The Week in Update: The Good, The Bad, and the Amazing

The Good: I know, I know, I have been a bad little blogger this past week or so, but once I tell you why you may forgive me (or at least understand what I've been up against!) The last anyone heard of me, I had just run another 5k in Nelsonville. I found out that my time was 40:02, so I only ended up improving 15 seconds, rather than the minute or two that I thought. But whatever, 15 seconds is 15 seconds, and I had a great time with the 5k...It will not be my last, by any means. In fact, I will be doing another on August 18th in Columbus, called the Defend Your Friends 5k--the money raised goes to benefit the Columbus Area Humane Society Cruelty Investigations Unit. I could not have picked a better race to be a part of--it is another fun run/dog run, so there will be lots of doggies to watch and take photos of! I've always been passionate about the safety of animals, so I'm glad to be participating, even though it starts at 7pm and will likely be HOT HOT HOT!!

The Bad: One of the reasons that I have been missing from the blog world is that I was in a car accident. I was stopped in traffic (not that traffic gets bad around this small town, but there is the requisite 9am, 12 noon, and 5pm slowdown) on my way to work at  9am, when I looked in the rearview mirror and noticed that the car behind me was not slowing down!! So this 80-something year old man ends up plowing into the back of my car:

I had just paid the car off a couple months ago (my first car that I paid for all on my own too). To top it off, the man that hit me finished our conversation, not with "I'm sorry.." but with "If I were 30 years younger, I'd be asking you for a date.." WTF????? Are you kidding me?? This man just totaled my car, and has the gall to hit on me!!! Such is my life....

The Awesome: My little brother called me last Sunday to tell me that his wife's water had broken and she was in labor!! Two weeks early, but (and this was before the car accident) I was so excited!! I got my work shift covered, and drove the 3 hour drive to get to the hospital. I met up with my mom, and some of Sis-In-Law's family, and settled in for the night. At about 3:30 or 4am, my nephew Warren was born (via emergency C-Section because the labor was not progressing the way they'd have liked), and he is by far one of the cutest things I've ever seen in my life:

Just minutes old

Does it get any more amazing?

I got to hold him just after he was born, and OMG it is an awesome feeling. My brother was so proud and nervous and in love. It was great to watch....

So now you have it, the good, the bad, and the amazing--all the reasons I've been absent from bloggy-land for awhile....I will let you all know how my car shopping goes, since I have to replace my other one (thanks 80-something year old creeper)....I will let you know how running goes too....I'm scared to do anything until I see the chiropractor tomorrow to get things put back in line. Either way, walking or running, I will be doing the Defend Your Friends 5k on August 18th!!!
I hope to catch up on reading your blogs this week too--depends on how that car-shopping goes!! Miss you all!

--Marge

Cam and Sue's Cancer Sucks 5k

I was so excited a few weeks back to see that there was going to be a 5k here in Nelsonville, the tiny town I live in, and the fact that it was a CANCER SUCKS benefit made it even better! So I signed up and was looking forward to running a race WITHOUT having to leave home at 6am to get there in time.....fastforward to this past week, and my body decides to get bronchitis. Well, I started feeling bad during my overnight shift on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday at work were both so busy that I was finally getting dinner at 9-10pm instead of normal times because I had constant prescreens, and I was sucking down cold medicine to try and keep my fever, chills, and cough under control....Why didn't I call off, you ask? Well, the way the Crisis Team is set up, if I need to take sick time, I have to be able to find someone to cover my shift. It was too busy to even make those phone calls to try to find coverage, and I didn't feel THAT bad after snowing myself with medicine, so I just plugged away.
So Friday night I had a fever of 101 when I got home from work, and decided that if I still had a fever Saturday morning I would not run (I know the "above the neck, run, below the neck, don't" wisdom, and it could have gone either way, since the bronchitis was just settling into my chest at that point)....So I checked my temp Saturday, and it was 96.7 (come to find out, the thermometer is broken, hahaha) so I decided to go for it!!
I could not have asked for better weather! It was cloudy, initially cool, and had a slight breeze, so it felt good! I only had a little bit of a cough and took some cold medicine before heading out to the site--a whole 5 miles from home (yes, I drove. I am not advanced enough to run the 5 miles there, then race, then make it back home without dying. Yet anyway...) There were about 300 people there, ranging from little kids to older adults, and one girl even brought her dog! All the money made was donated to Leukemia research, and I signed up to run in memory of a girl that passed away while we were in elementary school....

