One week until the marathon and I'm falling apart. I needed the marathon to have happened about two weeks ago :) 

I've developed a mysterious knee pain. It came the evening of a rest day out of nowhere. Go figure.

I'd run 10 miles the day before and it was a really good run! The next night I was in the kitchen when I got a pain in my knee. I kept thinking it would go away; that my knee needed to crack or something. Not the case. When I got up on Wednesday and it was still hurting, I called the chiro's office. There's a (for lack of a better work) "regular" doc there too. She saw me the next morning. I hadn't run since the 10 miler on Sunday. Of course when I went in nothing was really hurting. I couldn't even really tell her where it had been hurting. She felt around and said that all the ligaments and the knee cap felt fine. Ice, ibuprofen, and maybe a brace.  She said to go ahead and give running a shot in the next day or two.

So after another day of resting it, I headed out yesterday (Saturday) for just 2 miles. It did not go well. The first 1/2 mile was great. I thought I was better. Then I felt a twinge and by mile 1 I stopped to stretch to see if that would help. I turned around and the second mile was maybe a little better. I found that shortening my stride helped a lot. So I guess it wasn't completely awful, but the fact that there was pain is frustrating.

I am so happy that the second 20 miler went so much better than the first. I am trying to keep that thought in my head as I make the decision to not do any running this week. I really did put in almost all of the training miles. I missed a 6 miler today and two 4 milers during the week. I'll miss a few miles this week, but I'm going to do some walking to keep my legs as ready as they can be for Sunday.

I'm considering a cortisone shot, but have read mixed "reviews" on going that route. I think I've finally found a brace that I like (after spending $100+ on 5 or 6 different ones!) and I bought some Salonpas patches.

I know I can do this, but I was hoping the pain would come at the end--not be there from the beginning. I keep telling myself that I delivered two kids with zero pain meds, this really can't be much more painful than that...right?

http://www.cff.org/LWC/CandyJohnson

I'm ready to be done with training. I'm starting to feel burnt out and am ready for a weekend when I don't have to wake up at the crack of dawn. Less than one month until marathon day. I'm super excited about that day. It's all these other days that are getting hard--especially the weekday runs. At least on the weekends, the long runs feel like an accomplishment. More and more often, I find myself looking at the purple bracelet I've worn since making this commitment and reminding myself why I'm doing this.

Of course my ultimate reason is to help find a cure--for everyone with CF and especially for Dean and his family. But in my heart, my biggest reason for doing this isn't for Dean, but for his mom. I'm amazed by her strength. I don't know if I could be as strong as she is if I had to wake up every morning knowing my baby had a sickness I had no control over. I want to do everything I can to help find a cure so she can maybe wake up one morning without that heaviness in her heart.

I'm proud to report that I've met my fundraising goal!! I hope to keep raising money over these next few weeks, but I have to admit that it's nice to know I reached my goal! Thank you to everyone who made a donation! I have some pretty amazing family and friends.

Another 20 miler coming up this Saturday. I'm looking forward to it and am hopeful it will go a little better than the last 20 we did! I've decided that long runs are kind of like giving birth. Right after it's over, you're exhausted and in pain and think you'll never do it again. You quickly forget how bad it was and start looking forward to the next one!

 

http://www.cff.org/LWC/CandyJohnson

I can't believe I ran 20 miles. Over four hours of running. Who in their right mind does that?!! All I can really say about it is that it was HARD! We were visiting my parents in Wisconsin for the holiday weekend. Emily and her family joined us. So at least I didn't have to run it alone. The route was pretty much flat and probably 95% farm roads. All we saw for hours was corn and cows with an occasional car speeding past.

The first 10 miles were really good! We got to the Varley's house at just over 10 miles and I was feeling great. By 15 I was feeling shaky, but had left some peanut butter sandwich cookies with the water jug we'd dropped on a corner and they seemed to help. By 18, the sun was hot and we were jelly-legged. But we managed to finish out the last two miles by setting small goals--run to that stop sign then walk a block or so; run to the end of this street, then another walk. It really wasn't pretty, but we finished it out with a run up a small (although it seemed giant at the time) hill.

We rewarded ourselves with a soak in the hot tub and lunch at Blue Spoon Cafe! Followed by an agonizing 3+ hour drive home. Ugh!

I have to say that this 20 mile run hurt less than the 18 we'd done two weeks before. We had to stop and stretch numerous times then; my legs and back felt really tight. During 20, I didn't experience any of that. Just pure exhaustion the last couple of miles! I'm not sure how I'm going to go for another 6.2, but I'm hoping after the next 20 mile training run, I'll feel more confident. 

http://www.cff.org/LWC/CandyJohnson

Many times garage sales are a waste of time because they're so much work to get ready and there's no way to know what will sell. This thought went through my head MANY times as I worked my butt off getting ready for my fundraising garage sale held last weekend. The night before, I had major anxiety worrying that no one would show up because I had decided not to put signs out until the morning.

Turns out I didn't need to worry at all. The people came and they kept coming! On the first day, there was not one moment there wasn't at least one person shopping until around 1:30. It was a ton of work, but almost $650 later, I'd say it was well worth it. I had signs plastered on every table saying that all sales would benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. And people were very generous. During the first hour, I had a woman purchase $3 worth of items. She gave me a check for $20. My neighbors bought a desk we had for sale and gave me an extra $20. People often said "keep the change--for your fundraiser." I had the opportunity several times to share what Cystic Fibrosis was and why I was raising money.

