uphill battle

This past week was a crazy week. A complete emotional roller coaster. I have been training so hard for the Boston Marathon for months, and my work told me that I couldn't take the days off in order to participate in it. I was floored. Ever since I qualified for Boston in January 2010, I've been planning on running in it. When they said I couldn't run in it, I was completely crushed.

The day they told me I couldn't take the days off to run in the marathon, it was a cold, rainy, stormy day. I was so upset by the news, I didn't care that it was barely 40 degrees outside, raining, and already dark. I went out and did an emotionally cleansing hill workout. The hill is about a mile from where I live, and it's a little over 1/4 mile long. I call it my own personal heart-break hill.

I went out to this hill, and I ran up and down it 10 times. It was the most emotional workout I have ever done. Each time I ran the hill, I thought about how much running the Boston Marathon meant to me. I thought about my grandparents from SD who planned to come see me run at Boston, the months and months of training I had already put in, and all of my other family and everyone else who are supporting me. Boston is kind of a big deal.

When I got back home from my run, I was completely soaked, shivering cold, and felt better and more confident than I had all week. When something happens to someone else and they say, "It'll all work out." It's hard to actually believe that it will. After my hill workout, I was confident and knew that whatever happened it would work out.

this shirt totally describes my Boston training

Training for Boston has really been quite an uphill battle, but it will all be worth it. Good news: they gave me the days off. Has anything like this ever happened to you before? not getting days off from work to do something really important to you? or had a break-through, emotional workout?

new running buddy

Since moving to Baltimore, I pretty much just run by myself or with my boyfriend whenever he visits.

My bf and I after a run

Well, now I have a new running partner who can join me on runs whenever Josh isn't here!!! Her name is Seren (like serendipidity).

me and my new running partner!

She isn't my own. She belongs to one of the athletes on the tennis team who said I could run with her. She's a mix, and they don't really know of what. She'll only join me my shorter runs, but that's totally ok with me!!

I took her out on our first run together on Monday and I had to run slower than normal, but I was absolutely loving every minute of it (even when I had to pick up her poop in a baggy)!! No more doggy envy for me!! I've got my own 4-legged running buddy and I couldn't be more happy about it!!

In other news, the Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A. - the people who put on the Boston marathon) have posted entrant bib #s. I'll be bib number 14740 at the Boston Marathon!! Just 2 more weeks of hard training, and 4 more weeks before the race!!

work, work, work

March is Athletic Training Awareness Month!!!

I am an atletic trainer, and I really like what I do. I love being able to care for athletes from the moment they get injured to getting them back to full-participation. Seeing them progress through their rehab and then succeeding in competition and knowing that you helped them get there is extremely satisfying.

Where I work, I'm pretty much responsible for the most number of athletes compared to the other athletic trainers on staff. I'm the athletic trainer for the most number of teams, and one of them is the biggest team. I work with volleyball, crew (rowing), swimming/diving, and tennis. The swimming/diving team is the largest team at this school, having about 80 people on their roster.

I'm gonna let you in on my longest day of work so far, which was Tuesday. I went into work at 10am and didn't get home until 2am. I performed all my regular duties of cleaning, rehabs, taping, making Dr's appointments, etc during the day. Then, at 2pm I went out to cover a tennis match. Volleyball was still practicing when I got back inside, so I went upstairs to the gym to see how it was going. As soon as I walked through the doors the coach said, "We've got one for you." One of the girls was sitting on the floor, rocking back and forth and just did not look well. I evaluated her and determined that the best thing would be to take her to the ER. So that's where we went. It was an adventure.

I didn't get back to my house until about 2am, so I pretty much worked 16 hrs on Tuesday. Talk about a long day at work. Through the whole situation of the paperwork, to all the different doctors, to the IVs and everything at the ER, just knowing I was able to be there for her when her parents couldn't be and keeping her company through it all made it all worth it. The good news is that my athlete is feeling much better, and her parents were extremely appreciative of everything I did for their daughter.

