Category Archives: breast reduction surgery recovery

Amby Burfoot saved my marathon!

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A couple weeks ago I ordered this book:

 

Its home is in the basket in our Reading Room.  You know, the bathroom.  C’mon everybody reads in there and you can admit it here, we’re all friends and this is a safe place.
This morning I picked it up and started reading.  It opens with such promise with the words “Anyone can run a marathon.”  This is exactly what I want to hear/read.  I’m “anyone”!  I can run a marathon!  And I gleefully continued reading the Introduction, About the Runner’s World Challenge, About the Authors, then on to Training which also has a very promising start.  “Running 13.1 or 26.2 miles is no small task, to be sure.  But anyone who has done it will tell you that getting to the finish line isn’t the tough part – getting to the starting line is.”  Having run that 13.1 I can attest to that.  The race itself was really almost a denouement after the weeks and months of training and anticipation.  But it was still one of the coolest freakin’ experiences of my life!
So I kept reading and everything is peachie groovy until I get to this: Build a base. As long as you’ve been running at least four times a week for about 6 months and you’re in the habit of exercising regularly, you should be able to complete a marathon or half-marathon training program without a problem. . . . If you’ve been running only sporadically and have to give your weekly routine an extreme makeover to start training, it’s going to be tough to stick with it.  Plus, you’re bound to end up with any variety of overuse injuries that come from doing too much too soon, . . .”
And that, my friends, was not exactly what I wanted to read/hear.  It wasn’t even in the same zip code as what I wanted to read/hear.  I’m not 100% certain it was even on the same continent.  Because let’s face facts: Being out of running for ten weeks doesn’t exactly qualify as “running at least four times a week for about six months” and was definitely much more akin to “running only sporadically and have to give your weekly routine an extreme makeover to start training”.  So there I sat numb-butted and heartsunk.
Great!  Just freakin’ great!  I have told everyone I know and a fair number of complete strangers “I’m going to run my first full marathon this year!”  And now I am presented with pretty irrefutable evidence that I’m not even ready to start training for said event, let alone successfully and without injury completing the training for said said event, let alone getting through said said said event without some part of my body being irrevocably damaged or falling off completely.
The next section was titled (ominiously at this point) Time it right.  Awesome!  Exactly what I have failed to do!  I began reading.  Okay I began skimming the words because really, who cares anymore?  Clearly this isn’t in the cards for me.  And as I flip to page 4 (doesn’t take much to dash my dreams now does it?) I glance at the bottom of the page and there’s a pen and ink drawing of none other than one of My Running Heroes, and author of my favorite book on Running Philosophy, Mr. Amby Burfoot staring at me from one of those little sidebar boxes you sometimes see on the sides or bottoms of pages of books.  And what are the first words Amby has to contribute to this Marathon Training Bible?  Let me share with you.  Amby’s opening salvo was this: Most experts think you should work up to marathons and half-marathons slowly and gradually.  Not helping me here Amby old buddy old pal . . .  blah, blah a few 5Ks… blah, blah what I think you should do, too.  Except for this difference: I’m willing to acknowledge the power of the marathon and half-marathon to “grab” runners and motivate them to jump into the unknown.  So if it grabs you hard, I say: What the heck, go for it! But remember this: You have to be very realistic about your expectations.  I’m realistic about my expectations!  I am very realistic about my expectations!  Unless you’re young and fit (I’m middle-aged and kinda fit!), you’ll have to do most of your training on a run-walk pattern. I do all my training – heck all my races – on a run-walk pattern!  I am back in the game now baby!  Thank you Amby Burfoot wherever you are!
So I’m not giving up the dream.
I have four months to get back in condition, and after today’s four miler I can safely say I am soooo not in condition, but I have four months to get back to there before we begin Hal Higdon’s thirty week training program that is based on a run-walk pattern.

