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My Life Is A Reality Show

November 14, 2012 By

Reality show material?

Today’s prompt in the National Health Blog Post Month invites writers to describe why their lives might resemble a reality show. To be honest, it’s not much of a stretch to imagine my life as a reality show, especially when you consider the kind of stuff they’re putting on TV these days. They have everything from teen pregnancy to Mafia ex-wives to pig hunting to people getting simple trivia questions horribly wrong as they attempt to not have their cars repossessed. Several months ago, there was a show – an entire hour-long time-slot – devoted to a discussion about cricket poo.

I’m not even kidding.

Something tells me that a show about my life would be infinitely more entertaining than a show about cricket poo, and if people were watching that, then my show would be an absolute hit.

Let’s take a look at the cast of characters:

The Autie

Like many kids with autism, George is a complex little fella, seemingly full of contradictions. At nine, he still needs hand-on-hand assistance to brush his teeth, and yet he would probably be able to assemble a computer in three seconds flat, reminiscent of that scene in Forrest Gump where Forrest put a rifle together in record time. George has meltdowns when you least expect it, and at times when you just know there’s going to trouble, he is the picture of serenity. Every good show needs a dose of intrigue, and with George there is plenty of that.

There is also a feel-good element in watching George. Every day the kid comes out with some action or some little phrase that demonstrates the trajectory of his learning. Anyone watching would surely celebrate every little accomplishment.

The Hyperactive Neurotypical Kid

What would a reality show be without a hefty dose of drama? With James, there is plenty of that. So much that we have to be on guard against Shakespearean troupes taking him away to be in theatrical productions. He has strong opinions, and a strong sense of what he perceives to be justice, and he’s not afraid to express that.  When I tell him to put on his pyjamas, he cries bitterly and says I’m ruining his life. He threatens to run away and says he’ll never hug me again.

Five minutes later he always hugs me. Because as much as he is a drama queen, James has a big heart and a generous spirit. Only the most hard-hearted soul would not feel utterly moved at the sight of James comforting his brother.

Besides, the kid has an imagination second to none. His mind takes him to all kinds of places, and sometimes, when he feels like telling a story, he takes the rest of us right along with him.

The Dad

My husband is so weird, he could have a reality TV show all to himself. I mean, he once deliberately got into the shower with all his clothes on. He says things that sound offensive but are actually hilarious. Like the time he said my hair makes me look like Gene Simmons, or the time he said the lunch I had made him looked like gorilla puke. He has a whacky sense of humour that would have the viewers rolling on the floor with laughter.

He would also have the female viewers swooning with his sense of romance. This is a man who approached a complete stranger in a park and told her she had beautiful eyes, who many years later proposed to that same woman in a grand gesture at her citizenship ceremony. When I was in Winnipeg on business years ago, he sent me a singer. A guy with a guitar showed up at my hotel room, and sang me a song while my husband was on the other end of the phone line.

The Mom

If it’s suspense you want, I’m your girl. I’m the one who’s always rushing around in a tearing hurry, trying to complete about 37 tasks all at the same time. I juggle so much at any given time that it’s anyone guess which one I’ll drop and what the consequences will be. Viewers will watch in slight bafflement as I take multitasking to a whole new level, and they will not be able to help sniggering as my exhaustion makes me do stupid things, like put lipstick on my lashes and mascara on my lips.

Here’s the thing, though: I may have a  lot on my plate, like special needs parenting, distance running, a full-time job, commuting, the husband’s business – but I’m happy. Yes, I have my issues with depression and anxiety (which could also have a show all of their own), but I have this weird and wonderful family to keep me going.

The Set

The reality show would be filmed in my own home, and I wouldn’t be obsessively cleaning up and putting things away before the camera crew came. This is supposed to be reality, so it would have to include the ever-growing piles of paper on my desk, and the Lego all over the floor, and the discarded clothes lying around, that I swear reproduce when I’m not looking. Viewers would get a glimpse of my kitchen sink that’s always full of dishes no matter how much cleaning up I do, the holes in the drywall from where George has banged his head during meltdowns, and the unruly pile of shoes and coats by the front door.

