Ahhhhh Winter in the Northeast... nothing like 36 inches of snow to close-out 2010! Woke this morning at 6:48am to my son yelling for me: "Mommy, I all done... where are you mommy?" This is his signature call in the morning letting me know that he is all done sleeping and ready to play. Being a nice wife, I let my husband sleep-in (well, partly because I'm nice and mostly because I wanted to run this morning and if I let him sleep-in then I would get to run when he woke up). And I did get a chance to run and my personal challenge was to kick-up the treadmill to 6mph to see what a 10-minute mile felt like. Now, this was not stemming from my competitive spirit. It was more inspiration I got from reading a whole bunch of runner blogs yesterday (thanks for the inspiration everyone!). So, for 10 minutes, I alternated every 2 minutes between 13-minute pace and 10-minute pace. It felt awesome, but not something I'll do soon because my knee is now killing me. (Today's run log: 2miles in 24:30minutes).
Oh, a little background on my knee... I went to a specialist 3 years ago for help with my knee. She took x-rays and said that I had the knee of a 60 year old woman and will probably need knee replacement when I'm 50 (I'm 32). This is a result of a bad break/fracture combo when I was 12 that didn't heal properly. When I was 12, I went on a trip to the Statue of Liberty (with a school group without my mom). While the group was waiting on-line, a bunch of us decided to play Frisbee. A park's person came by and said in a nasty tone, "you kids better stop playing because the grass is wet and you'll break your neck!" I rolled my eyes at her and we kept playing. Well, 2 second later I slipped really bad and heard "crack crack crack" coming from my leg. I couldn't walk but didn't want anyone to call 911 (I was very well aware that my family did not have medical coverage) so my cousin carried me to a bench and we waited while the group went into the Statue. She also carried me to the ferry and back into the car once everyone was done. Ten hours later when my mom got home, she immediately panicked (as my leg was twice its normal size) and she rushed me to the hospital. I learned about Catholic Charities that day and I was in a full leg cast for the next 5 months! I had broken my ankle and fractured my tibia and femur. OUCH! 20 years later and I'm still feeling the pain.
Anyway, after my run I go back upstairs and my husband is calling around for snow plowing service. Really?! It's not that bad, so I thought. I made a deal that I would do half and he'd do the other. 36inches of snow is no joke! So, I ask you, can I log in my 1 hour of snow shoveling as cross training? And this leads to my training question of the day... what should I be doing for cross-training to get my stamina and leg strength up?
While shoveling, I was thinking about my third-life crisis and how I had a similar one when I was 25 (quarter-life crisis). Many of former students (whom I advised when they were in college) often reach out to me when they are in the quarter-life crisis (you know the kind... first job out of college is getting boring, not sure if they should be getting married, wanting more out of life but not sure how to get it). I have to say that it is more female students then male that I counsel through the quarter-life crisis (probably because I'm a woman or do men not go through it?). My train of though started yesterday when two of my former students contacted me to have lunch this week (they know the university is closed and I have off). I was so happy to hear from them and I'm looking forward to seeing them later this week. I could hear the quarter-life crisis tone in their voice when they called and I look forward to seeing them and hope I can help. My goal is to not tell them what to do, but to help them figure out what they want to do (those careful probing questions and paraphrasing what they tell me). I won't burst their bubble and tell them that once they get past the quarter-life crisis, they'll cruise for several years before the next existential crisis comes along! My personal question of the day... have you experienced (are you experiencing) a quarter-life or third-life crisis?
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