To 13.1 and Beyond!

This last weekend, while most of America was floating out on the river, bbq'ing with family and friends or traveling the great highways of the US, I was joined by 27,000 of my closest friends at the Disneyland 8th Annual 1/2 Marathon....4:30am, I found myself about to embark on what I would later realize, was one of the most life changing 3 hours and 7 mins, I have ever encountered. But let me back up....

Brutal honesty moment...I have always struggled with my weight and body image. Whether I was actually overweight or not at any given point, I always felt I was. Felt I was unhealthy; felt there was a 'better' me that I just couldn't reach. 2 years ago, if someone had asked me if I wanted to run, I'd let them know I'd only run if my life was in danger, and even then, it'd had to be a real threat. I hated running. In high school during P.E, it would take me 20+ mins to walk a mile, and by the end of it, I was exhausted.

It wasn't until about 2 years ago, after the 1st birthday of my 3rd child, that I found myself on a treadmill, trying to lose that 'baby weight', that my legs started to go faster, and walking no longer felt good, but rather running felt better. I was walking so fast, my body said 'why not just run?'...so I did. And it was pretty cool. I hit a mile, and called it quits, but left that day thinking I should maybe give this running thing a second chance.

The days turned into weeks, and I could often be seen running around the neighborhood, hitting 2, 3 miles at a time. Even on vacations to Oregon, I would get up early and run on the pier. It felt good to run. Each step I took, I knew I was getting closer to something good. Not sure what, but it was going to be good.

Once I felt running was more a part of me than it wasn't, I decided to take a few cross fit and HIIT classes, to keep my body guessing. I bought the right shoes, the right outfit, the mat, the water bottle...the whole 9 yards. I was in a groove and it was awesome. But it was just that...a groove. I don't like to sit still for long and am always looking for that next challenge.

One day in January of this year, while browsing through Facebook, I saw runDisney. I saw there was this 1/2 Marathon that was coming up over Labor Day... I thought "Labor Day?...that's like 8 months away...I could totally train for this and do this!", so I registered.....Then April rolled around, and I thought "Oh I still have 4 months to train for this...I can start next month"....and then May and June...until finally it was the end of July. By this point, I had continued to run off and on, and did a class here and there. And had pretty much given up the idea that I'd actually be doing the 1/2 Marathon and I had wasted the registration fee... Oh well.

But then August came and I started talking about the 1/2. I told my family, my friends, strangers in the 5am work out classes that I was going to do it. Meanwhile my little voice in the back of my head kept saying "no you're not...why are you telling people this??” But I kept talking; I kept telling everyone how excited I was to do this. And then a week before the race I booked my hotel room. Paid for in full. As a single income family of 5, this wasn't just easy play money to toss around. So I knew I had committed myself to doing it. How could I not? There were so many people in all my circles of life that 'knew' what I was going to do. I can't let them down. I can't make up some silly excuse....so I booked the room, told my husband we were really going to go, regardless of my lack of 'real' training.

And so we did. We went down Saturday, checked into our hotel room and headed out to get my bib and shirt at the Health and Fitness Expo being held at the Disneyland Hotel.

I walked in, grabbed my stuff, and walked straight back out. Whoa. What was I getting myself into? Real panic set in at that point. There were hundreds of people. Hundreds of runners. Hundreds of people who trained, who loved running, who were ready for this. I was not one of those people. My mind said, 'oh, you can just say you did it, and no one will really know the difference', but again, I found myself taking a picture of my shirt and bib and posting it on FB. A sort of subconscious way of keeping me in check, because like before, I can't let these other people down. 

We headed back to the hotel. I put all my gear and paraphernalia in a neat little pile in the bathroom, so I could get up and get ready at 3:30am the next morning without disturbing my sweet little family sleep beside me. Set my alarm, set the alarm on the nightstand next to me and set my husband’s alarm. Was I really doing this??

20 mins before my alarm went off, I was wide awake. I debated getting up. It was so dark, so quiet, and so peaceful in the room. The bed was warm and inviting. But as if some unseen force was prodding me in my back, I sat up, got dressed and headed out to eat something similar to what I had googled the night before. Because, yeah, that's the right time to figure out what you should eat before running 13.1 miles. I found a few things and managed to muster the strength to choke them down. I knew if I was going to make it through this, I had to give my body some sort of fuel.

