My home and work life have been greatly affected, I missed 5 weeks of work, I had to spend 8 hours a day nearly inverted to allow the tear across the bottom of the retina to heal, I couldn’t cry, cough or sneeze for a couple of weeks after surgery (which  of course made those were the only 3 things I wanted to do), I couldn’t shower or wash my hair or face normally for 3 weeks and I have to give myself daily and multiple eye tests to monitor my vision – which will not fully settle for likely a year and will require my lense to be removed and replaced with an articial implant at some point next spring (so something to look forward to).  My right eye was dilated for 5 weeks straight and it took more than 2 weeks after the medication ended to go back to (almost) normal size.  In short, 2011 has been rough in the Donegan house.  My husband has been TREMENDOUS and took time off work to care for me, and make tiny bowls of tomato soup, and and shuttle me to follow up appointments with the surgeon, lived through the irrational phase and the anger at a prime consulting project being lost to me while I was recovering, but I know that he is really over this whole situation (and tired making grilled cheese sandwiches) – and is ready for me to be over it as well. 

I am insanely careful now about absolutely everything I do, what I put near my eyes, how I wash my face and every blinking light sends me into a near panic that my retina has torn again.  Starting back to the gym was supposed to be a chance to get back to healthy and expend some energy, have an outlet for my frustration (which led me to craft my resignation letter from a career I absolutely LOVE, although more rational thoughts prevailed before I managed to actually quit) and help me return to a more normal routine.  Instead, I found the gym fraught with danger.  Dirty sweaty people and their dirty sweat everywhere, equipment that could cause strain and rip my retina in half, cardio equipment that could cause serious damage if used too vigorously.  So, I walked – at a toddler’s pace – on the treadmill every time.  And today, at the height of frustration over EVERYTHING, I ran.  I just ran.  For 11 glorious minutes I ran at a steady rate on the treadmill, and you know what happened?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing happened.  My eye didn’t fall out of my head (a nightmare I had recently).  My eye didn’t feel any different.  My vision didn’t change.  I exerted myself outright and nothing broke or tore.  I didn’t see any flashes of light or feel any pain.  I sweated and it ran in both my eyes and I could feel the sting in them both – equally.  I wiped my face and eyes with my gym towel and I didn’t see anything any differently.  Absolutely nothing happened.  I was just the red-haired girl on the third treadmill in the really cool running shoes.  And just like that – I’m not a patient recovering from a scary medical situation that would have left me permanently blind; I’m just another runner with a goal and a long way to get there.

Enough with the unfortunate Jazzercise gaggle, I hit the treadmill feeling pretty confident and with new tunes on my iPod and set my goal for time instead of distance – because apparently distance is not supposed to matter again just yet.  So, I can’t really run yet, but should be able to walk at a good clip because no incline yet either.  One hour later and what have I managed…… barely 4 miles!  Complete and utter devastation.  My previous running times included just over a 12 mile run in less than 2.5 hours – I averaged better than a 12 minute mile in my runs, I was setting times for the NYC marathon.  Now…. I am moving a little slower than the toddler who lives next door. 

Aside from walking and stationery bike riding with no incline, I am now allowed to do crunches and lunges provided I use no weights.  Of all the horrific and in some instances, I believe, illegal things my trainer has made me do over the past year, crunches and lunges are the two I despise the most.  At least it is some where to start I guess.  I never would have believed I would miss the early morning (6 am) training sessions in the winter (temps below freezing) where I was hanging from the chin-up bar alternately quasi-crying and saying unkind things to (and about) my trainer, while he shrugged and calmly said, “You have to do 12 full pull-ups to complete this set” and then went back to texting his wife. Bu,t it turns out – those really WERE the good old days.

