Would You Follow Me?

I wasn't suppose to run today, just strength train but on a whim I took Goliath out anyway.

We made it half a mile with 38 mile an hour headwind before I became insanely frustrated and said SCREW THIS. Sand and rocks were whipping in my eyes and mouth, and it was just plain exhausting. Turning around and walking home was the best decision, I really wasn't in any mood. My jaw is really swollen, and I'm in a fair amount of pain.

Even I wasn't feeling it, Goliath was so we hit up the dog park over lunch. I love spring, despite my allergies, everything is just so beautifully green!

Want to know what The Bosky Blog Listens to?
The first 1o readers to comment with their email address,
will get a copy of JULIA'S PR PLAYLIST!
I won't tell you what's on it, but I can tell you it's designed for:
6 minute warm up
30 minute run
5 minute cool down

In My Dreams

I'm no stranger to pain. Oh, we've been introduced. We go waaaaay back, me and pain. It's been a long tumultuous relationship with pain. I keep going back, I just can't get enough. That's a lie, pain keeps finding me.

Today, thankfully, was my day of rest. No running. No cross training. Nothing. So to me that's the ideal day to schedule procedures. How sad is that? I put off necessary medical procedures until I have an open day on my running schedule...

For those that don't know and without going into much detail, I have some pretty major mandibular issues. I will most likely have to have routine life long procedures on my jaw, and today was one. I have come to accept this, but today I got some news I was not really prepared for. Even though I probably should have seen it coming, my doctor told me the lower left quadrant of my jaw has permanent never damage. There was so much necrotic tissue that, most of the nerves were either dead already or likely to die within the next few months. The upside? I can take a right hook like nobody's business.

Doctor breaking the news via laptop

The initial shock has completely worn off. It's not like I lost feeling in a leg, although that'd make ultra training super easy. I spent the rest of my day, well until work, in bed with Goliath. One giant milkshake later, I was back to solids.

These pictures cracked me up, he wouldn't stop hovering over me in bed, like 'why are you laying here when you should be running?'

The Mr. decided tonight would be a perfect night to settle a bet. See I bet my couch potato spouse, that I was faster than him. Obviously, I am. I mean c'mon, I spend 20+ hours a week training, while the most exercise he gets is clicking a mouse rapidly playing Battle Forge. Foolishly, I let him pick the distance: 100 meters. Well, let's just say sprinting is not my forte. He annihilated me, but I am chalking that up him taking advantage of someone who had just had oral surgery.

Today's Meterage: 100 meters
Time: Unknown

If You Want it, You Can Get It

Do you suffer from DLS? Is your muscle growth uneven? Does one shoe wear down faster than the other? Do the joints in one leg ache? Then you might have Dominant Leg Syndrome. One day, in the future when DLS is recognized by the American Medical Association, and the FDA approves a drug I'd love to be a spokesperson. DLS could have ruined my life, but XYZ saved my life.

In the 8th grade, teenager Julia broke her left leg. I was tending goal in a fall soccer game, and an over zealous forward fell on me and bent my foot in a direction that feet don't go. It was a clean break, on the growth plate and two months in a non-walking cast, six weeks in an air cast and seven years later my leftie is still playing catch-up. My right leg is like the muscular big sister, while my left follows in it's footsteps wanting to be JUST like it's bigger sister. But it can't, and it probably never will be

As you read, Sunday was the Trolley Run. It was a great race, and as far as a recap it was such a quick race, that I hardly took note of details. Admittedly, I've gotten kind of selective on my races and favor the distances to get the most bang for my buck. This race was different though, this race was to be my measure of growth over the past year. When I look back, the whole racing experience for me was so novel and now it's second nature.



At packet pick up last year, I was confused and anxious that people could smell my newbieness. I was intimidated and scared and still not convinced I'd actually be racing the following day. On race day, I woke up four hours earlier and paced around my apartment. Everything was calculated: what I would eat, drink, at what time and when. I ritualized everything, and double checked everything. On the shuttle to the race, I was praying and meditating to calm myself. I listened in to people's conversations, convinced everyone was a stellar athlete and would be laughing at me. Five minutes before gun time, I stood in my wave listening to a guy talk about how easy this race would be, I can still remember his exact words: Downhill, and with a tailwind? What else could we ask for? I'd like to ask for a little confidence, please? At the finish line, I thought I was going to die. I seriously thought that, like this is it: I'm done. For four miles, I doubted myself and my ability. I knew I'd be disappointed in myself, but I walked when needed anyway.