4am rolled around and I woke up my sweet sleeping children, my husband, and we quietly ushered them into the car. Blurry eyed, my husband drove me down to Disneyland and at a stop light, and I leaned over, gave him a kiss and hopped out of the car. He was off, back to the hotel. I stood on the corner watching his tail lights get farther and farther out, until I couldn't see them. I turned around and watched a flood of runners usher into a small path leading us to the start.

I knew I stood out like a sore thumb. I felt like a brand new kid at a brand new school. A school wherever one had been going for years, knew each other, and knew what to expect. And here I stood, on the corner, all by myself, in my shiny new shirt, and shiny new belt filled with crap I never imagined I'd be eating. Staring at them all as they cross the street into the darkness.

So I crossed the street.

I followed the masses of people. Not sure of where we'd end up, but figured they looked like they knew what they were doing. And out of the blue I hear a voice asking me where I was from. I turned and there was a woman, dressed in a Snow White running outfit. She was smaller than me, brown hair and had a really neat accent. She kept talking to me, told me where she was from, told me about her kids, her husband. We joked about the absurd hour we were up. We continued to talk until we were at the entrance to the staging area where there were photographers getting shots of all the runners as they came in. She excused herself, and cutely posed for a shot, and then turned and said "good luck!" and with that she was off.

(I found this picture of her the next day)

She was much like a guardian angel to me that morning. Her pleasantness and kind demeanor guided me through the hardest part of the journey. From drop off to staging. Once I was in staging, there was no looking back.

I followed the signs. Picked up a cup of water, used the porta potty....mimicked a lot of what everyone else was doing to try and fit in. Once I felt I had sufficiently made it look like I knew what I was doing, I followed the crowds to our corrals. I was in the last corral. Corral G. The corral for people who are just like me. The ones embarking on their 1st 1/2, the ones who have just discovered this thing called running. The ones who don't care about time, they just care about finishing.

I joined my fellow G's, and waited. And waited. And Waited. 5:30am rolled around and they finally were letting the A Corral go. 5 mins passed and it was B's turn, then C and so on and so forth. To the left of us was Corral E. In there, there was a pacer. This person held up a sign and was the one to look for if you wanted to finish in 3hours. Hmmm..if she's in E, an I'm in G, do I even have a shot of finishing in the 3:30 time limit they've set? Was I going to get swept?? (Swept by the way is the nice way of saying, you're too damn slow, get on the bus, we're taking you to the end of the race...nice try). Being swept was my worst fear.

Finally they called out for the G corral. We all moseyed our way up to the start. I was too nervous to take out my camera at this point and take a picture. Every second counted, and what if I lost one or two trying to put my phone back in its shiny new holder, and it was those few seconds that made me get swept. So instead, I listened intently and watched the clock....the countdown....5, 4, 3, 2, 1.....we were off.

I was doing it. I was actually doing it! I was actually taking steps on the route of my 1st 1/2 Marathon! One foot in front of the other, keep on going I told myself. First turn was ahead and already, there were people cheering us on....strangers with signs, while there probably for someone specifically, were clapping and yelling for us all.

We meandered into the park, through California Adventure. (A little side note. My family and I are huge Disney fans. Not just fans, but real fanatics. And not just about the park, but about the whole operation, about Walt and his history. You want to know any sort of small interesting factoid about Disneyland, I'm your gal. So I was so excited to be running through the back lot of the parks, seeing something that most Disney visitors never get to see!) I tried to maintain my focus on running, but found myself reading all the signs on the buildings, wondering what they did in there, who worked there, what it looked like inside. When suddenly we were in Disneyland! We were running down Main Street USA! There were cast members reaching out with the big Mickey hands giving fives as we ran by! Through Adventureland, down around the Carousel, through Sleeping Beauty's Castle and on to Tomorrowland. We looped around the Matterhorn and went down into Toontown, where we exited somewhere in the back. As we came around through the custodial center, we also got to pass the horse corral. It's where they keep all the horses you see pulling the trolleys up and down Main street! It was one of my 'Disney bucket list" items to see this! I wanted to badly to stop and take a picture with the horses, but I had to keep moving. I only had 3hours and 30 mins to finish this!

