The past two weekends were kinda tough to be spending on the sidelines of a marathon in DC and NYC. I wanted to jump in and RUN. Thanks to the knee, that was out. But, I still had fun, maybe even more fun since I didn’t have to worry about being super rested and taking it easy. I could walk all over the place and drink my sorrows away. Instead, I spectated and drank hard. And made signs. Drinking and witty signs are key for recovery. Fortunately, I only have pictures of the cheering and not the drinking to share.

I had three runners to cheer on for in DC, all with different paces. It was a logistical nightmare and I only saw one during the race. Opps, will try for better planning next time. I cheered on two of my training partners and a new friend. I felt like a proud mom at the end.They all did so well! All are now registered for the NYC lottery for next year, so fingers crossed it happens for them.

Marine Corps Runners!

Finishing is your only option! Don’t mind the crazy hair.

My marathon friends!

The excitement over the marathon in New York was contagious. Thank goodness I canceled my entry before going to New York because I would have attempted to run the damn thing. We cheered the runners at mile 14ish in Queens. And yes, there were signs again. Recycled from MCM. I don’t have a picture of the “Single and Supportive” sign, but that one got a lot of laughs. I cannot wait to run this next year and finish strong!

Next year, I’ll be running under this sign!

I could not believe how many runners there were in NYC!

More signage to show support!

So that’s the end of my fall marathon journey. Time to focus on next fall.

Sigh. This is a hard post to write. I’ve decided to defer the NYC Marathon this year.

I saw the orthopedic specialist this morning and I didn’t even get to see the cute doctor. I mean, if I am going to get bad news, I want the eye candy. Instead, I got the old guy who didn’t seem to have the most positive outlook on running.

The doctor diagnosed me with tendonitis in my knee, which means the iliotibial band and other knee muscles are inflamed and irritated. The cure is rest, plain and simple. Everyday we get tiny microscopic tears in our muscles and while we sleep, the muscles repair themselves. Mine are just taking a little longer to get there.

I can take all the Advil and ice it all I want, but that is only a temporary solution. I don’t need to go to physical therapy, which the doctor didn’t think would be that helpful. Thank goodness, I don’t have the time or money to go to physical therapy every week.

I could run the marathon, but he said he wouldn’t recommend it and the end result would not be pretty if I was not completely healed. Since I can’t run without pain now and am missing those precious last few runs before it is taper time, deferral it is.

I’ve gone thru the five stages of injury acceptance:

1. Denial - I’ve run through the pain. It did not exist.
2. Anger – I’ve blamed myself, my training, lack of cross-training and not enough stepback weeks.
3. Bargaining – I’ve told myself, a couple of rest days will cure me. I’ll take it easy if I can do a 20-miler (newsflash: I can’t).
4. Depression – I’ve been reading Chicago and other marathon recaps and it makes me sad to think I won’t experience the post-marathon high. I cried in the car after the appointment.
5. Acceptance – Realized it not going to do me any good to run a marathon when I’m not where I want to be physically and mentally. I ran my first marathon under trained and I don’t want to go there again. I’d be in the same situation with not getting the final long runs in.

I don’t want to end up in worse shape than I started, so NYC Marathon 2011 here I come! The good news is I’m still going to NYC and I could not be more excited about seeing NYC in the fall. Being in the same city as the marathon may be upsetting, but I will have to tell myself that will be me next year.

In the meantime, I’m excited to focus on other activities than running for a few weeks. If you’ve been injured, how did you handle the setback?

Where do I even begin to describe BlogHer? Overwhelming-crazy-fun-inspiring. Here’s the short and sweet recap in photos. I wish I had more photos, but I left New York with a promise to myself to get more comfortable with my camera and take more photos. I was going to link to everyone I met in this recap, but it would take me days to do that and this post would never get published.

The fun kicked off on Thursday night with the Schick Intuition Plus K.I.S.S & Tell party featuring a performance by Gavin DeGraw.

Gavin, call me, okay?

I also got to see one of my favorite people from RIT, Chris. Chris jetted off to North Carolina the next day, so we didn’t get to hang out much. Sadface.

On Saturday, I got to meet Tamera Barney from Real Housewives of the OC. She was nice and super skinny in person. The OC season does not start up again until the new year thanks to the DC and Beverly Hills versions of the show. I also saw Bruce Jenner walking down the street and the first words out of my mouth were, “That’s Kim Kardashian’s stepdad.” Clearly, I watch too much reality tv.

Saturday night was all about the parties. Things started off with a 20-something bloggers happy hour and then moved on to parties involving unicorn cake, dancing, drinks and cheeseburgers.