I'm in the green shorts, this is at the start

The course had one hill that was not too bad, and was about half run on the road and half on the bike path. I ran more than I walked, and felt a lot stronger than my first 5k (when I felt like I was dying almost the entire time!) My music choices for this race were different than normal--I decided to make a hard-rock mix of stuff from my favorite hair-metal bands growing up--a lot of Metallica, Skid Row, and (try not to laugh) Meatloaf (only from his Bat Outta Hell album, since I don't like anything he's done since then, haha). In retrospect, I could have added some Motley Crue, Poison, and Def Leppard to the mix, and probably will for future runs, but what I had worked...

Less than  a mile in, a second or two before my headband wore its way off my head!!

At the first mile, they told me I was at 12: something, which is good for me. The water stop was at mile two. And running in to finish, I missed what the time was (and it's not posted anywhere on the facebook page for the race) but I know they switched to 40 minutes shortly after I got through, so I know I knocked at least 1 minute off my time, likely about 2 minutes, since the first 5k I did the end of May (and about 10 minutes off of my Warrior Dash time)....I have no delusions that I'm a speed-ster, but I am awfully proud of myself for improving!

Coming into the finish line

The race was such a success that the family has already set a date for next year's run, which will be 'The Second Annual Cam and Sue's Cancer Sucks 5k.' So there's another local one to look forward to (and hopefully not have bronchitis for!!) And by then, who knows how much faster I'll be!!
Now I'll just settle in to ride out the illness so I can get back to working out, running, and having fun!!

--Marge

It's almost time!!

I am living in a constant state of semi-anxiety lately--not for any bad reasons, I promise! My baby brother (you all can laugh, he's going to be 31 next month, lol) and his wife are getting ready to have their first baby! My first nephew (and my mom's first grandchild) is due to come into the world on August 5th. So, really, in the next few weeks, sis-in-law could go into labor at any time.....I am excited to be an aunt, and I know my big brother is excited--for example, I got to his house to meet up with the fam to head to the baby shower, and heard him saying something along the lines of, "....and then they need to have a girl next, so I can buy a pony and she will have to come to my house to ride the pony...." WTF big bro? They haven't even had the first one!! And big bro and his wife aren't having kids, so it's like he's hitching his pony-dreams on baby brother--It is very cool to see both brothers embrace this. My dad is super-excited, I'm not sure about my step-mom, and my mom is over the moon about it--she made me find out what hospital, then look up hotels around the hospital so we can go when labor starts (or whenever he calls us) since we both live about 3 hours from them.....
I know that baby brother is going to be a great father (he's already a great husband!) Any way, my nephew will be Warren S. and will be here NOT SOON ENOUGH!
(The only sucky part about this is that ALL of the family is now saying, "so when are you going to have one? your clock's ticking, you don't have much time, etc etc etc..." What do you say to that that doesn't scream "WTH people!" Not so much fun to be the only daughter, unmarried and unattached in this situation--weirdly enough, my mom asked me initially if I was 'upset' that it wasn't me having a baby!!!! I responded with a very respectful, "Back up off that crack pipe, Mom!")
All joking aside, despite the awkward conversations about me that Warren's birth will bring, I am also over-the-moon about having a new baby in the family. And so proud to see my brother (both of them really) be the kind of dad they both wanted to have--my eyes are getting misty just thinking about it.

And since I don't have any good family photos, I will leave you with a pic of BooBoo. And keep you updated on the baby!
--Marge

So Much Fun!!

