WIAW and Cherry Scone Recipe

Hi, friends!

Happy Wednesday, and of course, WIAW hosted by Jenn over at Peas and Crayons.  A big thanks go to her for throwing this party every week!

Like many other bloggers, I recorded my eats on Tuesday.

Breakfast at 7:00am

Per usual, I prepared overnight oats knowing I’d be running in the morning and be rushed to get out the door on time. My perfect combo: 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup milk (coconut this time), 1/2 cup yogurt (plain nonfat), spoonful of chia seeds, honey, strawberries, shredded unsweetened coconut (new addition), and a spoonful of sunflower seed butter.  Iced coffee with coconut milk accompanied the oats.

Lunch @ 12:45pm

This salad included leftovers from the fridge (roasted curry cauliflower and chicken from the grill) and some fresh veggies (tomatoes, cucumbers, and mushrooms). Topped with TJ’s spicy peanut dressing, this salad was delicious. I also had a dark cherry chocolate granola bar and watermelon. I restrained myself and did not raid my coworker’s chocolate and candy drawer. I would like to cut down on the excessive sugar in my diet and break my habit of eating chocolate after meals will help.

Snack @ 4:30pm

On Monday I made scones (recipe and photos farther down) and I was hungry after school and ate two. The first one I topped with a little sunflower seed butter. I always crave carbs after school – at least these have lots of protein in them.

Dinner @ 7:30pm

*I realize Moose and Frankie are not dinner; while looking for a past picture of naan pizza, which was likely taken on my iPad not on my camera, I came across this photo.  Such funny dogs.

I had prepped chicken and veggies for kabobs, but Brody had a rough first day back and had no energy to man the grill. The kabobs were put on hold (more time to marinate) and we fell back on the pizza we had planned on making another night this week. My personal size pizza included spinach, roasted red peppers, and cheese on naan. I ate half and saved the rest for Wednesday’s lunch. To satisfy my sweet tooth, I had more watermelon.

This was kind of a boring day of food and quite repetitive. Let’s hope for a more interesting display next week!

Scones. Buttery, flaky, not-too-sweet breakfast pastries. I had never made scones, but when I saw Janetha’s recipe for blueberry lemon scones that use Plant Fusion protein powder, I knew I would no longer be a scone-baking virgin.  Instead of stealing her recipes, please just visit her blog for the full deets.

Following Janetha’s instructions, I mixed the wet ingredients together and then the dry together.  I didn’t have blueberries or lemons, so I mixed it up and used dark sweet cherries (frozen, but I thawed them before mixing them in).  Besides the cherries, I made two other substitutes: 1) She used oat bran, and I am lazy…so I made oat bran by grinding up oats.  Is it the same thing?  I think it worked.  I am cheap, what can I say. 2) I do not have agave so I used honey.

After carefully kneading the dough, I used a rolling pin to flatten it and a pizza cutter to make the triangles.

I baked mine for about eleven minutes, but if I were to make these again, which I will be doing, I would leave them in for another minute or two.

I was very happy with how they turned out.  They’re not too sweet and have good flavor – you can definitely taste the protein powder but in a good way.  They were quite cake-like in consistency, and I wonder if baking them longer would’ve firmed them up or if I maybe overworked the dough.  As you can see on Janetha’s post, the stats are great.  I guess they’re not as good when you eat two…

Have a great Wednesday!

Quasi Green Thumb

I can’t say I am good at gardening, but I am good at haphazardly throwing some plants into the ground, watering them, weeding the area around the plants, and eating the fruits of my labor.  I am not good about spreading my plants out or putting cages around the tomato plants before they get to be too big.

Alongside our driveway, Brody has built me two raised beds.  For the past few years, I have grown tomatoes of all kinds (extremely successful in a good way), zucchini (extremely successful in a bad way), cantelope (unsuccessful), peppers (decent), and cucumbers (didn’t realize pickling cucumbers were different than normal cucumbers – #picklingfail).

This year I vow to give my vegetable plants more room to grow and to use stakes or cages for the tomatoes early enough.

