A Runner’s Balancing Act

This week is National Eating Disorders Awareness week. I have mentioned my struggles with ED on this blog before. This is a running blog, but the topic is still very relevant to the running community. There are so many ED sufferers in the running community, but they are often mistaken for being dedicated runners or “health nuts”. There are differences. You can be concerned about eating healthy without being underweight and food obsessed. I think one major difference you will see with runners with ED, is that they are not usually concerned about getting faster, getting PR’s, doing speed work, hard days, easy days, etc. Basically, their running is not really “training” for anything. They are running because they feel they have to. Usually in their minds it’s to burn calories, but it’s doubtful they would admit that to a fellow runner.

I hope that in reading my story, you might be able to better recognize the warning signs in yourselves and others. I hope that this story does not glamorize EDs, but shows how truly destructive and debilitating they can be.  I wrote this a while back before I spoke at a local community college health class. I am posting it because I think that it could provide hope to those suffering and education to those who are not.

Its hard to keep it short, so my apologize for the length.

The beginning…

The seeds of my ED were planted the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college, which was about seven years ago. That was the summer, I took a job with friends of my parents who owned a private golf club in northern Nevada near Reno.  I moved up there with just a suit case and lived with my parents friends in their huge house that was right on the golf course where I worked. I didn’t have a car, and I didn’t know anyone there.  It was a lonely four months, especially considering I had been away from home for almost a year by that time, living in the dorms freshman year at a small college in California. Dorm life was loud and something was always going on, and it was hard to really feel homesickness in that environment. When I got to Nevada that summer, homesickness hit me hard.

Living with my parents friends was an all around awkward experience. They were wealthy, somewhat pretentious, and they had never had children. They were also my bosses.  I was so stressed out by the situation at first that for the first month I was there, I had a hard time eating. I honestly wasn’t dieting, I just felt like my stomach was in knots. After a few weeks, my hunger returned, but by that time I realized my pants were fitting a little loser and the light bulb clicked on that this experience would be a great way to lose some weight. I had gained the freshman 15 over the last year and wasn’t too excited about it.

So I started to run a mile or two around the golf course in the evenings after work and started watching my portion sizes.  My parents friends were big dieters and had lots of diet literature in the house.  I was bored, so I read a lot of it. The woman I lived with saw a diet doctor regularly and I can remember at one point he put her on an all liquid diet where she drank 5 shakes a day that totaled 500 calories. I remember very vividly reading the literature about that diet. I didn’t know a lot about calories at that point, and I remember thinking, “well if a doctor put her on this diet, it must be okay”.

The other weird thing about my parents’ friends was that they very judgmental towards people with weight problems. They often made comments to each other about other peoples’ weight. They noticed when people’s weight went up or down and they made rude comments to each other when they passed an overweight person in public.
I took notice of this and was deeply embarrassed by those 15 pounds I’d gained my freshman year of college. For the first time, I felt like everyone could see those extra pounds.

By the end of that summer, I was  a few pounds less then my pre-college weight and feeling pretty good about it.  When I got back to school, I got so many complements on my weight loss, I was actually surprised how many people noticed. It really scared me how much people noticed. I was afraid I’d gain the weight back and they’d notice that too.

I decided I’d do everything in my power not to gain that weight back, and that’s when I really started slipping down the slippery slope of anorexia.

The downward spiral…

My sophomore year was the first time I lived in an apartment with a kitchen of my own.  For the first time in my life, I had complete control over every calorie and every ingredient that went in my mouth. I loved having that control. I read as much as I could about diet and nutrition and I spent hours at the store memorizing calorie counts and discovering low calorie diet food.

At first, my goal was just to follow my self designed diet and running plan Monday through Friday. Then I would allow myself to eat a little more freely and go out to eat with my friends on the weekend without guilt. Those weekend indulgences didn’t last very long. Very quickly, I realized I couldn’t relax around food on the weekends, even though I wanted to. Eating outside my diet caused too much anxiety and it just didn’t seem worth it.

