This weekend kind of flew by in a blur. They typically do, though. If only the work week would, too….

I started off Saturday with an early wake up call to head up to Roanoke for the Frozen Toe 10K. It was very true to it’s name, as the “feels like” temperature at the start of the race was 8 degrees. I’ll have full recap up of the race on Wednesday, but in the meantime here’s a photo from the race.

After the race I headed back home to grab a quick shower and eat some lunch. Then it was back on the road again to head up to my Dad’s house for an overnight visit. I went up this weekend for part 1 (of 2) of having a crown put on the tooth that I had to have a root canal on last week. I decided to drive up there to have it done since my uncle is my regular dentist, and I’m most comfortable with him. The whole process of “prepping” the tooth for the crown was a bit painful, but now I have a temporary crown on it and it’s feeling better. In two weeks or so I’ll head back up to have a permanent crown put on. Then this whole thing should be over!

I did do some fun things, all involving food, while visiting. On Saturday night my little sister and I went out to dinner with my uncles and my cousin (who also happened to be in the town for the weekend, non-dentist related). We ate at a Mediterranean restaurant and the food was delicious. I was torn between a Greek salad and a lamb gyro, and I ended up going with the gyro. No pictures, but I’m definitely going back sometime! Then on Sunday morning I went to breakfast at a diner with my Dad and his girlfriend, my cousin, and my uncles. I had a delicious spinach, feta, and tomato omelette (I was still feeling the Greek-style food). This time I did take a picture.

From there I headed over my uncle’s office to have my tooth worked on. Once all of that was done I went back to my Dad’s house and hung out with him and my sister for a bit before hitting the road to head home. I got home around 6:30, but I felt like it was 10. I got a bunch of laundry done and snuck in a Jillian workout before bed.

All in all, I spent about 11 hours on the highway this weekend. Whew! I’m looking forward to the 4 day weekend I have at the end of this week.

What did you do this weekend?
When you go out for breakfast, what do you like to get? I’m always so torn between a waffle / French toast / pancakes or an omelette!
Anyone else race this weekend?

TGIF! First full week back to work nearly complete, and what a week it’s been. Tomorrow I have my first race of 2015. It’s the Frozen Toe 10K, a trail race that’s the first in the trail series I signed up for this spring. I’m not expecting much from this race, as my running has been very minimal and sporadic since the Marine Corps Marathon. It’s all due to a combination of unfortunate events and then the holidays.

On my first run post-marathon, I rolled my ankle which caused me to miss about a week of running due to pain in my foot (oddly enough, the ankle itself didn’t hurt). My running was on and off after that, as I tried to return to a regular schedule and then would have to take a few days off because the foot felt off still. In early December I made another attempt at returning to running, and ran the Frosty 5K on a rainy, cold day. The next day I came down with a bad sinus infection that lasted nearly 3 weeks, with my worst and longest lasting symptom being chest congestion. So that again limited my running, and most other forms of exercise too.

Then the holidays arrived, and I found myself very busy during the week and out of town every weekend. Could I have carved out some time to run? Yes, probably. But I didn’t and that’s on me. Finally, at the end of December began the epic tooth adventure. I was able to run 4 days last week, but by this past weekend I was in too much pain to do much of anything other than keep breathing. Luckily, that got resolved earlier this week. And now it’s race weekend. As you can see, my whole situation hasn’t been ideal since early November.

This week I was able to get in one run yesterday on the treadmill. I would have liked one last jaunt on trails, but it was unbelievably cold. As in you needed to dress like the kid from ‘A Christmas Story’ to survive. So I decided a 3 mile run on the treadmill would suffice, and it felt pretty good. I was still having some throbbing-type pain from Tuesday’s root canal, but I think I’ll be good to go tomorrow.

This is random, but running-related. My new running log for this year arrived yesterday evening. Unfortunately, Runner’s World stopped making the old running log that I’ve used for seven years (at least I couldn’t find them anywhere online). So I had to find a new one, and this is the one that I liked best. I hate that I had to switch, though.