Speaking of today’s four miler, it wasn’t the prettiest run ever, but it was definitely one of the most heartfelt.  I felt my heart pounding in my chest nearly every running step I was taking.  And I’m almost certain part of the 3.5 pounds the doctor removed might possibly have included one of my lungs because there was a definite loss in air capacity going on.  I ended up finishing the four miles in 53:19 and maintained an average pace of 13:11 minutes per mile.  Interestingly enough the first mile was my jackrabbit mile and we were running straight into a good 10 mph headwind.  Which might be part of why it was my fastest mile.  I get a little ‘deadset and bygod determined’ when going into a headwind.
And I had to keep reminding myself (during and after) that I haven’t run in ten weeks and in the middle of all that not running I had surgery and my body is still recovering from that surgery.  Just because things are no longer shades of black and blue and feeling more bruised than they look doesn’t mean I’m back to 100%.  I’m still healing.  Healing requires energy and my body is going to appropriate energy for that before anything else.

But getting back to that marathon training thing.  Thursday evening, with the input/advice of a couple of fitness trainer friends, I finalized our training program which we are following effective immediately.
Sunday: Rest Day 
Monday: Short run & upper body strength training
Tuesday: Yoga (which will help with core strengthening)
Wednesday: Mid-length run
Thursday: Short run & upper body strength training
Friday: Yoga (again with the core thing)
Saturday: Long run
Yesterday my running mentor/buddy Tonia came up to my work and we did a 45 minute yoga session focusing on poses that target core strengthening.  Can I just say two things about said Yoga workout?
#1 If you think Yoga “isn’t a real workout” you are doing it wrong!
#2 If you think Yoga has nothing to do with core strengthening you are really doing it wrong!
Yoga is about nothing but core work. That’s where the balance comes from.
You also have to breathe.  If you hold your breath or forget to focus on pulling your navel towards your spine you will fall over.  I promise!
Today every muscle that’s supposed to be around the middle of my body is letting me know that I was, in fact, doing it right.  And I need to continue doing it right until it no longer hurts (as much).
I have a feeling that’s going to go for marathon training in general.

Last night HCRP was looking for a picture on his computer and came across some “Before” pictures he took of me in August 2011 about a month after I started running.
Not.  Pretty.
I got all cute and decided that I wanted to stage “After” pictures wearing the same shorts.  So this evening we did.
I have to say I’m a little underwhelmed at the overall changes in my body.  I’m nearly twenty pounds lighter, but other than the obvious pre- and post-op differences in my chest I just don’t see as much of a change as I know has taken place.
I’m down two full jeans sizes, my butt is (or was before my ‘sabbatical’) ‘higher and tighter’, my arms are a lot leaner and stronger.  (Who knew you developed guns from running?)  But I have to say I’m just not seeing all the differences.
I’ve gone back and forth and back and forth fifteen in my head about posting the pictures here or not, and I’ve finally decided “What the heck, go for it!”  I mean if Amby can say that about training to run a marathon, what’s a couple less-than-flattering pictures between friends?
B&A Front B&A Side

They say running is as much a mental sport as a physical one, so I’m going to adopt that same philosophy towards changes in one’s body.  I know they took place so I’m to trust in that and know that the work I’m putting in now will result in even more – and more visible – changes in the coming months.
When you speak of this, and you will speak of this, be kind.

First Run with my . . .

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. . . new goal of running a marathon this year.

. . . fear of heights as a factor.

. . . apparent need for therapy to overcome Mean Girl trauma from high school still in play.

. . . staying consistently hydrated clearly out of play.

. . . New.  Boobs.

Admit it, you totally expected me to lead with that last one.  Didn’t you?  But let’s take them in order, shall we?  And I promise I’ll get to the boobs.

But tonight was my First Run both in a long time and since my surgery.
And yes, I’ve been putting it off.
When we got home I realized that the reason I’d been putting it off was fear.  Fear of several things, and I’ll get to those.  But yeah, I’ve been caving to fear.  And I just hate doing that!

Now on to that list up there…
The New Running a Marathon Goal:
I have the better part of a year – like nearly 50 weeks’ worth part of the year – to train for My Marathon.  I have selected a 30 week training program that is guaranteed to work if adhered to.  Thousands of people, many who have fewer miles under their laces than me, have followed it and crossed their Marathon Finish Lines vertical, breathing, and ready to at least continue running if not actually do it again.

