race packet and find BFF and her family.  After walking around there for a bit, we went into Disneyland and took the kids on as many rides as we could.  It was a long day.  We got back to our hotel around 10:30pm that night and I showered and put on my KT tape, compression sleeves, etc before I went to bed to save time in the morning.  Then I got up at 3:30am AGAIN to get dressed and head to Starbucks in Downtown Disney at 4am to meet BFF for the race.

The race started at 5:30am so we had plenty of time to get breakfast, use the porta-potty, etc.  We seemed to be about 15 minutes ahead of the crowd.  When we left Starbucks there was a huge line, and when we left the bathrooms there was a huge line too.  Smooth sailing!  We found our corral and waited there until it was our turn to go at 6:15am.  By the time we left for the race, I had already walked 2 miles and stood around for about an hour.

I love BFF's costume.  :)

Still dark when Corral A left.  They lit off fireworks!

Start line encouragement :)

Start line selfie! 

It was so weird crossing the start line and just walking.  I was dying to at least jog a little but I was good.  I just power-walked along.  BFF is super short so my walk was her jog.  I knew we needed to keep a 16 minute pace so I tried to encourage her along.  The first mile or so was through a parking lot, and along a road that ran parallel to the parks.  We passed the 12 mile sign and it was right across the street from my hotel so I was excited that it would work out that my husband and kids could come out and cheer us on when we reached that point.  Then we headed inside California Adventure.

It was really fun to run through the park.  There were people cheering and characters all over to take photos with.  Some characters had huge lines (Especially Tinkerbell).  I have no idea how those people had time to stand in line and still finish a race…. but they were running and we weren't.  We just kind of ran by and took photos with them in the background and kept going.  After weaving all over California Adventure, we went through the exit and into Disneyland.  Again, lots of characters, and a lot of the rides were up and running empty which was neat.  We were able to go to a lot of "behind the scenes" areas.  The 5 mile mark was near the Haunted Mansion… then we went a mile further and exited the park.

Lightening and Mater

Tinkerbell

Goofy

We found a pirate

Capt Jack Sparrow

Oh no!  Trolley tracks!  Gotta be careful so I don't break my face again!

This was BFF's idea.  I will never live this trolley track thing down, will I?  

All the high-energy excitement abruptly ended.  We went through residential streets and there were signs all over that said, "Shh.  Neighbors sleeping."  So everyone kind of whispered and went mile after mile in silence.  Once in a while there would be people cheering us on in their front yards which was nice.  After a couple miles of that, we were out of residential streets and went along more commercial areas (hotels, restaurants, shops, etc.) There were cheerleaders and bands, and different sponsors (luna and cliff bars…) that would have music and cheer, but it was still nothing like the fun experience of the first 6 miles in the park.  Miles 7-12 just went on and on and on.

We kept an eye on the pacer balloons behind us.  Pacers on bikes would come by once in a while and tell everyone how many minutes ahead of cut off pace we were.  We heard we were 8 minutes ahead of pace, and then it was 6 minutes ahead, then it was 2 minutes ahead, then we heard we were only a minute and a half ahead of pace.  Eeeeeek!!   I kept an eye on those balloons back there thinking how awful it would be to be cut off this late.  We just chugged along as fast as we could.  We passed the 10 mile mark and we were told we were 6 minutes ahead of pace and that we made it.  He said we're all in, we've made it.  That was such a huge relief.  We could relax a little bit and I could stop speed walking and take a normal paced walk break.  Walking is so much different than running!  I didn't train to walk so far.  It amazed me that I used completely different muscles to walk.  My feet hurt like they had no padding left, my toes felt like they were getting squished, and I just felt stiff and sore all over.  Running feels better to me.  I'm kind of able to bounce along and stay loose.  This was just smacking my feet on the pavement over and over and over.  I was in pain.  Different pain than I usually am at mile 10, but definitely still in pain.  I thought this would be easy but I was very wrong.  I'm doubting my full-marathon ability in December now.  I figured with no time limit in Honolulu that I'd have no problem.  I need to train the run/walk method and see how it goes.

Me, the Thug Fairy. Keeping the sun off my road rash.
My eye/sinus did pretty well.  A little pain here and there but not too bad considering.  

Finally at mile 12 we were back near my hotel and my husband and kiddos were there to give hugs and cheers.  I needed that.  I knew we were almost back to the park and we had just a little more than a mile to go.  Even though they said we had made it, I could still see the pacer balloons back behind us and they were getting closer.  Could they change their minds?  Could we still be cut off?  I didn't' know but I was determined to make sure we didn't fall behind those balloons.  BFF was dying.  She said she felt like she was going to puke but I told her she didn't have time to puke.  I literally took her by the hand and dragged her the last mile.  I wasn't about to let the fail bus get her!  She was going to make it to that freaking finish line!  This is where I think everything happens for a reason.  If I wasn't forced to walk, I wouldn't have spent the entire race with her.  I would have had fun and goofed off through the parks, and then I would have taken off and gotten through all the boring miles as fast as I could.  I would have left her behind and I wouldn't have been there to encourage her to keep going.  Is it weird to say that I'm glad I broke my face?  ;)  I also think it's good to know that if I'm going to do a marathon that I need to train to walk as well as run.  I wouldn't know that otherwise.

YAY!!!!!

I could not walk 2 miles back to my hotel when we were finished so I opted to head to BFF's hotel instead.  I had my husband bring me clothes so I could shower there.

She has a pretty sweet view from her room

We took a little break and then spent the rest of the day at the park.  Freaking crazy.  I was exhausted.  My garmin said I walked a total of 20.6 miles that day.  I went to sleep at 8:30pm with my 2 year old daughter while my husband took my son on more rides.

Craziest whirlwind of a weekend.  I'm still recovering.  I feel like I have a lot more to write, and I have a ton more photos but I think this is long enough.  I met some other fairies at 4am walking to the race who were super nice, and we also met a girl we called "selfie stick" while waiting at the corral that I saw two more times after that.  I met and chatted with more women wearing race shirts and/or medals all over the park, my hotel, restaurants, the airport going home… all connected now.  It's like we were part of this exclusive little club for the weekend.  It was great.  I really recommend anyone train for a Disney running event!  I'm glad it's over though.  :)