New Year's Challenges

In an attempt to get more motivated and kick the new year off right I've decided to tackle a couple of fellow Twitter/Blogger's challenges

First up is Kelownagurl's 100KM (62 miles) New Year's Day Trainer ride challenge from Buckeye Outdoors. This will be sometime after my run with the Cabot Cruisers. Oh, and if you're not listening to KG's podcast, what's wrong with you? Listen to it!!!

Next up is Quadrathon's SPS Trifecta. SPS = squats, pushups, and situps. You can see details and sign up for it here. Quadrathon also has an excellent podcast :).

So I'm all tested up...21 pushups, 45 squats, and 50 situps consecutively and in good form. Let's see if I can stick with it for longer than a month, lol.........

2009 wrapup

Hmm, so trying to make myself get this blog post done and just not quite getting there......

So what were my 2009 highlights (and lowlights)

Well, it was my first full year participating in the Arkansas RRCA Grand Prix race series and I set the goal way back last January that I was going to try and iron the series. And I actually managed it :).

I turned 40--major highlight 'caused that moved me into the master's division for races.

No broken bones or teeth, woo-hoo!! Although I'm still having to undergo dental procedures to fix some of the issues from 2008, yuck.....


Made some awesome running friends and got to know current ones much better. Not going to list them here because it's a HUGE list, LOL....

Twitter friends!!!!

Ran a MARATHON! Although it's also a bit of a low point because it worsened a foot injury and was under some very rough weather conditions. I didn't come as close to the time goal as I wanted but did get to watch Jackie's toughness firsthand. Very happy that my first marathon was with her.

Set personal records in all my race distances this year :).


Was awarded Female Masters Runner of the Year by the Arkansas RRCA. Still in awe that I was nominated much less had enough votes to be awarded this, I didn't realize that many people even knew who I was.























I was Driver of the Month for March 2009--still have mixed feelings about this one. Kinda prefer to keep my head down at work for the most part.


James' mom having a series of mini-strokes, this has thrown all three of us for quite a loop, think we've finally adjusted to some semblance of a schedule so there's at least one of kind of close by in case something else happens. Does mean that James' and I see far less of each other than what we prefer but you do what you have to with family.


Elsie's 2nd year with us :)


James has stuck with me for another year, 2010 will mark our 22nd anniversary. Oh geez, I have been married for over 1/2 my life at this point. That makes me feel old, lol.......


Injured my left foot twice :(


All the training runs with Brenda, Cindy and Lisa. Oh I miss that soooo much.


My Iphone!!! Several months later and I still love it :). How did I ever manage prior to it? lol


Getting to see my friend Alyson evolve into a hard-core cyclist (and yes you are!! no arguing)


My Jamis Xenith Comp Femme road bike--although Buffy's been a bit neglected for the past 3.5 months.


Favorite race of the year--3 way tie. The One Hour Track Run, Capitol City Classic 10k, and the Dam Night Run 5k.


Least favorite race of the year--again a tie--Hogeye 1/2 Marathon and the Brickfest 5k...fueling issues on both


Did I mention all my awesome friends?!?


Anyhoo, just a bit of what was good and bad about 2009. Hope to have a post done sometime this weekend about 2010 goals :)

2009 Races and Events

Feel free to skip this post, nothing interesting here--not that there usually is in my blog anyway, lol. gp = Arkansas RRCA Grand Prix

