I'm feeling like this marathon is going to happen

My foot feels good. I haven't ran in over a week, but I haven't had it hurt since Tuesday night. The medicine that the doctor gave me was basically a pain killer which means that it is sedating the pain, but not fixing what was the problem. I'm hoping that time is healing the problem. I have a doctor appointment with the orthopedic surgeon on Wednesday morning and they will tell me whether I can run or not. I am thinking that since I don't have pain when I move my foot around and haven't had any pain for awhile, then I should be able to run it.
Another good point that I have to work with is the fact that I am not running this race to win it. I am doing it to finish. As long as I keep up a 17 minute mile pace, I'm good. I plan to go much faster than that, but if it is necessary with injury it is there. (Matt, I'm not planning on taking up that time. That would be horrible!)
All that awaits is my Wednesday morning appointment with the doctor to tell me if it can happen or not. I'm hoping for yes.

Setback?

I am writing this post worried about my foot and my ankle. As some of you know I have a marathon coming up in a little less than a week. Last weekend I had an 18 mile run. It went well the first half, but terrible the second half. My foot started hurting a little bit at the beginning, then it got worse as it went along. I was hoping that tylenol and advil would help to get rid of the pain, but it is only getting worse. I am steps away from accepting crutches to make walking easier. (this is only at certain times, it isn't that bad all of the tiem) I have a doctor appointment scheduled for 4:15 today and I am hoping that they will give me some quick fix to make it go away. I want to be able to do this marathon with Matt and am going to do as much as I can to be able to do that, but if they say I can't run, then I can't run. Please pray for me if you read this anytime soon before the appointment.

***Update***
I went to the doctor. She didn't give me too much to work with yet. She did send me to get x-rays and I will hear back about those tomorrow. She thought it might be a stress fracture. I was told to wait on running until the x-rays come in. I'm hoping that results come back with good news. She did prescribe me a pain medicine that I have to take twice a day. I'm hoping that helps out with the pain I've got right now.

Goal #25 has been selected

I picked a new goal #25. I don't know why I dragged my feet so long picking a new #25, but I did it. I looked over some of the suggestions that were given and decided I wanted to cook a turkey dinner. Turkey's are really well priced right now and I picked one up. I am thinking I will be waiting until January to cook the dinner, so I have got some time to do some planning. It will be a complete turkey dinner. I am not sure what the sides will be yet, (I'm sure Matt will make a comment for some suggestions) but we will see what comes up in the next month or two. I have never cooked a turkey dinner before. Actually, before I started my list, I hadn't cooked much at all before. Melissa says I am doing pretty well, but I think she would say that no matter what because then she isn't responsible for dinner.

I will give credit to Gretchen for this suggestion. Now I will need to do some looking over of my goals and see if I there are any other ones I need to change-up.

100 more to go!

I wore a tie to school yesterday. It is the 14th week of school which makes the 14th week I have worn a tie. I counted out how many weeks it would be until the 1001 days are over and I counted 114 weeks that I would be in school. I have worn a tie more times than just the 14, but the goal is written to wear one each week. I like this goal. It helps me to make sure that I am looking more professional and it gives me a chance to wear all of the ties and shirts that I have collected over the years.
When I wore a tie in the past it was a strange occurrence. People would ask what the occasion was and I had my standard reply, "I've got an interview today." Now, people don't ask anymore. I like it that way. To answer the question that many of you reading might be wondering....I don't have any interviews in the works. It's just fun to tell that to your boss. Try it some time.

Family Visit

My brother's family came and visited this weekend. It was a good time. They came down just in time for dinner on Friday and left not too long ago today (Sunday). We had fun. It was pretty busy.

Here are some highlights:

• We played Settler's of Catan Friday night
• Matt and I went on a 15 mile run Saturday morning
  
• Matt has a watch that judges distances and we confirmed that one lap around ACS is .26 miles. As we hit the mark, we both apologized to our former PE teachers for questioning their measurements.
• The girls got to go out shopping and left the boys to care for the girls.
  
• I had a chance to hold Calvin.
  
• Matt and I went with Casey and saw ACS win another playoff game 24-17. It was an awesome game!
• We had the Hartman family over for lunch after church. It was fun to see all the kids run around together.