We’ll see how tomorrow goes. My expectations aren’t too high, but maybe I’ll surprise myself. I am excited for the race, I’m just not sure how happy I may be during the it! 🙂

Do you use an exercise log to track your workouts? If so, is it paper or electronic?
Did you workout routine survive the holidays?

I wasn’t going to post about this, but now I am. I’ve mentioned it briefly and then not-so-briefly, but now you’re going to get the full story – and it’s a long one.

It all started with a trip to the dentist last Monday, December 29. Despite the dentist being my uncle, it still makes me very anxious just to go get my teeth cleaned. Every year I dread it, but every year I survive and squeak by without any cavities. Until this year. I had a tooth that had been bothering me for a few months. Nothing terrible, just minor sensitivity to hot and cold. I told my uncle about it so he took a look at the tooth before doing the regular cleaning stuff. It didn’t show any signs of decay and nothing happened, except for some minor discomfort, when he poked it with the pokey stick thing they use. So he told me the tooth was probably just getting a bit sensitive as I got older, and that he didn’t think there was actually anything wrong. He took x-rays just to be safe and went on with the cleaning.

You know it’s never a good sign when your dentist looks at your x-ray and says “oh, boy.” It’s also not a good sign when your dentist tells you that you need to move to another room, because he doesn’t have all the equipment he needs in his regular room. Both of those things happened after he looked at my x-ray. Turns out I had somehow managed to develop a large “void” in the middle of my tooth.

So I got to experience my first cavity drilling and filling. Not a lot of fun, and somewhat painful. I’m a bit sensitive to stuff in my mouth to begin with, and apparently the location of the damage in the tooth caused me to experience a deep pinching-type pain during the filling. When he finished I thought “well, I survived and it’s over.” Boy was I wrong. Things were just getting started.

The Novocain wore off a few hours after getting home from the dentist. That’s when the aching, throbbing pain started. It was tolerable, but it was not pleasant. I spent a large portion of the late morning and afternoon bumming around on the couch. Barry has had a few cavities and fillings before, and he had never experienced discomfort like that afterwards, so I figured I was just being a baby.

I felt a bit better on Tuesday and thought the whole ordeal was over. But the throbbing pain came back by Tuesday evening and persisted off and on. Sometimes it would get really intense, and by Thursday I had realized cold things triggered it. So I started avoiding all things cold, except running outside in the cold. My tooth, and the surrounding area, would throb during every run in the cold air. It was only mild, but when I finished running and got back in the car the throbbing would get so bad I would nearly be in tears.

I had been taking over the counter pain meds, and using Orajel and Anbesol (topical gels used for tooth/mouth pain), but they weren’t helping much. On Saturday morning the pain became bad enough to wake me up between 2:30 and 3:00 in the morning.

After my long run on Saturday morning, the pain became so intense on the drive home that I finally contacted my uncle about it. Why I waited until then, I have no idea. I tend to take the approach to pain and illness of “ignore it and it will go away” which can often be dumb. He asked a few questions about the pain, what triggered it, etc. and then put me on a Ibuprofen regimen three times per day.

He stated that the damage in my tooth was deep and that the nerve was reacting adversely to the filling. It had become swollen, but since the nerve canal is very narrow the swollen nerve was being pinched, which was causing the pain. The hope was that 24-36 hours of Ibuprofen would allow the nerve to settle down.

It did seem to help at first, but then the pain came back. Oddly enough, by Sunday afternoon I found that the trigger for the pain had switched to hot stuff. Sunday night and all day Monday, the only thing that soothed the throbbing was sipping on cold water. So I spent all day Monday sipping cold water literally every 30 seconds to two minutes to keep the throbbing and often burning pain at bay. I couldn’t get more than 10 feet from a bathroom all day, but at least I was hydrated, right? Later that evening Barry cautioned me to be careful about how much water I consumed. I had completely forgotten about the dangers of overhydrating, and spent the rest of the night worrying about hyponatremia on top of everything else. So I started spitting out the water instead of swallowing it. (Side note: I think it takes a lot of water- like 6 gallons- in a very short period of time to develop non-exercise related hyponatremia.)  