1/25/09 One Hour Track Run--Russellville, AR 6.98 miles/60:00 gp
2/14/09 Valentine's Day 5k--Russellville, AR 24:57 gp
2/21/09 Rivertrail 15k--Little Rock, AR 1:21:36 gp
3/7/09 Chase Race 2 Mile--Conway, AR 15:11 gp
3/7/09 PAWS Race 1 mile--Conway, AR (with Elsie)
3/15/09 Little Rock 1/2 Marathon, Little Rock, AR 2:02:22
3/28/09 Spring Fling 5k--Cabot, AR 25:03 gp
4/4/09 Capitol City Classic 10k--Little Rock, AR 51:50 gp
4/5/09 Hogeye 1/2 Marathon--Fayetteville, AR 2:01:36 gp
4/18/09 Beyond Boundaries Boot Scootin' 5k, Ward, AR 25:12
4/18/09 Move to End Alzheimer's Memory Walk, Little Rock, AR
4/25/09 2CanRide, Searcy, AR (cycling)
5/2/09 Toad Suck Daze 10k, Conway, AR 52:43 gp
5/9/09 Women Run Arkansas 5k, Conway, AR 25:01
5/25/09 Du for the Parks Duathlon, Hot Springs, AR 1:14:15
6/13/09 Carti Tour de Rock, Little Rock, AR (cycling) 62 mile
6/27/09 Brickfest 5k, Malvern, AR 24:44 gp
7/25/09 Dam Night Run 5k, Lake DeGray, AR 23:26 gp
8/1/09 White River 4 Mile Classic, Batesville, AR 33:18 gp
8/8/09 Watermelon 5k, Hope, AR 25:10 gp
9/5/09 ARK Clear Mountain 5k, N. Little Rock, AR 23:25 gp
9/19/09 Arkansas 20k, Benton, AR 1:50:18 gp
9/26/09 Tyler Curtis 5k, Little Rock, AR 24:34 gp
10/17/09 Chile Pepper XC 10k, Fayetteville, AR 49:28 gp
10/24/09 Soaring Wings 1/2 Marathon, Conway, AR 1:55:51 gp
11/7/09 MidSouth Marathon, Wynne, AR 4:40:40 gp
11/21/09 Spa 10k, Hot Springs, AR 53:31 gp
11/28/09 Great Duck Race 10k, Stuttgart, AR 51:11 gp

1 track run, 1 2 miler, 11 5ks, 1 4 miler, 5 10ks, 1 15k, 1 20k, 3 1/2 marathons, and 1 marathon.
1 duathlon and 1 metric century cycling.
Set prs in all distances this year :)
Cycling distance as of 12/30/09 770.47 miles
Running distance as of 12/30/09 1360.73 miles

Intrusiveness

So yeah, it's the next to the last day of 2009 and I should be doing a year-end wrap up post but quite honestly, I'm not in the mood.........Probably has a good bit to do with the gingival graft dental surgery that I had on Monday, yuck. Unfortunately was only able to get one of the grafts done because I have maxed out my dental insurance for the year, so that means sometime in early 2010 I'm going to have to use another weeks vacation to do the remainder.

This brings me to another grumble. The company that employs me is by far the most intrusive company that James and I have ever worked for......Yes, there are regulations that govern what kind of medications you can take when you are a truck driver but this particular company goes above and beyond what the law requires and that's not necessarily a good thing. As a matter of fact they go so far beyond what is required by the law that they now have a lawsuit against them by EEOC for illegally dismissing a driver due to health issues.

It takes so long to clear our medical dept that I was only able to take ONE of the prescribed pain pills after the surgery......I'm due to go back to work on Monday and if this hadn't been a holiday weekend coming up I would have had a little more time to clear the medical dept on Thursday & Friday but in order to get cleared by today (because they would be off for the remainder of the week) I could only take the pain medication on Monday.......so there you go, only ibuprofen for me the past 2 days, lol. Yes, I've been a bit grumpy :).

I'm a grinch

Yeah, not so much a holiday person.....habits and behaviors that you've been exposed to in your formative years are very hard to shake off. Not saying that it can't be done but it is a bit difficult and I find myself in a bit of a funk every year from November thru December......January and February are just gloomy but at least I'm able to shake off the desire to start a fight with the person nearest near to me, lol........This year, I've still been grumpy, moody, and yes, a bit testy but James kind of understands whats going on by now so he cuts me more slack than he used to. Also, I have been able to curb the wanting to argue grinch more than I have in the past.