I enlisted our big dog – Henry (part Newfoundland, part something else large) to walk with me.  Turns out that even though Henry goes completely INSANE at the sight of his leash or the word W-A-L-K, or the word T-R-E-A-T, for that matter – he is all jumpy-jumpy and no stamina.  Henry is only 3 years old, really large and lives inside 24/7.  I constantly worry that Henry doesn’t get enough exercise and ma be he is depressed or maybe he is sick or maybe he is something else traumatic, because he lays and sleeps all over the house, all the time.  I had my husband take him to the vet before Christmas because I was convinced he was lethargic (I’m not sure how I could tell) and I thought he was definitely sick.  He was completely healthy – I called the vet twice to confirm this after my husband called me at work when he brought Henry back home.  The vet recommended that maybe I “ought not hover over him so  much and just let him be.”  He also reminded me that Henry was a dog.  Just to clarify – I am not crazy nor do I believe my dog is a child, but we adopted him from a shelter when he was a 9-month old, 75 pound puppy, who was just the saddest thing you have ever seen.  We were his third home in his short 9 months.  When we adopted him and took him to the vet, he needed heart worm medication and had an ear infection.  Since then, he has had a second ear infection, some sort of mystery shoulder issue and a very serious bladder infection that the vet believed could have been cancer on his first MRI.  The big dog gets sick in a big way.  This is really all random information, because the point is, I made Henry go with me on these walks, because I believe he will somehow be happier given then chance for more activity.  Yesterday we walked for an hour – the weather was nice, the trails are paved and smooth, Henry got to sniff whatever he wanted – it seemed ideal.  Except that he began to slow down considerably the more we walked and developed a limp before we got back home.  As soon as we go home, I worriedly looked at his feet, legs and hips, looking for any sign of swelling, injury, tenderness – while I did this, Henry layed in the middle of our bed under the ceiling fan chewing on his rawhide bone.  I realized that once we were back inside the house, the limp completely vanished.  He walked faster and wagged his tail.  Sadly, we have fallen victim to this ploy before.  We have a fenced back yard and in nice weather would make Henry go outside and spend a few hours outdoors in the sunshine and fresh air, with clean water.  He started to limp – frequently and it would get worse.  We made multiple vet visits, but they found absolutely nothing wrong.  We began to notice that the limping only began after he was refused entry back into the house and would go away as soon as he was allowed back in.  Pretty clever, because now we don’t make him stay outside for more than a potty break.  I decided to take Henry again today on the walk and he was all tail wagging and tree peeing for the first 20 minutes and then he turned around to go home.  I had planned to complete the full hour walk, because this is the only workout I am allowed right now.  Henry was not concered about my well-being.  When I wouldn’t walk back toward our house, but kept pulling on the leash to keep walking, he stopped completely and would not budge – and he’s rather heavy.  I commanded him to keep walking with me and he sat doen in the middle of the trail,  I commanded again and pulled a little on the leash and he layed down – all the way down – in the middle of the trail and looked away from me.  A man who was walking past, stopped to ask me if my dog was sick and when I replied, “No.  We were just going home.”  Henry hopped up and started walking toward our house, tail wagging happy once again.  

Today we did not complete the 60 minute walk and it has become clear that my dog wants no part of outdoor exercise.  

Today’s score:   Stacey – 0            Big Dog – 1

First Attempt – this was actually my best effort so far.  I had a really awesome trainer, who specialized in athletic training, which was exactly what I needed.  All was well and I was building the necessary strength in my core, back and arms,so that I could build distance, with a personal best of 12 miles, with a 12-minute mile average.  Then my trainer moved his family back to Oklahoma for personal reasons and I couldn’t find another trainer in my part of Nashville that could train for an athletic event.  I found several that were great with bored housewives, new mom’s looking to get back into (almost) pre-baby shape and older ladies looking to tone up.  So, I had a LONG break from training.

Second Attempt – I finally found a new trainer, got back on the wagon and then…..pneumonia.  I developed pneumonia while in Oregon on a work project.  I would like to take this time to once again apologize to the other 118 passengers on Southwest flight 961 from Portland, OR to Nashville.  And a very special apology to the gentleman who was forced to sit next to the sweaty, wheezey, coughing, flushed lady.  I had never had pneumonia, but it took me a really long time to get over it and my lungs messed up for months. 

Third Attempt – ready to get going again and then….my retina tore and detattched!  I had surgery and a ridiculous recovery and was just able to return to work last week. 

Fourth Attempt – starts tomorrow!  I feel a tiny bit jinxed given the details of the previous three failures, but I REALLY want to run this stupid marathon.  I was released by my retinal surgeon and am ready to try it again. 

I will keep you all posted on my progress and hopefully success.