Only a few months into my sophomore year, my personality started to change. I became very withdrawn from my friends and roommates. I would get up every morning early enough that I could leave the house before my roommates got up, and most nights, I stayed in the library, went to the gym, or worked a part time job, late enough that I could just go straight to bed when I got home.  Every time I opened the door to my apartment, I hoped that none of my 3 roomates would be home. Being social just took too much energy.

I became very emotional and easily agitated. I had some nasty fights with roommates. I enjoyed the feeling of hunger late at night when I was lonely. Somehow, it comforted me.

I started doing really strange things with food – things I didn’t even understand at the time. I could only eat  when no one was watching. I would sometimes sneak little granola bars or snacks to my top bunk and try to eat them unnoticed. I hid my food in my desk instead of putting it in the cupboards in the kitchen.  I liked my food very hot and sometimes I would warm things up in the microwave four or five times just to keep it from getting cold while I ate very slowly. I thought about food all day long and read cookbooks at night like they were novels.

By Christmas sophomore year, I’d lost another 12 pounds or so putting me in the underweight category by most doctors charts. It had never been my intention to lose more weight. My goal had always been to not gain it.  But this new weight loss felt very empowering and only heightened my fear of gaining it back.

My roommates sent a concerned email to my parents that Christmas break.  My parents talked to me about it and  I promised them I was going to eat better. It wasn’t hard to do it when I was there at home. Something about being at home soothed my anxiety around food. That Christmas I did come to the conclusion that maybe I should ease up on the dieting since it seemed to worry everyone so much.

Second semester through the following summer, things got a little better.  I stopped going to the gym and started running more outside and trying to not worry about food so much. The depression lifted a little bit and I felt more like myself.  I maintained my weightloss, but I didn’t lose any more.

Round Two: Junior Year

When the Junior year rolled around, I thought I thought that my eating problems were over, but little did I know, round two was going to hit even harder then the first. It was a very stressful year for me between working 3 part time jobs, being a student and living in very cramped living quarters with two girls and their practically live-in boyfriends who I did not get along with.  Running became my escape. I got very depressed and moody and I only felt happy after I’d been running.  The high I felt after a run made me feel invincible, euphoric and completely self sufficient.  Just like a drug, it started taking more and more of it to get the same high. I gradually increased my long runs up to about 15 miles on the weekend, and 6-9 miles daily. I rarely wore a watch while running and didn’t know how fast I was running at this time.

For the amount I was running, I was not eating nearly enough. I became so starved, that I started to have uncontrollable binges. It usually happened on a Friday or Saturday night when my friends were out having fun and I was home alone in the apartment. I would lose all control around food eat everything and everything I could get my hands on. It seemed like I could eat forever and never get full.  I never threw up, but the morning after a binge, I always woke up early to run for two or more hours. In my mind, the long run “erased” the binge and I was relieved of the intense guilt. Despite my occasional binge, more and more pounds melted off.

By Christmas it was very bad. I was really underweight and I was miserable. I could not run enough to keep the euphoria alive and I was completely exhausted and depressed. I made multiple promises to family and friends that I was going to stop the madness and start gaining weight. I bought protein bars and other foods with good intentions but I couldn’t ever bring myself to actually eat them.

After Christmas break, my roommate somehow talked me into seeing a counselor at the university counseling center. I met with a lady there once a week for several months. She diagnosed me with Anorexia Nervosa, and gave me several pieces of literature to read about the condition, one of which was the Minnesota Starvation study.  By reading that, I realized that the dark depression, the intense moodiness, and the crazy behaviors around food were all symptoms of starvation. It was a startling realization. My personality had been completely changed – all because I wasn’t eating enough.

While I learned a lot, I did not gain weight and I did not stop running. The counselor required me to see a nurse at the university health center every week, who also weighed me. They knew I was still losing weight.

Turning it around…

Then one day in the spring of my Junior year, I arrived  for my usual appointment and I was met by both the nurse, and the counselor. They told me that the dean of students was aware of my situation and was prepared to make me leave school mid semester if I didn’t stop losing weight and start gaining.

I really didn’t want to get kicked out of school. It must have scared me more than gaining weight because I stopped running immediately and started trying to eat more. I binged without running it off which caused such intense anxiety that after about three days I developed startling heart palpitations. It scared me to death. I thought I was going to have a heart attack and die at any moment. Also right about that time, they ran a blood test which came back with all sorts of things either too high or too low. I was severely anemic among other things. It was a dramatic wake up call. I finally wanted to recover and I finally was headed in the right direction.

