Recovery And Revenge

So how's my recovery going? Yes I knew you'd all want to know the answer to that question. It's going well - considering that it's only been two days since I got a diagnosis. But I am a little peeved with my family. They KNOW I have to rest and no one has hired me four strong Nubian slaves wearing only loin cloths (well, it's hot here in Brisbane)  and bearing large ostrich feather fans and platters of peeled grapes. It's not much to ask for - after 26 years of marriage and 25 years of child rearing. I know I have a household of four adult males but both Iven and Luke have dodgy backs and they'd struggle carrying me around in a sedan chair. And let's face it, Iven's loin-cloth-wearing-days are probably behind him.

Artist's Impression Of Me And My Nubians

I've been getting a little help with the meals and the laundry. Work's my biggest energy-sucker but there's not a lot you can do about that when you're the sole operator of a business and it's the busy time of the year. Yesterday I had clients in my workroom from midday till 4pm and I found out that I don't do well going without food for so long. So I'm going to buy some healthy snacks to have on hand just in case that happens again. And talking about food - I'm being so good about my diet. I'm throwing fresh greens and reds and oranges and purples with every meal and feeling much better for doing so. I'm avoiding a lot of sugar cause that makes me really tired and I've chucked out lactose all together and my bowels and family thank me for it daily.

Green With Envy

But my biggest problem has come in the shape of a spotted dog. Nelson is jealous! He's getting sick and tired of Bubbles being the chosen one (for walks). And he's acting out like a two year old who missed out on ice cream. He tried the pitiful eyes and soulful expression and that didn't work. I'm not deliberately cruel - he's just the equivalent of 98 in dog years and has dodgy hips that will only carry him a kilometre if he's lucky. Then he switched tactics and decided to bark for most of the time that we were walking. Again, not a very successful tactic because I can't hear him when I'm on the other side of the suburb. But I guess, being a dog you don't have many weapons in your persuasion arsenal.

So he's resigned himself to the fact that he won't be going out and he's not happy - in fact he's been out for some doggy revenge. He's taken ideas from the monkeys in the Madagascar movie and gone for the only other trick up his sleeve (actually, it wasn't up his sleeve) - he's gone for the poo-flinging. 

He's gotten me twice in the last 24 hours. Last night he had a little accident on the steps leading outside. He acted like he didn't want to come in until I'd cleaned it up just in case he trod in it and brought it into the house. So he lured me into his carefully thought out and brilliant plan. I went outside and picked up the first deposit, then the second and, while carrying it down the stairs to put into the garden, I stepped in the one that he'd hidden under the cover of darkness. Score one for Nellie - none for me.

Then this morning I woke up early to meet the group before they left me eating their dust. It was still dark but I was confident because of the previous night's shenanigans that there would be no little whoopsies in the kitchen. Well, I was wrong. Nellie had boobie-trapped the floor just as you walk in to turn the light on.Score two for Nellie. 

   

He's Not Sleeping - He's Plotting More Revenge

I've organised for Iven to take him for a little walk this afternoon - so I guess he's won.

Doctor's Visit #2

To be perfectly honest, it's been a tough week. But today's post is not all doom and gloom. There's a really big silver lining that I'll get to by the end of the story.

When we last left our heroine (me) she had been a bit of a naughty girl and had run just a little bit during her Sunday walk. Being that she suffered no ill-effects from the tiny bit of very slow trotting, she decided to repeat the process on Tuesday's walk. And she could totally justify it as a scientific experiment so she could bring valid results to her apothecary (the older Dr Young)

Well Tuesday's experiment was way less successful than Sunday's. I felt fine while I was running and made sure to stop before my heart rate climbed too high  AND I only ran on the flat or down-hill bits. But by the time I'd finished breakfast I was starting to feel a bit ordinary. Tired, nauseated, headachey, achey legs and a bit shivery. I went home and had a nanna nap before I started work. But the sick feeling stayed with me all day.