Once we made it through the park, it was a long stretch on the streets of Anaheim. Winding up and down blocks, the miles started to fly by. Mile 3, 5, 6....I couldn’t believe I was still going, and still feeling good. How could I not? With all the supporters, fans, cheerleaders, dancers, old car enthusiasts parked holding signs, signing and routing us on. How could I not keep going?

I came upon my first water station, grabbed my cup of water and saw everyone just throwing their cups! What the heck? ..... What messy people these marathoners are...but by my 4th water station, I hardly slowed, grabbed my cup, poured it on my head and tossed it to the side. When in Rome right? ....

Mile 8 turned to 9 and I got a little extra spring in my step. I knew at 9.5 miles there was a treat for me...at mile 9.5 it was where I was greeted by my family. They stood just outside Angels Stadium. I saw my babies, all 3 of them and my husband just barely before I passed them. I stopped for half a second to kiss them, and just as my legs wanted to give out, I knew I had to keep going. I choked up and knew the next prize was only 3.6 miles away.

I kept on truckin'. Trying to keep pace with my 'white rabbit' runner in front of me. I read all the inspirational shirts the other runners were wearing. Sharing reasons why they were running and who they were running for. I was doing ok at this point.

That was until mile 11 and 12. I was walking more than I was running by now. I was letting my muscles cool down, and that made them hurt. I saw all the other runners stopping to stretch their calves out and it looked like it felt sooo good, and I knew that is what my body was telling me to do. But I couldn't stop. If I stopped, I would never get going again, so I started to alternate 20 seconds running, 20 seconds walking. Surprisingly running felt so much better than walking, but I had little to no energy at this point.

Mile 12. One more to go. I don't know that I can make it. All the voices came into my head. All the voices that said we told you so, we knew you couldn't do it. And then there it was. There was that shiny new medal. Gold and beautiful. I hadn't really seen what it was going to look like until now. It was being held by another runner that had finished already. He was showing us all, saying what we had waiting for us around the corner. Routing us on giving us that last little push we needed.

And then there it was!!! The finish!! It was only a few steps ahead of me.

I crossed the finish and a few tears escaped my eyes.

I did it.

I did it.

I wouldn't take no for an answer from myself. I didn't give into the 1000 excuses and reasons why I couldn't or wouldn't be able to do this. My body showed me what it had in it. I did it.

And I have a shiny beautiful gold medal that I want to wear everywhere now. I want to wear it to the grocery store. I want to wear it to pick up my kids from school. I want everyone to know I did it. I didn't just run 13.1 miles that day, I proved myself right. That if I put my mind to it, I can do anything. I am stronger than I had ever imagined.

So why am I sharing this? I'm sharing this because I want you to know that you can do it too. Not necessarily run a 1/2 marathon, but that you can be strong and quiet all those negative voices in your head that say you can't. Whatever it is, quiet them, and prove them wrong. You're stronger than you could ever believe. And imagine what kind of example you're setting for your kids!! All 3 of my kids say they want to run a 1/2 marathon with me when they're older.

We're breaking the cycle.

  

December to Remember

A quote from the husbands favorite movie: "Remember, remember, the 5th of November" can be heard from his lips any given day...but for me, it's the 26th of December I will chose to remember. I will chose to remember this as the day I took back control of my body and mind. Yes, I've often come full force to this resolution, and have in the end failed. But what is failing, but another chance to try? With 3 kids under my belt (and the reason that belt has expanded a bit), I feel it is time to make some changes, not only for myself, but for my kids.

Since the middle of October we have changed our eating habits to follow the Paleo style of eating. Basically, if you were a Caveman, what would you be able to eat? ...that's what we eat. (Well were eating until the Holidays came around). It's a struggle for me at times, coming off the heals of over a year and half of eating vegetarian, to have a mainly meat diet. However, even after a week of eating this way, I feel better, my clothes fit better and I am even sleeping better.....I plan on eating this way for the rest of my life. Of course I will allow the occasional 'slip' here and there for special occasions, but only if it is really warranted. One thing I have noticed, is if you do eat this way for a while, then eat something w/ grains or wheat or gluten, you're paying for it later...so it better be worth it, and I'll leave it at that.