The sale ended as uplifting as it had begun. As we were closing down and boxing things for Goodwill, a final customer came to browse. She picked up 5 $.10 items. She handed me her two quarters and then reached back into her wallet for a $5. "For your fundraiser. Good luck," she said, and went on her way.

I am truly grateful to my friends and family for helping me to pull this successful garage sale off. To those who donated items to sell, stopped by to shop, helped me set up and/or take down and loaned tables in the mad scramble we had the night before...Thank you!!!

 

http://www.cff.org/LWC/CandyJohnson

Wow! It's been a whirlwind few weeks. Between two mini vacations, getting my first grader ready for the first day of school (which is this week), planning for and executing a VERY successful fundraising garage sale and of course RUNNING, I'm exhausted. But I keep putting one foot in front of the other and know the craziness will end...some day...right??

We spent 5 days camping on Lake Michigan in Sheboygan with my family. Lots of fun. Had to get two runs in there. One 45 minute run and one 8 miler. I went into the 8 miles hoping to use an app on my phone to map my run. Not sure if the app just doesn't work or if the signal just wasn't consistent enough, but I knew I was in trouble when I'd been running for about 30 minutes and it said I was at 5+ miles. I do not run that fast. I run a pretty consistent 10 minute mile. So I decided I'd just run 90 minutes and call it good.

The next weekend, we had a trip to the Dells planned. Long run for that weekend was 16 miles. I was stressed about not only running 16 by myself, but actually getting it in at all. Decided to do it Saturday and get it over with so I could enjoy the rest of the trip eating and drinking with no worries. I searched for running paths in the Dells and came up with nothing. The best the Dells' tourism office could offer was the name of a state park that was nearby. I found a map of the park and realized it was just a couple miles from the hotel we were staying at. We got up there early enough the day before my planned run to do a drive of the route. All I can say is Holy Hills!! That night I mapped out my 16. I ran from the hotel to Mirror Lake State Park, looped the park twice, back to the hotel, then down the main street to the Tommy Bartlett Exploratory Museum and back to the hotel. Thankfully it was overcast and fairly cool. I'm not sure I would have made it in any kind of heat. The hills were brutal!! I wish I had taken some pictures so everyone could see just how crazy hilly it was! But I did it!! And I followed it up with a huge breakfast at Paul Bunyan's Cook Shanty!!

This past weekend was an easy 8. Up next is 18. Wow!

I have some exciting fundraising news to blog about also, but I was up at 4:30 this morning to get my 6 miles in. So it will have to wait for another night. I'm off to bed :)

 

http://www.cff.org/LWC/CandyJohnson

This past weekend, we spent Saturday at a fun, fun, fun event. The first Chillin' and Grillin' for a Cure was held at Dean's house. It was a block-party type event, complete with kids' games, live music, a rib cook-off, lots of good food and drinks, tons of cool raffle baskets and more. 

The party was fun, but even better was seeing all of Dean's friends and family out there grilling, serving, selling tickets, organizing games, donating raffle items, buying tickets for raffle items...I could go on and on. It was amazing. 

 

Dean is waving hello to everyone :)

 

I am so proud to be a part of the awesome Eat.Pray.Dean fundraising team. What a special group of people coming together for a special little guy :) Can't wait for next year!

http://www.cff.org/LWC/CandyJohnson

It's been a couple weeks since I posted, so I guess I'll work backwards in recounting my recent runs.

Today should have been an easy run day. A step-back week--just 6 miles. However, some poor choices made it a very difficult one. Yesterday we spent the day at Dean's house for the Chillin' and Grillin' for a Cure fundraising event. So much fun. But lots of food and drinks and a late night lead to hitting snooze about 10 times this morning. I didn't step out the door until after 9 a.m. and it was already steaming hot out. In addition to getting a late start, I chose a very UN-shady route. A brutal combination. 

Last weekend was SO much better even though it was twice as long. 12 miles last Sunday--the weather broke for us just in the nick of time. The entire week, the daily highs were 100+. But a cool front came through Saturday night. Sunday morning was about 75 degrees and cloudy. Thank goodness!! I'm not sure we would have gotten 12 miles in if the heat wave had continued. It was the first opportunity that Sunni, Emily and I have had to run together. We ran on a path in Naperville that was new to Emily and I. A very nice 6 mile loop. Very little shade, but the sun stayed behind the clouds for most of the run. Awesome!

Even through the heat of the week, I managed to get all my runs in. Although I did end up at the Y on the treadmill on Friday. When it's already 80+ degrees at 5 a.m., it's just too hot to run outside.

The Sunday run two weeks ago was 10 miles. Busy schedules prevented any of us from running together. So it was 10 miles solo. I have to say that, although it was a little lonely, I enjoyed the solitude of just me and my music. And it was complete solitude. I did not see another person until I got into downtown Oswego--and I was only there for about 1.5 miles. I took the opportunity to greet fellow runners and struck up a quick conversation with one runner who I could tell was in the middle of a long run (he was sporting one of those camelback water packs). He was running 13 that morning and seemed envious that I only had 10 to do :)

So far things are progressing very well. My back is feeling great (I'm down to just one PT/chiro visit a week), shin splints are pretty much gone. And I'm excited about 14 miles this coming Sunday. Never gone that far! Praying that it isn't too hot!!

http://www.cff.org/LWC/CandyJohnson