My Memorial Day tradition is to plant; this year I picked out six tomato plants, three pepper plants, swiss chard, and a pickling cucumber plant.

See how nicely I spaced out the tomato and pepper plants?

I already had lettuce (purchased at Home Depot a few weeks ago) and strawberries (from a neighbor) going in one bed, so I filled in one end with the swiss chard and cucumber.

The strawberries, which are impossible to see from this photo, will not likely do well this year.  Hopefully they will root themselves and take over the entire garden bed next summer.  There is one itty-bitty strawberry, though, and I was quite excited when I found it.  One of my favorite things to do at my cottage (besides rock hunting and reading) was to go berry picking.  I was an expert berry picker, whether it be strawberries, raspberries, or blackberries.  I love fruit and love the idea of growing my own!  If I could, I would have lots of fruit trees, but apparently they are messy, not a lot of fruit grows well in Wisconsin, and I am too lazy to wait years for the fruit to actually come in.

Besides the vegetables growing in my yard, Brody and I decided to do a CSA this summer.  I have been asking Brody to do one for the last four years, and he finally gave in – yeah!  I cannot remember the name of the farm, but they deliver our box directly to his office which is super convenient.  Once school is done in eight days, I will be testing out lots of new recipes with probably some new to me items.

I hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend and a fantastic Tuesday!

Questions:

Do you grow any fruits or vegetables?

What Memorial Day traditions do you have?

Madison Half Marathon Recap

Is there a name or acronym for the worst time for a run? WR (worst record)?

I approached this morning’s race with no expectations. With the full canceled and the expected high temps, I went into it as if it were just another training run.

My normal pre-run breakfast: toast with sunflower seed butter, a banana, and iced coffee.

Ellie and I rode in together, and it was convenient to park in Brody’s lot right off the square. We had plans to meet Mel and Tim outside of the Walgreen’s pretty close to the start.

Ellie guarded my bag while I stood in line for the porta-potties. It took longer than I had expected but I made it back about fifteen minutes before the start. I dropped off my bag and we took a photo. We look happy, probably because it wasn’t hot yet and we weren’t running yet.

After this, I have no photos, only words.

The first eight miles went well; although Mel and I left Ellie behind around mile six (with her permission), we held a decent pace considering the temps. We walked through every water/Gatorade station. I stuck with water because I had GU Brew in my water bottle. My knee felt great and the band didn’t bother me at all. I made the decision to take three GUs, so by this point I had had two.

Mile nine is when I started to fall apart, mainly mentally but probably also physically. My body felt fine, no pain, but the heat made it difficult to breath. Right after running by Monona Terrace, I felt panicky, but luckily I had Mel to talk me through it – she’s a doll and knows what I was feeling. I took LOTS of walk breaks for the rest of the race; once I needed one, I just kept “needing” them.

Around mile eleven, I gave Mel the thumbs up to take off without me; she was feeling good and had actually been singing “Dog Days Are Over” to me to keep my mind off of everything. I kept my head down, ran and walked for the rest of it, and finished in 2:19.

Worst half marathon time. Yes, I told myself this race didn’t matter, but it’s hard to see those extra ten minutes on my time.

Alone, I wandered around, chugged a chocolate milk, and went to pick up my bag from the gear area. I got there, told them my number, and they couldn’t find it. Searching the bags, double-checking the numbers on the blue tags, the workers were confused. That is when I broke down – sobbed like baby. As I have explained before, I often feel super crabby at the end of a long run. Add that to the thought of losing a wallet, cell phone, camera, clothes, etc. and I hope you can understand my reaction.

I sat down, calmed my self down, and waited. Ten minutes later, they found it…with a different bib number tag on it. Back when Ellie and I got ready to put my bag in the gear area, I accidentally grabbed her tag with her number. I cried for the second time that morning when they handed me my bag, but these were tears of joy and relief.

Brody and I met for breakfast at Daisy’s Cupcakery, but I wasn’t especially hungry. Despite my lack of appetite, I ate most of the strata I ordered and the fruit but left the potatoes.

Now I am home, showered, dressed, and ready to go to a housewarming party and a graduation party this afternoon.

