One Week Post-Race, Two Months Sans Gallbladder

Alright. So, I am not so good at updating my blog. A lot has happened. No sooner did I decide, "Yes, back to running!", did the health really start to take turn. I have been having tummy troubles a lot this past year, plenty of tests, drugs, etc., but no certain diagnosis. Slowly I started not being able to eat things. The list of offenders got long. The symptoms got more gnarly. Vomiting became a part of the afternoon. I kept thinking "I will get better. Hang in there". Before long, I was trying to balance almost constant low-grade nausea, followed by worse nausea, followed by vomiting, and running. After finally going to a wonderful surgeon, she knew just the right test for me to undergo. The one that would tell me that my gallbladder didn't work worth a damn. Well for $2700, her hunch was confirmed. But, I had to spend another $2000, for another test just to make sure. Two weeks later, my faulty gallbladder was removed (a mere $17,000) and I was really off running for awhile ( and thinking about the plusses of having health insurance, lucky me). I couldn't run, but I had four holes in my abdomen. My bellybutton was then not just pierced, but had a scar to remind me that an organ was sucked out of it. Two months after surgery, I still had the Klondike to run. I had attempted to start running two or three weeks after, but that ended with some weird bruising and the doctor strongly urging me to "take it easy". Once I got back to running, work was busy and two times a week was all I was able to squeeze in. Not even a good long hill run to prepare me for the 5.6 mile, uphill all the way, run that was coming down the pike. I wasn't about to bail. Besides, the ferry ticket was $100 bucks and I already paid. Once you buy the ferry ticket, there is no backing out.

The Klondike went well. I didn't end up having to walk and that was good enough for me. I did get passed by a guy who had to be 65. He cruised on past like he had been running uphill his whole life. Man. At some point I slept on the side of the road in the ick-van with two of my teammates (the very cool Skye and Becca, Legs 1 and 3, respectively) and when I woke in the morning realized that we were really only 20 minutes outside of Whitehorse. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. But, sleeping in a van isn't the worse thing I can think of.

Now it is mid-September, I am back to running, and thinking maybe I should do that Mayor's Marathon this June. But, I also have to engage in some cooking adventures which are rarely low fat these days (since now I can eat fat again) and will hardly help me train for anything except Iron Chef. Somehow I will find a way to be a foodie and train for a marathon. Realistically, I will not update this blog for awhile. But, stranger things have happened.