Thursday, February 7, 2013

That surreal moment when you see yourself on TV for the first time...

Electrotherapy and icing on the hamstring.
Glamorous huh?

Today was such a blur for me.  I was up before dawn to get ready for my early morning physio appointment.   Then I finally made it into the office after almost a week of being on the road.  Once in the office, there were all the emails, voice mails and just regular mail to sort through.  I ended up sorting through stuff, returning messages and gathering work to bring home with me.  Friday looks like a write-off driving wise and since I have an hour (in no traffic) commute, I'm calling a work from home snow day!

Physio this morning was excruciating to say the least.  Last night was my first ever round of speed work, and I did not like it at all.  I much prefer hill repeats.  I would have rather run the 400 meter hills 10 times, than do four 800 meter speed repeats anytime.  We ran to the MacMaster track then ran around it twice as fast as we could.  You shouldn't be able to talk when you're running for speed.  It's 800 meters twice around the track.  Then you run slowly around once before running hard again 2 more times for a total of four 800 meter laps.  The minute I started running hard, my hamstring acted up and by the time we were done and headed back to the Running Room I had to walk in the last 500 meters or so.  I get to do it all again next Wednesday, and add two more 800 meter sprints for a total of six!

I was in a lot of pain when I went to physio this morning and Graham felt a huge muscle knot in my left hamstring.  He used his elbow to work out as much of it as he could.  It hurt, but not as bad as when my massage therapist uses his elbows on me.  Graham was too afraid of hurting me I think. I ended up getting electrotherapy on my lower back while my hamstring was iced.  I felt better when I left then I did when I went in.

My hamstring bugged me all day.  I was in the office so there was a lot of sitting and of course the commute home in not very good weather.  By the time I got to the Running Room for my half marathon clinic, I had decided that I wouldn't run because I just knew I would make it worse.  It almost killed me to make that decision, but Ron, the assistant manager at the RR, told me I was absolutely doing the right thing.  He also pointed out that I could rest it a couple of days and run on Sunday for my long run, or run tonight and end up aggravating it so badly that I'd be out for a month.  I'm resting it.  I will do my exercises and try to roll it out.  That could help like it did when I first got the injury.

No bangs today.  Upper management kept asking where my
bangs were.  They'll be back tomorrow.

So back at the office, my friend Michael scouted out the only TV in our whole office building that had cable.  We went to the upper management floor and watched my episode of Steven and Chris at around 2:20 pm.  I knew I was going to be on in the second half.  Michael, Linda and a couple of upper management people watched the episode in the waiting area for the "bigwigs" of my work place.  I was very anxious because I honestly couldn't remember very much from the taping of the show.  I couldn't remember what I said and I was sure I was going to look huge!  TV is supposed to add pounds!

The entire experience was very surreal.  Although I know that is me, I just can't believe that it is me.  Would it have killed me to smile more?  I'm not gonna lie, I was freaking nervous.  I was most afraid of falling in those shoes.  They were 4 inch heels!  Thank goodness I only had them on for the duration of my stage appearances.  And I wasn't too pleased to see my bat wings making themselves seen.  I'm not too torn up about that though.  That's my reality.  I'm not perfect, nor do I pretend to be.  I usually make a concerted effort to hide the problem areas a little more thoroughly though!  C'est la vie!

You can see the blurb they wrote about me on the Steven and Chris website by following this link. The show has been posted on the CBC website for viewing and my Canadian friends can watch it here.  It looks like the Live Well Network is a couple of weeks behind in episodes.  They have episode 71 slated for the 17th of February and my episode is number 74.  I'll keep an eye out for my American friends and I'll post the link when it becomes available.

The outpouring of support and well wishes has been overwhelming over the past 8 hours.  I have received endless Facebook messages, emails, text messages and tweets.  I want to respond to them all, but I need to keep my sanity.  Thank you all for your generous and kind words. It means the world to me.  The past year and a half has been a crazy ride for me.  I've done things I never thought possible.  And being on the Steven and Chris show was the icing on the cake.  I love that I have these memories to keep with me while I continue to have aspirations and make goals to work towards.  I feel like I can do anything that I put my mind to.  And I've said this before, but I'll say it again.  If I can do this ANYONE can. You just need to be ready to make permanent changes in your life, and want it badly enough!