Anyways, the holidays are practically over now :). I truly hope everybody had a very enjoyable Christmas and are planning their New Year's Eve celebrations and plotting out next year's resolutions. I am off on vacation through the 3rd, will get back to trucking on the 4th. Very much looking forward to this break, have a lot of decompressing and decluttering to do.

Leaving you with a pic of a roadblock I encountered Wednesday on my way home but it was so funny I managed to not get angry, lol.

Not a "real" truck driver

Okay adding a disclaimer to this post because as I noted to Terry in the comments I was going for tongue in cheek humor over actual things that have been told me over the years and instead I came off as a whiny, rabid, humorless person (and yes I can be those things at certain times but that's not the point I was going for here, lol).

one of my many failings is that I tend to allow what other people think bother me.......Kind of a typical type A personality in that. And yeah, don't let other type A's tell you that they don't care what others think, the vast majority of the ones I know do despite their vehement protestations.

A recurring thing that I've had people say to me is that I'm not a "real" truck driver for various reasons many of them contradictory

Why I am not or wasn't a REAL TRUCK DRIVER according to others

1) I went to truck driving school

2) I drove team with my husband therefore I didn't do any city driving or backing up to docks because other guys wouldn't "allow" their wives/girlfriends to do so

3) I don't drive team with my husband (said some of it was contradictory, lol)

4) I currently drive an automatic truck

5) I have only run regional for the past 3-4 years--Middle Tennessee to Laredo, Texas with occasional forays into Alabama, Kentucky, or Missouri

6) I call my husband for advice or if he's around have him assist or do some of the minor repairs on my truck or trailer--not sure how this is different from calling up road rescue, asking on the cb, or going to a shop

7) Occasionally my husband and I actually get to pick up at the same places or close by on the same day, so if I happen to be following him I'm not able to drive by myself (although I have accused James of driving my truck and his simultaneously, it's actually not physically possible for him to do so, lol)

8) I don't like driving overnight

and on and on and on.............I could make arguments about every single point but since I'm trying to work on not allowing others' opinion color my view of myself I will let it pass.......you don't know how hard that is to do though, LOL......

Learning Experience

Yep, two words I absolutely hate to hear because it usually means I have f'ed up royally in some way, lol.........And I had one of those this past Tuesday, grrr.


I have been very, very proud up until this week to have never crunched a bumper on my truck and you know what they say about pride and a fall, sigh......Over 9 years driving a truck and I go and do something like this. No excuses, I just simply lost track of where everything was and caught the corner of a foot high metal rack just under the bumper on the right side and these are plastic bumpers that aren't very sturdy. Like our shop foreman said today after a fair bit of teasing at me, it happens to everybody at some point or another and thankfully I have one of the Prostars instead of a Cascadia so the only damage was to the bumper itself. Oh yeah, and my pride.......still feeling extremely stupid....so stupid as a matter of fact that I allowed a random tweet from last night hurt my feelings when it shouldn't have (yeah, I'm such a girl sometimes cue up "Stupid Girl" from Garbage, lol).


Anyways, no big deal as far as the company is concerned but I will lose next year's safety bonus :-(. Was even thanked by the safety dept. for my honesty and professionalism in reporting the incident instead of trying to hide or lie about what happened. Do have to say thanks to a Rush driver who helped me zip tie and strap the bumper up so it wouldn't shake loose going down the road and who didn't make fun of me. I think the guys in the shipping dept had told him that I'd been in there several times and was usually a good driver so that helped, lol. I also think the shop is going to be able to replace the bumper this weekend, yay!!!





In other news, I've been running 2-3 times a week with 5.5 miles being the longest so far. Still not pushing it, going to wait until after Christmas to decide on my race/event schedule then ramp the training back up. Also have been battling a bit of a head cold this week or I thought it was a cold until James reminded me that they told us after our flu shots earlier in the year that if we did get exposed to the flu it would be cold-like symptoms this time around. Who knows? I just know that my head has been stopped up for the better part of a week, sneezing, and achy. Yuck.........




