I should have waited longer.

I did go for a run yesterday, just to test the ribs out. I only went for 30 minutes, but it felt pretty good, and I had been desperate for any amount of exercise.
But then I went and worked 8 hours at the hospital, and I was in PAIN! Not just the occasional uncomfortable twitch in my side when I reached for something, but actual constant pain that brought tears to my eyes. I talked with a pharmacist and a doctor on my floor, and they both concurred that I ran too soon. Apparently when they say it takes 3-6 weeks of rest to heal a broken rib, they actually mean... rest. And no running.
Anyway, I'm mad at myself for pushing too soon. Is it possible that I'm not as fast a healer as I thought I was? I hope not. I'll probably try again in a couple days just to make sure.

In a completely unrelated story, I did discover Ellen's stocking stuffer to Eddie in the back of my refrigerator today - a delicious block of half-eaten brie cheese. Merry Christmas to me!!!

With A Broken Rib...

The reason I haven't been blogging is because I haven't been running. The reason I haven't been running is because I wiped out. Downhill skiing. In Lutsen.
I blame it on Joel. He fell first, in front of me, with skis and poles going every which way. So in my attempts to 1. avoid crashing into him, 2. help collect his gear, and 3. see if he was ok, I slid off-course and landed on a huge clump of ice. I knocked the wind out of me and had trouble breathing, so the Ski Patrol snow-mobiled me up the hill to their station. Some old dude wearing glasses with Harry Caray-like thickness checked me out, diagnosed me with some broken ribs, and told me to the to the hospital. Meg, Ellen, and Joel drove me to the ER in Grand Marais. I didn't get x-rays because apparently you can't do anything for broken ribs, and if I had puntured a lung I would know it (?). They gave me some vicodin, and I did ski the entire next day, but I haven't tried running yet. Maybe today. There is still some pain when I take in a really deep breath, but I think I've rested for an adequate amount of time now.
I've been a patient in Emergency Rooms twice now in 1 month, and I think that's plenty.
It's time for a new hobby.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I was able to get in a quick run today before I left for work at 1:30pm. And get this - I wore shorts!
I remember running in shorts on my birthday one time before - I think it was my sophomore year at Winona. Anyway, I only ran for a half-hour today, but it was enough for me not to feel guilty about eating cupcakes and Christmas cookies at work.
It was kind of a bummer to work on my birthday, but I got paid double, and I got lots of funny birthday messages on my voice mail when I got home!

A sad, sad run.

Today was my Aunt Jan's birthday. She would be 56. So I ran around Lake Nokomis, a lake we ran around many times together. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, the sun was super bright, and it was 47 degrees out, so at least my tears didn't freeze to my cheeks!
On a lighter note, it is also my Grandma Jake's birthday. She's 88! Wowsa.

No way!

At work last night I was talking about the Reindeer Run, and another nurse, Crystal, mentioned that she wanted to run in it, but couldn't for some reason. The rest of our conversation went something like this:

Crystal: I'm training for Grandma's 1/2 marathon in Duluth in June.
Me: Shut up! So am I! I want to see if my body can withstand the 13 miles to determine if I should really shoot for the Twin Cities Marathon in October.
Crystal: Shut up! Me too! I've always wanted to try to run a marathon.
Me: No way! Me too!
Crystal: Yes way!
Me: No way.

It turns out that Crystal is a wealth of running information. She had a couple of web sites for me to look at regarding training schedules, etc. We also discussed runnning shoes. I think I need to get my feet intensely checked out before I really get into the serious training. (I'm all paranoid about losing my toenails now - thanks, Heather! :)

It's still cold out, but thank goodness there's no snow/ice yet. That may put the kibosh on my outdoor running.

