THE RACE IS TOMORROW!!!

Okay, first things first:

If you want to come to watch the race here are the details:

I will be running at 2 PM 

SPECTATOR TICKETS

Last year there was no charge for spectators... but ... this year they have changed that.  Here are the details they sent:

 

Spectator tickets are $10 and sold on site (please bring cash, limited Credit Card services are available). Spectators receive:    
* $5 in Spartan Bucks at the merchandise tent    
* A course map    
* Access to Spartan Race Festival Ground Areas. Activities include food vendors, live music, spear throwing, raffles, and watching your friends and loved ones slip and slide through the Spartan course!

LOCATION

327 S. Latigo Canyon Road, Malibu CA 90265.

PARKING:  

Parking is $10. Spaces are limited, so please carpool!

WAHOO! I cannot wait! 

Okay, onto how I'm feeling and what-not. I AM SO EXCITED!  

This week has been a crazy emotional roller coaster, and I can easily say that that roller coaster ride has left me a bit queezy...  At the start of the week I was so anxious I was sick.  That was followed by a round of "moody-ness". (That's code for I was a total B****) Yesterday I was back to feeling well and feeling excited! Today, I'm just simply excited.  

Part of the reason I'm excited is because I have received so much encouragement from my friends! One amazing co-worker (HOLLY!) actually decorated my desk in support!

Look at this sweet sign she hung on my desk!

Fun!

 She left me protein bars wrapped in a ribbon as well as a loving little encouragement note (pictured above) saying "Heather is more than a conqueror!"

Awesome!

My wrist is feeling better, but not completely healed.  I'd say it's at about 80%. I'm going to wear my brace tomorrow as well as have my husband help me through some of the more strenuous obstacles. 

Now all I need is a good night's sleep... which might be tough to get! I had anxiety dreams last night about the race that were so bad that I woke up in the middle of the night and dry-heaved. YUCK.  Hopefully tonight I'll be feeling more calm and prepared!

I can't believe that after SIX MONTHS of training the day is finally here! 

Pictures and video will be posted on the blog as soon as I can process them.

Oh, and in case you forgot what I'm in for... here's a video to remind you!

SPARTAN RACE. I AM SO READY FOR YOU.

AROOOO! AROOO! 

 

Getting Close-The verdict

SPARTAN RACE COUNTDOWN

Well, there it is.... Tick, tick, ticking away....

The race is just around the corner and I am getting more and more scared!

The past few weeks have been interesting for me.  My arm is getting slightly better, but it still hurts.  It has been a daily struggle not to feel discouraged!

 I cannot even begin to write down all of the things I have been going through since I hurt myself.  This has been a very hard process.  Everyone keeps asking me, "Are you still going to do the race?"  "How many days until the race?" "Do you think you can do it?"

All right arm. Whatcha gonna do? You gonna heal up in time for this race??

I found myself satisfying my sadness with peanut butter cups and fast food.  The combination of no exercise with a sudden decline in diet created a wonderfully negative emotional bomb for me.

One night I was driving home and I had a full-on emotional breakdown.  I began to cry as I realized that I might not actually be able to compete in this race.  Another thought that I had was that even if I do compete I won't be able to do some of the obstacles, and it will definitely take me longer to get through than the time I had originally planned to finish in.

I was definitely having a pity party for myself.

The next day at work a couple girls were asking me about how my arm was and I told them the truth, that I was really struggling with it. One of the women in the conversation pulled me aside afterwards and lovingly, but firmly said this,

"Heather. I want you to really pray about this race.  Pray about whether or not this is something God wants you to be doing, because if He is trying to slow you down and you keep fighting Him, eventually He will let you go... and believe me, you do not want that. Make sure that this isn't about you, or your pride."

I was dumbfounded.  I stopped and took a moment to think.  I realized that if God Himself were standing in front of me telling me not to do this race I think I would have thrown a fit and told Him that I knew better.  That's when I realized that I had made this race into an Idol.

I took a good thing, a goal for being healthier, and made it an ultimate thing.  Originally I started this whole process as a way of loving my body, but somewhere along the line it became about 'look what I can do'. My pride has definitely kicked in, and this race was going to be all about me and my glory.