So I have a cast and a set, and the plot is built-in to the fabric of our daily lives.

All that’s missing is a title.

Filed Under: autism, Children, family, National Health Blog Post Month, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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Body for Life: Week 1

November 11, 2012 By

A week ago today, I started the Body for Life challenge. I completely revamped the way I eat, ditching the carb-heavy lunches from the cafeteria-style shop downstairs from my office in favour of meals brought from home, consisting primarily of lean proteins and salad. In the evenings, I started making more of an effort in the kitchen, selecting dinners based on nutritional value rather than convenience.

At the same time, I have started getting myself into something resembling an exercise routine, following my post-half-marathon hiatus.

So, how has this all gone? Has my week been a success?

Well, in terms of hard numbers, I haven’t seen as much of a change as I would have liked, but the change I have seen has been in the right direction. I have dropped two pounds, and I have lost an inch from my waist measurement. I am off to a start, so yay!

I have had a surprisingly easy time where discipline is concerned, and I believe this is the result of planning. Last Sunday night, I meticulously planned out and wrote down what the week’s meals would consist of. Once I have a written schedule, I tend to follow it quite rigourously. I have not been tempted by all of the Halloween candy in the house, nor by any of the processed junk food in grocery stores.

In fact, I have been having something approaching fun in the kitchen, as I have tried out new recipes. To my astonishment, none of my cooking experiments ended in disaster, although there are some that I clearly need to practice.

The thing that killed me was time, and this makes me realize that the obesity epidemic can, at least in part, be blamed on the fact that many people just do not have enough time to accomplish everything. I don’t care what you tell me, eating healthily is a lot more time-consuming than the alternative. When I’ve just worked a nine-hour day and spent an hour and a half commuting home, it is so tempting to just throw some processed crap into the microwave instead of taking the time to prepare something that’s actually good for you. It is so easy to blame people for the poor eating choices they make, but honestly, in this day and age it is not easy to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Lesson learned: do more prep on Sundays to save a bit of time during the week. Even if I do that, it may take a while for me to adjust and do things as efficiently as I need to.

With Week 1 done, I am looking ahead to Week 2. The menu is planned, and I have some specific goals with regard to runs and workouts.

Check this space for another report-back next Sunday.

(Photo credit: Andy Roberts. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

 

Filed Under: Body for Life, Exercise, National Health Blog Post Month, Nutrition, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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Autism and Oddities

November 10, 2012 By

We are a third of the way into the National Health Blog Post Month Challenge, and I have actually managed to post every day! Today’s prompt: LOL post – write about something funny.

Me and George

My son George – the one with autism – has a thing about my hair. He buries his nose deep into my hair and then gives an almighty sniff. His enjoyment of this activity is directly proportional to my absolute dislike for being on the receiving end. I can just about tolerate one or two sniffs, but when it happens on and on ad nauseum, I end up feeling so agitated that I want to rip my scalp off my head.

This morning it went on from 3:30 until 5:30. And even then it didn’t stop – indeed, the hair-sniffing was accompanied by both boys and my husband bouncing off the ceiling, telling jokes, wrestling with each other and singing funny little songs, all while I was trying to sleep. At about 7:00 I reached the point of being too wound up to sleep in spite of being utterly exhausted. I had to deposit a cheque, so I got dressed and left. I was so tired that I drove to the wrong bank’s ATM. Not only that – I actually inserted my card into the machine, and it only when I was presented with an unfamiliar-looking PIN entry screen that I realized something was not quite right.

Kids with autism are known for having quirky little habits, like George’s hair-sniffing thing. While the hair-sniffing has been going on for some time, it has recently been paired with him blowing in my face. Sniff-blow. Sniff-blow. Sniff-sniff-blow.

Dear Lord, give me strength.

My friend Lesa’s son is another kid who has both autism and a strange habit. He is into elbows. He will grab the skin of someone’s elbow and twist it, and if the recipient is clued-in enough to stop him on time, he satisfies himself with a “drive-by lick”. It drives his parents crazy but at the same time makes them chuckle, just as George’s hair-sniffing thing tickles me just a tiny bit. Because as annoying as these habits may be, they are kind of funny.

