Saturday, May 16, 2009

Rollin' Down the Pipeline...

Soon, very soon, I'll be closing Chicks with Kicks. Well, closing in that I won't be posting any longer.

I began this blog a year ago with some major goals I wanted to accomplish as well as get other runners involved in order to help me and for me to help them. The experiment didn't quite go as I expected. Oh well. Mostly, I'm stopping because I've had to shelve my running goals.

I'm going to keep writing though, because my mother appreciates it, and because I'll be expecting my students next year to blog as well. Practice what you preach!!

I'm going to begin a new blog. I think I'll call it Turkey Trotting or the like. I want to still focus on athleticism, but because we're moving to a place that will be so out of the normal for me, I think there will be a lot of things I'll want to comment on publicly for friends and family. I've not had that much to say on the Ecuador blog because I think in a lot of ways we knew what to expect here. Over there, I have no clue. I mean, sort of I do. But not really. I have no conceptual frame of reference for what we're getting in to. So I'll write about it.

I'll keep Chicks with Kicks as a link from my new blog. And who knows--maybe one day I'll go back to the experiment. But now, I feel like I can only comment on a screwed knee soooo many times, you know? And so, adieu. I'll post one last time with my new blog address. Add it to your lists :-)
Ciao or Chao (as we spell it here)
Erin

Friday, May 8, 2009

Need Oxygen

The good news, no, the great news is that I don't need surgery.
Neither does Tim, if anyone was wondering.

In fact, nothing much is really wrong with me. I have some liquid in there, and inflammation and lack of blood flow.

The bad news is that I probably won't be able to really get back to running until we leave Quito. I just can't get enough oxygen here to fully heal. I've so far been to 3 of my 10 prescribed physical therapy sessions and nothing has yet changed. I'm also considering acupunture to try to stimulate blood-flow. But the guy requires a 10 session commitment. All the cabbing really adds up!

So, goals are being shelved. That was the hardest part. I wanted to do something really big for myself for my 30th birthday, but I can't. At least, not what I wanted to do, anyway.

I'll still participate in the 15k here--a combo of running and walking, sporting this year's much cooler school team uniform. I also plan to participate in the 4k on the 4th in Boulder. If you havn't registered, DO IT!! Beyond that, I'll just be looking at 5 and 10ks, I guess. Which is fine with me now--even enjoyable. I won't have to train hard.

At this point, I'm only allowing myself some mild disappointment--looking down the barrel of 7 more weeks of waiting. My friend began chemo this week to fight a brain tumor. And when you consider that, much else ceases to be important. I'm not going to allow myself to wallow. I can still walk. I can still run even, especially when I get back to a normal altitude (Quito is at 10,000 ft. if you didn't know).

And I will still be able to do so many wonderful things in Boulder this summer. Oh, how I've missed it all! So now I'm focusing on the good things to come. I'll run this summer, but it won't be the center of my world. My friends and being outside in some Colorado sunshine will be my focus and it will be excellent!