I pretty much didn’t sleep at all Monday night. The only way I could control the pain was to hold cold water in my mouth. Every time I tried to fall asleep the pain would become so intense I’d have no choice but to sip more water. I kept drifting off with water in my mouth, would spill the water on myself, and then would immediately wake up and be in pain again. It was a fun cycle I did from 2:30 to 6:30 AM.

Yesterday I made it through a half day at work before I was in tears (literally) and drove home to finish my work day in my home office. I hadn’t been able to eat anything all day. I called my uncle, who called a type of specialist called an endodentist, who was able to fit me yesterday evening. A lot of you probably already guessed where this was headed. Yep, I went straight from my first cavity to my first root canal.

 

So I got to the specialist yesterday evening. They stayed late for me, for which I was extremely appreciative. I thanked each of them. By this point I was having to sip ice cold water (no longer just ice water) and needed a fresh sip every 30 seconds. I really don’t think I could have survived another night. As soon as the specialist came in the room and saw me holding the ice water he said “irreversible pulpitis.” Which means the soft inner part of my tooth was inflamed and the nerve was in the process of dying.

Apparently at first when you have the reversible kind of pulpitis (when your nerve is trying to save itself) you are sensitive to cold and hot is soothing. That’s where I was early last week. Then when it switches to irreversible pulpitis (when the nerve begins to die) you are sensitive to hot, but cold is soothing. I was almost at the end of this nerve dying process, and had it actually died my tooth would have been considered dead as well. The danger with this is then I’m going down the road towards developing a bad infection.

I was pretty nervous about having a root canal, but it wasn’t awful. It was a bit uncomfortable and not all that pleasant (you hear a lot of scary noises), but they numbed me up really well beforehand so I never felt pain. The dentist and his assistant were both great and switched from casual conversation to letting me know what was going on. When I heard something scary or saw something I didn’t want to see (like some of the tools) I just stared at the ceiling and tried to think about something else. It took about 2 hours, and then it was done.

Now I am back to normal. This morning I have a dull, throbbing headache that extends down to my left jaw. But it’s not awful, and it’s a thousand times less painful that how I felt before the root canal. I’m taking some ibuprofen for it, but I probably won’t even need to do that after today. I’m also on antibiotics for a few days to prevent any infection, since there’s a risk of bacteria getting into the bone above the tooth during the procedure.

All in all, the pain beforehand was some of the worst I’ve experienced. The root canal was not awful, but I’m also hoping not to do it again. Hopefully I’ll never have another cavity, either, because if I do I’m going to be afraid all of this will happen again. Other than that, this journey (and very long post) is pretty much over. I still need to go back to my regular dentist to get a crown put on the tooth. But it’s sealed for now and I just have to be careful not to bite anything hard on that side so as not to mess up the filling. Here’s to that being my first and last root canal!

Have you ever had a root canal?

I’m back to work today after a glorious ten days off. Boo. Why does vacation fly by so fast? Instead of complaining more, I’ll share a recap from my longer trail run from Saturday morning. Heads up! There is a picture of a small amount of blood at the end of this post. Also, there are lots of pictures in general!

This past Saturday Barry and I were up bright and early to head up to Pandapas Pond to run on some trails through the Jefferson National Forest. We had planned to head out early because we needed to be home by 10, so I had my alarm set for 5:45 AM. But as it turns out I was tossing and turning from about 3:00 AM on and finally got up around 4:30 for good. I didn’t mention it last week when I said I had my first cavity and filling, but my tooth and mouth had actually been throbbing since my trip to the dentist last Monday (12/29). I have since begun an ibuprofen regimen (under dentist’s orders) in the hopes that the nerve in my tooth will calm down so that I don’t have to pursue further treatment. Anyway, by the time we arrived at Pandapas I was about ready to go back to bed. Not to mention it was pouring and around 36 degrees.

But we had plans for a run, and the weather wasn’t going to stop us. Luckily, the rain briefly stopped after we started running. From there on, it only rained lightly on and off the rest of the morning. The first thing I did was head over to the pond to hit the restroom prior to my run.