I'm gonna blurb realy quick about something about this whole ordeal that really upset me. When taking an athlete to the ER, there are several people I have to contact including the head athletic trainer and my supervising athletic trainer (so they knew I was at the ER). The next day I was supposed to come in at 9am and work until 7pm (That's 10 hrs). Having not gone to bed until after 2am, I slept through my alarm and got into work an hour late. When I was updating my supervisor about everything that happened and everyone I had contacted, instead of saying something like, "Well, you handled the situation appropriately," all he could say was, "Well, you were supposed to come in at 9 this morning." That's all he said to me about the whole thing!!! I was so unbelievably upset because pretty much anywhere else, they would look past me coming in late after having been in the ER all night.

Well, anyway, I'm just really glad that my athlete is doing better. I love all of my athletes, they're a lot of fun. Since, this is Athletic Training Awareness Month, if you know any athletic trainers, let them know that you appreciate everything that they do and maybe even bring them some yummy treats!!!

missing home

I enjoy living in Baltimore, but I miss home A LOT. What I miss most about home is being close to my family, my friends, running on the back country roads, and of course my boyfriend.

I'm going to take some time right now to give a shoutout to my brothers! To Matt for getting a jobby-job as a medical assistant, and to Mikey for taking responsibility, making mature decisions, and stuff! I'm so proud of you guys and I miss you!

Mikey, Mom, Me, and Matt

I miss my friends a lot. The only people I know here in Baltimore are the athletes I work with and my coworkers. It's against the rules to hang out with my athletes, so the only people I hang out with are my coworkers and housemates (who also happen to be some of my coworkers). I miss the random fun and the companionship from my friends from back home. I also feel like I'm missing out on everything with them too, considering that several of them have gotten engaged recently (Congrats!!!) and some are training for new things like a triatholon and even a full marathon (I wish I could train with them)!

Running in Baltimore is crazy. I never liked city running, but now I'm forced to do it just about every day. I miss the back country roads a lot where the only things you have to worry about are dogs and homeowners with shot guns (I've never experienced the people with shot guns, but I know people who have). I miss the freedom of being able to just go out and run pretty much wherever I wanted to run and not have to worry too much about it. There have been runs that I didn't plan, I got lost on purpose, and it was totally OK (those have been some of my favorite runs too). Now, I have to plan my runs to make sure that there's sidewalk, make sure it's in a good neighborhood, and watch out for the crazy Baltimore drivers. I've planned some runs here in Bmore where there ended up being no sidewalk for a section of it, and I was completely terrified that I was going to hit by a car. I've learned my lesson.

I miss this

And of course, I miss my boyfriend.

Here's to missing home, and looking forward to the next time I get to go home!

the bad and the wonderful!!

WARNING: bloody pictures to follow. If you can't handle it, don't look. 

 
Something bad happened to me at the beginning of this week. I had an accident at work. I was in the storage room getting a walking boot for one of the women's basketball players. The boots are on the top shelf, so I climbed to reach it. I'm always really careful when I climb on the shelves, and Monday was no different. It just so happened that when I was climbing down from the shelves, my class ring got caught on the top shelf after I let go (they're wire shelves). The ring getting caught was a pretty violent action causing me to bang my right leg into another shelf, and my ring cut pretty deep into my finger. Lucky for me, I work in athletic training so I had plenty of first aid supplies readily available to me. My co-workers and I stopped the bleeding in my leg, cleaned it, and steri-stripped it (it was pretty deep too). We also cleaned my finger, but I had to go to the student health center to get the ring cut off because my finger swelled up very quickly (it had turned purple). I'm healing very well, and pretty quickly too.

Today, I found out some wonderul news. My grandparents who live in South Dakota will be traveling to Boston in April to see me run in the marathon!!!!!!! I'm so excited!! I don't get to see them very often, and I don't think they've ever seen me race!! They're going to see me race in the Boston Marathon!! I can't put into words how excited I am that they're going to see me run at Boston! I'm so blessed!

My Grandparents in June 2010 at their 50th wedding anniversary