Your Daily Dose of Duke #17

My pooch is on the road to recovery. However, he has gone from "Monster Foot" to "Frankenstein Foot." All his stitches are gone as well as his bandages but he's still not allowed to go on a full run-fest, which he desperately, desperately wants to do.

I was JUST getting comfortable.

And do the Creep!

I heard fireworks are you okay?

Monster foot has become Frankenstein Foot.

Frankenstein Foot!

Why must you bother me while I sleep?

Go Away!

 

I’ll Never be THAT Person

******Warning I’m still (hopefully forever) on a health kick so this is a exercise post not a post about me realizing my dog obsession or my husband obsession makes me THAT person******

When I first started running, I always said I would never be THAT runner. You know the one. The one that runs in the pouring rain. The one that runs on a busy road for all the world to see. The one that runs up hills and blows a neck vein.

Can you see the fear?

These people were obsessed, crazy, stupid. Why, would you do that? I would watch them from my car as I drove by, poor schmucks. Hitting the pavement in the rain. I could almost see their neck veins straining up that hill. Idiots, all of them. I would watch. I would look at the ladies who needed better sports bras, the men who were taunt, I would study their form, pass judgment and say, “THAT will never be me.”

I am a self conscious runner. The reason I went from the treadmill to the trails is because I don’t like people SEEING me run. There are things moving and sometimes my form is off and let’s just say I am a nervous wrecking ball and I usually batter myself against myself until I fall down.  Running brought out a lot of insecurities about my body image, my looks, my facial expressions, my running form, everything.

This is why, when I ran my first 5K race, I bombed it. Everyone could see me. The woods are my time to be alone and carefree and people were all up in my personal bubble. However, I worked with myself and on myself and 2 weeks later I was able to run an entire 5-mile road race with an average pace of 10 and a half minutes per mile and I smiled almost the whole time.

Can you see the joy?

Last night, it was a typical Pacific Northwest evening full of gray clouds and falling rain.  As I laced up my running shoes and put on my windbreaker, I hoped the drizzle would remain a drizzle. I walked almost a mile down my hill. While stretching, I sighed, so much gray. I started running through downtown Kingston then out onto the highway then humped it up a gradient hill I kept trudging and huffing and puffing and slowing down and speeding up. I did loops and turns, hills and descents. At the end, I ran four miles in the rain on the side of busy roads, up hills. I had become THAT person and not just THAT person but a person who then walked almost a mile uphill to get home.

As I was running, my legs still store from my 5-mile race 3 days earlier, I thought about all the cars passing me. All the people that could see me. They could be criticizing my form, making fun of me, shaking their heads in disdain. They could be doing all the things I used to do when I saw someone running on the side of a busy road. Normal Leila would have let her crazy neurotic brain take over and make her turn around and go home. But Runner Leila, Runner Leila had an epiphany.

They can stare, they can honk, they can click their tongues, laugh and shake their heads. The bottom line is I am doing something to better myself. I am doing something either they can’t do, would like to do or wish they could do. Let them criticize. I may be wet, sore and tired after my run but I did it with only myself and my motivation fueling me up that hill or in that rain or where you can see me. Bottom line, I’m awesome and I know it.

Your Daily Dose of Duke #16

My Vet, has once again called me out for letting my dog rule my life ... Duke's foot since his surgery has become what we've dubbed "MONSTER FOOT" or I call it Monster Footitis. The foot that had surgery looks like it belongs to a golden retriever while Duke is a 34 pound mutt.To reiterate what has been said in previous posts (Ahem):

I AM A CRAZY DOG LADY.

Seeing my pooch all bandaged up and knowing we have to put a cone on him not only at night but also when we leave the house, fills me with pain and dread. I just know we're going to come home and find duke choking himself somehow with the cone. I also feel terrible because we've had 5 days of beautiful weather and Duke can't even go for a short walk (okay, he recently got cleared for no more that 3 10-minute walks a day broken up and spaced out). But, I digress, now I fret over this Monster Foot. I thought elevation would help, so now Duke has his own little body pillow and he half spoons with it in order to elevate his Monster Foot. The vet's office thought this was the funniest thing they had ever heard of, especially because my dog is a willing participate. Their exact words "Well, I guess we know who wears the pants in that household."