Part of my motivation is weight loss. As with 90% of women in this country, I have fell victim to being overly critical of my self image, and realize the only change can come from myself, not just physically, but mentally. Although, I know that I have had 3 kids, and for having 3 kids, I don't look that bad...but I'm not going to use them as an excuse.

The other part of the motivation is realizing I'm not getting any younger. My body can't and won't heal itself, or take care of itself as easily as it did in my 20's. I need to make a conscious effort to maintain my health, because it's all going to be going down hill from here...and the realization I'm getting 1/2 my thyroid removed in January, I need to be aware of my weight, and health and all that surrounds things regulated by my thyroid.

I have set a goal to do my first 1/2 marathon in March. I have registered for a few events prior to that, to help me get to that goal.

By June 30th, 2012, I will be 30lbs lighter, and in a lot better health.

So here's to a December decision, and a new life ahead!

It's been...

Quiet sometime since I've posted. To that I apologize. Being a mother of 3, full time Bank of America employee, small business mother, oh and wife, sister, daughter....consumes most, if not all of my time. But I do find a moment, or two, to relax and have some me time every few months. With the husband comfortably surfing our DVR, and the kids upstairs asleep, this happens to be one of those moments, and lucky you, I choose to share it with you.

Since my last post, I had my Thyroid Cysts checked out, and thank goodness, were benign. They (yes "they" as there are 3 other ones found) have given me no trouble until recently. It's becomingly more difficult and painful to swallow. I think it may be my cue to go to the endocronologist the ENT recomended I see....we'll see...;-)

My babies are bigger, and more beautiful than ever.

Alice is finishing her 1st year of school with FLYING COLORS. Colors that I am happy to report, she can read and spell. ;)

William is back to Discovery Tree, much to the delight of his other mini-people friends. He is doing well and is thriving, being as much of a 3 year old boy as he can be....

Finally, there is my baby Bear. She is the sweetest, craziest and happiest baby you ever would want to meet. At only a few days over 1 year of age, her personality is showing through and I LOVE IT!!!

Sickness

I tried to start doing something I don't normally do. Appreciate the moments when everything is O.K. I started doing this a few months ago. Taking a moment, a breath, when times are going just as they should. When I am neither up a hill, nor in a valley. Just to appreciate and be thankful that right at that moment, things are good. Doing that has helped me get through the past few weeks, and it will help on the next few weeks coming up. Recently, my littlest got sicker than she's been in 8 months. William has been running a fever for 2 days around 104.8. My immediate family had a hard diagnosis recently, and myself, well, I have a cyst on my Thyroid that needs to be taken care of. It was found last Saturday and after 8 hours in the ER, they've said I have to go to a ENT specialist and have a tiny little needle put in my neck to get the fluid in it biopsied. I am pretty sure they'll have to remove it, as it's about 2 inches in size, and affecting my ability to swallow, breath, cough, laugh etc..... I'm not terribly excited about this, and actually a bit freaked out. So for now, I think back to those moments, those times when things were good, to give me strength to get through this next bit, because it will be that way again soon.

I hope.

You have not failed me.

A letter to my body.

Dear Body,

First and foremost I want to say thank you. You have taken me 30 years thus far with little to no failure. For that I am eternally grateful. You have managed to overcome all the damage I have subjected you to, only to turn around and ask "What's next" with a smile. At times you have stumbled, but never for long, and always have dusted yourself off. Which brings me to my point. I want you to know, you have not failed me. You have not failed me in the most important task I've asked you to do. Create life. You have given me 3 beautiful healthy children. You provided a home, comfortable and warm for a full term for each of them. You fed and nurtured them as good as I could have imagined. Although you were unable to (whether fault of my own or not) give birth naturally or feed them enough to help them thrive, you have not failed me. I sit here looking at my most recent addition and she is beautiful. Regardless of anything anyone says or thinks, you have not failed me and I love you for that.

Love,
Michelle

the Story

The story.