Slowly I put on some weight over the next few months and I was allowed to stay and finish out the semester. When the semester ended my counselor and I found an intensive outpatient treatment center in the area that I could attend over the summer. I went there for 8 hours a day for four months over that summer, and continued at 4 hours a day for another two months after school resumed in the fall. All the time I was there I did not run or exercise.  It was a long, and very difficult journey.

When I started there, I didn’t have the strength to eat normal when eating alone. All I knew how to do was restrict or binge. By eating two meals a day at the treatment center, I was forced to process the emotions  that were stirred up by eating normal sized meals. I learned a lot about nutrition and I had to process a lot of the personal issues that were behind the eating disorder in the first place. I also met a several girls who had stories very similar to mine. It was so helpful to know that I wasn’t the only one struggling through the meals and dealing with the anxiety of gaining weight.

By the time I left, my weight was in the healthy range again. I didn’t love my new self, but I could live with it. And over time, with continued outpatient visits, it got easier. Even though I still mourned for my thin body, I realized that I did not want it back with all the turmoil that it brought to my life. I won’t lie and say that from that point on it was easy because it was not. I still struggled with binging and negative thoughts for several years after treatment.  It took awhile for those things to fade, but they did.

I just want to close my story with a warning. You can’t dabble in an eating disorder and come out unscathed. Recovery is so hard, you just can’t flip a switch one day and decide you don’t want the eating disorder any more. Its an a self defeating downward cycle that is extremely difficult to reverse. It can take years to get back to eating and thinking normal again.  If you or someone you know starts to develop the symptoms of an eating disorder, I’d say, get help and do it as soon as possible.

2002                                             2008

A race report on Race Day. What a concept!

Lets just get straight to the point.
Official time: 1:46:41!!! I PR’ed by 6 min and 36 seconds!

I mentioned in my last post that I had no specific goals for this race. However, deep in my heart, I had a few hopes though I was unsure if they were realistic.

My previous PR for the half marathon was 1:52:02. I set that in 2003 at the Pacific Shoreline Half in California. It was my first race ever. I was about 30 lbs underweight at the time and I have always wondered if I’d ever be able to run that fast again at a normal weight. I cannot even bear to look at the pictures from that race anymore. I wish I could just forget about that part of my life and I hate that that is where I set my PR.

The first half split of my last four marathons were all between 1:54 and 2:01.

My last half marathon was last August, the America’s Finest City marathon. In that race, I totally blew up in the second half and ended up disappointed with a time of 2:01.

So for all those reasons, I wasn’t expecting to PR today.

BUT there was one little thing that had me thinking it was possible. In December I ran the Iron Girl 10 mile in 1:21, an 8:10 pace. A little bit of me really wanted to know that I was capable of holding that pace for a half marathon.

Today I found out that I CAN! In fact, my average pace was 8:08 officially, and 8:04 according to my garmin (which had the course about .12 too long).

So all I can say is, wow, what a nice little confidence boost. It feels soooo good to finally boot out the old PR. Now I can let that memory go for good.

So here is the story of the day. I will try not to bore you with all the details.

Got up at 4:15. Had my usual cheerios, light on the milk and a cup of coffee. I was out of the house by 5:15. The race was only about 45 minutes from my house. I was there by 6 am and had plenty of time to use the facilities and get mentally prepared before the gun at 7:30.

I met up with my friends Ariana and Matt and we hung out together waiting for the race to begin. We dropped off our stuff at the gear drop and that’s where I ran into Arizona Pat! It was fun to meet another blogger. We chatted for a little bit and then headed our separate ways after wishing each other good luck. Pat has some AWSOME pictures of the race, so check out his blog if you get a chance. I wanted to take pictures so bad, but I was focusing so hard on running that I couldn’t handle getting my camera phone out of my belt.

Matt and Ariana are both very fast runners and they wanted to be up close to the start line when the gun went off since this race was gun timed. I was pretty nervous about being that close to the start so when it got to be a few minutes before the start, I moved back just a little and to the side, so as to hopefully let the faster runners get by me a little easier.

