chimesblog

I’ll preface this with: I need to learn another craft like I need a hole in my head. My apartment is literally a craft store.

In the past week I’ve started to become two things I’ve always said I’d never become: a swimmer and a quilter *(see the bottom of the page for the swimming back story).

That being said, I posted a craft on the craftster.org quilting board, thanks to one of my BFFs, Adria. The whole thing started out honest enough… I asked Adria if she’d want to help me donate some crafts to our high school friend’s mom’s silent auction to help fundraise for her cancer treatment. Of course she said yes, and when I asked for some scraps for my friend Danielle to have to make a tea wallet, she said “of course!”

I got her scraps (1-inch wide Hello Betty fabrics leftover from a quilt she just completed) and today I started to think about which fabrics I wanted to use for the tea wallet because I’m making a matching tea cup and saucer for the auction.

I started to pin together the fabrics and was going to sew them by hand because my sewing machine had been broken for a year (it broke while I was making this beast). For whatever reason, I figured I could get the sewing machine down and fiddle with it and maybe it would work.

By God, it’s an Easter miracle! My sewing machine has been resurrected!

(okay, sorry. that was cheesy and kind of sacrilegious…admit it, you giggled)

I was ecstatic that it worked. I got right to work piecing these 1-inch strips together to make a chunk of fabric big enough for my friend Danielle to make a tea wallet out of. Halfway into it I realized something…. I was QUILTING! Kind of anyway. Was I? I don’t know.

Here’s my “block”. I’ll post the tea wallet when it’s done and the tea cup and saucer (which are definitely vintage fiestaware, might I add — obsessed!).

What’s next? Well I’ve had blocks cut for 2 t-shirt quilts ever since I found out  Adria was a quilter…so I guess that is next! I want to make an über-metal bedspread for the boyfriend since his shirts shrank (tallwise — they’re too short for him now, he’s a tall guy) and he’s rather attached to most of his shirts. I would love to make some reconned t-shirts out of them for ME to wear…but I think I’ll be a nice girlfriend for once and make him something useful out of HIS shirts.

*For those of you ambitious readers who’ve missed my previous posts about swimming, running, being injured, etc., here’s my short segue into how I got to be a swimmer. I’m a runner. Period. I haven’t ever stretched, crosstrained, or done anything relatively smart when it comes to training. I ran a marathon and didn’t bother stretching afterwards because the Bears vs Vikings game was on and I was busy watching that. I got a bad case of ITBS and continued to run on it…long story short, I was up to 15 miles again and decided that the pain in my left hip was too much. Now I go to physical therapy and am forbidden from running until further notice. Thus, I’ve been banished to the pool for swimming and aquajogging. Here’s a gratuitous photo of me in my swimming gear to burn your retinas.

cuz I'm that badass.

Also, I have really dry skin now and it sucks. I hate swimming. </end rant>

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FYI I started writing this yesterday afternoon (4/6/09).

So to keep myself busy for 12 minutes on this bike I’m bloggig from my iPod.

Read: yay! A short entry!

So now that i’m well on my way to recovery, I finally made myself go out and buy swimming gear and go for a dip.

Got a pink (what else?) swim cap and goggles and a plain black one piece. I was ready to go.

Problem: how do I put on a swim cap?
Solution: ask a random girl with wet hair in the locker room — she’s a swimmer.

Apparently putting on a swim cap is harder than it looks. She showed me and 15 minutes later I was ready to figure out my goggles.

So 20 minutes later I made it in the pool. And, sadly, I had iPod withdrawl.

And lo and behold, swimming isn’t as easy as I remember. My stroke: breast stroke. Can’t do it. No frog kicking allowed during my rehab. Ok well um what else can I kinda do? Side stroke… Check. Freestyle… Check. Dog paddle? Mega check.

I alternated those few “strokes” for a half hour and went to the deep end to water jog and tread water for a while.

Then I went into the locker room to shower off — the guys’ locker room! Oh boy. Sadly I didn’t realize it right away. Only after I discovered my clothes weren’t where I left them did I realize there were men walking around.