Reindeer Run

This morning my friend Donna picked me up at 8am and we drove to Minneapolis for the Reindeer Run - a 5K "fun run" around Lake Harriet. The temperature was 10 degrees, with wind gusts up to 15 mph. The day started with a costume contest in which I did not participate, followed by the run. There were a lot of people and dogs and sleds and elves and Santa Clauses and reindeer. We finished in about 30 minutes, and had fun, despite the chilliness. Afterwards we got water and apples and bananas and potato chips and something brown called an energy biscuit. I also got a long sleeve t-shirt (the real reason I agreed to do this run)!

Baby, it's cold outside!!!

Brrrr! It is cold! The high temp yesterday and today added together was still 10-15 degrees colder than Tuesday. I felt a little like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man with my 2 pairs of pants and 5 layers on top. At least it was sunny out! I only ran about 3 miles each day. Sometimes the gusts of wind just took my breath away.

One thing I learned today: when you leave your running clothes in a below-freezing car for 8 hours while you're working and then put them on, they are very very cold.

By The Shore Of Gitche Gumee...

On Saturday Nov. 25 (the day of Eddie's baptism and the day after Ellen's quarter-century birthday) I went on a run with Meg and Ellen. It's always more fun running with other people, especially my 2 sistas. However, it was not a great run for me. On a scale of 0 to 10 (zero being "I am Joan Benoit Samuelson" and 10 being "Someone grab the defibrillator!") I was a 6. Meg was a 7. Ellen was a 2. I suspect she was actually a zero but didn't want to rub it in.
This whole week I am at Abbott Northwestern Hospital for training in new computerized charting. I spent 8 hours sitting in a small room with 20 other nurses. I almost scratched my eyes out - not good, since they just recovered from whatever was wrong with them last week.
On the way home, I stopped at Lake Nokomis to run. I felt so good that I went around twice, for a total of 5.4 miles. I usually have songs running through my head - today's were "Out Tonight" from RENT and then Billy Joel's "The Longest Time". There was also a strange combo of smells - grapefruit and hamsters. The rain held off until I was well on my way home, and Prison Break is on tonight. Yessssss!!

Gobble! Gobble!

Happy Thanksgiving! There's nothing like a belly full of turkey, stuffing, yams, wine, and 8 home-made pies to make you feel like going for a run. Ok, I didn't actually eat any yams. Thanks to the Gronau family for hosting!
Ellen and I squeezed into our new black spandex get-ups (thank goodness it was dark out!) and ran for 45 minutes tonight. She is so dang fast. It felt so good to run, and there was very little wind, which helps a lot.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Let the excuses begin!

So yesterday, the nurse became the patient. At some point during the night as I was working, my right eye started bugging me. I thought maybe an eyelash got stuck way back there, and despite multiple efforts to flush it out, it still really hurt. So I trucked down to the ER to get it checked out. The doctor (looking less like John Stamos and more like John Goodman) looked deep into my eye and found.......nothing. He sent me home with some antibiotic drops. I was hoping for an eye patch, but it actually hurts more when my eye is closed.
He also told me not to wear my contacts for a few days, so today I will attempt to run with glasses. It's really sunny out and almost 50 degrees, and I'm looking forward to a good run.

Welcome to Jean's Blog

Welcome to Jean's blog. The purpose of this blog is to document Jean's training for the 2007 Twin Cities Marathon.

Today Jean and I went for a run (oh, this is Meg. Sorry. I'm just warming up the blog for Jean. She hates a cold blog). We ran around Lake Phalen. We think it was like 3 miles. We didn't actually time it. Did we? No. Oh wait, we left my house at like 11:15 and we drove there and when we got back in the car it was 12:07 which means we are running approximately 15-minute miles which means Jean will complete the marathon in a time of 2 weeks: 1 day: 6 hours: 40 minutes: 27 seconds. She has a long way to go.
Okay, we neglected to mention stretching and cool-down walking so they were closer to 10-minute miles. Oh! And Jean's clock is 7 minutes fast so maybe like 9 minute miles. WHATEVER. We felt great and sprinted the last bit.
Jean will be adding more later. We hope.