At my last doctor's visit, he had mentioned that it sounded like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome so, like any normal person with an internet connection would do, I Goggled it. SERIOUSLY NOT THE ILLNESS YOU WANT IF YOU'RE A RUNNER. Average recovery length (if you recover at all) is 7 years. That would take me into my mid 50s!! But after my Tuesday run/walk I saw this as a distinct possibility and thinking this way was messing with my mind. The idea of feeling as awful as I do for 7 years or more was horrendous. I was cranky and snappy and a little bit mean to any family member that looked at me the wrong way.

But then I went to see the nice Dr Young. He had the results of my blood tests and there were some unusual abnormalities with my virus tests. I tested positive to having an older Glandular Fever infection but also positive to a very recent infection and that doesn't really make sense. Except that you can get this reaction if you've had a couple of other viruses - Parvovirus (no, not the dog one) or Cytomegalovirus (which Josh had last year). And I'm probably so tired because you can get post viral fatigue after any virus which will knock me around for a little while longer but I will improve gradually over the next couple of months.

In the meanwhile I have the perfect excuse to be lazy - doctor's orders. I can demand help around the house  (something that I'm starting to get better at). I can just lie down when I'm tired at the end of the day (like Iven's been doing for years and I've resented him for). I can go for walks with Bubbles and just make them relaxing walks. And I can sleep in late as much as I want because it's when you're sleeping that the body does its best recovering.

Relief was what I felt first. Followed by elation. I have a name for my condition. I'm not a hypochondriac. I have a plan of action. There's a light at the end of the tunnel.

Then I texted a couple of people and posted on Facebook and was swamped with the love that my running squad  is notorious for. I got phone calls from family and friends. And once again felt incredibly blessed that I have such supportive people in my life. And then I felt incredibly tired - there might be light at the end of the tunnel but the end of the tunnel's still a little way off.

Has anyone else had this or known someone who's had it?

I'm a Naughty Girl And I Must Be Spanked

I have an admission to make. It's actually a confession and I'm a little ashamed. I ran today.

Let's start at the beginning. It was a gorgeous morning when I woke up. We'd had a storm last night and the morning felt fresh and coolish (for summer) and I'd woken up without an alarm just before six am. When I walked into the lounge room, Bubbles looked at me with such longing and expectation that I was powerless to resist. (Actually I walked in and said 'walk' and she did that cute little ears-pricked-head-tilt thing)

My morning heart rate was a very respectable 48 which meant that I wasn't suffering any ill-effects from yesterday's walk so I knew we could push the pace as much as yesterday. My first inkling of temptation came when we hit the first decline. Bubbles was really moving and walking made it hard to keep with her so I just trotted a few steps till we got to the flat part. And in that moment of casual carelessness an evil little plan was born. One of my alter-egos decided that it would be all right to run down any of the declines we came to - which amounted to one section in each of the kilometres except for the middle section. And so to give myself a running break in that k I allowed myself to trot a flat section. And I (hanging my head low with shame telling you this) did have to drag Bubbles faster than she wanted to go BUT dragging her means that her toenails get worn down and I don't have to clip them and she hates me clipping them so I did it in her best interest. (See, I can justify anything) And I didn't ever run more than 200metres.

My average heart rate for the walk was 130 which was less than last Sunday's walk (where all I did was walk). Both were pretty hilly routes but you get that in my suburb of Taringa, which in indigenous dialect means place of hills.

When I got home I felt okay enough to spend 40 minutes in the garden digging up some ground for our new and exciting landscaping. Actually, landscaping is probably too fancy a term for what we're doing. We're just going to put in a couple of plants near my fancy-arse washing line path and we're going to try to get rid of the weeds.

The digging was probably more than I should have attempted. And God punished me by letting my spade hit a root which made my hand get a great big bruise. I've had an afternoon nap and I'm feeling pretty normal. Hopefully there'll be no ramifications tomorrow.

And talking of cupcakes (yeah, I know that no one was talking about cupcakes. But I was thinking about them and couldn't come up with a decent segue) I decided that I wouldn't let my failure of last weekend beat me. I was going to tame that recipe and it was not going to sink this time. I changed things around a little in the recipe and added more flour  because last time it seemed like a really wet mix. Well I'm happy to report that it didn't sink quite so far this time. And I'm happier to report that the little concavity will be easy to fill with frosting once I decide what flavour I want to make. And I'm happiest to report that Iven came up with a creative, intelligent and appropriate name for my less-than-perfect sugary treat. He's called it The Sunken Treasure. Sometimes he surprises me.