So I realize that my last post was a Debby Downer, so this time I will tell you about what's going awesome!! First, I took my bicycle in to the bike shop the other day to have it checked out and make sure it was road-ready. Earlier this year, my basement flooded, and the bike had been down there, so I wanted to make sure that the tires and breaks and gears and everything were still ok....and they were!! (Tires needed inflated, computer needed a new battery). So today, I got the battery for the computer--that was a bust. I'm not sure if Kroger sold me a dead battery, or if the computer is Kaput....I'll get another battery later and find out, but either way, despite working the overnight shift last night and being up since 5am, I got a crazy feeling and decided to go tool around town on the bike...

I FORGOT HOW MUCH FUN I HAVE JUST RIDING AROUND!!! I ended up riding about 3-4 miles in my little town (only had one person try to hit me, hahaha), trying to remember to smile with my mouth closed so I didn't eat bugs (not so successful, but hey, it's protein right??) I spent some of the time apologizing to my butt for not having padded shorts, and more time than that apologizing to my boobs for not thinking to put on a sports bra---won't be making THAT mistake again!! (Most of the streets in town are brick, not very, um, forgiving in those area!)

Before the biking, I walked the dogs about 1 1/2 miles around town for their usual "hot weather" shorter walk--they're so big they overheat easily, and Abby won't drink out of the doggie water bottle

How rude!

So that is my day so far--I am so glad that I got out on the bike, and I plan to get out and get some time in tomorrow too (maybe after a run?)
Plans for the rest of the day: mow and weedwhack the lawn, chop all fruits and veggies, boil a butt-load of eggs (Bella has to have 1 egg white at each meal, so I boil them up a couple dozen at a time--it's something to do with her kidney issue. She also gets a tablespoon-ish of plain yogurt at each meal. In addition to a couple blood pressure meds) (And, yes Kroger, I do want to pay THAT MUCH for the dog meds, jeesh!! Stop asking me!) At some point I should nap, but will more likely go to my friend's house and lay out and play in her pool while she's at work--and it's entirely possible that, somewhere in there I will break into my Bud Light Lime stash and get a little tipsy. Gosh darn it, I've earned it this week with work!!!!

And just for you guys, I want to share a little tidbit that I learned at work this week--apparently, there are people around here that are looking for innovative ways to get high (after heroin, oxycontin, other opiates, cocaine, you know, the usual ways people get high). I learned that there are people that have been trying to get high by giving themselves......(wait for it)......

 TABASCO SAUCE ENEMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I could not freaking believe that (and I don't think the person got high, or at least not like they had hoped! EEK!) Try not to hate me for sharing, but it's just one of those things you can't keep to yourself!

So on that disturbing note, I've got some grass to mow and some weeds to whack!! Good luck on any runs and/or other workouts you have planned! Keep cool!!
--Marge

I've been dragging my feet on doing this posting, mainly because it means I have to get serious about how much I have been slacking. I have been doing myself a real disservice lately. It seems like, after Warrior Dash (which was the last race/event I did) I dropped back on  running and working out, like I didn't have anything specific motivating me to keep on going. I know this is not really the case, since I do want to feel good and be active, but I really just let myself down. So I've been avoiding facing up to that.
I have been doing some physical stuff, like when I'm at my friend's house, I run in her pool for twenty minutes or so at a time, so in addition to the running I am doing, I am keeping up somewhat on my stamina for cardio.

I think the hardest thing for me this past month was that my doctor had me taking extra hormones (yeah, like they had me on medicine for menopause, long story). My eating habits got out of control (why in the world do they make Goldfish crackers taste so good? It should be criminal.) and my body just felt different. I hope that being off of the artificial hormones this month will help me get back to where I was activity and eating-wise.

I have a 5k coming up in 2 weekends and my goal is to run the whole thing. I'm making a playlist with hard rock songs (think older Metallica, other hair bands, etc) to keep my legs moving. Any song suggestions?