Amy, another fellow autism mom, describes how her son watches movies. Instead of watching a DVD from beginning to end like most of us, he gets stuck on specific scenes, like a cat falling out of a tree, and replays them over and over. His family goes up the wall, thinking, “Just play the damn movie, already!” but the sound of his laughter makes them incredibly happy.

I can identify with that. George has a habit of repeatedly saying, “Daddy loves Albert!”, and sometimes it gets a bit much, but it is such a small price to pay for the laughter that follows. Just for the record, I have no idea who Albert is.

It is easy to believe that these little quirks are a result of autism, but is that really the case? Or do we all have our odd mannerisms? Granted, most people don’t go around sniffing hair or licking elbows, but perhaps we all have our “thing”. I mean, whenever I walk anywhere, the number of steps I take has to be a multiple of four. Whether I’m walking to the bathroom, down the street or around the block, I mentally count off my steps in fours. I have mastered the art of doing this while having a conversation. When I get to my destination, I will take one, two or three steps in place if necessary, just to get to my multiple of four.

Do you explain away your child’s odd habits with autism or some other condition? What quirks do you and members of your family have?

(Photo credit: Kirsten Doyle)

Filed Under: autism, Habits, Hair, National Health Blog Post Month, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , ,
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Book Review and Giveaway: Running Ransom Road

November 9, 2012 By

My sports massage therapist once told me that “all runners are the same”. Apparently, we all have a dedication to our sport and a streak of stubbornness that makes it very difficult for the medical gurus to rehab us after an injury. I’m sure that’s true to a large extent: I once twisted my ankle one kilometre into a planned 15K run, and instead of hobbling home and plunging my foot into a bucket of ice, I ran the remaining 14K, because that’s the distance that was on my training schedule for that day.

For all of the qualities that we share, runners are actually very individual. We have our own style, our own strategies, our own odd little rituals. Most of all, we all have our own reasons for running, be it weight loss, general health, competition, fundraising or stress relief.

Caleb Daniloff started running in order to deal with his past.

As a young man, Daniloff spent several years blazing a trail of personal destruction, failed relationships, and substance abuse. His days started and ended with alcohol, and he frequently woke up in the morning with gaps in his memory from the night before. For a while, his life seemed pretty bleak.

But where there’s life, there’s hope, and Daniloff succeeded in knocking his addictions on the head and turning his life around. Roughly a decade after he had his last drink, he ran his first marathon.

In his compelling memoir, Running Ransom Road, Daniloff describes how he traveled from city to city running marathons, revisiting the places where he wreaked the most havoc. Over eighteen months and many agonizing miles, he confronted the demons within and faced his past head-on.

The book includes fascinating accounts of Daniloff’s early years, which included several years in Russia and a meeting with the President in the Oval Office following the family’s return to the United States. It tells the story of destruction and redemption, despair and hope, apathy and determination. Above all, it is a tale of courage and triumph.

The smooth narrative of this book makes it easy to follow, as the author skilfully interweaves accounts of his marathons with snippets of his life.

Running Ransom Road is a story that will appeal to runners and non-runners alike. If you are looking for inspiration or simply a good read, this book is well worth your while.

I have one copy of Running Ransom Road to give away to a reader in Canada or the United States. To enter, just check out the magic Rafflecopter below. The winner will be contacted within 48 hours of the giveaway ending. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 (Cover image, review copy and giveaway copy kindly provided by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Filed Under: Book review, Caleb Daniloff, Giveaway, National Health Blog Post Month, Running Ransom Road, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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Time to Jump in Puddles

November 7, 2012 By

From time to time, people who think they could raise my kids better than I do criticise me for not enrolling them in weekend activities, and from time to time, I wonder about that myself. I get this guilty feeling that I’m not exposing my kids to enough opportunities. From a logistical standpoint, it is so difficult, though. Even if you assume that I’m up to my neck in free time during weekends, which I so totally am not, my husband and I only have one car between the two of us. My husband usually goes to work on Saturdays, leaving me at home with the boys and a public transit system that is sporadic over weekends.