Only four more days till I see the doctor. I'm really hoping  that he'll let me continue to add running breaks to my walks so I can feel less guilty.

Big Dogs, Little Dogs, Black Dogs and White Dogs (apologies to Dr Seuss)

Sam's finished his exams! That malignant pall has been cast from our house and life can now go on as normal.  He was a much happier camper this afternoon when he arrived home with the weight off his shoulders. And quite an exuberant one just now when he turned up with a group of his fellow future-physios. My guess is that they'd been drinking  a little (wasn't a hard guess - they were holding bottles of beer). There is nothing more excited than a group of slightly tipsy students who have just finished exams.

My running hiatus continues. I have failed a little in the non-running stakes this week. Actually it was twice in two days. I took Bubbles walking yesterday and we had to run across a road to avoid being road-kill (I think the doctor will forgive me for that one). And today I had to foil the most well-planned breakout since The Great Escape. Nelson thought he'd take the opportunity to take himself for a walk when I was upstairs making my lunch. The only flaw in his plan was that he made too much noise pushing over the piece of wood that is our dog-escape-proofer. I raced through the house and caught him on the other side. Thank goodness he's 98 in dog years. At 48, I have youth on my side. (It's not often I can say that)

I have decided to take up a new hobby, seeing as I have a few spare hours a week. I haven't actually settled on one but I was thinking that dog-watching would be interesting. Or more specifically watching the toileting behaviour of dogs. It's quite fascinating and every dog seems to have his own technique. Nelson's is The Walk Of Shame. He has very unstable hips (you probably would too if you were 98) and can't hold a squat position in one place. So he crouches down and creeps gradually forward leaving deposits at nice regular intervals. This is done while looking over his shoulder with a mortified look on his face.

Bubbles has perfected The Princess Poop. She is a little too precious to defecate in our garden so she tries to save it for our walks. Then she'll find THE most manicured lawn available and do her deed with pride, knowing her loyal servant will clean up behind her.

Did someone say walk?

My sister's dog Wilbur has been a house-guest of ours from time to time and he is The Paranoid Pooper. Willie worries about people or dogs creeping up on him when he's in the act so he circles around three times before squatting quickly and squirting one out. Because it has to be done quickly, there's often more than one toilet stop per walk.

Willie's paranoia may stem from his problem-drinking.

We've also had my other 'nephew' Benny over to stay. Benny is a proponent of the Sharing Is Caring bowel movement. He cannot be in someone else's yard for more than five minutes before he's left a little token of his esteem. (I so wanted to write esteam but that would only apply to very cold winter's days).

So what do you think? Fascinating? Or she's-becoming-that-looney-dog-woman?

An ADD Blog (Or More Scattered Bits of Randomness)

Before I start I'd just like to say that yes, those were really pyjamas that Sam's wearing. If any of you watch How I Met Your Mother you might recognise them from Barney's wardrobe. Sam decided that he too would like to be as cool as Barney. I personally think he's managed to achieve what he wanted. (but I'm his Mother so I may be biased)

The weather has been incredibly kind to me. It's been so stinking hot and humid that I ALMOST didn't envy the squad heading out to do their speed session yesterday. 24C/75F with a 'feels like' temp of 28C/82F at 5:30 in the morning is not my idea of ideal running temps. There were a lot of red faces and sweat-soaked singlets by the time I'd walked around to them.

I actually managed to pull my gluteal and hamstring yesterday. At this point I'd like to say that I sometimes think that runners run because they're a little too uncoordinated to do anything else. My theory goes back to the time when I joined in a parents/kids soccer match at my son's soccer break-up. I was running along and had to make a sudden turn because the game changed direction and I fell over. I didn't trip. I didn't get ankle-tapped. No one was near me. There were no pot holes. And I didn't even have the ball. I just randomly fell over. And this theory has been proven time and again by my fellow runners and inspired my calendar to Coach Chris - Stacks, Stubs and Other Random Running Injuries.