We had a really fun time this weekend. Melissa and I are really looking forward to this holiday season coming up because we will have more chances to see Matt, Gretchen, Lilly, Calvin and Wrigley.

I want to learn Spanish

So goal number 29 for me is to learn Spanish. I have wanted to learn Spanish ever since I began teaching. I have bought some books over the years. I have a dictionary. I have listened to Spanish radio (although it was only a couple of times). The latest thing that I have done is to download some podcasts to be able to listen to while running. I have not really gotten anywhere yet.
The reason I took on this goal was because I live in Aurora. The Spanish population in Aurora is growing every day and the reasons to learn Spanish are increasing just as quickly. As a teacher, there are many reasons to be able to speak more than one language. I have already been able to share sign language with some of my students and I would like to be able to do the same thing with the Spanish language.
I ran across a little problem today with this goal. I was perusing through the internet and went to a site that I have grown to enjoy quite a bit. The site is titled Stuff White People Like. The site is supposed to be a guide for any non-white people to know how white people get by. There are many things in this site that I relate to a lot, but I got worried when I stumbled onto #115. Read it. I need to get beyond just the thought of learning Spanish and actually do it. I need to get by just the idea of learning the language and to actually know the language.

Not fun moments today

I didn't have the best day off today. I woke up, put my 3 miles in running and took care of the girls in the morning. (this part was fine, I enjoyed being with them the morning rather than just running off to work) All morning while I was doing things, I had a stinging feeling on my tongue. That had started on Sunday and progressively got worse. Today was the day that I needed to get something done about it. After consulting WebMD, Melissa and I decided that I needed to go see my dentist.
After looking at my tongue for a couple of minutes, the dentist said that she was pretty sure it wasn't cancer! Although I wasn't expecting to hear those words, I was glad to hear it wasn't cancer. After she said that, I started to think, "Should I be more worried about this?" From that moment on, I was more worried. After talking to the dentist a little more, she said I should go to see my physician to get an opinion from there. I called there right after I left and they set an appointment up for about an hour later. I didn't get much out of that appointment. The doctor said that there was a chance that I had hand-foot-mouth disease, (I mentioned earlier that we thought Madeline had it and she went with that as a diagnosis). She said it looked different from anything that she had seen before and didn't know what to do for me. She wanted to get a second opinion before treating it and she sent me to a ear-nose-throat doctor. At this point I was getting more worried.
At this doctor, the first thing he said after looking at my tongue is that he was sure it wasn't herpes! First cancer was ruled out, now herpes. What an interesting day. He finally came down with the diagnosis that it was most likely a salivary gland issue and that it needed to be flushed out. That was a good thing to hear. All it takes to fix it is some lemons, some mouthwash, and a prescription mouth cleanse. After spending some time with that treatment, my tongue is feeling better. Unfortunately, it took my entire morning and some of the afternoon to get that all settled. At least it is getting better. I'm hoping that tomorrow morning that I have even less discomfort. We'll see how it all goes.
***Additional note: I picked up my prescription this morning. The medical term for the prescription is "Magic Mouth Wash". I looked at the bottle and saw that and wondered why a pharmicist was giving it out. I thought the criteria to get a drug in the pharmacy was that it had to at least have one "x" in it or something strange with the lettering. I took it when I got to schol and realized right then what the magic was. My mouth went numb instantly. I felt like I just got a shot of novicaine at the dentist. It stayed pretty numb for about an hour. I didn't dare drink any water or anything during that time for fear that I would drool all over myself.
For the record, my tongue is feeling a lot better. It's not perfect, but I don't think I am going to need that follow up appointment. We will have to wait and see in a few days how it is feeling though before making the real decision.