The real question is whether this is even an issue. Does it matter that the boys are home with me on Saturdays instead of being whisked off to baseball practice and karate class? It’s not like I get a lot of time with them during the week, and even when I am busy working on invoicing or household admin or laundry, I love having the boys around me. I listen to them play together, which they are doing more and more, and I let them watch movies like Ice Age and Cars 2. I break up their sibling rivalry spats, eat lunch with them, and occasionally bully them into picking up their toys. Sometimes we make “cake in a mug” or s’mores, or play intriguing variations of Scrabble. When I am doing my own thing, the kids will rush up to me at random times just to launch themselves at me and give me a hug.

If they were in weekend activities, none of that would happen. Someday, I know it will all change, and the boys will be off doing their own thing with their friends. But for now, I enjoy having that time with them.

And for the kids, it might not be a bad thing to have a bit of downtime. Their weeks are so busy, with school and homework and time with the respite worker and all the rest of it. I worry that overscheduling them would leave them no time to be kids.

After all, kids should always have the time to run around in the rain and jump in puddles.

Photo credit: Kirsten Doyle

Filed Under: Activities, Children, National Health Blog Post Month, parenting, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , , ,
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Body for Life: Starting the Adventure

November 6, 2012 By

Quite a few years ago, on the suggestion of my friend Adam, I entered something called the Body for Life Challenge. Adam, who was my chiropractor at the time, was entering the challenge himself, and he formed a little group of people who would take part and offer support and encouragement to each other along the way.

Body for Life is an exercise and nutrition program that promises spectacular results if you follow the guidelines. The guidelines are quite simple. The nutrition aspect involves balancing carbs with proteins, and it follows the now-accepted protocol of six small meals throughout the day instead of one large one. The exercise aspect involves daily workouts, alternating cardio activity with strength training. You follow the Body for Life program for six days a week, and on the seventh you are free to eat whatever you like and sit in front of the TV all day.

I stuck with the program for about nine of the twelve weeks, and during that time I had phenomenal results. Excess weight melted off me, and for a while, my flabs actually turned to abs. Unfortunately, I was thrown off-track by a serious injury to my left (dominant) hand that required stitches, cortisone shots, and all kinds of other ugliness. Back then, I did not have what it took to get back into the saddle after a setback. I was completely derailed.

Although I gained back some of the lost weight after that, it wasn’t all a complete waste. Being on the program taught me some basics about nutrition and exercise that have stayed with me to this day, and of the fifty or so pounds that I lost, I gained back about fifteen. So as a program with long-term effectiveness, it’s pretty good.

I have been feeling a little iffy about my body of late. I run long distances and exercise several times a week. My eating is less than ideal but certainly not disastrous. And yet, I still struggle with my weight. I continue to fight with belly fat gained during my pregnancies seven and nine years ago. I have bat wings. My thighs wobble. My oversized boobs get shredded to bits on long runs, in spite of a good sports bra.

I hate to think what I would look like if I didn’t exercise. I mean, what does a girl have to do to be a normal weight around here?

In the wake of my decision to run a marathon three years from now, I have decided that I am going to reinvent my body. I will never be reed-thin or fit into a B-cup, and perhaps I will always have a little jiggle in my belly to remind me of the lives I had the honour of growing. But there is weight for me to lose. There are things I can do to lose fat, increase muscle mass, and be leaner and stronger.

Over the years, I have tried a number of different eating plans. I have sought the advice of a life coach and a dietician. I have attempted this thing and that thing. But none of it has worked, and it has been very frustrating. For someone with body image issues and a history of eating disorders, this is not healthy.

And so it makes sense to me to go back to the only program that yielded results, the only program I was able to sustain for any length of time. Yesterday, I started the Body for Life challenge again. I have recorded my weight and measurements, and I have had my “before” pictures taken.

This time, it will be even better than before. Because now, I know I will have the strength to pick myself up after any setbacks that may come my way. And when the twelve weeks are over, the healthy habits that I gain will stay with me.