There is a part of me that just wants to throw in the towel and not do the full. After today’s race, my confidence to run the full distance is waning. I will fight through those negative feelings and continue to prepare for the full of June 10th. I will keep telling myself, “I can do this” even if I don’t totally believe it right now.

Preparing for the Madison Half Marathon

In a perfect world, I’d be preparing for a full marathon by carbo-loading and hydrating today.  The expected temperature for tomorrow would be around 60 degrees with mostly cloudy skies.  I would have been experiencing no odd loosey-goosey feeling in my knee for he last week.

In the real world, my (because obviously it is MY marathon) is canceled, I am carbo-loading and hydrating for a half, and I don’t even want to look at the forecast again.  At Dick’s (sporting goods store), I purchased a knee band to help my patella because I’m nervous it’s on the verge of injury.

It’s okay, though.  I’ll run the half and just treat it like another training run.  As I mentioned yesterday, I’m going to run those 26.2 miles somehow, somewhere.

I got a kick out the sad face because that’s totally something I would’ve done if I had been in charge of making that sign.

Today, Brody and I drove to the Monona Terrace (where we got married almost four years ago!) to pick up my race stuff.  I didn’t spend a lot of time wandering around because we needed to get to urgent care to get Brody’s blood taken (his CPK numbers are down to below 10,000 – yeah!).

I did manage to find myself at the SpiBelt kiosk because they had a basket of SpiBelts for $12!  I’ve been wanting one for a while, and the rep said the only difference was that these were made in China and the quality isn’t as great as the ones made in the US.  She said they still hold up just fine, so I forked over my Visa.  When running alone, I really should have a phone on me; safety first!

I did a little happy dance when I found this mini-Larabar in my race bag.  It was my dessert after lunch.

When I picked up my shirt, I immediately said to Brody, “Black, huh.  Not the best color for a race that is canceled due to heat.”  Later in the day when I was on Facebook, Mel posted a comment saying the exact same thing.  I know most people running the full weren’t going to wear their race shirt for the race, but still – irony at its finest.

In the Shape magazine I was reading at urgent care, one of their tips for working out in heat is to wear light colored clothes.  While I realize this is a major DUH, I would’ve been the girl to show up in black shorts and a black tank tomorrow.  I like black – it’s slimming – but I’d rather not keel over from heat exhaustion.

I think I have all my ducks in a row.  I know what I am wearing: black Nike spandex shorts, light colored Old Navy running tank, Target sports bra, and Prana headband. I know what I’m eating and drinking: two to three GUs, GU Brew in my hand-held water bottle, and water if needed at aid stations.  I will have my electronics charged: iPod (just in case I get separated from friends) and Garmin.

Even though I’m not feeling the same excitement and butterflies I’ve felt for past races, I’m still ready to go.  See you at the finish line (metaphorically speaking)!

Fifteen Friday Fancies

1. Brody is home! After almost seven days and six nights, he breathed in fresh air, felt the sun on his face, and was able to shave. I am one happy girl with him and the dogs back in my life.

2. The full marathon of the Madison Marathon is canceled. The temps are supposed to be in the nineties and it will already be in the low seventies by 7am Sunday morning. I totally understand why they made this decision and believe it’s the right one….but….it still sucks. I spent the last four months working towards this one day, this one GOAL, and now I have to adapt. Game plan = run a half marathon on Sunday and hopefully run a full in West Bend, WI on June 10th.

3. Salvatore’s is sooooo good. Brody requested a pizza party for his first meal back, and since I am carbo-loading, I agreed. Confession: Even if I wasn’t preparing my body to run lots of miles in semi-extreme heat, I still would’ve eaten pizza.

4. I read a crazy short story this morning: “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” Dystopian stories intrigue me, so this was right up my alley.

5. Before picking up the pizza, Brody and I swung by the grocery store for fluids. Brody needs to keep drinking (not alcohol) like it’s his job. Powerade was on sale and so was frozen fruit. I chose mango and cherries and can’t wait to try new smoothie combos with these. I won’t add the Powerade to the smoothies, though – that would be gross.