Allow me to show you:

Your Daily Dose of Duke #15

Yes, yes Duke had minor surgery (teeth cleaned then while he was under nails scaled back and a very large nasty cyst was removed from one of his joints). I will say my Vet doesn't take crap from anyone. They called me out right off the bat when I thought Duke was in so much torturous pain from his somewhat minor procedures that I felt he needed pain pills. He didn't. The vet looked me in the eye and said "He's playing you." He knows just how to motivate you to give him food or pay attention to him. Don't give into his shifty ways. While he is a dog very in touch with his ... feelings ... he's perfectly fine. Then when they called to tell me the cyst wasn't cancerous, they scolded me for waiting so long to get the cyst removed. I love people who hold me responsible for my own actions.

Who said I felt guilty and was spoiling him?

Duke has MONSTER FOOTITIS... Look how swollen.

Your Daily Dose of Duke #14

Duke has surgery today. So I've been trying to make these last days special. He is getting his teeth cleaned, a cyst removed and his nails scaled back. He will not be able to walk for a bit so I was making sure he got out and stretched his legs. It's a good thing he lost weight before this surgery because he'll probably gain some.

Duke, doing Tai Chi on the beach. 5.6.2012

How you doing? 5.6.2012

Did you want me to pose? 5.6.2012

NO! I don't want to... 5.6.2012

Just thinking about the meaning of life. 5.6.2012

5.6.2012

5.6.2012

You will give me that treat and these are not the dogs you are looking for. 5.6.2012

Beach romp before surgery. 5.10.2012

5.10.2012

Did I ruin your shot? 5.10.2012

Love him 5.10.2012

After a hard day there is no need to get fully into bed.

This bed is only half made ... fix it.

5K Bomb - The Joys of Running

When I first started running, I got hooked very easily. There is a lot out there now for beginner runners. Marching to the beat of my own drum, I made up my own training regime and worked towards a 5K trail run 3 months away. I started on the treadmill but then quickly moved to trails once the weather got better. I like trails – no car exhaust, no one could see me, I can even sing out loud and bring my dog without fear. A few weeks before the run I was racking up serious miles – from 5.5 miles to my shortest runs which were now 4 miles. A 5K seemed a piece of cake, a walk in the park, easily accomplished. The day of the race approached.

As true Leila style, I arrived almost too late. Missed warming up and just went for it. For a girl who actively avoids people SEEING her run the race was honestly a nightmare for me. I had a running partner but before the first mile was done she was gone, ahead of me by leaps and bounds. I couldn’t control my heart rate as people passed me. My pace slowed, I saw their steely determination and clenched jaws, I freaked out. My heart pounded in my chest to the point it hurt and I was gasping, wheezing and no matter what I did – lowered my arms, focused on my breath, unclenched my fists, concentrated on deep full breaths – the hammering would not stop. About half way through the run I stopped, walked, shook, almost broke down and cried. I was better than this. I could run 3.1 miles on my WORSE days, 3 miles wasn’t even my short running days anymore.

I started running again but another mile into it a panic attack set it and I stopped to let what I considered “better runners” pass me. The runners were not friendly, they did not say thank you, they didn’t try to encourage me to continue they just glared at me and ran on. I knew my running partner had already finished the race and all I wanted was a redo or at least to be finished. I walked most of the last leg, only beginning to run again when the trail leveled off and I had a good distance between myself and the people in front or behind me. My running friend returned to my side when she saw me near the finish line. I was struggling. I was losing it and the last few feet to the finish line I almost got pushed out of the way by a guy in tight breathable running attire.  

It was embarrassing, it was a defeat and it scared me. It messed with my head. Correction: I messed with my head. All the encouragement in the world is not going to change the fact that I ran a horrible race where my mind took over instead of my capabilities. When you train for something for 3 months, when you attempt to do something YOU KNOW you can do well because you have worked so hard for so long at it and you watch your mind butcher your skill and your training into chopped liver, it’s mentally exhausting. It is a slap in the face.

There is always the easy way out – I could make up excuses. Instead of admitting that the race/ME freaked me out and got in my head, I could throw out excuses. I didn’t sleep the night before, I was dehydrated, I didn’t warm up or stretch, my foot hurt, etc, etc. But that is not what happened.

Instead of letting myself enjoy the run. I forced myself to see it as a competition where everyone was passing me and staring at me and judging me. Instead of enjoying the beautiful sunshine, Pacific NW trees and streams, I tortured myself focusing on the miles to go and how far I’ve gone and if I was done yet.

This race honestly scared me so much I toy with the idea of not running anymore. I loved having a set goal to work towards. The 5K was a great tool to keeping me motivated. However, since races apparently cause me to mentally shit myself, other than setting personal goals the only motivation is me and to be honest she is being a shaking child in the corner who just saw her dog get hit by a car. 