And I have been questioning for the entire ten-and-a-half weeks since I last ran (November 3rd) whether or not I would be able to get back into running sufficiently to be able to train to be ready by December 7th.
So tonight I set out on the shortest run I have set out to do in a long, long time.  And I was, between you and me, scared to the core of my being.
I was afraid The Twins weren’t going to be as ready-to-run as I thought and that there would either be: A) pain; B) incisions coming undone; or C) things falling off altogether.
I was afraid my legs (the bending part in the middle in particular) would completely fail me.
I was afraid I would finish ‘just two miles’ a sweaty, gasping, heaving (like actually vomiting), mess collapsed on the side of the track and mocked by those going ’round and ’round past me over and over again.
That didn’t happen.
There was sweating and a little bit of gasping.  And the overwhelming paint odor had me a little queasy, but nothing hurt, popped open, or full-on fell off.  Not even the butt that’s been following me around the past three or four weeks since Muscle Tone finally gave up the ghost.
Next…

Fear of Heights as A Factor:
I am, and always have been, afraid of heights.  “heights” being defined as my feet more than about a foot above the firmest terra firma/lowest possible place to stand in my vicinity.  The indoor track at our (probable) new gym is an elevated track which hangs (precariously and flipping gravity the bird) a good fifteen feet above the (incredibly hard, painful to fall fifteen feet onto) basketball court(s) floor way too far below it.
Walkers get to walk on the outside (much safer), closer to the wall lane of the track.
Runners get to take their laps right on the edge of the precipice.  Oh there’s a railing, but it is entirely too low for my comfort and they failed to install a safety net (like you see under trapeze artists) because that would make entirely too much sense.
But it was 30 degrees outside and the specter of cold weather lung burn outweighed the specter of hurtling over the railing and ending up a broken, contorted, former runner in the middle of horrified, traumatized ballaz and shot callaz.
So I just kept moving.

My apparent need for therapy to overcome Mean Girl trauma from high school still in play:
As posted on Facebook: I just have to say that no matter how old you are, or how pleased you are with where you are in your life and in your skin, when you hear teenage Mean Girls in a locker room verbally slicing and dicing someone who isn’t even there you will TOTALLY go into the toilet stall to change into your workout clothes rather than risk being the NEXT person they criticize and make fun of.
And yes, I actually changed in the toilet stall.  *hangs head in shame at my own shame*
I got a huge amount of support from other women – of all ages – on Facebook. And I could well become responsible for inspiring a “Flash mob of real women. Stretch marks, preggo belly, and saggy boobs. I may even go hairy legged.” as suggested by one of my running buddies.  The fact that she is a running machine and is cute as a button really only served to make me feel that much better about myself!
Of course I had about half a second where I was tempted to do one of two things:
Go ahead and change “in full view” and freak the little Teenie Meanies completely out since my scars are still fairly visible and probably very scary looking to a group of obsessed-with-perfect-bodies Swim Team Mean Girls.
Or
Light into them for being the Mean Girls they are and inform them that while this may make them the top of the food chain now, in about twenty years it isn’t going to serve them well and that if they don’t keep up with the swimming those tight little buns were going to scare the hell out of them in a mirror reflection one day.
Thankfully my Higher Self piped up right about then and reminded me that behind all the meanness were scared, insecure little girls whose only defense was to find fault with and belittle others and, unless something changes dramatically in their lives, that would likely continue to be their only defense.  So I said nothing.

Staying consistently hydrated clearly out of play:
Yeah.
It was a side-cramp-a-palooza after only 1.5 miles.  The only excuse for that – given my 13:00 minute per mile pace – was lack of hydration.  I gotta get better at that.

And now, finally, the bullet point you’ve been waiting for:
My First Run with My New Boobs:
In short: It was A Whole New (running) World! (You’re welcome for the earworm.)
About halfway through our second lap (12 laps = 1 mile) HCRP asked “Well?  Is it different?” and all I could say was “There’s no bouncing.  There’s nothing bouncing up and down.” and I had to stop thinking and talking about it because history has taught me that I am physically incapable of three things: peeing up a wall; circular breathing; and running while crying.  There was movement – gravity is still, after all, the law and not just a good idea – but there wasn’t MOVEMENT going on right under my chin.