6. Did you know that the pineapple is the international sign of hospitality and welcome? A college friend of mine shared this tidbit with me years back, and I now always give a pineapple (and normally a bottle of wine) to friends who move into a new house. Brody and I are going to a housewarming party on Sunday and the pineapple is ready.

7. This movie looks awesome – I love The Great Gatsby and Baz Lurhmann. This one also looks fantastic.

8. Dear Dry Shampoo,
Why did I not try you sooner?
Love, Angie

9. I have lots of magazines to read. With running outside and going to BodyPump, I haven’t needed to keep myself occupied on cardio machines. In approximately two weeks, my schedule may suddenly open up.

10. “School’s (almost) out for summer!” A handful of teaching days and a few final exam days, and then it’s summer vacation. I can’t wait.

11. This post is not going to have any pictures.

12. My right knee has been feeling kind of wonky lately, like it’s just a little looser in there than normal. I have been foam rolling my IT band, taking Advil, and icing it. I need my body to hold on for another two weeks.

13. After lots of phone calls, I have successfully set-up the rollover of a 403b and 401a into a current 403b. Dealing with that stuff frustrates me because I am so clueless when it comes to investing money.

14. I am still loving the Plant Fusion protein powder in my morning smoothies. Janetha used it in her blueberry lemon protein scones, and I am hoping to test out her recipe tomorrow or Monday.

15. I was shooting for fifteen points in this list (to create alliteration of course), but I just realized fourteen also starts with an F.

Goodnight. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.

My Happy Place: The Cottage

My brain is all over the place, and I’m not in the happiest spot.  There’s lots of uncertainty in my future involving Brody (who is still in the hospital….I know, insane) and the Madison Marathon (likely cancelation of the full due to heat and humidity).

Whenever I’ve been asked to think of my happy place or my personal utopia, I think of my cottage.  Growing up, my family went to the cottage EVERY weekend in the summer.  For the most part, I always enjoyed it.  Even when I couldn’t find a friend (or lots of friends) to come up, I managed to entertain myself by reading on a raft just past our dock.

This past weekend’s experience “up north” wasn’t as positive or relaxing as it normally is, but I still managed to capture a few images that can remind me of happier, calmer times and memories that put a smile on my face.

This isn’t my family’s cottage but used to be owned by my mom’s parents.  My mom and dad used to come up here when they were engaged and just married.  When I was a year old, they bought the cottage that stands directly to the left of this cottage (which I’ll share pictures of at a later date).

My parents bought this cottage from my grandparents ten or more years ago and had plans to tear it down and have a larger lot with no close neighbors.  Unfortunately, that plan fell through when my dad got sick, so they had to sell it.  Long story short, this winter, the roof leaked and the house is filled with mold.  They’ll be tearing it down this week, or may have already.

I have memories of the tree that grew through the middle of the deck off the house, having happy hour after all the boats couldn’t make wake (4pm on our lake), belting out 80′s power ballads with my sister on the floor of the room off the kitchen, and sneaking a wine cooler with a few friends (Risha and maybe Rena?) when I was in high school.  Although it was never the prettiest cottage, it was this cottage that led to my parents buying the cottage next door, and because of that, I am sad to see it go.

********************************************************************************************************************

I miss my dogs.  They’ve been with my mom since Monday.  I took this photo Saturday morning before Brody had woken up (and obviously before the rhabdo situation began).  Moose is independent and Frankie is dependent, and this photo shows those qualities.

Up at the cottage, Moose loves to “fish.”  Notice how fish is in quotation marks; he doesn’t and never will catch anything.  He just walks up and down the shore line, occasionally lunging at a shadow, a minnow, or if he’s lucky, a small blue gill.  Boo, the dog I grew up with, did this EXACT same thing.  I swear Boo’s spirit embodies Moose’s body at the cottage.  Moose gets so into his fishing, he refuses to interrupt it with a trip to dry ground.  Yup, that’s him peeing.

Frankie isn’t into the whole fishing thing, but he does love to jump into the lake and retrieve balls. He could keep going for hours, and despite excessive panting, his tail wags and he wants more.  I’ll have to get a video of it this summer and share it.