This year, I overslept, I hope this isn't becoming habit. Snacked on a powerbar on my way there, lead a group of confused runners to the buses (oooh yah, I'm a pro, follow me), warmed up, danced in my corral waiting for gun time, snapped pictures, ran the entire course, finished and drove home. It was weird, I felt like this is what I do now, no big deal. I grabbed a roll at the finish, and as I was walking to my car I saw the guy from my wave last year, yeah that guy who said the race would be so easy. Funny how strangers can mean so much to you, and they'll probably never know it.

The weekend was full of new things for Goliath and myself. After our most recent vet appointment, we've decided that we should try to get G to gain some weight by switching him to an active food. Like me, Goliath has a natural diet and since he was a wee wittle puppy has been on some form of Nature's Recipe-but they unfortunately don't make an active food. So after some discussion, we've put him on a mix of his old food and Blue's Wilderness, which is designed for working breeds like Huskies. AND due to his most resent escapades of destruction, I made the decision to buy him a kennel. Yeah...I know. When we brought him home, I said I'd never kennel him. My perspective is that I took him to be a family member, and I would never put my child in a cage. Regardless, it really is for the best. He started chewing on things that could seriously hurt him. So there's that. Neither of the above Goliath is very fond of: he spits out the Wilderness and avoids the kennel.

Today, we ran five. Yesterday, I ran almost six alone. Today, we ran on the trail. Yesterday, I ran on sidewalks. Take a guess at which I preferred? Why don't I let my graphs tell you:

Ridiculous. I hate running on sidewalks. I hate all the onlookers in cars, all the stoplights and getting plumes of exhaust in my face. Ick. On the trail today, I couldn't help but be happy. It was beautiful. Goliath stayed in stride, even though his yawning was a little blow to my ego. Oh and I my new shorts are just fab. I love them!

Today's Milage: 5.01
Time: 41:13

This Time I'll Be Bulletproof

Happy Race-a-versary to me! Happy Race-a-versary to me!

One full year ago, I signed up and completed the Trolley Run. It's the largest 4 Mile run in the country. I trained my little hiney off, and thought I was going to die at the finish line. I finished in 40:41, and was really impressed with myself. Like ecstatic. My husband snapped the picture on the left after the race, and I remember thinking that I looked incredible.

I was on cloud 9 that weekend. I had just lost 10% of my weight, and completed my first race.

Now, 365 days later and many road races under my belt: I showed up to the race, ran it and drove home. I finished in 33:45, with an 8:27 pace.

Today's Mileage: 4

Time: 33:45

Songs About Rain

Tell it to stop raining so we can go run 6 miles, I don't feel like freezing today.

Tell Me the World Ain't Mine

Are you ready for MEGA MID WEEK PHOTO-THON!?! I don't know why, but I've got a lot of bases to cover today so brace yourself and get your scroll finger ready, here's to hoping your reader doesn't freeze.

Last evening after an additional two miles, I came home to Goliath nestled in our bed. No surprise. He has a nasty habit though, he likes to eat bed skirts and sheets. Unfortunately for the Bosky Family his tastes have matured to comforters. Now this surely will break the bank. Buying a new fitted sheet every so often is really no skin off my teeth, but I absolutely can not replace the habit with comforters. Even if they are cheapo Target comforters. My guess is he figured out that the blanket was stuffed with his favorite batting, and it simulates disemboweling an animal and you know the rest.

Who doesn't want a hole in their comforter? Seriously.

Regardless of the motive, it also tells me that even after a six mile run he wasn't completely worn out. The joys of a working breed. This looming thought left me worried about our brief jaunt this afternoon. BUT I promised myself that I would take the shorter runs more seriously, so two miles it was and two miles only. There's a reason the schedule has a two mile run, and not "at least two miles" on it. Tacking mileage on to scheduled runs is a bad habit of mine, and is the most likely culprit of my over training.

Our trail is half a mile away, so by the time we get there on two mile days we only get about eight minutes on it. That's such a shame is it not? Our favorite place in the whole-wide-world, and we only get eight minutes? We know we'll be back tomorrow so our whining is really so pointless. The turn around came quick enough, we were both feeling it. My lactate threshold peaked pretty quickly, and Goliath was panting pretty heavily. At one point, I had a mini heart attack because I thought he had gotten off his leash but when I looked down he was trotting with me completely in sync. Maybe he'll make that a habit too? Slack in the lead, how cool!

That's his "HUH?" face

Remember how I said I would NOT tack on mileage? Well I lied, but maybe you'll forgive me and understand. I ran exactly two miles, no more no less. When we arrived home, and synced our run onto Nike+ it showed us that we were less than a mile away from achieving a new status. GREEN! So we went back out and looped around the block a few times, is that cheating nike? Maybe. So now since we bought that sport kit in January, Goliath and I have logged over 250 kilometers. Pretty nifty.