A little further in I realized I was – or at least seemed to be – running a little faster than usual.  I checked in with HCRP and he confirmed that I was “keeping a pretty good pace”.  Of course this was still in the first mile and didn’t last forever, but it wasn’t half bad.  I do believe that aerodynamics were also a casualty of my previous endowment.

The third thing was actually something someone else had said to me before I even had the surgery.  They had suggested that after surgery I would be able to breathe easier without “all that weight on your chest”.  Admittedly my first thought was “It isn’t like they’re pressing in on my lungs!” and so I kindasorta dismissed the idea.  But yawannaknowsomething?  They were absolutely right!  Breathing was easier.  I’ll be damned.  (Sorry Mom.)

It also occurred to me that I will no longer have the chafing on the inside of my upper arms from the constant rubbing against the sides of my breasts where they were wider than my ribcage.
Dear Glide,
While I’m not exactly ‘breaking up’ with you, I think it’s time we took it back a notch in our relationship. It’ll be just you and the blister prone spots on my feet from now on.
Sincerely,
Happy to be
Less of me

On our drive home it occurred to me how much less energy and effort is going to be required on my runs  with that 3.5 pounds – and not just pounds in general, but in a fairly concentrated area – eliminated.
How much less strain on my entire body.
How much less jarring up and down and up and down.
How much less wind resistance.
How much more just fun running is going to be!
Once I get my lungs back.
And once that happens that 30 minute 5K is mine!
As is that marathon in December…

We have The Plan

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I nearly titled this We have seen The Plan, and it is ours! but I wasn’t sure what kind of copyright infringement issues I might come up against.  All that aside . . .

Monday evening, while watching The Biggest Loser, we got serious about planning our race calendar for the year as well as deciding on a Marathon Training Program and then plotting that against the date of next this year’s  St. Jude Marathon.

My surgery recovery is coming along nicely.  It no longer hurts going over speed bumps in parking lots, which was my barometer for when I was “good to go” (medical term my doctor used) for running.  Sooo . . . I’m going to give running a shot this weekend.
Of course first I’ll be picking up a new, new-size running bra.  I’m going to stick with the Moving Comfort Juno.  At least to begin with.  It stuck with me and provided the support I needed with Big Girls, I have every confidence it will do right by me now that I’m more proportional.  So, barring any unanticipated ‘issues’ (Read: PAIN!) I’ll be back to running effective Saturday!

The First Step in The Plan is just to get back in condition.
I shudder to think just exactly how out of condition my heart and lungs are after eight weeks off.  I’m also pretty certain the loss of muscle tone that had me thinking I was being followed by my own ass last week is going to be a factor.  But I also have every assurance from several Runner Friends that things will come back quicker than I expect.

The Second Step in The Plan is to establish a new routine.
We’ve decided to use Hal Higdon’s Novice Supreme training program.  Its a 30 week program that allows both ample time to work up to the miles required to finish a Marathon, and opportunity to work on performance in shorter distances.  (As in: Finishing a 5K in 30 minutes which is one of those “competing with myself” goals.)  One thing we have failed to be consistent with is Cross Training.  So we’re fixing that.

Going forward (meaning starting Sunday) our weeks will look a lot like this:
Sunday: Rest Day.
This gives me Sunday afternoon to focus on food/meal prep for the coming week (more on dietary changes later).
Monday: Short Run.
This will be the week’s “warm up” run.  No tricks or funky stuff just a good, easy run.
Tuesday: Cross Training.
Wednesday: Mid-Distance Run.
Thursday: Short(ish) Run.
This distance will vary from Monday’s distance some weeks, and this is when we’ll do any speed work. Bring on the Fartleks!
Friday: Cross Training.
This is also my Yoga Day with my Running Buddy/Mentor Tonia.
Saturday: Long Runs/Races

We’ve plotted everything out (on a spreadsheet because we’re techno-fabulous like that) and for the thirty weeks of the training program to time out with The St. Jude we begin following the program’s distances on May 18th.
Between now and then – and all things being equal/going well for me on Saturday’s ‘Maiden Voyage’ run – we’ll be establishing the pattern of the week and getting a few races in.