The dogs eventually wear themselves out up at the cottage and crash on the cool, fake-wood floors of our cottage. On Sunday of last weekend, my mom got up at 4am (I’ll explain why another time) and Moose got up with her.  He whined to go outside and made a beeline for the sandy beach.  With it still dark, he laid down in the sand and waited until the sun started rise around 5am to begin fishing.  I believe I took this photo on Sunday morning around 10am, because after five hours of fishing, he was spent.

********************************************************************************************************************

It’s interesting how the cottage has changed for me over the years, and yet I have always appreciated it.  When I was young, I loved to search the shoreline for cool rocks (sounds lame, but I swear it was so fun when I was seven).  As I got older, I brought friends up almost every weekend; we went tubing, skiing, and swimming.  In high school, it was common to have a bunch of friends (girls and boys) up for a weekend; my mom would feed us sandwiches, fruit, and Jiffy cake with Jiffy frosting for lunch.  Now as a married woman, the cottage offers relaxation and separation from a busy life.  Brody and I are (normally) able to slow down, read books, take naps on the dock, and go to bed early.

I’m looking forward to more positive, happy, and relaxing trips to the cottage this summer.

Rhabdo Update and WIAW

Good evening ladies and gentlemen!  It’s Wednesday but feels like Monday to me because I spent the last two days in the hospital with Brody.  Before I get to Jenn’s What I Ate Wednesday, a quick update:

Brody’s CPK numbers continue to go down, and there is a very good chance he’ll be coming home tomorrow.  Last night, his CPK was at 54,000 and once they are below 30,000, he can come home!  I was able to come home yesterday because my kind, generous, amazing grandparents drove up to Antigo from Appleton, picked me up, brought me back to the Madison-area, and then drove back to Appleton.  Although I felt horrible leaving Brody up there, I needed to get back to work; with only a handful of instructional days left, I have a lot to do and teach still.  I will say it is strange to be in the house without the husband or dogs – it’s so quiet and lonely!  I’m excited for everyone to come home tomorrow.

Food.  I love it.  I don’t share a lot of my daily eats here, and that’s why I love participating in Jenn’s WIAW – thanks again Jenn!  Today I tried to focus on veggies and protein.  I think I succeeded – score!

BREAKFAST: 

As I got ready, I sipped on an iced coffee with coconut milk.  So refreshing!

The food portion of my breakfast included a bagel thin, half with cream cheese and fig butter and the other half with sunflower seed butter and homemade jam.  I polished off the fruit in the car during my drive.

SNACK:

I inhaled this yogurt and forgot to take a picture until it was in the trash.  There’s your proof: I ate a black cherry Chobani.

LUNCH:

My mom had cooked up chicken and ground beef for nachos grande (basically loaded semi-healthy nachos) and sent all the leftovers home with me.  I made a salad with romaine lettuce, half a tomato, chicken, black beans, and salsa as the dressing.  It was yummy and very filling.  I also had an orange and a few mini-chocolate bars.

SNACK:

On my drove home, I ate red pepper strips (no picture: driving + eating + camera = accident).  At home I needed a little sumpthin-sumpthin to hold me over until dinner and ate the whites of a hard boiled egg.  This is unpictured because I forgot.  You all know what eggs look like, so it’s all good.

DINNER:

With Brody gone and no meal to cook, I decided to clean out the freezer and finish the meatless chicken strips.  They have decent stats: two strips (small, IMO) were 100 calories and 8 grams of protein.  I ate four with BBQ sauce and then one more with honey.  I picked up a bunch of veggies and roasted a red pepper, yellow squash, and onion.

I will definitely be having something sweet before I call it a night.  Whether it be more watermelon, a brownie cupcake (made by Mom), or both, my sweet tooth demands satisfaction.

Questions:

Do you eat any meat substitutes?  How do you cook it?

What foods do you eat to satisfy your sweet tooth?  If you don’t have a sweet tooth, do you want to borrow mine?

