Motivation

Recovery was a bit more involved and slow than I had hoped, but I'm back in action again!  I've run a few times this week for a total of just over 9 miles combined, and I've done a bit of yoga. Time to look forward and carry on.

There have been a lot of talk about Meb winning Boston (yay!) as well as some Bandits caught wearing someone's bib number (boo!).  What there hasn't been nearly enough talk about, in my opinion, was the final Boston finish for Team Hoyt.  At age 74, Dick now has too many health issues to continue running marathons, but they wanted this one last Boston finish anyway.  What an amazing and inspirational father-son team! I'm sure the Boston Marathon won't be the same without them.

Their journey over the years has been pretty spectacular.  If you aren't familiar with it, I encourage watching this video from their website that highlights one of their six ironman finishes (wow).



If that won't motivate you to look past your circumstances and start to focus on what you CAN accomplish, I don't know what will. Have a good weekend everyone!

blogging under the influence again

Today was oral surgery day. I'm too wobbly to walk unassisted because the anesthesia is not fully out of my system, but I'm still numb and not yet the heavy duty pain meds, so i think I can piece together a somewhat coherent post.

The details are a little foggy, but I know I ended up with more bone loss in my jaw than the reconstructive dentist anticipated so what was supposed to be the permanent bridge was put in only temporarily for now.  In a few weeks, he'll remove it and take a new impression post healing so that the lab can alter it to work better with the jaw for a better fit. Once he's happy with the fit, it will go in permanently.  That means at least three more dental appts for this: post operative check up, bridge removal and the old temporary put back in, and then temp removed and the new permanent installed. Those last two will require being medicated again. Ugh.

I've been instructed not to brush my teeth until the post op checkup on Monday. Also to be on all liquid diet until then. Blah. Husband has instructions for changing my gauze and medication as well as details on how/what I'm supposed to eat. I was also instructed not to talk (for how long, not sure).

I think this is going to really hurt once the numbing goes away. Already hurts when I lay my head down, so I'm sitting up for now.

Here's what I'm thinking.  Not happy that it didn't go ideally, but glad there haven't been any complications so far. I knew all along that there was something bad happening in my jaw causing problems, I'm just hoping they got everything out that needed to go so that once this is healed and the bridge is fine tuned, the problems that I've been having that led to this are finally resolved for good.

Also, it's pretty cool that the fake tooth in the center of the bridge was created to go partway down into the root socket. It's kind of a half way solution between a bridge and an implant. I think the point is to promote healing around it in such a way to prevent future issues in my jaw and keep my gums healthy

six miles, all smiles

Yesterday I went 3 miles super easy and my knee seemed okay.

This morning, I went six miles. The only issue was at the end; I was running hard to finish and maybe that want such a good idea.  Otherwise, our was a successful run. Yay!

I think I'm going to go for six again tomorrow and see what my knee thinks about that.

[Updated:  Well, my knee wasn't so happy about the repeat performance.  I'm thinking about not even downgrading to the 10K at the run for the zoo.  Maybe the 1 mile fun run or the non-competitive 5K run/walk.  More on that later...]

Quick Yoga Update

Yeah, so my dogs are better at yoga than I am (and also seem more enthused), but so far I'm sticking with it.  My goal was 15 yoga sessions this month, roughly every other day. It's the 8th and I'm at 5 sessions so far. Definitely on track.

Sometimes I enjoy it more than others. I always enjoy the warm down and short shavasana.  So if nothing else, I've been ending on a positive note each time.

Yoga Practice

I'm not exactly the poster child for yoga. I've blogged in the past about being yoga-challenged. I know it's good for me, but I suck at it.

Well, right now I really don't want to obsess about my knee and whether I can or cannot run a half-marathon. So I'm going to try changing focus a bit, in an attempt to really work at getting/staying healthy.

To do that, I decided to truly give yoga a try this month, in the privacy of my own home, that is.

A few years ago I got a DVD set of Kate Potter Namaste yoga. The style is Vinyasa flow. You may have seen her on tv at one time.  that at one time was on tv, but now is not.  Each DVD set has thirteen ~23-min episodes (it was 30 min on TV, but it's shorter without commercials). That is short enough to fit into my busy day, but long enough to feel like it's making an impact. And there's enough different sessions so to keep it fresh and mix things up.  Plus I ordered season 2, another 13 episodes. Each session has the following format: warm-up, vinyasa flow sequence, cool-down, short savasana.

Why yoga?  Well, I know there are many benefits to yoga including increased flexibility, reduced stress, & better sleep.  Those three alone are enough to motivate me right now to really give this a try.

My goal is for my personal yoga practice to include at least 15 yoga sessions this month (roughly 1 every other day).  It's the 6th, and so far I have completed 3, so I'm on track.

The only thing getting in my way is myself.  I'm committed to give this a try without judgment until the end of the month.  And then decide if I want to keep with it, increase frequency, try something different, or whatever.

March Summary

Numbers

• 7 days in Puerta Vallarta
• a 25th Anniversary
• 32.9 miles running
• 32.4 miles fitness walking
• 1 session yoga
• 1 successful 9.5 mile run
• 1 less-than-successful 9.0 mile run (knee pain)

Thoughts

• It's looking like I may be inquiring about whether my planned half-marathon registration can be downgraded to 10K. Drat!
• Trying to stay positive.  Running is about staying healthy, not about running certain distances.  Right?

Plans

• Figure out whether the 13.1 is going to be a Go or No-Go
• Survive Oral Surgery
• Get serious about yoga practice
• Keep moving..