I am not publishing my initial weight and measurements, but I will report back every week to tell you what I’ve (hopefully) lost, along with pictures that show progress. Hopefully they will look better than this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you really want to see my flabby bits in all their glory, you can click on the pictures for full-size versions

Photo credit: Kirsten Doyle’s long-suffering husband

 

Filed Under: Body for Life, Exercise, National Health Blog Post Month, Nutrition, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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Too Much Information?

November 4, 2012 By

Today’s prompt in the National Health Blog Post Month challenge invites participants to talk about disclosure. How do we decide what to share and what not to share in our posts?

This is a question I grapple with from time to time, as all bloggers should. As soon as you put any aspect of your life onto the Internet, you can say goodbye to privacy. Sometimes that really doesn’t matter. There’s no danger in me posting my race times and less-than-flattering photographs of myself in motion. Any Joe on the street can go online and look up my race times anyway. Since that information is publicly available, I may as well post it in my blog where I can brag about it a little.

I am equally open about my son’s autism and the challenges it presents to my family. This is where the question of disclosure becomes a little tricky, because I am being open about people other than myself. There are certain things that I will not discuss on the Internet, but in general I talk quite freely about the lives of my kids, and to a lesser extent, my husband. It is one thing for me to talk about myself, but my right to make that decision on behalf of my children is a bit of a gray area.

My blog serves multiple purposes. It’s a form of expression for my socially anxious, bad-at-verbal-conversation self. Writers as a breed tend to be a little neurotic and introverted, and I am no exception. This is how we communicate. Writing gives us a voice that we wouldn’t otherwise have.

Apart from fulfilling my own need for self-expression, my blog gives hope to other parents of special needs children who might be feeling a little lost and alone. From time to time, I get emails from readers telling me how my writing has made them feel less overwhelmed, and more able to cope. Those emails make everything truly worthwhile, because at the end of the day, what I want is to do my small part to make the world a better place for our kids, for the parents and siblings, for everybody.

At the same time, I hope to smash the stigmas surrounding autism, and the way I see it, the best way to do that is to be frank about it all. People are afraid of what they don’t understand, and in talking about autism, I hope to give it a human face, to give people the message that although there are little kids with autism, they are first and foremost little kids.

There are aspects of my kids’ lives that I will never talk about on my blog. My basic rule is this: if I cannot talk about it in public, I cannot talk about it on my blog. I agonize over many of my posts, weighing the benefits of sharing information against the risk of anyone getting hurt. I have written entire posts and then deleted them without publishing them.

It’s a delicate balancing act sometimes, and I find that as long as I listen to my gut instinct, it’s OK.

How do you decide what information to share on your blog? Have you ever shared something and later regretted it?

(Photo credit: John “Pathfinder” Lester. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: blogging, Disclosure, Internet, National Health Blog Post Month, Privacy, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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My Three-Year Plan

November 3, 2012 By

In running, as in most areas of my life, I tend to be a goal-oriented person. Some people run just for the fun of it, but I need to have a purpose behind it, a goal to work towards. This, in addition to the addictive feeling of collective start-line energy, is the reason I run so many races. I will keep running through the winter because I have a half-marathon to work towards at the end of it. After that, there will be another half-marathon in the middle of the year. Then there will be my annual autism run in the fall.

I need these races to keep going. They give me the kind of discipline I would never find if left to my own devices. I sometimes procrastinate when it comes to actually deciding on the goals, but once I’ve made up my mind I’m very good at the follow-through.

For some time now I have been wavering about the idea of running a marathon. The full monty – the whole 26.2 miles or 42.2 kilometres. The whole cyclical thought process usually goes something like this:

My husband is driving me to the start of a half-marathon, and I am all excited and ready to go. I am caught up in the pre-race euphoria of it all, and I say to my husband that someday it would be really great to run a full marathon. I carry that thought with me to the start of my race. At the end of the race, when I’ve been running for over two hours and I am crying because of how sore my legs are, I say to my husband, “I must be nuts! Why would I want to put my body through a full marathon when I can’t even walk after a half-marathon? I think I’ll stick to shorter distances.” And then I recover from the half-marathon and the whole marathon train of thought starts all over again.