Right now, I feel a lot like my Tutu (grandmother), she fell about a year and a half ago at the age of 89 and broke her hip and had to get hip replacement surgery on her 90^th birthday. She got back to walking very quickly and still walks and swims. She confides in me she is terrified of falling down again and she’s shied away from walking.

Yes, I am over thinking my run, yes I was over thinking the run while I was doing the run and yes I scared  myself. However, the mind is more powerful than the body and no amount of encouragement or “but you finished” is going to change the rule mind over matter. If I have a mental block with running there is no fix, there is no cure, there is no miracle drug or stretch that will work. I can run and tell myself the entire time to enjoy it, but I won’t believe it.

Defeat is a luxury, it is a choice. I’m allowing myself to choose defeat for my first race, but I am holding strong to the belief that I won’t allow myself to quit. I quit too many things out of selfishness and sloth. I refuse to quit something that is healthy for me, something that I enjoy. My plan? To run. Perhaps by myself for a bit. Perhaps I’ll run that same 5K trail to show myself I can. I will sign up for another race. If it turns out I can’t mentally handle a race, then I just won’t do them. It will take me awhile to get my confidence back. It will take a lot of work to figure out why my mind has such a big role in my running. But I’ll get there; believe me I’ll get there, even if I have to run a marathon (by myself) to do it.

Military Spouse

I am a military spouse two times over. I have dealt with not seeing a loved one for long periods of time. I have felt my heart race while standing in a crowd of hundreds, eagerly awaiting the bus to unload or the plane to arrive. I have wept with gratitude for the return of my loved one. I have written thousands of letters and emails to those missing from my life. I know what it means to be a military spouse but I also know what it means to be me.

It does take a special breed to be a military spouse. That is absolute truth. It is long months with no contact and never knowing. You spend holidays alone and intimacy is forgotten. Their schedules are erratic at best. You learn really weird acronyms that hold no place in your interactions with people who aren’t connected to the military. While being a military spouse takes a lot from someone, it is not what defines me.

My spouse’s career is not the center of my life. Yes, it dictates a lot of what we can and cannot do and I am extremely proud of my husband and all the men and women who serve in the armed forces. However, I am a wife and my husband is in the military. I am my husband’s direct support system. Being in the military comes with an entire set of rules; it comes with a code of conduct. In my first marriage, I learned a lot of useless things that does not translate to non-military life. For instance, I learned my actions in public directly reflect my husband. That means if I act a fool in public and people can figure out who my husband is, he could get in trouble. I learned that while my husband is in uniform I walk on his left side and we link arms instead of hold hands. I learned that if your grandfather was a “high up” officer in the military that Marines will salute your car because of its military sticker. I was proud of these things I learned. It made me feel connected; it made me feel a part of the military. But, I never enlisted; I never signed my life away for an allotted number of years. This was not *MY* life these are just rules that I had to follow because of my husband’s life.

Being in the military is an honorable thing, you are a great asset to America and I will support you best that I can. When I was young during my first marriage (I was married at 18) I was very into my husband’s career. I used the term “married to the Corps” because I rarely saw him. The first year of our marriage I spent maybe 3 months with him. Due to the Stop Loss, he re-enlisted and didn’t deploy for long periods of time anymore just a month or two here and there several weeks in the field and duty. His schedule was irregular and as I grew into myself the Marine Corps became less and less important to me. As my husband and I grew apart I began to see the military for what it was in regards to marriage. It was a difficult life that challenges you in every way conceivable. 

Enlisting in the military is a choice, just as marriage is a choice. I have chosen to love and honor my husband, to stand by his side through thick and thin. I hold no such loyalties to the military. It doesn’t mean I am any less grateful or any less proud. It doesn’t mean I don’t support my husband, I don’t cry when he leaves or that I am “okay” with deployments. I am a woman who is very much in love and very proud of her spouse regardless of his career.

In December, my husband will be getting out of the Navy. While a part of me is hesitant of this decision because of the economy, I love my husband and will love him no matter what his profession. If I made enough to carry the bulk of the bacon, I would happily make him a stay at home dad. As a happy, loving wife I could not conceive of forcing my husband into a uniform. I would never want my husband to feel trapped in a job or a career simply because I wanted him to or because he feels it’s the only option. The downfalls of him getting out are we lose out on a pretty hefty “re-enlistment bonus,” we lose amazing medical care and we count our pennies. All of this is inconsequential to my husband’s happiness and how his happiness will infect me.

This time next year we may be living out of his mom’s house in Boston but at least my husband won’t be out to sea with no communication for 3 months and at least at the end of the day he can smile and know that his wife loves him and trusts him and will be by his side no matter what wicked things may come.