It started Weds night at about 7:57pm. (I know what a general approximation of time). I had litterally just put my plate up from dinner. We had these Mediterannian Pizzas that Danny makes. I remember eating it thinking this would be my "last supper" before Claire came, even though I still had 2 days before she was set to arrive. And that's when it started. At 7:57pm I had a contraction. Nothing to severe or worse than I had in the past few weeks, so I pushed it off as a Braxton Hicks. 5 mins passed. I had another one. 5 more minutes, another one. I decided to lay down on my side and it seemed like the were less intense when I did that. I layed there for about an hour, and consistantly 5 mins apart, I'd have a contraction. So I texed my mom and sis and asked them what they thought we shoud do. Of course they said to go to L&D. I've done this 2 times before but each time it gets more and more complicated because I have more kids. I didn't know what to do with Alice and Will, and I was convinced it was a false alarm....By this time it was a little after 9pm. My sis had just returned from 3 days at Science Camp with her 5th grade class and was exhausted, not to mention an hour away, and it was getting late and I didn't want to bother my Aunt in Roseville to come down to watch Alice and Will. I logged onto Facebook and noticed my friend Jaime was online. I messaged her to see if she could come and sit at my house until my Aunt could be down from Roseville to relieve her. See Jaime only lives a few blocks away. She graciously accepted and came right over.

On the drive to the hospital the contractions were still 5 mins apart but becoming more and more intense. It felt like something out of a movie. The pregnant wife going into labor, the nervous husband speeding down the freeway, trying to go fast, but not too fast as to attrack attention.

As we arrived at the hospital, I was dropped off at the ER since it was now close to 10pm and the normal entrances were closed. I registered with the front office and was waiting for Danny to come meet me. He finally calls me and asks where I was. He was already up in L&D. How he managed to do that, I have no idea, major security breach I suppose....So once he came down to the ER, I tried to get past a large security guard who would let the husband with the 'vistor' tag go up, but not the pregnant woman in labor. He escorted us back to the ER and we had to wait for a chaperone to the 4th floor. Finally we got one and got up to L&D.

The hooked me up to all the monitors and such and started tracking my progress. By 11pm, the had decided it was actual labor and had called my doctor. Since I had just eaten at 8pm, they have to wait 9 hours before doing surgery, so they scheduled the C-Section for 5am the next day.......April 1st.

I was in labor for 9 hours, with contractions every 2 minutes. The only gave me a local pain killer that litterally lasted 10 mins. I give MAJOR props to women who have natural labor w/o any pain killers. Worst pain I have ever felt, OMG. So finally at 1am on 4/1 my parents arrived at my house. I was told to call them at 4am so that they could make in time for the birth of Claire at 5am. I called at 4am and they were already on their way. Evidently Nonnie was a little anxious to meet her 5th grandchild.

The surgery went well. I was awake and lucid during the whole thing. even was able to watch in a reflection on the cubbard them sew me back up. I managed to control my breathing and anxiety. It helped too that I had the BEST anethesiologist ever. He's officially invited to Claires birthday parties and her wedding. He was amazing. He became part of the expierence for us, helping me look over the sheet when she was pulled out (oh and did I mention she was Breeched?? That stinker flipped her self back over, so even if I had wanted to try the VBAC, I wouldn't have been able to). He also tapped up the side of the drape so I could see them working on her and giving her the 50 point check over to make sure everything was in it's place. :-)

Claire Barbara Hewitt was born on 4/1/10 at 5:16am weighing in at 9lbs 2oz and 20 inches long. She couldn't wait to be born on my birthday as scheduled 4/2. But wanted to be the jokester and come in on April Fools Day.

So there's the story of the birth of my beautiful baby girl Claire.

:-)

Waiting, waiting, waiting.....

It's about 10 days, 18 hours and 10 mins until Claire's scheduled appearance. Not that I'm counting. I am currently on Short Term Disability because it was getting to be too much at work, and because I have an awesome doctor. But here I sit at home, waiting...waiting....waiting....... I know I should be relaxing and enjoying the quiet time until absolute and pure chaos take over my household, but for an OCD person like myself, I need constant distraction and things to do in order to feel useful and not lazy. You add that on top of the constant pain and numbing in my body from by beautiful little girl...I'm beyond anxious, which I'm sure is one of the reasons she's 'sitting high and mighty' with no sign of decent anytime soon.

So here I sit. Watching too much t.v., and just waiting...waiting...waiting.....