"So throw away those Lamentations,
We both know them all too well.
If there's a Book of Jubilations,
We'll have to write it for ourselves.."

-Josh Ritter




Sunday, April 22, 2012

A Cold Day in...

Hey, look who's gorgeous. That's right. Beautiful baby up in here. 
Now that I've got your attention, I'd like to say something serious. 

Orthopedic surgeons? They rock. Like totally make my whole day. And this is coming from the wife of someone who is perpetually bitter about the fact that everyone who takes one look at him thinks that he's an orthopod. You know, because all large, athletic doctors go into orthopedics. 

Those of you who have known me a while may remember that three years ago, I was in a wheelchair. Pelvis surgically broken in three places and all that jazz. After years of problems, I finally, definitively got my hip fixed. And that was good, but the recovery was so slow that I often questioned whether I would ever not feel like an old lady. 

Well, this was me yesterday. 
Not my most flattering photo



That's a 5K! Me! And while the weather made it appear that hell had frozen over, I made some calls and apparently, it was only Duluth. My goal was to run the whole way without stopping or walking. And I did. That felt pretty good. *

How did this happen? You might well ask, hypothetical reader. The true story is that it was slow and pain-staking and completely accidental. 

It all began when I destroyed our elliptical, which the surgeons had told me I wasn't even supposed to be using. I was trying really hard to work out post-beautiful-baby and was still somewhat...ahem...emotional and completely lost my tenuous grip on perspective when a chunk of exercise equipment went ricocheting off during my workout. Since my husband, like many men, fears his wife's eyes might gain super-horrible-powers if allowed to leak, resulted in Eric buying a treadmill for us. 

I was happily walking on the treadmill pretty much every day when a particularly excellent song came on (Josh Ritter "To The Dogs or Whoever") and it inspired me to run. For a solid three minutes. I laughed about it and went back to walking. 

Then, the next day, I ran three minutes. Twice. After a winter on the treadmill in the basement, I hit the road. 

Sure. I might grind down that hip faster this way. I might end up back in that wheelchair sooner than I anticipated. But in the meantime, I'm running. Every day, I'm stronger and faster and less painful.

And I think that rocks.

I cheered Mommy on! And got hot cocoa! Not necessarily in that order!

* For anyone who wants to know the gory details, my time was 31:37 (10:11 minutes/mile). I'm not blowing anyone's doors off, but I figured I'd save that for next time.

4 comments:

Dan and Mary Jo said...

Could not possibly be happier for you or prouder! You are an inspiration!

Anonymous said...

You freaking rock, sister.

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Rachel said...

well, unlike jason above, I think you have just the right traffic--like those of us who think you are FREAKING AMAZING. yeah, so it's "just" a 5k as you reminded me, but you don't see me getting my sorry butt off this chair to run one. and i don't have an excuse like, say, a broken pelvis. maybe i should take that as an example. hmmm.