Turning Lemons into Lemonade

Not much about this situation is fun, but Brody and I have been able to find the positives and sometimes crack a joke or too.

1) Brody’s nurse right now is Joe Piskula’s mom! He played hockey for the Badgers when they won the national championship and now plays in the AHL up in Canada. Brody had fun talking hockey with her for a while.

2) Brody’s firm sent him a plant arrangement.

3) Best Brody quote today: “I don’t need any food but you can dump my urine.” Let me explain: the doctor is requiring the nurses to track the fluid going in and out of Brody. As for the food, hospital food has been a little unappetizing and Brody hasn’t been a very good eater. Luckily, I have been bringing him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and animal crackers.

4) I was able to figure out the details of rolling over a 403b and 401a from my previous job into a 403b I currently contribute to. Exciting stuff, people!

5) Brody has taken to calling his IV bags of fluid juice.

He has taken to calling the bottles he has to pee into his whizzle jugs. I will spare you a picture of those. You’re welcome.

6) As obvious from this second post of the day, I have had lots of time to blog and catch up on the blogs I follow. In particular, I enjoyed reading about the Reach the Beach relay race Monica and Tina participated in. I would love to do one of these one day!

7) The Langlade Hospital is brand new and the facilities show it. The rooms are spacious, modern, and clean. I have found refuge on this comfy recliner.

8) I have an amazing sub to take care of my classes while I am gone. She is a fabulous teacher and my students know her from when she subbed for me when we were in Maryland. Thanks again Joanna!

9) Our friend Bridget is hilarious: “So make a wish called back. They found out you were 30 and were gonna be okay and told me to go F myself. Sorry!” No offense to Make a Wish, which is an amazing organization that gives incredible opportunities to kids, but this made me laugh.

10) While Brody and I spent lots of time at the hospital, Moose and Frankie were able to take advantage of the cottage. With my mom up there, they roamed around, helped my mom landscape (i.e. chewed on wood chips), and went fishing (Moose, not Frankie). The cottage is probably their favorite place ever.

Brody’s CPK numbers have went up again. Boooo!!! Sunday night they were at 298,000; this morning they were down to 114,000; they are up again to 140,000. The doctor isn’t concerned but thinks it is just part of the flushing process. Considering they admit people with a count of 50,000, Brody’s are still ridiculously high. As I said before, a normal person is anywhere from 50 to 200.

This whole experience has been so surreal. This may top our story of our hot water heater starting on fire. That is a story for another time.

Goodnight folks!

Brody’s Rhabdo and My Marathon

When I last filled you all in, Brody and I had no idea he’d still be in the hospital. Although he had read about people needing to stay for days, he assumed he’d be in and out. Not so much.

This was taken before he knew he’d be here for two or more nights. I don’t think I could get him to smile again like this now.

Doctors do not mess around with rhabdo, and rightfully so. Without treatment and monitoring, it can lead to renal failure (aka kidney failure), which may require dialysis. Brody has had great care at Langlade Hospital in Antigo with fantastic nurses. It’s rarely ever fun to be in a hospital (the only happy situation I could think of would be a birth), but they have made it a lot easier to tolerate.

After the initial urine and blood tests and the rhabdo diagnosis, they set up Brody on an IV drip. The treatment plan is to flush his system with fluids to work all of the enzymes out. The first few bags went through quickly (on purpose) and included sodium bicarbonate. I tried to look up how adding this helps, and I would probably butcher it in my summary, so here’s where it explains it. He’s had well over ten bags of fluid pumped into his body since being admitted on Saturday afternoon and continues to drink water like a fish. Other than having Popeye-like arms, swollen from the fluid, he feels normal…just bored.

His room has a nice flat screen; here you can see Brody is watching Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventures.
I have learned a lot about muscle damage. For instance, when you work out and become sore, there is a chance you could have a very slight case of rhabdo. When you work your muscles, they release enzymes, such as one called CPK. Normally your kidney is able to handle this enzyme, but when you have rhabdo, your body produces too much of it. A normal person has a CPK count of 175; Brody’s count when he came in was over 100,000, then it went up, and is now down again. Also, the muscle breakdown creates lots of myoglobin, and this causes the discolored urine. Brody’s count of myoglobin continues to go down – yeah! We find out if he’ll be going home today or staying another night shortly.