Sooo I bolted. Into the right locker room his time. Shoot. Forgot my towel. Ran back out to get that and reminded the lifeguards that I’m not a swimmer… just a poor injured runner that has no business in the pool.

I snagged my towel, went into the LADIES locker room, showered off and started changing. The naked older lady next to me started talking to me (or maybe I started talking to her? I don’t know). We had a convo while we changed (and yes, I got naked in the locker room).  THEN I realized my underwear were missing. Which wouldn’t be a big deal except I JUST CAME FROM WORK!  

Frantically, I dumped my bag fearing that my underwear were somewhere on the 3rd floor of Old Main … or even worse … on the 2nd floor (that’s where the president’s office is!).  

FOUND ‘em!  That was kinda scary.

Anyway, after a very interesting experience… I went off and started biking. Wet hair and all.

Swimming=fun, but awkward … my body=tired.  This morning I felt like I ran 10 miles…except without the “my appendages are going to break off at any moment” feeling.

yay.  Hoping to swim tomorrow. I dunno tho.  I stayed home from work today because I felt reallly…. off.  I guess. I felt like crap when I woke up and continued to feel like crap all day. So here I am. in sweatpants. 6 PM and no shower today. I rule.

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Those of you who know me or who follow me on twitter know that I’ve recently had to quit running due to an injury and that I’ve finally started long past due physical therapy to help heal my injury and hopefully prevent it from happening again.

Here’s the whole story from beginning to end.

Last summer I was pulling 10-15 miles on weekends and days off work…so I decided, why not train for a marathon?

So I did, except I didn’t taper like I was supposed to. I ran 22 miles 3 weeks before, 10 miles 2 weeks before and 16 the week before.  Well, that was dumb. Tapering is supposed to let you recover while not making you lose the ability to pull that long of a distance. So the last 3 weeks of marathon training started making me hurt a bit, but I figured I’d be fine to run the race.

Race day came. 16 miles into it my left leg felt like it was going to fall off. I had developed a HUGE case of ITBS due to downhills, overpronating and mostly NOT STRETCHING properly.  This was my race. I wanted to finish. I didn’t care if I couldn’t run for a while afterwards. I WAS NOT GOING TO WALK.  I made it, in a ridiculous time of 5:48:something.  Sad.  I was running 14 minute miles by the 20th mile because I was so hurt.

And the kicker: after I got home, the Bears vs Vikings game was still on…so what did I do instead of stretching and taking an ice bath and starting some cold/heat therapy?  I watched the rest of the game. BIG MISTAKE.

Fast forward about 2 weeks (I got the stomach flu in there and we went somewhere for work..so fortunately I couldn’t run during the two-week period following the race).  I started trying to run again.  I was still injured.  I tried running 5 miles because to me, that was a short distance. I’ve been running at least 5 miles a day for about 5 years…so I figured that would be okay. It wasn’t.  I kept trying though and it made things worse.

Finally I read somewhere that short distances with speedwork would help heal my ITBS.  This was something new to me, but I tried it.  I managed to hit a 25 minute 5k and was pretty impressed with my speed. Suddenly my 10-minute mile average cranked up to an 8:30/mi average!  I didn’t think I could do that, let alone run a mile in under 7 minutes, but that’s because I never tried. Because of my venture into short distances and speed work, my ITBS  had gotten better.

On Februrary 2nd, I started training for the Drake On the Roads 1/2 Marathon. This was to be my “comeback” race and with my newfound speed, I could definitely break my PR and finish in under 2 hours (I was looking at a 1:45:00 time — last year I finished in 2:08:something).  My knee quit showing symptoms of ITBS and my hip only hurt when I did my longer mileage on the weekend…but I thought that was normal.

Well, my hip started to hurt during the week too.  And it started to hurt on days I didn’t run.  SO I started cross training…like I should have done a while ago.  That actually made things worse because I cranked up the resistance and elliptical machines aren’t built for my little short body.