The truth is that I am not in good enough shape to run a marathon. There is a lot of work that has to be done to get me where I need to be. I need to sort out, once and for all, my intensely uncomfortable relationship with food and my body image issues. I have to lose weight, gain muscle, build up my physical and mental strength. It is a lot, but I can do it, especially if there is a prize – or a finisher’s medal – for me to work towards.

And so I recently set myself a goal: when I turn 45, I will give myself a marathon registration as a birthday present. At some point between December 1, 2014 and November 30, 2015, I will lace up whatever running shoes I am using then, and I will run a marathon.

Having set that goal, I had to decide on the marathon. This is likely to be something I do only once, so it has to be something really special, really meaningful. My first thought was a marathon somewhere in Johannesburg, South Africa, on my dad’s old stomping grounds from his own marathon days. Following in my dad’s footsteps – what could be more special than that? But considering that I live close to sea level and Johannesburg is at an altitude of several thousand feet, that would be really difficult. My body is so unused to running at high altitudes that I’m not convinced it would be achievable.

So where, then? New York? Chicago? Vancouver? Or should I stay close to home and run a marathon in Toronto?

A few days ago, I accidentally stumbled upon the website of the Cape Town Marathon. I took a look at the map of the course and was instantly plunged into Memory Lane. I am an alumnus of the University of Cape Town, and during my few years there a lot happened. I got myself a bachelors degree in psychology, and also did a lot of growing up. Not everything that happened to me there was good. In Cape Town, I was introduced to some ugly aspects of life. I got badly hurt there, and I also unwittingly hurt other people.

There is a lot of myself on those roads that make up the Cape Town marathon – a lot of memory and emotion. There is lost innocence, regret, a sense of wondering about how things would have turned out if.

If I return to Cape Town and run a marathon on those streets, will I be able to start confronting some of those demons that lie within me? Will it provide some degree of absolution for my past and clear a path for me to move forward? Will I feel the presence of my dad, whose ashes were scattered in the sea at Three Anchor Bay in Cape Town?

There is only one way to find out, and I have started to plot out a course of action – a three-year plan – to get me to that start line.

Cape Town Marathon, 2015. Here I come.

(Photo credit: Brightroom Professional Event Photographers)

Filed Under: goals, Half-Marathon, Marathon, Memories, National Health Blog Post Month, Race, running, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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Disabled or Differently Abled?

November 2, 2012 By

Today is Day 2 of the National Health Blog Posting Month challenge, and one of the suggested prompts invites writers to address the weirdest aspect of their health. As a health advocate for my son George, who has autism, I am often struck by how odd this condition is compared with many other developmental disabilities.

One of the things that makes it different is the reluctance of many people, both within and outside of the autism community, to use the word “disabled”. Parents of children with Down Syndrome or cerebral palsy are allowed to refer to their kids as “disabled”, but I always have people trying to force me to use the term “differently abled”.

Yes, there are many things that George can do. He can read fluently, he was doing multiplication in his head long before anyone formally taught it to him, he has superb problem solving skills, and he knows his way around a computer better than I do. But when he comes home from school, he cannot tell me what his day was like. I have to keep a firm hold of him when we are out on family walks because he does not understand the danger of running out into the traffic. He does not know how to play with other kids. He will only take a shower if someone is in the shower with him, and at nine, he still needs hand-on-hand assistance and extensive prompting to accomplish the task of brushing his teeth.

To me, the term “differently abled” implies that George can do anything other kids his age can do, but in different ways. But that is not the case. There are things that George simply cannot do for himself – basic daily living skills that other kids master by the time they’re six. In my book, George is developmentally disabled.

And so what if he is? I am immensely proud of George. I adore his sweet, loving nature and I admire his absolute determination to accomplish his goals. Even though he is still so young, he shows a steel core of tenacity. This is not a kid who gives up. I feel absolutely no shame or embarrassment about the fact that he has a disability.

So why not tell it like it is? Why should there be a need to couch it in pretty language? Are these well-meaning attempts to avoid use of the word “disabled” not undermining our attempts to ensure acceptance and inclusion for people with all kinds of disabilities?

What are your thoughts? Are we heading into territory where the word “disability” cannot be used? Would you or do you use that word with reference to your own special needs child?

