Just Jump (Uploaded on 12/16/08 by nolly on Flickr)
Just sent my first fundraising letter to some friends and family. I’ve received some constructive feedback. So the next one will be better! Thanks for the advice!
Filed under: Need the Money Honey :) | Tagged: Fundraising, Just jump, Team in Training | Leave a Comment »
Running on the beach!
Declaration
I’m no longer going to brood over writing down the posts that chronicled the past few weeks. There are too many and the pressure of remembering all of them is too much. So clean slate! I had a triathlon running practice today and like a good girl I am writing about it the same day! Hey one victory at a time people!
I’ll have the intermediate please! The basic looks a little dull if ya know what….
Today I returned from a six day trip in Miami. Before leaving, I told a lot of people that I would keep up with my training there…lol ya know run on the beach and such. Well, that didn’t happen. Anyway, today I woke up at 4:30 am to catch my 7 am flight to arrive in NYC by 12:40 pm (connecting flight involved of course). Because of delays in the connecting city, I didn’t actually arrive in NYC until 1:30 pm and didn’t get home until 3 pm. So I’m sure you’ll understand why I was not looking forward to my running practice tonight. Ohhhh my whiny emotional side tried to come up with every possible excuse not to go, but in the end my rational side prevailed. After all, last week I ran for forty minutes non-stop (well technically a couple little breaks…like 30 seconds each…more like pauses really). Oh technicalities! Before that 40 minute extravaganza I was euphoric over running eight minutes non-stop without hyperventilating!
Moving on. I decided to go to practice, but was not too happy about the 50 degree weather outside. Usually 50 degrees is not to bad, but I had just returned from basking in the wonderful Miami Spring temperate heat. FYI this is one of the best times to visit Miami: mid seventies, low eighties and hardly any humidity. To make sure I didn’t get frost bitten, I decided to pack on the layers. under my light Gortex windbreaker. Man I looked like a hot mess, but I was warm!
At practice, the coaches decided to break our teams into three groups: basic/injured, intermediate and advanced. I opted for the basic group. But after the descriptions (see below), I decide I could handle intermediate. There should be some type for foreboding music right about now.
Descriptions:
Basic/injured: run 5 mins out and back from the starting point for 40 mins, on relatively flat terrain
Intermediate: run 10 minutes out and back from the starting point for 40 mins, on hilly terrain
Advanced: go teach a class!
So of course, I focused on my previous 40 minute running accomplishment–on hilly terrain mind you–and not on the fact that I had been inactive for the past six days. I declared confidently to one of my teammates, “I can handle intermediate!” Oyyy those fateful words!
I ran for like 5 minutes and started feeling pain radiating up and down from both of my ankles and my knees. Not the best “welcome back to running” feeling. But I decided to keep going because I was just rusty after all. Then I confessed to one of the coaches that I was in pain and he reminded me that one of the cardinal rules was to “never run through pain.” Duh! So I walked and ran–each time decreasing the running interval and increasing the walking interval. By the time the practice was over, an old familiar injury reared its stubborn head. Remember that lateral plantar fascia injury I mentioned previously? Well it’s back!
What is the deal left foot? Is this punishment for favoring my right foot for so many years? I mean really enough already! Geeezzz Louise…sigh
So yet again, I walked home limping. This time the pain was not bad enough to provoke any tears. But still! How can six days of inactivity propel you almost back to square one? Hmmm and then it dawned on me…this is going to be a long four months.
Or maybe not long enough.
Filed under: Personal Training Musings | Tagged: advanced, basic, Gortex, intermediate, lateral plantar fascia, Miami, Triathlon | Leave a Comment »
[Full Disclosure: This post was meant for 2/28...ashamed to admit that I'm just publishing it!]
Objective: Proper running form
What a feeling! Ummm yeah of excruciating pain!
Today was my first running practice. And it was extremely painful. It really shouldn’t have been except I was overzealous and decided to run on my own, a few days before the actual Team in Training (TNT) kick-off. FYI TNT warns ya to enjoy your rest before kick-off and resist the urge to begin training by yourself. Hmmm…yeah…not me.