Yesterday I managed to trip over a speed bump in the car park - stupidly walking along and not watching where I was going. It's just as well I can't run at the moment because I apparently have trouble just walking.

But back to the weather - you know it's hot around here when the ants start making their way indoors. Iven's theory is that they know there's a lot of rain on the way. I'm wondering what kind of equipment the ant meteorologist uses and if it's accurate. I've been finding ants in very unusual and inconvenient places - on top of the shower screen where some people (Josh) leave their toothpaste and toothbrush. Don't worry Josh I rinsed all the ants out before you could see. Also in and on our toilet (I always wondered where the saying 'ants in your pants' came from and now I know). Those little suckers can bite! And finally I found a trail travelling between the shower and the toilet - I'm hoping for Josh's sake that they'd gone to the shower before heading for the toilet! 

I got the most awesome parcel in the mail this week.  These arrived from Jon  and I actually managed to load them up with music and get them working without any assistance from my kids. They are truly idiot-proof and user-friendly.

                                                 

They hold 4GB of your favourite songs and are really comfortable when you sew or walk (well I'm not allowed to run yet). Their only draw-back is that they can cause leg injuries - I was playing with these when I tripped in the car park.

My life has been filled with little ironies lately - it's almost like the universe is having a laugh at my expense. Iven makes me a lovely path to the clothes line so I don't have to stand on sticks and stones and Nelson's dog poo - Nelson decides that the path is the best place to poop on (or maybe he thought the path needed a dotted line down the middle). I buy a huge tub of protein powder to help build up my muscles - I struggle to open it because my arms are too weak. I come down with this weird fatigue/overtraining thing and Iven gets a bad back so I can't be mean to him while I'm not running - where's the fun in that?!

My wish for each and every one of you for today is that you see those little ironies in life and laugh along with the universe.

Losing My Mojo

Bubbles and I racked up two walks this weekend. Woohoo! I took her along to meet the squad on Saturday morning. She was a bit confused that I was in my running gear and it was still pretty dark outside and yet she was being invited along. I was stupidly surprised when a few of the squad members knew her name - they'd never met her before. But they'd read my blog and seen her pic. And I shouldn't have been so surprised.

We had a great walk along the river and Bubbles managed to PR a 1k split - 10:23!! A minute faster than her Thursday walk. I think she's getting fitter.

Then we went for a walk up through the bushland at the back of my suburb. It's a really lovely area but very hilly. Probably the wrong walk to do when I'm supposed to be taking it easy but once you've started, the only way to get back home is to keep walking. I kept checking my HR monitor - it got up to 176 on the last awful hill - and wondering if the numbers I was seeing were really abnormal. So frustrating - you can't even go for a little walk without overthinking and worrying.

The rest of the day was filled with baking. I'm still working through the recipes in my new book and the Bento Cupcakes looked really appealing

Picture from my new cupcake cookbook - Making Cupcakes With Lola

They're a chocolate batter with chopped chocolate and in the centre of the cupcake is a caramel-filled chocolate - Yum! I never worry about trying out new stuff because it always works out so I went ahead and followed the recipe to the letter and this is what came out of the oven ...

... Note the big crater in the centre of the cupcake. The cupcake in the original picture DID NOT have one of these. Major fail!! But I went ahead and made the icing - white chocolate cream cheese frosting - and thought I'd hide the concavity with a mountain of sweetness that could put most people into a diabetic coma.

I'd never made this type of frosting before. It involved making a white chocolate ganache and mixing it into the cream cheese frosting and then refrigerating it for about an hour till it was firm enough to pipe on. At this point I'll mention that it's a British cookbook and we're in Australia in the hottest time of the year. I'll also mention that I chose to ignore the heat factor despite the fact that I'm usually a fairly intelligent person. And this is the result ...

My frosting just couldn't manage to hold a swirl so after a couple of failed attempts I just slopped it on. It doesn't look quite like the cookbook picture.

