Nobody Makes Me Bleed My Own Blood!

Last week, I got up bright and early to head to the doctor to become a human pin cushion figure out what's wrong with me.  Since my appointment was insanely early, I didn't have to wait more than 10 minutes for my appointment.  Win.  The doctor asked a gazillion questions, which was good, and did a small physical exam before sending me off to have my blood drawn.  Now I have no problem with needles, I have 3 tattoos for goodness sake, however, I do sometimes have a tendency to faint (example #1: I fainted during tattoo #1.  Don't ask how I got tattoos #2 and #3 after this instance....).  I kindly asked KK to come with me to hold my hand, but apparently bringing home the monies is more important than making me happy.  (I kid....)  His encouraging words were to not watch.  Good plan.

I sat down and the chick got to work poking around my veins.  She got ready to poke me (heh heh) so I looked away.  For a solid 5 minutes I was in pain as she was poking around my skin with the needle in me.  Finally she was done, and commented that she'd take a look at my other arm.  I looked over to her work station to see NONE OF MY BLOOD IN A VIAL!!!!  (P.S.  Wow there are a lot of vial homophones, I think I went through them all finding the right one.....)

After she deemed my left arm with "bad veins" she ran off to find someone else to stick me (heh heh).  Another lady came back and in very little time, and with very little pain other than the initial prick (heh heh) she had all she needed.  Do you think it's rude to request someone that doesn't SUCK AT TAKING BLOOD in this situation?  Where's Nurse Susan when you need her??!?!?

I waited the rest of the day Wednesday and all day Thursday with no results.  If you know how much of a worrier I am, you'll be able to conclude that I had diagnosed myself with all sorts of incurable diseases.  Seriously.  I couldn't sleep on Thursday because I assumed they were waiting to tell me I had 10 days left to live and wanted to do that in person instead of over the phone.  (See why I avoid the doctor??)

I finally called Friday morning and the nurse called me back shortly thereafter.  Turns out I was wrong.  No iron deficiency.  No b-12 deficiency.  However, I am lacking in the Vitamin D department (shoddy weather, I'm looking at you here....) which is causing my extreme fatigue.  The nurse said to continue taking a multi vitamin and to take some Vitamin D supplements until I felt back to normal.  YAAAAAAAAAY, that's way better than 10 days left to live, no?  And now I don't have to force myself to eat red meat.  Barfffffffffff.

And in other sad news, I have ended my quest towards 200 miles.  Didn't I just announce that I was attempting this?  Well yeah.... but I'm dumb.  After reading some of Jaseface's tweets this week (he ran a half marathon last weekend) I got to thinking... hmm.... if he's struggling to get his miles in this week because of recovery, how and the heck am I to get 50-52 miles (my highest) in?  We had a brief email exchange and moved around my workouts for next week, and all was well.... but it was still on the back of my mind.

In addition to my fear of getting injured, I still had 8 miles scheduled for Thursday and 3 miles scheduled for Friday (with Saturday being race day).  My legs were dead.  I realized that I wasn't going to be able to accomplish all my goals.  It was either:

a) run 200 miles

or

b) have fresh legs for the HM to attempt a PR and head in to my taper for Fargo with healthy legs.

Yes, I don't know that running 8+3 miles before a half is going to cause me not to PR.  And I don't know that a 50 mile week following a hard half marathon will cause me to get injured.  But either of these assumptions are pretty darn likely (knowing my body's incidence for injury).

In an effort to persuade me, KK even changed his bribery from dinner to the sparkly black TOMS I've been coveting.  Le sigh.  (The $17 dress shoes that I've had for the last 2 years have only a thread holding the sole of the shoe to the shoe.  If I wore my running shoes this close to death I would be injured always... hah.)

So I'm super duper bummed, but I should still end the month with a monthly mileage PR.  And there'll be another 200 mile month out there to chase.  I will just be careful to not schedule a race during it (or the last day of the month!!).

A Diagnosis + A Tempo Run

I finally went to the doctor.  Nope...not because of the ab pain that's been plaguing me for 4 months, but for my poor eye balls.  :(  I've had what looks like pink eye for the last few weeks.  I get this eye condition at least twice a year (it stems from my stupid allergies), and it's more of a pain the butt than anything.  It usually clears up on its own, and the times it hasn't, I've had to empty my pocketbook to pay for the teeny tiny bottle of drops.  On top of the pain and extreme redness in my eye, it decided to start being extremely sensitive to light.  As in, on my drive to work at 11am my eye was pouring.  Once I got in to the office I had to turn my light off and shut my window and still my eyes were killing me.  

I went to the eye doctor and got diagnosed with allergic conjunctivitis.  My stupid Rx was $64 for the GENERIC brand.  Ugh.  So annoyed.  I work for a non-profit, I'm a poor gal.  I'm fairly certain that the price for the drops per fluid mL is more expensive then crack-cocaine.  I'm guessing anyway, not too big on the street drugs.  The doctor instructed me no contacts for the next 4 days.  I thought about telling him I couldn't run with my glasses on, but figured it wouldn't be worth it.  :)  He put some anesthetic in my eye while I was in his office, but it started wearing off shortly after I ret

urned to the office, so I just called it a day.

After an amazing nap, my eye felt a lot better and I decided to take on my tempo run.  I waited until 9pm so that it wouldn't be too bright outside for my poor little eyes.  :)  I had 5 miles to do, 3 miles at a pace of 8:14.  Again I gave myself +/- 5 seconds for a range.

Mile 1 - 9:41 (warm up).  I saw a funky little animal.  It looked similar to a ferret, but not as long and was dark black.  I've never seen anything like it.

Mile 2 - 8:18 contemplated stopping for some mulberries that were growing next to the trail

Mile 3 - 8:06  Gnat #1 dive bombs into my left eye (still infected eye but lesser of the two).  Stop.  Remove.  Continue run.  Immediately after, gnat #2 dive bombs into the same eye.  I yell, "You've GOTTA be kidding me!"  Stop, remove.  This must ward off any future gnats, because that was my last encounter of the evening.

Mile 4 - 8:09  It was getting way too dark out, so I was just trying to haul booty to get home.

Mile 5 - 9:02 (cool down).  nothing exciting to report about this mile, other than Taylor drove by me 2-3 blocks from my apt. and didn't even recognize me.  Turd.

I finished 5 miles in 43:18 for a pace of 8:40.  The tempo miles pace was 8:11.  Whoo.

The one amazing thing about the run was the fireflies.  I've always had an obsession with fireflies.  They are so beautiful, and just scream summer time and happiness to me.  It was really fun running on the trail sans headphones, just listening to the evening and watching the small light show by the bugs.  It was great.  And my ab didn't hurt.  Double bonus.

When I got home I ate half of a watermelon to hydrate (along with water, of course, but I just couldn't stop eating it).  Nom nom.  Needless to say, I think I had to go to the bathroom about 6 times during the 8 hours I was sleeping.  Hah.