Okay, before I can tell you about horrifying, death-defying Thursday morning work-out, I have to first tell you about Wednesday.  No morning workout, just regular work, for which I was late, then because I am the President of my HOA, I was verbally abused by two of the absolute worst people on the face of the earth – elderly bullies no less, then had an unexpected offsite meeting, which ended up being at a Starbucks across from a university campus and lasted for almost 6 HOURS!  Yes, 6 hours in a Starbucks, talking healthcare, and because I was in a Starbucks for 6 hours I ended up drinking 3 very venti cinnamon dolce lattes with Splenda.  By the end of the meeting at 6:10 pm, I was riding the strongest caffeine buzz of my life, complete with a screaming headache, limited patience and weird twitching.  Traffic was bumper-to-bumper because Justin Beiber was performing downtown, so it took me FOREVER to get home.  Of course, I couldn’t sleep and went to the gym early on Thursday morning in the throes of a massive caffeine-headache induced crash.  I tell this to new Trainer, as I am struggling to complete the first warm up pose, and then on the real work-out.  Trainer showed remarkably no empathy and started with a ridiculously hard first set – one-legged squats while standing on a bench, an even harder double crunch manuever, and then an outrageous something that I couldn’t even do.  My shoes kept sliding and my hips collapsed and my arms wouldn’t hold me.  I tried two reps and then turned to Trainer and requested a new exercise – twice.  By this point I am sweating cinnamon and Splenda and feel sort of queasy.  I’m sure you can see what’s coming next.  We move on to even more strenuous rounds and then it happens…. a desperate dash to the bathroom and vomit.  This is also where the swearing occurred.  Here is what always seems to surprise me – when I finally come back out of the bathroom, all sweaty and ragged – there is Trainer, waiting where we left off and begins counting out the reps I didn’t complete.  And that… was Thursday.

Craig, my original trainer, in an unbelievably selfish move, left for family ties and marital bliss in Oklahoma.  It’s hard to believe he would choose that over training a group of self-centered whiny women in Nashville, but that is exactly what happened.  So, I have a new trainer – although I’m not sure how he feels about having his good name slandered in this blog, so we will just call him Trainer from here forward.  Here’s what you need to know about Trainer – he has an extensive background in training and nutrition, is very kind, but very tough and doesn’t let me slack.  Also he doesn’t believe in the honor system where I am left to count my reps on my own, (of which I always shave off a few) – instead he counts for me and even adds extras – it typically goes something like this:

Me:  grunting, sweating, swearing quietly

Trainer: 4 – 3 – 2 – and 5 more, COME ON!

Me: grunting, sweating, swearing not as quietly, eye rolling

I don’t know new Trainer as well as I knew Craig, so I am still on my best company behavior – at least for right now. On the plus side, I have yet to see him pull out a stop watch, and force me to do reps while he pays attention to everything, but the stop watch.  I have been back in the gym for about 3 weeks now and it really sucks.  The biggest lie anyone will ever tell you?  Muscle memory.  I heard all about it and here is what I know for certain – my muscles have amnesia or quite possibly have slipped into a coma.  After my first session with Trainer, I spent the next five days with a horsey-walk because I couldn’t bend my legs properly without screaming out loud.  I dropped my favorite lipstick in the kitchen floor and cried because I knew that it was lost to me forever.  Anything farther away than my average length arms could reach from a fully upright position was out of the realm of possibility. 

I still want to run a marathon and fully intend to run the NYC marathon.  I am basically starting all over again from ground zero, or possibly a sub floor of ground zero.  I am traveling pretty frequently again and in fact spent six days in a row on the road just last week and actually went to the hotel gym Every. Single. Day.  In fact, it was two hotels in two states.  I hated every second of it and it was a tiny bit creepy at the hotel gym in Atlanta – even though it was a very high-end hotel in an affluent part of town.  Really the only creepy part was it overlooked a lower level roof and which appeared to be a breeding ground for pigeons and one of them seemed to be challenging me to some sort of duel.  At one point he pecked the double pane glass that separated us and I fled the treadmill and right out of the gym, leaving behind me iPod, water, phone, room key and towel.  Because I was standing alone in the hallway in my gym clothes and ear buds, without my key, I couldn’t get back into the hotel gym, nor could I get back into my room.  I had to call the front desk and wait for the security guard to come up and let me back in to collect my stuff.  I chose to remain stoic and not mention why I was sweaty and locked out in the hallway and the security guard chose not to ask.  I have to believe he has seen far more peculiar situations than mine – or maybe for $8 / hr, he doesn’t feel compelled to become involved in my life.  I head back out on Sunday and plan to pack my gym clothes and make treadmill magic happen again – 1,100 miles from home.