I always feel like ultracool training in a race shirt

Is it odd that I crave protein bars? Is there an addictive substance in them? Like Cocaine Power Protein Plus Bars? As clean as my diet is, protein bars and supplements are my one exception to the rule. I've toyed around with a few but, I always go back to one. This morning I gave the Kashi variety a try:

...and honestly? Not a fan. I thought I was going to be all YAY NATURAL PROTEIN BAR YAY! But no. It was really small, didn't satiate me and was kind of dry. Now I know protein bars aren't like some dietary excellence but as far as they go, this was blugh. My favorite?

The only real problem is that I can eat like six or hundred in a day. Not to mention there's nearly twice the amount of protein than the Kashi bar, with the same calories. Sorry natural diet, PowerBar wins.

I have never been the type of person to count calories, and that's why Weight Watchers has been so successful in helping me get to goal. Now that I am so close, it was suggested to me to count calories in addition to points. It's quite the feat, but I downloaded another food tracking application for my iPhone. Tracking points is second nature, so it's calorie cousin hasn't been too difficult. The funny thing is, as educated as I am in food choices I still get surprised by the amount of calories in things. Today, for instance, I added my broccoli and was shocked to see that it had ACTUAL calories. BUT broccoli is ZERO. Don't be fooled, I KNOW everything has calories but you forget sometimes ya know?

Have you guys met Sally yet? Sally is a whoodle who lives at my place of work. She's an awesome dog, and hypoallergenic too!

Today's Mileage: 2.94
Time: 20:41

Grab Hold and Don't Look Left

It's the little things. The little things that add up. Every hundred pennies make a dollar, and with a dollar you can buy some GU. Every few thousand steps accumulate into a mile, and if you can figure out how to run one mile you can sure as shoes run twenty-six.

The minutia have been falling off my radar. I'm zoomed out on the big picture, when really I need to be examining each pixel. There are a little over a 160 days until my full marathon, and that's all I can think about. Yet, I'm still overlooking fundamentals that are going to make me succeed.

Building blocks like form, stretching, proper warm ups and things of that ilk. Do you ever get a little cocky and think Two miles? That's a waste of my time. Truth be told, that's my line of thought lately. My training schedule usually has a two miler mid week, and I've been either skipping it or not taking it seriously. After my 10k this morning, I realized that those two miles regardless of how short it may seem, could really benefit my training. I could use those as form-miles, or to interval train or a million other things that could make me not just better, but great. Great runners don't skip training do they? Great runners also don't phone in cross-training, but we shall save that epiphany for another post.

Yesterday, we didn't have anything set in stone and after my awful performance on Sunday I knew I needed something. So Goliath, my friend Amanda and myself went for a little stroll. It's so odd walking. How novel? It's actually quite relaxing. We walked to Goliath's favorite spot, hoping to catch some geese. Sure enough, there were four. Four meant, four times the effort for Goliath. He jumped in and I swear he ran on water, or well maybe rocks just beneath the surface. I may never really know if wants to play with the geese or eat them, but it's pretty funny watching him try.

Has anyone seen my dog?

We had our fun yesterday, so today was the real work. I think G-Money knew that too, because the second the leash clicked he was ready to roll. There were six miles to tread, and man did we. At our split, I was ready to be finished. Maybe that's why my training has been so successful on my trail, when I split I HAVE to go back. Running loops makes it too easy for me to quit, or make excuses.

Do not lecture me but, I have been running in retired shoes. OH MY GOD! GASP! I know, I'm awful. What is an injury prone runner doing in shoes that in effect caused injury? Well, my new Bowerman's have been killing my feet. For the life of me, I can not figure out why. They are the exact same shoe, just a newer model. Nike says there were no major changes, so why oh why do my feet ache after a mile? Today, I decided to give them one last shot before I gave up and splurged on a new pair. As expected the outer edge of my feet started aching at mile one, and was unbearable by mile two. Well I sat down, and untied the shoes. Instantly the pain dissipated. All this time my shoes were too tight, the last four miles my feet felt like feathers. Like I said, it's the little things.

Today's Mileage: 6.2
Time: 53:22

Do I Make Your Heart Beat?

MRS-to-be-Meagan tagged The Bosky Blog, which marks our first blogosphere award. ever.
Thanks Chief!

This is when I tell you ten things Goliath& Julia love, in no real relevant order:

o1. Peanut Butter

o2. Our Person
o3. Long Run days
o4. Pizza
o5. Races

o6. THE DOG PARK! o7. Our comfy couch corner
o8. Afternoon naps

o9. Big hugs
1o. Treats

I crown thee:

Manda from Manderz Road to a New Life

Geeky Blake from Pulling the Plug

Jessica from Jessica's Jaunt

Melissa from Running with Needles

Beth from Beth's Journey to Thin

Do not underestimate this post, it took me forever!