I have had many conversations since then, and I have been doing a lot of praying.  I realized that even being upset that I won't be able  to run it as fast as I had originally hoped is proof that this race has become about my pride.  Haven't I been saying all along that this isn't about how fast I run it, rather just COMPLETING the race???

Another revelation hit me.  This whole race had been my goal to help me work towards eating well too, and the second I was no longer in control of my exercise I decided to stop being dilligent in what I was eating as well. The self-medicating I was doing with food should have been a warning flag!

I have been praying about it, and I have been asking God to give me the correct perspective.  With only days to the race I need to be positive that I'm not running it for my own glory, but for His.  It is because of the love that Christ has for me that I am even capable of taking care of myself.  That should be ever-present in my mind.

Since then, my attitude has shifted.  It's been a hard lesson to work through (and I'm definitely still working through it) but I realized that ultimately, I am still so blessed. I have a minor injury on a fully functioning body.  There are so many people who don't even have that!

Also, I must keep EVERYTHING in perspective.  I was reading some old blogs on here where I was talking about how much I wasn't disciplined and how much I hated exercise.  It rocked my world to realize that part of the reason I've been so upset over the past couple of weeks is because I haven't been able to exercise... that's mind boggling to me.  I used to be upset because I needed to exercise... now I'm upset when I don't get to exercise.  PRAISE GOD FOR THE TRANSFORMATION HE HAS BEEN WORKING IN MY LIFE.

So.  Here's the verdict:

Yes.  I will be running this race.  Yes. It will be the most difficult thing I have ever done, now moreso than even before.  But I am going to take my time and remember this is a fun goal that I have been excited for for months.  This isn't about how fast I can run it, or how awesome I am at each of the obstacles, no.  This is about praising God for having blessed me with a body.  This is an act of worship to Him.  May it be to His glory alone!

Feeling Discouraged.

The race I have been training almost 6 months for is 18 days away, and in a matter of days i went from feeling pumped and prepared, to feeling like i may not be able to run at all.

When I had my little 'garage door fight' (you can read about it by clicking here) I genuinely did not expect such a huge stall in my training. To be honest, I'm a klutz and a hypochondriac. I assume that every little accident I have in a day (and I have many accidents in a day) will leave me scarred for life. When this accident happened I didn't genuinely believe I'd be in pain for more than a couple of days.  Even still, when the doctor told me I had sprained my forearm and elbow, I did not understand the full ramifications of what that meant.

I was foolish and continued to exercise and use my arm mostly as normal. As the first few days passed I noticed the pain and swelling increased.  I definitely was not heeding my doctors instructions of "Do not use your arm for anything for at least a week".  Fortunately my loving husband put his foot down and demanded I put my arm in a sling so I would be forced to stop using it.

Its hard to make slings look good, but so far I've at least had them match my outfits :-)

So, as it stands here on day 6, my arm still hurts and I have decided to not work out at all until I can get through a day without it hurting.  I'm having such a hard time not feeling discouraged and reminding myself to be patient.

Ultimately I can't just 'will' it to be better, and I have to remember that loving your body is truly about doing what is best for it every day.

So today I rest.

Damages

So, for those of you who are just tuning in, I hurt my hand/wrist on Wednesday. (check out the blog on it When Garage Doors attack: A stall in my training?)

On Thursday more of my arm hurt.  The pain and stiffness extended from my wrist to just past my elbow.  I was having a hard time using my hand for anything, so I decided to call the doctor.

Sure enough, my doctor started examining my hand and noticed a lot of tension in my arm. So, it was off to the lab for x rays!

After they took my picture I came back to my doctors office and had a mini-melt down.  I knew that if my wrist was broken I wouldn't be able to compete in the Spartan race

My nerves were on edge! I didn't know what to expect, and I played out the various scenarios in my head.

Shortly after my mini freak out my doctor came back telling me the good news:


MY ARM WAS NOT BROKEN!!

Here's the not-so-great side of this story though: I do have a sprained wrist.  However, the doctor said that after about a week I could begin slowly easing it back into use.  In the meantime, I have to wear a wrist support band (It looks like I'm ready for some intense bowling). 

I also have to ice my wrist every hour for 15 minutes, along with taking Ibuprofin.  I'm practicing some range of motion exercises too.