I show up at the gym again today with my new yellow and white Nike Turmoil Shox running shoes and my new “moisture-wicking” shirt – which my husband seems to believe will give me supernatural abilities and I climbed on the treadmill ready to run!  And then I just walked and it was much harder than it sounds.  I did manage to work up a teeny tiny run, which was oh so embarassing when I realized just how out of breath and sweaty I was when I cranked the treadmill back down to a slow walk.  While I won’t be able to qualify for the full NYC marathon, I still have a chance to qualify for the half marathon in November, which is a new and rather optomistic goal.  The only problem is, the NYC half-marathon is for runners, not sweaty, red-faced, hunched over with a pain in my side girls with really cool shoes.  I managed 30 sweaty minutes on the treadmill, followed by 30 angry minutes on the bike and then I went home and forced my dog Henry on a 40 minutes trail walk because I am desperate to increase my stamina and distance. 

I keep hearing all of the mumbo-jumbo about “muscle-memory” or as I think of it, “Just a big fat lie from a really fit person”, and I can’t help but wonder what my muscles remember.  It is not my previous best run of more than 12 miles or my personal best times of less than 2.5 hours.  My muscles do seem to remember how to work the ice cream carton and spoon and they most definitely remember how to lie very still for long periods of time – neither of these are especially helpful for the whole running scenario.  Oh well, I’ll keep you posted – I am back in the gym tomorrow.

Here is what’s been happening since February 4th:

• Been traveling quite a bit for work and avoiding the gym in several states and time zones.  Really nice ones too – think high-end Hiltons.
• Went to New Jersey twice for work.  Seriously, I’m not really gettimg why those people don’t move away.  The train tickets are really cheap and you can leave the state in, like, half an hour.  I am also certain it is the birthplace of AquaNet. 
• Things at work seem to be recovering from last year’s economic implosion, which is a relief.  I met (and exceded) my billable hour goal for the first quarter – so huge sigh of relief.
• I got sick during a work project in Oregon and ended up with pneumonia – from which I am still recovering.  I have been sick for about a month now, but am (finally) back to work and no longer infectious – so huge HOORAY for me.
• I sweated, coughed and blew my nose for the ENTIRE 6 hours of flying time home from Oregon.  You’re welcome Southwest flyers. 
• While I was home sick I discovered that if you have DirecTV there is at Law & Order marathon on every single day on at least one chanel.
• It is very confusing and unsettling if you go to sleep during the investigation of one case and wake up during the trial of a completely different episode. 
• I am finally well enough to go back to the gym, which I did for the first time today.

 I was actually excited about going back to the gym – mostly because to celebrate my return I purchased two new pairs of running shoes and two new work-out shirts yesterday, but also a little bit because I feel really crappy and believe a significant part of that stems from lack of true physical extertion.  My new shirt and shoe excitement wore off about 4 minutes into my workout when the person two treadmills down from me had on the exact same pair of Nike yellow and white ultimate Shox.  Kind of not fair. 

Turns out when you don’t go to the gym for two and a half months, become stricken with pneumonia and are forced to take daily steroids to heal your “wet” lungs, it’s kind of hard to get back into your routine.  I managed to walk on the treadmill – even up hill and at a rapid pace for a tiny bit of time, but I was never able to break into a run.  I think I got close once to a run, but then it just sort of went away.  I also only managed about 40 minutes and then I thought I was going to pass out from the burning lungs and utter embarrassment at my lack of stamina.  My plan is to go to the gym on my own 4 – 5 days a week until June and then resume work outs with my trainer. in addition to the cardio – I’ll keep you posted on how that turns out.  I am also planning to move my gym time to early in the morning, as that seems to work out best for me – I have so many clients on the west coast that no one looks for me now until 10 am, but are still calling me at 6 pm. 