One more week of work then I'm off until the 4th of January for sure--at least that's the time I put in that I wanted off and since I'm still carrying a week of vacation from last year
I WANT AND NEED this time off. Oh no, I'm not stressed much, lol. Looking like I will have a Monday pickup at another new to me plant in Lewisburg, TN so if that holds up I should be back home Thursday morning :) :) :)



Posting a couple of sunrise shots from this week, the first is over Hubbard Reservoir near Dallas and the second is at the top of a hill I'm determined to run all the way up one of these days in Pulaski, TN

By the Wayside

Yep, that seems to be where my blogging is headed......fallen way off both on actual updates and keeping up with everybody. It's not that I don't want to write something it's that by the time I get home and sit in front of the computer I've completely forgotten whatever it was that had my mind racing to begin with. Ah well, such is the way with stress :(.

So the running this past week has been zilch until yesterday (Sunday) while trying to rest up and give my foot a chance to recover from whatever the problem is. Quick synopsis of the left foot issue

1)plantar fasciitis back in early, early spring-by midsummer this was resolved though

2)caught a rock at the base of my 2nd toe at the Chile Pepper XC 10k 10/17--injured the toe, it was swollen and painful for quite a well

3)the Sunday prior to the Midsouth Marathon, I tripped and fell, bruising and cutting up the inside of the left ankle

4)Foot started hurting during the marathon-achy around mile 20ish, flatout cramping from mile 24 on. Also had a major, major cramp afterwards from the tips of my toes to just behind my knee that refused to release for what seemed like forevah.......

James' and my opinion is that I have a stress fracture on the second toe, I'm one of those people whose 2nd toe is also longer than my big toe so it receives most of the impact first........Now mind you this is our opinion and I haven't gone to the doctor yet and we didn't stay at Holiday Inn last night. Why haven't I gone to the doctor? Well, the company I'm employed by is by far way too aggressive in shutting you down ANYTIME you have a doctor's visit until they review everything little thing that went down. This means no driving and with my dedicated run it would mean an entire week off work. My plan was to take 2 weeks off from running (lasted 1 week, lol) then take it easy on the workouts for a couple more weeks and if I'm still having problems I will go to the doc for x-rays, etc. during our Christmas shutdown. I have been employed by 5 different trucking companies (James=7) but our current one is far more intrusive than any of the others and does in fact go much further than what the law requires.

Anyhoo, my mood for the past couple of months has been up and down. In a major funk after the marathon AND racing season ended. Feel kind of lost and I realize it's silly but it's what's going on.........Also while the mother-in-law is improving, our lives are pretty much revolving around rushing back home from work, etc. James and I aren't getting to see each other near enough and it's wearing on both of us. I do have a couple of friends that are basically saving what little sanity I have left but James is doing the guy thing and refusing to talk about what's going on with anybody but me.

Oh crap, this is turning into a woe is me post, grrrr.

Okay on to other stuff. I did go for an easy 4ish mile (no garmin!) run with Elsie yesterday afternoon with no problems, yay! Will try and ease back into it with no hard-core training until after the first of the year :).

Second on the advice of a friend I am making an attempt at learning to play the guitar........Went to a local music store in town and came home with a very cool starter set :). Yep, just what I need, something else to obsess about, lol.

3rd, I'm actually going out and attempting to buy clothes that actually fit.......Part of my problem is that I try to avoid things made in China and while I realize that quite a few things I have no choice on, clothing is an area where I do have an option. A somewhat limited choice, it turns out but I can find things made elsewhere (oh, there are a few other countries I avoid). But........I'm having a difficult time finding work/casual clothing that I like :(. What I'm having no problem with is dresses, lol! I've purchased 3 in a month's time but while I can get away with wearing a casual dress and sandals while driving in the summer, winter's stuff tends to be a bit too dressy and requires heels to look right. Not exactly practical for a truckdriver, but I am ready for any holiday parties if James and manage to get the same day off when one is scheduled, ha-ha!