Finally, I took a week off work and drove 3 hours to my parents house. That is usually my running haven. I can run hills…out in the middle of nowhere…on gravel. I love it.  I can run 15 miles uninterrupted by traffic.  Well I was planning to do just that, when I got hit by an old lady, had to file a police report and only ended up running 7 miles before my hip decided I couldn’t take it anymore (unfortunately, not related to being hit).  I took a day off and ran 6 miles 2 days later, didn’t really stretch and drove home. I thought my leg was going to fall off by the end of my drive. Driving is probably the worst pain of all I’ve experienced lately.  It hurts more to drive than it does at the end of a run.

I got home, didn’t run for a few days and decided that Sunday was going to be my last run for a while. I jogged an easy 2 miles and tried to enjoy it.  It was a beautiful day, but I just wasn’t feeling it.

That next Wednesday I finally went to the doctor and they referred me to a physical therapist. Yay. Finally. I’m going to be normal again.  It’s just going to take some time.

So here I am. I started PT last week and already I’ve seen a great improvement. It’s been 2 weeks today since I’ve ran. It was really hard the first week, but now I’m starting to get used to it. Yesterday I used the elliptical for the first time (with less resistance and going forward instead of backward) and it *almost* felt like I was running. It was like I was flirting with running’s less attractive sibling.  Close, but not quite.

A lot of my hesitance to quit running came from my fear of weight gain.  I’m little, yes, but that’s because I work at it. Take away my exercise regime and I’m screwed.  Fortunately, I haven’t gained weight. Actually, I’ve lost 2 pounds. I’ve been working on lifting with my upper body and apparently other exercises burn more calories for me since I’m biomechanically fit for running because that’s pretty much all I’ve done for several years.

I’m really getting into cycling, but I know I’d like it more if I was outside. I *might* get a new bike this year, but we’ll see. I’m waiting for my PT bill. I’m also trying to save for a new car (hoping to get one about a year from now).  I just bought swimwear yesterday (side note: I’m a germ freak. I hate pool water).  I’m hoping to add swimming to my cross training.  I would train for a triathalon, but there is no way I’m ever swimming in a non-chlorinated body of water…so that’s out.

So I’m surviving, but I miss running. Fortunately it seems like the weather KNOWS that I quit running. There has probably only been 1-2 days since I quit that I would have wanted to be outside running. It’s been excessively windy on nice days, rainy and now super blizzardy out. Yes, I’ve been known to run in adverse conditions, but I’ve never run in rain, I hate running in wind AND I don’t run while it’s snowing this hard.

Yay for me. I’m hoping my comeback will be sometime this summer. I’m going to shoot for the Des Moines Marathon (half) in the fall for sure. I don’t think I’ll ever run another full marathon. It’s just not worth it to me. Plus, my race is the half. I can get a really good time in that race if I try and 13.1 miles isn’t going to kill my body. 

So for now, I’m just going to be on the sidelines jealously cheering people on who are able to go out and run a few miles.  Seriously. I speed-walked down my usual short route (Kingman to Polk and back — 4 miles) the other day and I saw a bunch of people running. I had to hold back the urge to cry and the urge to cheer them on. I’m sure they would have been totally confused and/or pissed at my gesture, but whatever. I’m a has-been..well more like a never-was since I never was that good. Maybe I can be good or at least in the upper-half of average this next time around.

So that’s that. You’ve got all the details now.

EDIT:

I can’t believe I wrote this post today (of all days) without mentioning my friend Devin who passed away a year ago today and inspired me to run my first half marathon. He wasn’t  a runner, but he was very inspirational and was kind of a dare-devil. I was wavering between running it and wussing out…and I could just hear him say, “For Christ’s sake, Calee, quit being a pussy and DO IT already.”  So I did it.  And since then, on days that I didn’t want to go out, I would think of him.  I thought of him during the last few miles of my race and I’m thinking of him today. It’s snowing. I almost feel like he has a part in it.  Maybe not, but it seems like a prank he might pull to throw us all off.  Either way, I miss him.  I was out running a 13-mile run last year when I missed the call from my friend about his death.  I was probably running when he died.  It just makes sense to keep running now.

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