When the gun went off, I was surprised that the crowd did not really surge in front of me as much as I thought it would. Went over the start about 2 seconds after the gun. I was on the side and while there were a few people that ran that past me, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It only took about a minute before I was running with people at my pace and the everyone spread out nicely. There was plenty of elbow room in this race which was SO NICE.

It was chilly and breezy. The temps were in the low 40’s and the wind was definitely noticeable. My toes were numb for the first 3 miles. But so were my legs, and that definitely seemed to make running fast seem easier.

The first few miles were into the wind, into the rising sun, and just slightly uphill. The course is an out and back, so I was mentally trying to remind myself that the slight downhill and wind at my back would be nice in the end. Even though it was a bit disheartening to be running into the wind, we were treated to a beautiful sunrise over The Flat Iron peak.

After a mile or two of slight uphill, we got a reprieve and the course went downhill for a bit. We hit a dirt road, and after that the rest of the way it seemed like we were constantly going up and down. Out in the desert there are tons of washes and the roads dip down into them over and over. There were also some longer inclines and longer declines. I kept wondering how people could say that the course was “relatively flat”. True that there were not many big hills, but it seemed like there were many small hills.

When I started seeing people coming back down the other side of the road I started counting the girls until I saw Ariana. She was 5th when she went by. I tried to tell her by waving my hand saying “you’re 5th!” but I’m not sure she understood because she just waved back.

I took my gel after the turn around and stopped about mile 7 to drink a cup of water. I still cannot do that while running. I didn’t bring my hydration belt this time since I figured I wouldn’t need much water on such a cold day.

I’ve decided that I kinda like out and back courses. They don’t seem as long for some reason. It’s like I was just running 6.55 miles and then coming back the way I came! At mile 9 I stopped one more time to take another glass of water. There’s a big hill at mile 10, which I knew about because I had to come over it the other way. I was prepared for it. There’s a hill I run a lot on my training runs on El Pueblo Blvd and this hill was similar in length and grade. I just kept reminding myself as I ran up it, how many times I have conquered the El Pueblo hill. It worked! I made it to the top and smiled for the camera, and then soared down the other side.

The last few miles I just kept trying to push myself, while debating how hard was too hard,and trying to figure out how much juice I had left. Right after the 12 mile mark I caught up with Matt who perked up and ran the last mile in with me. He’s really faster than me, I think he was just in some pain from an IT band issue. He really started kicking it and I tried to keep up with him and it was actually pretty cool. We started passing a bunch of people and I started breathing really heavy, so much that I wasn’t able to talk. We made the second to last turn with about .4 miles to go and found that terrible wind was back in our face. Fortunately the course also started to slope downhill at this point at the same time so we at least had that going for us.

When we finally turned and saw the finish line, there was about .2 miles left. Matt said, something like “ready to kick on the afterburners?!” and I was like “NO!” but we did anyway. And my legs and chest burned as we sailed in towards the finish line. The last 20 seconds or so I was literally grunting with every breath!

I have my garmin set to show me my current speed, my average speed and the distance, but NOT the time. I wanted it that way because I wanted to be surprised. As we came up to the finish I squinted at the clock. The first thing I noticed was the 4 in the second digit! Could that be? Then I got a little closer and saw the 6 and my heart leapt for joy. I was going to PR big time. After what felt like forever, we finally passed the finish line and I hit the button on my watch. 1:46:40. Yipee!!!!!

They gave us a beautiful medal and ripped off the bottom portion of our bibs for timing. I thanked Matt profusely for getting me to the finish line with that fantastic sprint.

After that we met up with Ariana who had finished as the 4th woman with a fantastic time of 1:34! We then picked up our bags and headed to get food. The race food was DELISH. I especially appreciated the half of a hot breakfast burrito, made with eggs and cheese and potatoes, served with salsa to dip into. It was sooooo good.