One final note – I would like to post an anonymous comment to the woman who was two treadmills down from me.  FYI lady in the spandex top and basketball shorts:  when you put on enough White Diamonds to make Elizabeth Taylor cry – THAT’S ENOUGH!  And thanks again for bringing it to the gym.

For starters, I am so ridiculously sore (still) from Tuesday, that I have a weird jerky Frankenstein walk going on.  My leg muscles feel like they seize up when I sit down and my abs are so sore that it is hard to stand up completely straight – so between the stiff straight legs and the weirdly-bent-at-the-abs posture, it forces my arms to move in odd jerky movements.  I was expecting villagers to rush me with torches at any minute.  Depsite this situation, I did get up early and went to the gym.

We started with the odd little 3-minutes of yoga, which still perplexes me and I spent way too much time thinking about it after it is over.  We started out with sets that involved multiple motions and squats for each exercise – meaning things that require coordination.  For anyone who knows me – I am a bit challenged in the “natural grace” department.  You know how hospital’s have the pain scale from 1 – 10 with the faces to judge – so for a score of 1 there is the little roud facing smiling broadly and for a 10 the face is crying and the mouth is turned all the way down and it appears to be shaking a bit?  Well, if there were a “natural grace” scale with a 10 being a ballerina mid-jump elegantly extended and a 1 being the girl crumpled at the bottom of the stairs with food on her shirt and a shoe missing – I would be right under the girl at the bottom of the stairs, with gum in my hair.  So, essentially, every time the exercise has multiple parts, I have to be shown repeatedly how to do them – REPEATEDLY.  I don’t think New Trainer is fond of this particular affliction. 

I managed to struggle through the first hideous multi-part round of exercises, with minimal face-making – keep in mind it is only my second session, so I am still on my best behavior.  Which, by the way, is a work-out on its’ own.  Then this happens:

New Trainer:  Are you ready for the fun stuff?

Me:  I don’t know.  The last time I heard that I ended up on that horrible machine that has actual elevator like stairs that you climb and I nearly fell off – twice.

New Trainer:  Huh.  Well, here’s what we are going to do………. (and he goes on to detail some sort of horrific multi-part exercises that I will explain later, but they are called the Superman – guess who’s not a super hero?)

Me:  Is this negotiable?

New Trainer: (He looks comfused, surprised and possibly a tiny bit offended and then very queitly says) No

Me: mental eye-roll, inside sigh, silent swearing

This went on the FULL 60 minutes.  I am nearly crippled at this point.  I got stuck in my office chair today when my legs muscles refused to unlock so I could stand up and I called my dogs to come and eat the cheese cubes and pecans I knocked off the counter, because I couldn’t bend over to clean them up.  I am set to run on Saturday – I can’t imagine how that’s going to work, but I will keep you posted.

7:25 am – warm up a little bit on the eliptical. 

7:27 am – feeling good, glad to be back.  My favorite workout partner and I are on the same schedule again.  This should be fun.

7:35 am – begin with yoga poses mini-warm-up (I know, it IS kind of odd. And as an FYI – I don’t like yoga.  I took lessons for a short time and the only part I enjoyed or found benefit in was the part at the very end where you lay on your back and look at the ceiling)

7:45 am – still thinking about the yoga warm-up – it perplexes me.

7:47 am – WTF???  Why is my set of 4 exercises straight from the Marine training guide?  And why are there 4 instead of the usual and standard 3 rotations? 

7:55 am – maybe the next set will be better. 

7:56 am – Oh SO much worse. A squat while lifting the weight bar over your head for 25 reps, then followed by side-squats while holding a weighted ball, 15 reps on each side – each time, plus something else.   I can practically hear “Eye of the Tiger” playing in the background.

8:05 am – VOMIT.  That’s right – on the VERY FIRST day.  I ultimately blame Craig.

8:15 am – Right back to the same excercise I fled from mid-count to vomit violently and we pick back up to complete the 10 I didn’t finish prior to previously mentioned near death experience.

8:16 am – Continue training “Million Dollar Baby” style

8:25 am – Nope, not finishing a minute early.  We are now lifting more heavy things over our heads, broken up my double crunches.  Still hearing the Rocky music eminating from this workout.

8:32 am – Drag myself to my car with promises of returning on Thursday morning.

What’s in store for me next session you ask?  Probably shadow boxing with Mr. T.