The Aurora Christian Tour

Today I got to run 14 miles. I did the Aurora Christian Tour. That constituted of me running by all three Aurora Christian Schools. I started off heading over to "The Big School." This school is no longer an Aurora Christian School, but was the place that I went for 8 years so I still consider it Aurora Christian. When I got there, I did four laps around the block. I did this because this is what I remember from running when I was younger. 4 laps apparently constituted as a mile. I don't think it really was that long, I think it is farther, at least I hope it was, it felt like forever for me to get through. As I was running around, I kept thinking about how many memories I had in that building. It was a fun bit of time for me. After I got done with Aurora Christian #1, I headed over to the Aurora University area. I got to run by the Hartman's old house. It hadn't changed too much from how I remember it. The trees are a bit bigger and there were some bigger plants, but that's all that seemed different. I ran by Aurora University, then headed to the new Aurora Christian campus that is on Sullivan Rd. It was quite a few miles away. By the time I made it over there, I was excited to run by the football field. My pride came out as I was imagining the 28-20 victory the team had last night over Coal City. A couple more victories and ACS will be the 4A state champs. I'm hoping to see the game next week against Driscol with my brother. Getting back on track...after my jog past I was in the home stretch. The ACS elementary school is on my way home. As I ran by the school, I imagined me as a kindergartner going there. It was a good thought. Oh how long ago that was.
Now that I have given the tour for my run, now for the details for how it went.
The run was horrible! I was really struggling throughout. I probably stopped to walk 8-10 times. The only reason I let myself walk was because I knew that for the marathon we will be walking as well. It was tough. Matt, I really needed you at times to get me through. I'm looking forward to doing some runs with you over the next few weeks. I'm going to need you!

11. Run a mile in under 7 minutes

It wasn't pretty but I did it. I woke up a little late today and didn't know if I could get my whole 3 miles in. I decided that doing only one mile quick would be doable. I figured if the options were either running fast or not running at all, I should at least just do the fast running. Today, I had to vote and get to school by 8:00. I accomplished all of those tasks.
I used this website to help gauge what a mile was. I found a spot that I could loop around and get back to the front of my house and it be a complete mile. Now, I don't know if it was correctly 5,280 feet, but it was close enough. I don't know any other way to really get a full mile measured totally correct unless I just found a high school track to run on. I didn't want to do that, so this is as good as I could get. When I started running, I was curious if my pace was too fast or not fast enough. On my training runs, I lumber along at a steady 10 minute mile. That isn't exactly break-neck speed. I don't know how to run fast anymore, that is how I felt as I was running today. I made it to the end of the block and my breathing was pretty strong. I ran a couple more blocks and finally got to my halfway point. I looked at my watch and saw that I was at 3:26. I was pretty nervous at this point that I wouldn't be able to do it. I found myself breathing harder than I had in a long time, including after my marathon. When I hit the home stretch that I could see my house, I saw my watch and knew I didn't have a ton of time to get there. Finally, I made it to the house, stopped my watch and read it saying 6:54. I was hoping for something much better, but I'll take what I got.
I don't know if I should be proud or sad. I finished the goal in one shot. I probably should have set the goal for a better time than it was, but I don't know how I could get it much better without doing some speed training, which I'm not up for doing at this point. Oh well,
Another goal accomplished!

What a waste of daylight saving time!

I ran this morning. I didn't get to enjoy the glorious feelings that so many others did by sleeping in. I should have ran yesterday, but we had an event at church that I wanted to be part of. Had I ran yesterday, I would have had to start running at around 5:00 a.m. and that didn't seem like the greatest way to start off my Saturday, so I delayed it to today. I enjoyed the run. The weather was great. It was like 40 out when I left and only got warmer. I ran a few routes that I had never ran before. It was nice to venture out and run in some different places. The cool thing about my run this morning is when I started, there were no cars out on the road at all. I ran through downtown Aurora and the only car that was out was a parked police car. I ran the east side of Aurora for awhile first, then I ventured over to the west side after I got tired of carrying my gloves and hat. After tossing my stuff on the front stoop, I had a few miles to still do. I finished pretty strong on the run and that felt good.
I put some Dane Cook on while I ran. It was a pretty poor choice of track for having something spiritual to think of during my almost two hours of pounding pavement. I did find myself laughing out loud while running. At these times I was happy that there were no cars or people out on the roads.
I had a good time running. Right now, I'm not ready to get out and do the complete marathon yet, but I'm getting closer. I am excited about getting another race under my belt. After talking to Matt about his marathon he did today, I am really excited about doing the race with him. We've got a few weeks left. I have got to say, I am really looking forward to this one.