I'm sad because the race is about 3 weeks away and I didn't realize how much I use my wrist in almost everything I do! I couldn't jog on Thursday night because the jarring motion hurt my arm and wrist!

It's also crazy how much it affects everything.  The pain has now spread from my wrist to my shoulder. OW.

Never in my life have I had a physical goal that I've been trying to work towards.  When this accident happened I didn't realize what that would mean for my training.  It's going to be a cut back, but hopefully I can strengthen myself enough to get through it! As I said in an earlier post, it's good to be reminded that no matter how strong I try to make myself, my body is ultimately weak, vulnerable.  It's a humbling reminder to keep life balanced.  It's good to be healthy, but keep in mind that ultimately your life is not yours to control!

Queen of the HILL!

Welp. Despite the early morning injury I was still able to do my 'hill' routine after work! I did the entire routine 8 times in 48 minutes! WOWZA!  A month ago when I started this hill routine I only did 5 rounds and it took me 60 minutes. I have cut my time in half!!!

I am still concerned about my hand, specifically my wrist. It's hurting worse, and I am getting to a point where it hurts with almost any movement. I might go in for an x ray tomorrow.

Prayers would be appreciated!

When garage doors attack: a stall in my training?

Today started with a very dramatic accident. (at least I thought so....)

Previous to getting married to a man who is very concerned about being on time, I used to be late to everything. I will say that that has changed over the past two years, but I still have some bad habits that stick. One of those habits is hitting snooze on the alarm. I will snooze until I only have 10 minutes to get out of the house and of course I end up arriving 5-10 min late to work. Not good.

So today I woke up determined to be on time. I am proud to say I made it out the door at a reasonable time. However, as fate would have it, I ended up being delayed by an epic battle with my garage door that set me back 10 minutes, and possibly set back some of my Spartan training as well.....

As I went to pull out of the garage, the gate just would not open! 

Let me set the scene for you:

This is how our garage door opens. It slides horizontally. There has been 1 time in the past when the gate wouldn't open, so Shawn took the lever and inserted it into our garage controller box and cranked it open.

So, when I couldn't get out this morning I immediately got out of the car, inserted the lever, and began to manually crank the door open. I had been at it for about a minute, when suddenly, the gate started opening on it's own! This meant the lever I had inserted started rotating SUPER FAST. It bent my wrist, then the other side slapped down on the back of my hand, then it loosed itself and went flying into the air.

Immediately I hurt. I swore I had broken my thumb where the lever hurt.

I took a picture immediately afterward of my hand. It's not gross, but I know some people are squeemish, so instead of posting it here i've added a link to the photo, so you can choose whether or not you wish to see it.

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k92/dramadye/hurthand.jpg

As the day has progressed i'm happy to say I don't believe anything is broken. In fact, it hasn't been the part of my hand that was hit that has been bothering me most. The muscles in my wrist and forearm feel extremely tense and I'm concerned I may have strained them.

Yes, I am concerned this could affect my ability to climb things during the race. I'm gonna take it easy on my wrist the next few days to see how it goes. Ultimately this isn't that big of a setback, just a reminder that no matter how strong you are you're body is still vulnerable!

Next time, I'll think first and turn the power off before I start a manual crank.... Oh if only I could strengthen my common sense!

24 days till the race!!

Twenty five

And the countdown begins!!

Only 25 more days until the race!!

The weekend is over and that means it is back to work… Working out that is!

Usually on Saturdays Shawn and I go to the park and play about 3 hours of ultimate frisbee, but this Saturday was different. We had a friends wedding to go to and it started at such a time that we weren't able to play. We didn't mind! The wedding was SO MUCH FUN!

Unfortunately I have a terrible camera, and the few photos I did take didn't turn out so hot. Nonetheless, here's a pic of me and my best friend Stevie:

And this picture of me and my handsome hubby!

The wedding was great, and both Shawn and I burned a lot of calories dancing! We danced for a looooooong time to some great music! It was a BLAST!!

But that was then, and this is now….

Monday nights I take a FIT class that my husband teaches. Last night I got a great workout in!

Tonight I will be running hopefully 2 miles when I get home. It's my goal to run 3 miles on thursday. That will be the first time I've ever done it!! Eeep!

Fortunately I have eaten very well today, so I feel my body is up for a challenge!

Enough typing, time to sweat!