On a possible related note, the Green Bay marathon was yesterday, or it was supposed to be yesterday. After three hours of heat, humidity, and hospitalizations (how’s that for alliteration!), officials called the race at 9:30am. Of course I have no idea if anyone will now be suffering from rhabdo, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone was. Rhabdo can come on when exercising in extreme heat and humidity.

This made me extremely nervous for my race next weekend: what if it’s hot, humid, or sunny? Yeah, I dislike running in the sun. If the same thing were to happen next weekend as it did in Green Bay, I would find another marathon to do in the next few weeks. Considering I don’t know if I will ever do another marathon, I can not imagine just throwing away all of the training I’ve done. As of now, the weather says it will be mostly sunny with a high of 89 and low of 59. Please, please, PLEASE let that be wrong.

My final long training run that I did yesterday also made me nervous. This run sucked, big time. Chalk it up to hills, heat, humidity (my cottage is only an hour or so from Green Bay, so I was running in similar conditions), or stress from Brody being in the hospital, I took lots of walk breaks. I couldn’t get my breathing under control, especially after running up hills. My chest felt tight and I may have had a mini-meltdown around mile four. I have reminded myself of my days in ballet and dance: we always had crappy rehearsals right before a great performance. I am keeping my fingers crossed that’s what will happen with my race.

Whoa, I had a lot to say today. If you gave up and x-ed out a few paragraphs ago, I totally understand. But then if you’re reading this, you’re not one of those people. Thanks for hanging with me and following my normally normal life! I appreciate you guys and gals!

Questions:
What exercise-related injuries have you dealt with?
What are your ideal running conditions?
What do you tell yourself after crappy workouts?

Detour to the ER

This is not where we expected to be on the warmest day of May.

Brody had a tough Crossfit workout on Wednesday night and woke up Thursday with swollen biceps. Many of his shirts didn’t fit. Then, last night we stopped at Chipotle in Appleton for dinner and he noticed his urine was dark brown. This morning it was still cola-colored, so Brody decided to play doctor and Google his symptoms (like I suggested he do last night).

Dr. Brody came back with Rhabdomyolysis. Basically, he strained his muscles so badly, they are breaking down, and the myoglobin is being released, coming out in his urine. This can potentially lead to kidney failure.

Scary stuff.

I called my friend, Rena, who is a nurse, who then called her boyfriend’s brother who is a doctor. He said we should not mess around with kidneys and to get to an ER ASAP. Unfortunately, we were over three hours from home, and the thought of being admitted to a hospital so far from home sucked. However, the thought of Brody’s kidneys failing sucked even more.

We first headed to the small clinic in downtown Lakewood. They confirmed that we needed to get to a hospital, so off to Antigo we went. Meantime, the dogs were back at the cottage pouting because the lake was just within sight.

We’ve been at the Antigo hospital since 10:30ish. A nurse took his vitals; then, he peed in a cup, took his blood, and now he’s hooked up to an IV.

The doctor said he does have rhabdomyolysis, which has been known to happen to people who do Crossfit. It can happen to marathon runners and really anyone who overexerts him or herself.

Despite the unexpected detour, I am happy he is getting better and that the IV is flushing the extra myoglobin out of his system. Sadly, message boards about this condition say your muscles are a lot weaker afterwards. Brody will likely take a break from Crossfit and focus on biking for a while. He has been a trooper, though, and is ironically flipping between the 2011 Crossfit Games on ESPN and a hockey game. Prepared for anything, I brought snacks, a book, and my iPad (which is how I’m able to write and post).

Brody gave me the ok to write about this. While rhabdomyolysis isn’t very common, I think it’s important to know that you can push your body too hard and that noticing when things aren’t right. A lot of people self-diagnose themselves using WedMD and other message boards and can make themselves paranoid, but luckily for us, we had access to the Internet and were able to determine that what was happening to Brody could be serious.

Rhabdo (its nickname) sucks.