You see, I had purchased my first ever running shoes a week before at a amazing store called Jack Rabbits. They videotaped me running on treadmill to see if I needed any corrective shoes. Apparently, I my feet landed straight and I only needed neutral shoes. I was so happy that some part of my body was cooperating! Anyhow, I ended up buying sneakers and other triathlon appropriate attire. Lol, I have to admit I felt like an impostor in the store. Everyone was dressed like they just came from a run and there were posters everywhere calling out to fellow athletes everywhere. And all I kept thinking was, “Wow. If only these people knew how sneaker averse I am. I’m a heels girl raised by a mother who doesn’t own on pair of flat shoes! I’m not an athlete!”
When I went to the checkout, I met one of the nicest cashiers ever. I told him how I would be training with TNT for my first triathlon. He was totally supportive and told me about his experience in a triathlon. I thought, “This guy is normal and down to earth. I can do this!” I left the store on cloud nine. Lol that famous Flash Dance scene…. “What a feeling!”…was totally blasting in my head. Ohhh how I missed my iPod. It was stolen several months before, even though I totally engraved it in my name. Doesn’t the thief feel guilty every time he or she looks down and sees my name?! Yeah I know. Highly unlikely.
The following evening I decided to had to try out the running shoes. I love trying out new things more than I hate running. So I jogged off and on for 30 minutes that day. It actually went better than I thought it would. Granted I had like no stamina, but I literally expected not to be able to run at all. Maybe at this point I should say jog, not run. The next morning I felt no aches and was stoacked to go running some more. So the next evening I went jogging again. Except this time, I began feeling really sharp pain on the left side (I think the lateral plantar fascia) of my left foot. I felt like such a wimp and was like, “No pain. No game.” And continued running. The night didn’t end well.
My left foot was still achy, a week later at the first running practice. FYI I’ve decided to use the word running instead of jogging, since that’s how the TNT training schedule refers to it. Anyway, I had tried my best to avoid working out before the first practice. Any walking I did was in heels, which ironically made the foot feel so much better. But it was the first running practice and I was going to try my best to run! I jogged on and off for a couple minutes. Then the pain started creeping back. I began limping halfway through the practice, luckily right at the same moment the group stopped to do some running drills.
The drills were pretty cool. To help us understand a proper running form, the coach had us run incorrectly first. For example, we had to run with straight legs. Wow, I wish I wrote these drills down weeks before because now my memory is failing. I wish I could write down the drills in detail because it was so insightful. I’ll ask the coaches at the next practice to review the drills again and then share it with you guys.
After the drills, it was time to head back home. At that point I was in excruciating pain. I mean pain I had never felt associated with my foot before. To alleviate the pain, I limped all the way home. I walked for at least 20 blocks that way; it was awkward to say the least. A couple blocks before I reach home, lol I had mini meltdown. And was like, “Oh my gosh! This was only the first practice and I’m in this much pain? How the hell am I going to do this? What was I thinking? Everyone already assumes I won’t pull it off anyway…”
Luckily the cell phone Gods heard my self-loathing and prompted me to call a close friend. My mom would have been my first choice but she was out of the country. As predicted, my friend was a perfect mix of maternal nourishment and tough love. She felt for my pain, but was like, “Come on “girly” (lol yes that’s what she calls me) you can do it! Don’t give up!”
Girly girl--to be exact–was how I felt. I mean there was one time in my life, albeit a damn long time ago, when I was a tomboy. I resigned, despite the tears (yes there were tears) that I wouldn’t give up!
But ouch!
Filed under: Personal Training Musings | Tagged: Dr. Pribut, Flashdance, girly girl, Jack Rabbits, lateral plantar fascia, Running drills, sneakers, Team in Training, Triathlon | 1 Comment »
Reality check darling--you ain't superwoman!
This scent can turn fowl quickly!
Thank you Penelope Trunk! I discovered Penelope’s blog through an article someone posted in a Linkedin group. While scanning her blog, I came across her guide to blogging and felt the weight of my paralyis by analysis world slowly lifting off my shoulders. Penelope’s guide has many useful tidbits, but the following sections definitely spoke to me:
“4. Post something right now.
Don’t tell yourself you’ll do it tomorrow. Blogging is about courage to say something. Don’t worry about being stupid because trust me, no one is reading your blog. Post anything. You can nix bad posts later. For now just start writing.”
Lol. This has been the most difficult for me. I know most blogs are lost in the vast abyss of the web, but I want mine to be read…please! Now obviously, I can’t expect people to read my blog when there is nothing to be read! But the blog world is inundated with interesting topics and talented writers who wield humor and anecdotes…lol you see I became too intimidated to even finish that analogy! Anyway, I know I’m lucky because I actually have an interesting topic. But I want people to be entertained by my writing dammit! Lol I am sure you sensing my age. So instead of routinely posting about my triathlon training and fundraising, I’ve been keeping all that raw information in my head–cutting and pasting over and over again until I feel it’s worthy of posting. And guess what happens? It’s never worthy! So thank you Penelope for helping me get over myself!