Starting with the New Orleans Half Marathon at the end of next month.  We’ve decided to do that one as a relay with HCRP taking the 7.5 miles and me running the shorter 5.5 mile leg.  This is our weekend getaway for my birthday weekend, and we’re going with a couple we’re friends with from church who are also runners.  We’re taking Amtrak from here to New Orleans which will be half the fun of the trip!

My intention is to (finally) run the Germantown Half Marathon in mid March, the (overly ambitious) training for which led to last year’s Runner’s Knee Adventure. This year I’m a stronger, more experienced, and about twenty pounds lighter version of the runner I was then, so I don’t anticipate any major issues.  Besides, I’ve proven that I can finish a Half, this year there isn’t the sense of urgency I had last year that (I am certain) led to my injury.

AND!  Because I have absolutely nothing else to do, I’m also in the midst of planning the Second Annual Bad Dog 5K!
Oh, if you’d like to help support our very worthy cause – The Ronald McDonald House of Memphis which serves families of kids receiving treatment at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – but you’re not from around here we’re offering a “Ghost Runner” registration that will allow you to help us help The Kids at The House AND you’ll score one of our snazzy race shirts!
C’mon, you know you wanna . . .

Okay, time to get my morning started.
Happy Running!

Still not running . . .

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. . . and I miss it!
My running friends are running and posting about runs and yeah, I’m a little jealous.  I’m healing from the surgery, but I’m not quite ready to take The New and Improved Twins out for a run just yet.  Going over speed bumps in parking lots is still a little painful, so I’m taking that as my cue that it’s not quite time to take them out for a run just yet.

HCRP and I were all set to move our gym membership after we got home from Christmas, but now he’s being sent out of town for work pretty much the first ten days of January, so we’ll make that switch when he gets home.  Between now and then I’m going to be using what our current gym has to offer and cleaning up our diet.  He’ll be using the fitness center at the hotel he’ll be staying in.  I’ll be nagging him to make sure he does.  He’ll be nagging me back.  We’re all sympatico like that me and HCRP.

Back in the Spring we got in touch with our Inner Cavepeople and to be honest we both felt better and our bodies responded to that healthier way of eating by releasing excess weight.  That has to keep happening.  It requires more planning and thinking ahead and mindfulness than just “eating whatever” but once we get back in the practice it will come much easier.

I’m also taking part in a 30 Day Green Smoothie Challenge.  It isn’t one of those “all smoothies all the time” things – it’s one smoothie a day that I think can be really beneficial for helping me to kickstart cleaner eating.
I’ve also been going back and forth about the benefits of using a heavy duty blender or an actual juicer.  I have one of those Montel Williams HealthMaster blenders on loan from a friend, but had been thinking that what I really needed was a true juicer.  In fact, I had pretty much decided to return the blender and buy a Breville Juicer like Joe used in Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead.  This evening I ran across an article that indicated that in blending you keep more of the fiber in fruits and vegetables, so for the time being I’m going to stick with blendering smoothies.  I may eventually add a juicer to my repertoire of kitchen appliances, but for now I’m going to work with what I have.
Whatever I do, we have to clean up our diet because we have big goals for the coming year and we just won’t be able to meet them with inadequately fueled machines!

The Big Running Goal for 2013 for both of us is completing our first Marathon.
I’ll be doing this in December.  I want the St. Jude Marathon to be my first.  I might find one other Big Race to do mid-year after that, but everything in me wants that one to be my first.

I’ve been going back and forth between Galloway’s and Higdon’s Marathon Training programs and have finally decided to use Higdon’s.  I’m going to have to tinker with it a bit since I’m a big believer in Sunday as a “Day of Rest” in every way and he has that as a Cross Training day.

