Back to Life, Back to Reality

So the past two weeks have been good ones. I am back to working out everyday, of course no where near where I was before, but I am getting back to it. I am actually working with a friend who has asked me to train her a bit. So for the next month until I go back to coached training, we are gym buddies. Needless to say with all of these crazy workouts the past two weeks, I have been spending a lot of time in the bathtub with my Epsom salts!

This week consisted of spinning, some treadmill drills, swimming and Body Pump. For those of you who aren't familiar with Body Pump it is a one hour weight lifting class where you work each muscle group to the point of fatigue, then you move onto the next one. Basically to be a little more specific, when you are doing bicep curls, when you are on the last one, it should literally be the last one you are physically capable of doing. So that's fun!

This weekend I think I am going to give my body a break and just do a quick swim and some yoga before the dressing up begins. We have some fun Halloween plans for this weekend, none of which include being the slutty version of anything, a concept I still don't understand. If you use Halloween as a way to express your inner slut, why not just dress a little racier than normal on an everyday basis instead of going full slut one day a year. It just seems a little more respectable to me. Ahh, but to each their own!

This weekend will be filled with pumpkin carving, dressing up and adult beverages. Followed by probably another loss by my sad Buffalo Bills. There will be pictures to come on Monday. Have a Happy Halloween everyone!

Swimming.... Back to Day 1

Yup and that about sums it up! Ok so it wasn't that bad, but it was a bit painful. I am interested in seeing how I feel tomorrow morning, when I try it again! So this morning I headed to the gym and decided I would spend 30 minutes in the pool. I think that is the shortest swim I have done all year but I figured, why push it on my first day back. About 200 meters in my arms got heavy, and by heavy I mean they each felt like they weighed about 4000 lbs! And that is when I patted myself on the back, but not with my 4000 lb arm, since I could no longer pick it up, and said, "30 minutes is a fantastic goal". Since I am not training with a coach currently I made up my own set:

200 free
100 kick
200 pull
100 kick

I repeated that 3 times and then took the stairs as my exit out of the pool in fear that my arms might not work well enough to use the ladder.

I then headed home for a full day of conference calls. At around lunchtime, I headed to the gym to get a run in. I am trying to do two workouts a day to get myself back into training mode. After swimming today, I was kind of pumped, since I really was reminded how much I love to swim and what it does for my sanity. So I decided that on my run I would pick up the pace and extend the run portion by about 5 minutes to see how I would do.

And I felt great! What a wonderful change! So I am looking to trying it all out again tomorrow. Til then....

Holy Crap I am Sore!

So as I mentioned in my last post, this weekend we decided to take on a more strenuous hike to see how my body will react, and man do I HURT! So we headed up to Breakneck Ridge early Saturday morning to try out the 5.5 mile hike that was recommended to us. When we got close, we picked up a a trail map, parked the car and then fun began. We had heard already that the first 1.5 miles were the hardest and were basically straight up hill with 1 small descent. And this description was no joke! It was literally 1.5 miles of rock climbing with some rocks so big, Nick had to hoist me up over them because I was too short. We got halfway to the top and stopped to have a powerbar and take some pictures, we thought the worst of it had to be over and then we saw the second half of the climb. I am telling you by the time we got all the way to the top of the big climb, my legs were shaking and already getting sore.

It was once we hit this section that things got even more interesting. We stopped for a second to take in the view and something comes running at us out of the woods. The first thing I think is, "WOLF!", and I was close, but a little off. All of a sudden this little husky is sitting at our feet, looking up at us like we knew him. We realized that this dog was somehow lost in the woods. He had a collar with phone numbers on it, so we called the numbers, but couldn't reach anyone. So we did what any dog lover would do. We used my scarf as a leash and the three of us continued on our hike.

From then on the hike was pretty easy, well compared to the first part at least. We hiked for about 4 more hours and by the time we got back, we were beat! We walked our way back to the car and as soon as we go there, Koda, our hiking buddy dropped down to the ground next to the car and went to sleep. We found out later that Koda had just done the 5.5 mile loop twice! The poor dog was pooped!

Once in the car we made the decision to just bring the dog home with us. There was no way that I was going to let him go to a pound and wait for his owners. Thankfully within 5 minutes of driving the owner called me and we had a nice reunion a few minutes later. Although, not gonna lie, I was starting to like the little guy!

The rest of the weekend was full of couch time and watching football. I woke up on Sunday and everything hurt! Literally everything! Today I went in and taught my early class for the first time in 2 months and thankfully that has helped to loosen me up a bit.

Tomorrow will be my first day back in the pool. I am wondering how long it takes to lose your swim fitness and I think I will find out exactly how long tomorrow! I hope it isn't as bad as running but we shall see. My goal is to also get in one run outside this week. It is getting cold, but I need to test my balance and ability to run outside.

Other than that, it is life back to somewhat normal! MRI results to follow tomorrow along with some pics from the hike tonight.

Times Have Changed

So I have been working on my comeback and man is it hard! I have been running for 10 minute intervals to test out my balance and stamina. Once I mastered that, I decided to try a regular run so on Sunday I hit the gym for a quick 40 minute run. And let me tell you, it was hard! It is kind of like I just started running for the first time. But I did it and I tried it again yesterday and another success!

I have also been hiking on the weekends. Last weekend we took a trip out to a Reservation and spent about an hour and a half hiking through the woods. We kept it to a short trip to see how I would do and it was great. Then we headed out to Riamede Farm to pick some apples and a pumpkin. 28 pounds of apples, yes you read that correctly, and 25 pounds of pumpkin later, we headed home completely exhausted and fufilled from our day out. This weekend we are going to try the Breakneck Ridge Loop which will be a new challenge and should make for a another full Saturday.

Today I am going to try my run again and begin planning my 2011 race schedule. I already know that the NY Marathon is on the list since I had to pull out of it this year. But next year I want to have a clear idea of what I want to accomplish right from the start.

The goal is to be back to training on November 1 and back to work in the next week or so. Let's see how this goes!!

So Close!

And by so close, I mean about 2 more weeks, but I did get a good report from the neurologist. I have one more MRI scheduled and then we will know exactly what is going on. She is encouraged by the fact that I can smell and taste something, even though my senses are jumbled and nothing tastes or smells like it is supposed to or sometimes not like anything at all, it seems to mean something that I can smell a little. Basically it means that something has started to work in my brain, it is just a little confused right now. Will it ever fix itself? Who knows?

More good news is that I will get to go back to my office soon. But first I have to test out the commute to make sure it isn't too overwhelming for me. I figure in a few weeks I will be right back on track. So we shall see.

So all in all, a great start to my day! Now I need to develop my training attack plan. One day at a time here people, so more on that tomorrow. Happy Tuesday!

It's All About the Comeback...

So I think October is going to be my month. I really do! I have another neurologist appointment tomorrow and I hope I then get the go ahead to begin heading back into my office for work. Not gonna lie, I miss the city and I miss my office! I probably won't go back full time, but I am going to work up to it for sure. And I am also beginning to feel like it is time to get back to training. For what? I am not sure, but I am going to pick some goal event to work towards.

I have been trying to get in at least 45 minutes of some kind of cardio each day. And I can say that some days, I just don't do it. Not because I physically can't but because I just don't want to. And this is a new thing for me. But I am letting myself enjoy it while I can! So that means it is time to begin the rehab and to get back on the bike and start my runs again. And all I have to say about that is "Bring it!!" I am excited to come back stronger and more focused. And now it is all about the comeback.