“6. Ignore your lack of readers.
The hardest part is sitting down to post on a regular basis. Don’t distract yourself with blog promotion until you’re sure you can actually do the writing. If you can blog regularly for a month, you can be a blogger.”
DON’T DISTRACT MYSELF WITH BLOG PROMOTION? NOOOOO..OO…O…cough. Definitely a case of getting the wagon before the horse. Is that the phrase? I’m so bad at remembering aphorisms. One of the reasons I’ve started a blog is because I love marketing and advertising. Since, I am currently unemployed the blog gives me an excuse for sharpening my marketing skills. I have been so focused reading up on digital marketing trends and on promoting my blog on various social media sites that I have neglected actually writing the blog! Ha! Good job…invite the Spring Breakers to the beach but then neglect to buy the alcohol (ode to my science years: OH). Not pretty folks!
Post: Don’t waste your time worrying about typos on your blog. Just post.
Will everyone please shut up about the typos on blogs? Show me someone who is blogging every day and also complains about someone’s typos. Just try. See? You can’t. Because anyone who is trying to come up with fresh ideas, and convey them in an intelligent, organized way, on a daily basis, has way too many things on their plate to complain about other peoples’ typos….Real grammarians, by the way, have memorized the AP Stylebook. Newspapers and magazines have people who are paid to enforce these rules. There is no way a blogger could hire for this, and few bloggers can justify spending the years it takes to memorize The AP Stylebook. So you could spend your life reading the AP Stylebook, or you could spend your life spouting ideas.
So what if your ideas have hyphens in the wrong places and you turn an adverb into a noun? People can almost always figure out what you’re saying anyway, but they won’t care enough to try without a great idea lurking there to attract their effort. And there’s a reason that people who have amazing ideas get paid twenty times more than people who have amazing grammar: Ideas are worth a lot more to us.(…more)
Again thank you Penelope! Being anal about typos in my blog can be debilitating! It’s so depressing to feel all the exciting energy drained from you after you’ve spent one or two hours republishing a posting because you keep noticing a mistake! And you’re like really? Really? Do I have the energy to go through this for every post? At that point, a little voice whispers in your head, “You’re tired. You’ve just returned from running for 40 minutes straight (lol my best time so far). Do you really want to spend your time editing? Exactly. Write this tomorrow.” But tomorrow never comes. Sadness. It really makes you appreciate editors!
So how does this relate to “Paralysis by Analysis?” I have devoted the past month trying to determine the most effective and innovative ways to promote a blog and how to fundraise. But I haven’t been blogging or fundraising. Something is seriously wrong with this picture! Newsflash Arlene: this isn’t just about you learning new skills–you actually need to raise money for cancer research!
“Yes ma’am.” Arlene whispers sheepishly, as she stares down at her feet. She notices she has really cute shoes on.
You really have to check out Penelope’s guide to blogging. She has refreshing down-to-earth advice. It seriously feels like a very charismatic friend is dishing out great advice to you over coffee!
Musical Influence: The best of Caetano Veloso
Favorite Song on Album: Cucurrucucú Paloma (Live)…so beautiful!
So I’m going to start posting! Wish me luck 
Filed under: Blogging | Tagged: Advertising, Alcohol, Blogging, Caetano Veloso, Cancer Research, Charisma, Cucurrucucú Paloma, Editors, Fragrance, Fundraising, Grammar, Ideas, Linkedin, Marketing, Paralysis by analysis, Penelope Trunk, Posting, Promotion, Social media, Spring Breakers, Superwoman, Typos, Yes ma'am | Leave a Comment »
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Life Mosaic is an online collection of personal stories of hope
[Originally written on 2/21, but transitioned from blogger]
Life Mosaic
Check out the stories and images submitted by patients, families and friends whose lives have been affected by leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease, myeloma and other blood-related cancers.
Filed under: Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Uncategorized | Tagged: blood cancer, Cancer Patients, Families, Friends, Hodgkin's disease, Hope, Leukemia, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Life Mosaic, Lymphoma, Myeloma | Leave a Comment »
TED Talks