And there is That Little Voice in the back of my brain that keeps screaming “Are you CRAZY?!  You can’t run a MARATHON!  You are forty-seven years old and you have ONLY been running what?  A year and a half?!  You.  Are.  Going.  To.  Die!  Or at the very least hurt yourself beyond repair!  You have middle-aged feet, middle-aged knees, and did we mention that ‘Going. To. Die!’ part?!  Yeah.  You’re stupid.  And delusional.  And crazy.”  She sounds a lot like the eighth grade pretty much every P.E. teacher/tyrant who told me I was hopeless at sports and to just stay in the back and try not to hurt ‘the good athletes’ in class.  So I’m learning to ignore her.
Most of the time.
I prefer to listen to people like HCRP and Tonia and Emily and TLC who tell me “You can TOTALLY do this and in WAY less than your six hour goal time!”  I like them better than the P.E. tyrants…

I also, after tremendous consideration (and discussion with HCRP), set up an anonymous blog about my reduction surgery.  I have had so many women tell me that they are “watching me” to see how this goes for me before deciding to have this surgery themselves.  So I finally decided to share my experience here on Ye Olde Worlde Widee Webe in the interests of serving as a resource for them.
No I will not be posting a link to that blog here since I’m pretty much not anonymous here, and  I will be posting pictures there that [Look away Mother!] Oh Hayul No! I would never post here, purely in the interests of being that resource. (They won’t be showing my face.  Not even my chin.)
Before my surgery I searched for Before and After pictures that weren’t on a plastic surgeon’s website.  I looked for other women’s “stories”.  There aren’t a lot of them out there and most of them are nightmare stories.  Thus far, mine isn’t one of them so I’d like to be able to use this experience to help and encourage other women who need to have this done.

So there’s where things are for me.
No running.
Lots of healing.
Even more planning and looking ahead.

Before and The Beginning of After

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So my surgery was a week ago Thursday.
Yes,THAT Surgery.
The Reduction Mammoplasty.
The Reverse Boob Job.
My great, courageous (so a couple people have told me it was) act of “Getting Proportional”.  (Kudos to a dear friend for that reference.)

Before I go any further and really start rambling, here are the obligatory Before and After Images.  (Unfortunately I didn’t have the presence of mind to take a true “Before” picture in something I am willing to share here on Ye Olde Worlde Wide Webe.  I mean, I like you and all, but no you don’t get to see pictures of me in my bra.  Or less.  So this is what you get.)

IMG_0404

Before: September 2012

December 9, 2012All buttons. No safety pins.

December 9, 2012
All buttons. No safety pins.

Yeah. Tell me about it.

I’m still in the healing phase, and healing nicely.
This is not only my opinion but my surgeon’s opinion at my post-op visit. There hasn’t been any horridly excruciating pain.  Of course the first couple days when there might have been I was doped up on Demerol and probably wouldn’t have felt it if someone had come in and lopped off one of my other appendages.  I mostly feel, and have mostly only felt, really bruised.

So far the worst parts have been: A) Having to sleep on my back; and B) The itching where the stitches are healing.  Fortunately both these issues are resolved by the same solution: Benadryl!  Oh sweet little hot pink elixirs of relief and rest!

The weirdest part was the first week when – for the first time in my life at forty-seven – I had to line my bra with maxi-pads (to protect the incisions and absorb any ‘drainage’). I actually found that quite hilarious on Friday morning when my mom and my BFF helped me change from the padding I’d left the surgery center with to the first set of maxi-pads. I am reasonably certain the Demerol weighed in on the hilarity factor of that experience.

The waterproof surgical tape he put back over the stitched up incisions (which will dissolve rather than having to be removed) comes off a week from Monday.  Christmas Eve morning. (The jokes on that one really do write themselves.  I’ll not insult your intelligence or sense of humor by overstating the obvious . . . )

In the couple weeks leading to the “Procedjah” people kept asking me “Aren’t you nervous?!” and I would pause, do one of those mental ‘system checks’, and answer (in all honesty) “No.  I’m really not.”  By the day before the Procedjah my answer had become “At this point I feel like I’m ten months pregnant and I’m just ready to have this baby!”  (Having gone 1/3 of the way to ten months pregnant twenty-four years ago, that’s an analogy I was quite comfortable making.) During the pre-op prep they checked my blood pressure.  111/74 (before they had given me any ‘calming agents’ via IV).  Seriously.  So it would appear that “nervous” was the last thing I was.  Which I think was pretty cool!

Friday morning I woke up and could already feel a difference in my shoulders.  The constant muscle tension and ‘pull’ I was used to was just GONE!  Saturday morning once I was showered and wearing something other than pajamas my first thought was “I can’t wait to take these puppies out for a run!”  Really.  I called them “puppies” in my head.