Photo from Katelin

It was so weird to be at a conference and not working aka running around like a crazy person for 12 hours for clients like I’m used to doing at conferences for work. I was lucky to volunteer and got a free pass to the conference in exchange, so I’m grateful to the organization for that. The downside of this is that I didn’t get to go to all the sessions I wanted to see due to my volunteer duties, but will be reading the recaps and listening to the podcasts.

I had a great time, but for me I didn’t really feel completely comfortable at the conference until mid-day Saturday. It was a bit overwhelming with over 2,000 attendees, countless sponsors/swag, a variety of events and multiple floors.  I’m shy and reserved (people who know me in real life are scratching their heads right now) when around strangers even if they are super nice and welcoming. It definitely took me a while to warm up and combined with my slight cold and a new brand of contacts I was wearing –  I didn’t feel 100% like myself at first. But, I did come away inspired and wanting to do more with this little blog of mine to work my creative muscles. I learned a lot and had a ton of fun with the people I met. I think Round 2 would be less overwhelming since I know what to expect. I need to recover from this one first before I can think about next year.

I’m sad I didn’t see as much of New York as I wanted to and see more of my NYC friends, but I’ll be back in November!

This is all mish-mash bullet style because I’m a bit frazzled about putting full sentences together.

• I somehow broke two brand new contacts this a.m. and they were my last ones. Opps. Made an appointment with the eye doctor and he commented on my large pupils. I hardly ever need eye drops and I learned the drops for pupils called belladonna drops, which is Italian for beautiful lady. So, my large pupils are beautiful since I don’t need drops to enhance my eyes. : ) Also, my prescription went down so I guess all this healthy eating over the past year has helped!
• I’ve been feeling under the weather and seemed to have caught that weird summer cold. Think I’ve kicked it for good though, but I hate that I lost two good workout days because of it.
• I’ve changed my marathon training plan again. Wasn’t feeling the one from Runner’s World so I decided to go with Hal Higdon. Sixteen weeks, oh boy.
• I leave for NYC on Thursday and cannot locate my suitcase. I don’t think I moved it from my mom’s house, so I’m hoping I can find it tomorrow. Otherwise, I am checking a garbage bag.
• Somehow passed my economics class. I was so worried that I was going to fail one of my first grad school classes because the final was so entirely different than what I was expecting. Did awesome in my other class and mailed off my books for Amazon credit. Which will then be spent on my $140 accounting book.
• I am in love with overnight oats. I have no idea how I managed to live the majority of my life without eating oatmeal. Speaking of, its time to go prep tomorrow’s breakfast.

Well, yesterday and the day before were quite exciting! On Tuesday night I noticed I had a pending charge from NYRR, the folks that put on the New York City Marathon. The results of the lottery weren’t being announced until Wednesday, but word on the street was if you had something on your charge card, you were in. Well, I didn’t want to believe it until it was offical and I saw it with my own eyes on the marathon Web site. At 12:30 on the dot yesterday I logged in to check my status and saw that my status said, accepted aka IN! Pencil in Nov. 7, 2010 in the calendar.

After a minor freakout, I’m excited! I had a gut feeling this was going to happen even though there is a one in six chance of getting selected via lotto. Mentally, I was planning to run it next year since I get automatic entry from entering the lotto in 2008, 2009 and 2010. There’s no reason why I can’t run it this year, so that’s the plan.

I like the planning involved with training for marathons and I know training will go so much better this time around because of several personal circumstances. Plus, my old marathon group kicked off fall marathon training in May, which may seem long for some, but a five month training plan works for me and I know I need it to get back in top running form. I felt so lost last summer/fall because I opted out of a fall race due to moving and the like and I am so glad to be getting back into it.

Once I get through the half next month, I’ll figure out my training and the like. Two of my friends are running the Marine Corps Marathon the weekend before, so I’m glad I won’t have to do all my long runs alone.

April is shaping up to be a BIG month in so many ways.

And some housekeeping, I brought a new domain and I’m going to give this blog a new look. I may try to do it this weekend, so keep an eye out!

Today was the last day to enter the NYC Marathon lottery, so guess what I did?

Yes, of course. I’ve entered the lottery twice already and have not gotten picked. I really would prefer to run it next year since you get automatic entry in the fourth year if you have entered the lottery three times. For some reason I feel like I’m going to get picked this year, so we’ll see. I find out in April.

To top it all off, my ankle is bothering me. I think it was a combination of not replacing my shoes sooner and the potholes. Lots of RICE on my end and going to break out the brace tomorrow. HOT! Taking a break from running too – just as I was starting to get into my groove.