Talk about a blow to my fragile ego - not only have I lost my running mojo but now I've lost my cupcake baking mojo. What next?!!!

But another attempt at a different recipe put my mind at ease.

The caramel biscotti ones worked out just fine. Phew!

Good luck to #1 son, Sam today starting a week of exams. If he got marks for style he'd ace all his exams - here's a photo of him in his new pyjamas.

Hope you all have a good running week. Could you all please run an extra k or two for me?

Scattered Bits Of Randomness

It's been hard to put a new post together - my thoughts have been so scatty lately. Could it be that running is the only thing that's warding off dementia?

I totally forgot to buy bread yesterday. I'm going to be sacked from my job of Super-Woman. Seriously, who forgets to buy bread?!! Especially when they're the sole food purchaser for a family of four hungry males. There was some very unhappy campers in my house this morning. Personally, I would have thought that bread could be substituted - we have other foodstuffs in the fridge and pantry. Bacon and eggs. English muffins. Two minute noodles. Muesli. All are perfectly adequate breakfast foods (except maybe the two minute noodles - but when you're desperate ...). But apparently they take too long to prepare when you're tired from staying out clubbing till 2am and need to be at work by 9am.

Yesterday I couldn't manage to do basic maths. I've agreed to bake brownies for the up-coming running camp (the one that I've had to pull out of because I can't run, can't kayak, can't walk for longer than an hour). I wanted to find out how many I needed to bake so I could buy the ingredients. There's going to be just over 60 at the camp so Coach Chris and I worked out that I needed 5 dozen. I had a mini, internal freak-out that I'd agreed to do such a big order. An hour later I remembered that each batch of brownies is 2 dozen so I only have to do 3 batches. Mini-crisis averted but there were self-recriminations about the depth of my stupidity.

I went for a walk yesterday evening with Bubbles - the dog with the 6 inch legs. I'd been talking to my sister about our walks the previous day and told her that our pace was about 12 mins per kilometre. She was astounded that we were so slow. I reminded her that I wasn't supposed to be breaking any land speed records at the moment but it tugged that competitive cord in me so yesterday I, stupidly, picked up the pace. I learnt something really important - Bubbles is a great walking companion for me in my current condition. Her top speed is 11:30 per k and if we try to go any faster there's dragging involved.

Once again I had runner's envy of the worst kind yesterday. There's a long gentle descent towards the end of our walk and I had this wild urge to just cut loose and run down it. It's just as well I had Bubbles there to restrain my baser nature. I can only imagine how bad it would have looked with my running wildly down the slope dragging my dog behind me on her belly because her legs had given out.

Once I got to the oval next to my house the runner's envy hit another high. There were dogs running around chasing tennis balls. I've decided that in my next life I'd like to come back as a dog with long flappy ears and the waggliest tail. Then everyone would be able to see just how joyful running makes me. I would bound along with those flappy ears waving behind me in the slipstream that I'd created chasing that green tennis ball until I got distracted by a bird over the other side of the field and then my owner would have to spend half an hour chasing me. (Yes, I'm that dog - the one that's had no obedience training. Actually, I had two weeks of lessons before the instructor asked my owner not to bring me back. Puppy school fail!)

And my final chapter of this random blog belongs to novelty soaps. I was given a cute cupcake-shaped soap for Christmas and the other day it was forced into use. (Yes, I forgot to buy soap as well as bread). While lathering myself up with it in the shower I was compelled to contemplate whether the designers actually intended for it to be used on the human body. Those little brown bits on the soap were more abundant when I pulled it out of the packaging. They were also more sand-paper like - possibly intended for exfoliation or dermabrasion depending on the enthusiasm of the lathering. In fact they were so coarse that, had I had a tattoo I could have saved myself the expense of laser removal. And the shape of the soap is far from ergonomic. But I will say that there are parts of my anatomy that have never been so clean thanks to that mound of 'icing'. I have put soap at the top of my next shopping list ... in capital letters and highlighted!

Has anyone else done anything totally screwy/scatty/without engaging what little grey matter is left? Is this a side-effect of not running?