All told the doctor removed three pounds of excess ’tissue’.  Not fat.  Actual whatever-it-is tissue that boobs are made of.  The Mammogram Lady told me I had “dense tissue, not fat”.  I’m not sure why I feel the need to clarify that, but I do.  I digress . . .

So at this point I’m in something of a ‘holding pattern’ while the incisions heal, the bruising abates (there’s actually quite a rainbow of bruise coloration going on), and the stitches dissolve. I can’t run.  I can’t lift anything heavier than a pound.  I can’t run. Bending over causes discomfort. I can’t run.  Yet.  The doctor’s (somewhat flip) answer when I asked “How long after surgery until I can run?”  was “Around 30 days.  Basically it’s up to your pain levels.”  I was expecting to hear something more along the lines of “Eight to twelve weeks” so this was a relief!  A shocking relief, but a relief nonetheless.

Right now I’m still adjusting to what really is a whole new body.
Seriously there are days when I see myself in the mirror and am overwhelmed with not just the change, but the realization of the number of years I was identified – in my mind and other people’s – by one (okay technically two) disproportionate body part(s).
I can wear button front blouses without buying them two sizes bigger than necessary and still having to safety pin between the buttons.
I can wear pretty much any kind of v-neck t-shirt, sweater, or whatever else without worrying if the cleavage is going to be inappropriate or offensive.
I will – once the healing is complete and I no longer have to wear a bra 24/7 – be able to throw on a t-shirt or tank top sans brassiere and run to the store without worrying about scarring the psyches of small children or fast-tracking some unsuspecting male tween through puberty!
And.  And!  AND!  I will be able to not only wear cute running bras (and cute little strappy running tops), but I will be able to wear those cute running bras without additional padding on the straps or moleskin applied under the band to prevent wearing holes in my hide!

If you want to get a sense of the “Before” and “After” effect of this surgery, pick up a three pound bag of potatoes, divide them into two mostly equal amounts, wear them around your neck. (I suggest a king size pillow case. You’ll have to sew the open end up somehow.)  Pick your favorite shirt and wear it over them – have fun with those buttons on those blouses.  Do this all day, every day for a week or two.  Now multiply that by a good couple (or three) decades.  Have fun with that math!  I know I always did.
[I say “or three” parenthetically because I have it on good authority from one of my lifelong best friends that my ‘disproportionate proportions’ were there in high school even though it didn’t seem like it to me at the time.  But I trust her judgment.]

Monday HCRP and I are going to get back in the gym.
He can do whatever he wants.  I’ll be limited to a recumbent bike for cardio *rolls eyes* and lower body strength training.  But it’s better than nothing at all.  While we’re at my in-laws for Christmas I’m going to do Yoga as much as I can without pain.  Once we get back home we’re changing gyms to one that has a pool and both an indoor and lighted outdoor track.
We both realize the absolute requirement of cross training – strength training in particular.  The lighted outdoor track is a huge plus because of shorter winter days combined with the fact that our regular running trails close at sunset and our subdivision lacks streetlights  (like at all) and consistent sidewalks.

So that’s where things are in my middle-aged, post-op, currently not running life.

In Running News I’m weighing the pros and cons of Jeff Galloway’s and Hal Higdon’s respective Marathon Training programs and starting to plan next year’s running goals.
Running. Goals.
No more of this just running willy nilly for the sake of it for me!  I have G-O-A-L-S.
I’m notsomuch looking to break any particular times.  Okay that’s kind of a lie.
I would like to get my 5K finish time down to 30 minutes.  Less would be good too, but I’ll be good with a consistent 30 minute finish time.  Which will of course make for a nice, clean, well-rounded 60 minute 10K finish time.
I’m good with a 3 hour half-marathon time.  That allows for enjoying the venue as well as the run itself.
My first Full will be next year’s St. Jude Marathon in December.  I could be ready to do one sooner, but I don’t intend to make marathons a regular ‘thing’ so I’m reserving them for St. Jude and Ronald McDonald House supporting events.

So that’s how things are and where I’ve been.
How’s things with you?