 

Filed Under: autism, Disability, National Health Blog Post Month, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , ,
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Ten Running Questions

November 1, 2012 By

Several months ago, I became a part of the WEGO Health network – a group of people advocating for health, either for themselves or for a loved one. My health advocacy serves a treble purpose. First, I want to do my part for the autism community on behalf of my son George. Second, I want to share how running helps my physical and mental health. Third, I am tentatively starting to talk about my own mental health, sharing stories from my past, in hope of removing the stigma surrounding depression and other mental illnesses.

Recently the folks at WEGO Health announced that November is National Health Blog Posting Month, and they issued a challenge for bloggers to publish a post every day for the month of November. I am never one to shy away from a blogging challenge, so here I am! Some days I will go with the suggested prompt, other days I will just follow the lead of my writer’s instinct. I will even have a couple of guest posts along the way.

Some time ago, my friend Phaedra tagged me in a post on her own blog. Phaedra is the kind of runner other runners want to be like, and she coached me through a phenomenal running season, in which I clocked up no fewer than five personal bests. In her post, Phaedra gives the answers to ten questions, which she then passes on to fellow runners. Phaedra’s answers can be found here. My answers are below, and I invite all runners to post their own responses and leave a link in the comments below.

1. Best run ever? In August, I did the Midsummer Nights Run 15K. For some reason 15K has always been a challenging distance for me – far harder than the half-marathon, which is six kilometres longer. The Midsummer Nights Run is on a course that I have tackled a couple of times before, and I have never done well on it. I was dreading this race because I had such big mental issues with the course. This time, though, I found my zone early on in the race. I hit the runner’s equivalent of the “sweet spot” golfers are always on about. I well and truly conquered the course, beating my previous personal best by a whopping 13 minutes and with energy still in the tank.

2. Three words that describe your running? Determined, focused, stress-relieving.

3. Your go-to running outfit? In the summer, I wear one of two pairs of running shorts – the leg-hugging kind, so my thighs don’t chafe. I pair that with either my Energizer Night Race T-shirt or one of my Geneva Centre for Autism shirts. In the fall, I replace the shorts with a pair of longer lightweight tights, and in the winter I wear whatever will prevent bits of me from freezing off in the cold.

4. Quirky habit while running? When I turn onto my street at the end of a long run, I pretend to be an elite athlete from Kenya. I sprint down the final stretch and fantasize about having run the entire distance like that, and when I step over the line dividing the road from my driveway, I raise both arms in a victory salute and pretend I am breaking the tape at the finish line of a race. It will probably never happen for real, but a girl can dream, right?

5. Morning, midday, evening? In general, I am an early morning runner. In the winter, though, a lunchtime run in the crisp cold air can be a purely magical way to get a break from the chaos of the workday.

6. I won’t run outside when: there’s lightning. There are a lot of trees in my neighbourhood, and I would worry about being struck, because that would just be my luck. I also tend to avoid the wind. I don’t mind running in rain, snow and sleet, but I absolutely detest strong wind. For some reason, it makes me anxious and edgy, often to the point of a panic attack.

7. Worst injury and how I got over it: Almost three years ago, an appointment with a chiropractor went dreadfully wrong – a result of pure bad luck rather than any fault on the part of the chiropractor – and I ended up with a pinched nerve in my neck. My left arm was in absolute agony, and the fingers on my left hand were numb. I had to go to the emergency room twice, and for the next six weeks I cried myself to sleep while I was waiting for the Percocet to kick in. Physiotherapy ultimately sorted me out, and to this day, I have numb fingertips.

8. I felt like a most badass mother runner when: I spent virtually all of the Good Friday Ten-Miler neck and neck with an older but much fitter gentleman who issued a friendly challenge to me, and then near the end of the race, I tore away from him and beat him to the finish line.

9. My next race is: the Tannenbaum 10K at The Beach in Toronto, on December 2nd.

10. Potential running goal for 2013: I’d like to see if this old body can handle three half-marathons in a single year. I’d also love to break an hour in a 10K race and beat 2:15 in a half-marathon.

 

Filed Under: blogging, Challenges, National Health Blog Post Month, running, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , ,
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