From the pond, I headed over to Horst Nettle Trail for an out and back run up Brush Mountain. I’ve done this run a few times, now, and just like the very first time I had to mix in a fair amount of hiking on the way up. I’m sure my strength will come back soon, though!

It was very wet and muddy on the trails, and at times my feet were slipping and sliding out from under me. I managed to stay upright the entire run, though. It also got foggier and foggier as my elevation increased.

At times, I had maybe 10 feet of visibility in any direction as I ran along the trail and the gravel fire road. Barry was running separate from me, and despite there being a few other cars in the parking lot I never saw anyone else. It was kind of spooky! Here’s a comparison photo of the view from the fire tower on a clear day and how it looked on Saturday.

Shortly after passing the fire tower I made it to the very top of Brush Mountain and was a little over halfway through my run (thanks to the detour to the pond at the beginning). It was much colder up there than it had been in the parking lot, and everything was all icy. The fog and mist floating around made it look like the mountain was on fire.

Before heading back down the mountain I had a salted caramel GU. I hadn’t had one of those since the Marine Corps Marathon, and I forgot how delicious they are. Yum!

After enjoying that deliciousness it was time to head back down. There are still some hills on the way down, because the first mile or so is on a fire road that undulates, but it’s pretty much a net downhill.

The fire road was still super foggy on the way back down, even though it was starting to get a lot lighter outside. Here’s another comparison, this time of the fire road on a clear day versus Saturday.

Wouldn’t that give you the creeps? I kept waiting for someone to appear out of the fog and startle me, but it never happened. Good opportunity to not get “caught” taking a selfie, at least!

As usual, the trip down was much quicker than the way up. It was more interesting than it has been in the past, though, because my feet would often slip a few inches in the mud with each footfall.

Finally, I made it back onto the main path that connects Horse Nettle Trail to the parking lot. There’s one last little hill back up to the lot that always feels tougher than it really is. My legs were pretty tired!

I met back up with Barry at the parking lot, arriving a few minutes after when I was supposed to be back. I’ll blame that one on my side trip to the pond at the beginning of the run. My shoes and lower legs were really muddy and soaking wet. The picture doesn’t do it justice.

As I was checking out all of the mud on my legs, I found something else I had no idea about…

Oops! It turns out the mud and wet caused my right sock to ride down on my shoe, and my Achilles got rubbed raw. The crazy part is I didn’t feel it at all while running. I guess because it was cold enough that my feet and ankles were numb the whole time. I definitely felt it in the shower later, though!

All in all, I logged 18 miles last week with my return to regular running. I’m glad I was able to sneak in one longer trail run before this weekend’s 10K trail race. Hopefully I will survive! I think it’s going to be a tough one, but there will be plenty of room for improvement as I continue with the trail series races this spring.

What adventures did you get into this weekend?

So far I have been using my last days off of work wisely, which means getting lots of things done around the house (which is not so fun) and getting some running done (which has been fun and challenging). As for the latter, it feels pretty good to be back in my running shoes – specifically my trail shoes.

On Wednesday afternoon (New Years Eve) I made my way over to Claytor Lake State Park and completed my final run of 2014. I ran 4 miles on trails, which was refreshing but also pretty tough. It was a really crisp day, with the temperature hovering just below freezing. My legs actually felt pretty good, but my lungs were having a tough time. It just felt like I couldn’t get a deep breath in, and by the end of the run I was coughing a lot and wheezing both when I breathed in and when I breathed out. I think it’s mostly a combination of being out of shape and the cold air.

Nevertheless, the trails were beautiful as always.

Yesterday afternoon (New Year’s Day) I met up with Kim to ring in the New Year with a run on the Dora Trail. Technically this does count as trail running, since the trail is crushed gravel after the first 0.8 miles. Probably not the type of trails I’ll see during the RNUTS series, but miles are miles and I need all the miles I can get. We ran a total of 5 miles and it felt good.

I’ve got plans to meet up with Kim again today for a short run. This weekend, Barry and I have plans to do a longer mountain-y trail run. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve tackled elevation like that. I know it will be tough, but I’m also really looking forward to it! I hope everyone had a great New Year’s and that 2015 is off to a good start.

How is 2015 going so far for you?