It's Alive! It's Alive! My Frankenstein'ed Training Plan

Because I’m taking care of myself with the therapy, I am no longer getting nearly as many headaches as I used to.  I can tell when my muscles are beginning to get tight and I can make changes to take care of that. I can tell the difference between a weather headache (yes, I still get them) and a tension headache. Because my headaches are decreasing, I can do other things that I’ve not wanted to do because of the fear of an onslaught. 

Working out is one of those things I avoided because of the headaches. Who knows, maybe if I had worked out more and did more muscle work I’d not be in this mess in the first place. Hindsight and all that bull…

The family and I went to WDW in September 2011 and I think I only needed ONE migraine pill.  I was fine the majority of the time, and that was a huge win for me.  While we were there, I saw something (I think Wine & Dine Marathon information) that put the Princess back in the forefront of my thoughts. I didn’t say anything, but it was there.

During the holidays, I began to think of the upcoming year (2012) and what changes I wanted to make. I hate New Year’s Resolutions, but for me, change was coming fast and I needed to get out of my own damn way, lest I run myself over.  I was tired of being fat. I was tired of being tired. I was tired of being unhealthy.  I was just tired of myself, I think.  It’s hard to put into words what I was thinking or feeling because most of the time, it was lingering just under the surface, the way cold water is below the warm tides of the ocean.  

I began researching things on the internet, things like HOW to run, how a fat girl CAN run, what kind of shoes to get (what girl doesn’t need shoes?) and stuff like that.  I decided to get through the holidays before I really did anything, but every day, the call of the miles was getting stronger in my head.

On the DIS, I found the WISH forums (We’re Inspired to Stay Healthy).  There was lots of chatter about the upcoming 2012 Princess, so I lurked on the boards. A lot. I found a link to Jeff Galloway’s training programs. I read through his website and found a conditioning program for beginners – ME!  It involved walking interspersed with small bits of running (the first day was 10 minutes of walking and running, with a 5 second run once a minute).  Surely I could do this!  I printed that and tucked it away. 

I found the Couch to 5K program as well and after looking it over, it looked like I would be able to transition from JG directly to C25K pretty seamlessly.  I printed that out, too, and tucked it away.  I went back to Jeff’s website and printed the actual training schedule for a half-marathon. This too got tucked away for further review. 

 

By mid-January, I was about 80% sure I was going to do this. I posted a great video of the 2011 PHM on my Facebook page and my mother and I began talking about it like it was a real option.  The more I talked, the more I wanted to do it. I showed the video to my hubby, and it was really the first time I said aloud that I *was* going to do it.  Up until then, it was a quiet dream I kept in my head. Hubby suggested that our 14-year old daughter run it with me. After showing her the video, she said she wanted to do it as well.  At this point, I was about 90% sure that we’d be doing this in a bit over a year from then.

 By the end of January, I had concocted a training schedule that looked like this:  Jeff Galloway’s Conditioning Plan > Couch to 5K Plan > Jeff Galloway’s Half-Marathon Training Plan.  I had to work the training days around days I worked late and my therapy days, but there is a scheduled plan now!

It felt real.

Why Lazy Got Nekkid in Front of a Chick

On the day of my first massage therapy session, I was very nervous. The office was in a beautiful old house (which I covet!) that had been turned into a holistic healing and women’s center – imagine Sheldon (from The Big Bang Theory) walking in and seeing crystals and Georgia O’Keefe paintings and hemp scarves and Female Empowerment plaques and you get an idea of what I was thinking when I got there.

Center For Balance - 1705 NW 6th Street

 I took a deep breath and followed my little massage lady to her room and we chatted. After I recanted the headache hell I had been living with, she told me to go ahead and lie down. I’m sure I sounded so meek when I asked her how naked I needed to be, but at least I got to keep my panties! Getting nekkid for the first time in that room was a milestone in and of itself!

<cue porn music here> I stripped down and crawled onto the table and covered myself like a wedding night virgin, waiting for her to come back in.  She began stoking the large muscles that line the spine, and after about 10 minutes or so of working on my back, she asked again how many visits I was prescribed. I told her six and she said, “Good, we’re going to need all of them, and then some!”  I think my therapist just said I was fucked up.…  I don’t think I relaxed one bit that entire hour with this little woman rubbing all over me with cocoa butter – but damn, I smelled like chocolate for hours, so that was cool.

I continued to see her 5 more times before going back to my doctor for a follow-up.  I was re-prescribed therapy, on a bi-weekly basis. I’ve changed what time I go, too. Now I go after work, since she has p.m. hours, and that’s a nice way to end the day! I’m all mellow when I get home and ready to curl up on the couch or into bed.

Anyway, I know you are all like, what’s this got to do with anything?  Relax, I’m getting there….

Western Medicine Can't Save Me - Bring on the Hokum!

In the fall of 2010, I finally got a new job working for the county government.  I was happy to be working again – I’m not someone who enjoys NOT working.  I’ve been here for over a year and I’m pretty happy. It’s a job and a paycheck, but it sure would be nice to get a raise!

But anyway, all that is just background.  During the time I was unemployed, our family would go and do Disney for free – we’d go to DTD, watch Wishes from the Poly or TTC and dream about going back.  At some point while reading DisBoards, I learned about the Princess Half Marathon.  It sounded fun, but at over 200 pounds, with smoker’s lungs and a wonky cardio system, there was no way I’d be able to do it – I figured it was only for runners, anyway. I put it out of my mind and forgot all about it.  Also in 2009, since I had no job, I was able to go to the University of Florida’s homecoming parade. My daughter and I saw the runners from the Gator Gallop and I joked that maybe next year I’d run in that. Yeah right! 

One day in early 2011 at a meeting at work, one of my coworkers – who is over 40 and JUST had a baby a MONTH before, told me that she was going to be out of the office in a few weeks so that she could do the Princess.  I kind of looked at her and said to myself – “WTF? She’s running right after having a baby (and a C-Section, at that!)? What the hell excuse do YOU have, fat ass?”  After that, it kind of stayed in my head, as a ‘One Day’ kind of goal, but nothing I was seriously ready to go after yet.

2011 continued uneventfully until the end of summer.  (More background info – I have suffered migraines for decades).  I experienced an extremely debilitating headache that lasted for almost a week and I finally said Fuck It – I gotta find a doctor that will actually TREAT these things. I’ve been told many things from other doctors:  They aren’t that bad, you only get them because you are fat, take hot baths, bullshit like that. I’ve had doctors laugh at me when I told them I thought they were weather-related.

In August 2011, I went to my doctor’s office and saw a wonderful woman who was a headache sufferer herself and after she listened to me describe the hell I live with (and I cried a bit while explaining them because they have gotten that bad), she told me that she thought the majority of them were actually tension headaches!  She wrote me a prescription for a migraine med and for massage therapy. I was to go once a week for 6 weeks and report back to the doc.

Now, I know most of you don’t know me, but believe me when I say that I am a very LOGICAL person. I am a firm believer in Western Medicine. If it hurts, take a pill until it doesn’t hurt any more. If it’s broken, use tools and fix it. Massage, yoga, acupuncture, weird teas – this is not medicine. This is HOKUM. But, by this point, I was ready for hokum.  After a few days, I worked up the courage (yes, I was scared) and called the therapist she recommended. The lady had a funny name, which reinforced my idea of “hokum”.  I set up an appoint to go before work the next week.