Sunday, August 14, 2011

Beginnings

When I was young, I was a very athletic kid. I played football and softball regularly but my favorite sport was running. In Junior High I joined a track team and every Tuesday and Thursday we ran 5 miles. In my junior year of High School (when I lived at the beach) I would run the strand from the Hermosa Beach (4th St) to the Manhatten Beach Pier and back. Nothing beat that feeling of accomplishment at the end of the route.

Somewhere around adulthood I became 'too busy' to run and I became a smoker.

When I quit smoking in 1996 though, I needed to DO something with all that electric angst running through my fritzing out body. I bought a treadmill and put it in the living room. Every time I wanted a cigarette I walked instead. Then the summer Olympics came on. Inspired, I began to run.

Within the first 4 months of quitting smoking I lost 10 pounds but several pants sizes and I had become a runner again. In fact, every day after work I ran 48 minutes. That was my new thing. I started running in 5k's and once ran the 8.2 mile March of Dimes walk. That was me and two or three others that pushed each other to exhaustion at the end. This image was taken of me 11 years ago.


Then in 2000 I fell in love. With a couch potato. I ran less and less as it wasn't worth the headaches it brought to my relationship and after all, a good man is hard to find. Right? I blimped up to a lifetime high of over 200 pounds during that long depressing rollercoaster of a ride. I began losing the weight immediately after the relationship and all it's drama ended and I can proudly say I NEVER weighed that much again. Not even to this day. After the relationship ended I began running again. It was good to be me again. :)

When I moved in with George, I put a treadmill in the living room. However, the only time I ever had alone to run was three nights a week. You see, he is the first man I lived with since 1987 or so. I wasn't used to having someone there ALL THE TIME. With so many other things needing done by me during the week, my alone time quickly was filled with catching up on those things and the running less and less.

January 2010 I began running in earnest again. I was doing great and then the end of the month I ended up in the hospital with a terrible pain. I told the doctors it felt like an ovary was exploding inside me. They told me that it was too low for that. They tested me for appendicitis and in the testing 'found' a hernia. NO MORE RUNNING. Lots more testing.

For 10 months I suffered intermittent pain there that would put me down for hours/days. The two specialists couldn't locate a hernia and kept saying that didn't mean it wasn't there. I began gaining weight again and was really frustrated. Then at the end of October during one episode I went to my OB/GYN's office. She was out and they gave me a young fresh out of residency Doctor. She LISTENED to me (again, saying it felt like an ovary exploding) and ordered ultrasounds. SURPRISE!!! Bursting ovary. Fluids draining/burning down in the abdominal cavity quite visible. Imagine that. She scheduled me for surgery the end of November and SURPRISE!!! it was exactly as we thought. They removed the ovary and other issues and sent me home.

Three weeks later I had a arterial hemorrhage as a post-surgical complication. They did a second surgery and said at my January follow-up - NO RUNNING FOR SIX MONTHS. I gained yet MORE weight. Estimated date to start: July 1st.

Well, July came and went.

Meantime, my stepdaughter began to show an interest in running. I was giving her information from my experience and the entire time I was feeling like a hypocrite - Telling her how to get stronger while I did nothing of the same for myself. She unwittingly became my inspiration and muse to JUST DO IT.

So...........I started running again on August 10th, 2011.

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