This was a really fun race, and I think it would be even more fun for someone who’s not familiar with the desert. The landscape is amazing out there. Even to someone who grew up in the desert, this place still amazes me. I can’t imagine how impressive it looks to someone from out of state.
Overall, today was a great day. It’s so fun to PR. Especially when it comes as a surprise.  I’ll close with some of the pictures I took, hopefully I’ll have the professional ones by the end of the week.

Have a good week everyone!

a beautiful sunrise

how fun!

me and Ariana

The one photo I managed to take while running. Pretty cool huh?

The supposed “elevation profile” from the race website

Here’s the real elevation profile!

What a weird day. I’m so used to having my Saturday routine of getting up early and heading out for a long run.  I’m running in the Lost Dutchman half marathon tomorrow and I’ve been training hard all week, so I think it’s appropriate to take today off to get my legs ready for tomorrow.

Joe and I celebrated Valentines day by being lazy and sleeping in until 9 am and then gorging ourselves on yummy pancakes. I’m telling myself I’m carb-loading for the race. Tomorrow should be interesting. I’m racing this one on my own since my running buddies couldn’t join me and Joe was not keen on getting up super early to go stand out in the cold desert for two hours. I don’t blame him. So it will be a solo adventure tomorrow. I’m thinking about running with a disposable camera since my digital is too bulky and my cell phone camera does not do well with pictures taken on the run.  If you’re not familiar with the area, the Superstition mountain’s look like they are the backdrop to an old western movie. In fact I do believe that several films were shot there. We had a winter storm move through this week and I have been told the Superstitions might have a light dusting of snow. I would LOVE to get some photos for all you easterners. It is truly one of the most picturesque places in the state.

Some photos I took a few years ago in the Superstitions.

Should be quite an interesting race. I’m not sure how many people are running the half. I know that the full is going to be capped at 500 people and we have been told to come early because they are expecting record crowds. The race is not chip timed, which kind of sucks, considering they are going to have “record crowds”. It seems to be a pretty popular race among runners here. Not sure why they couldn’t have it chipped timed.

I’ve decided not to make any predictions for tomorrow. Even in my mind I only have vague numbers. Being that the race website does not show either a map or an elevation profile for the half marathon, I don’t really know what to expect in the way of hills. All I know is that there are some rolling hills, but over all its “relatively flat”. I’m just hoping to be pleasantly surprised. I have three more local and semi-local half marathons picked out between now and Memorial day. I figure if I don’t do great tomorrow, I will redeem myself on another race.

It’s been a hairy couple of weeks since the marathon. I thought I had avoided the post marathon let-down, but it hit hard about two weeks ago (thus the reason I hadn’t felt like blogging). I’ve lost some weight recently which on one hand feels really great, and on the other hand, is sorta scary since I don’t need to lose it and it triggers old thought patterns. I dabbled in my old habits for a week or two, losing a few more pounds in the process and then finally came to the realization that I just couldn’t let myself go any farther down that road. It wasn’t fair to my husband. I turn into a monster.

I don’t know how I got my self to snap out of it, but I did. I actually think it was probably God answering my prayers since I don’t think I had the strength to stop myself from snowballing on my own. This week I’ve been mostly back to my old self, eating well, and feeling more competitive and adventurous than ever. My friend Malinda who’s a personal trainer gave me a whole set of upper body and core moves to do twice a week and I’m finding that I’m really excited to do them. It won’t be long before its tank top season again, and this year I would really like to reveal toned arms come May. And I know that I’m not going to build muscle if I’m not eating enough.

I also broke out my FIRST book again and decided to take on the 18 week half marathon training program starting next week. I really enjoy having a specific plan for track repeats (even though I do them on the treadmill) and I know that they work if I follow the plan consistently. I even find that I enjoy doing the speed work, even though its hard! If I can convince Joe to let me do it, hopefully I can conclude the training program at the Laguna Hills Half Marathon on May 31. I have a friend who lives near there and it’s also on Memorial Day weekend which would make travel easier.

I’m also looking into purchasing a road bike and MAYBE, POSSIBLY training for a triathlon in the fall.
So if anyone knows anyone who is selling a road bike that will fit someone who’s 5’5 please let me know! I’m willing to pay shipping if they’re not local for the right bike.

Sorry for the long post guys! Hopefully I will be back to blogging a few times a week this week and then you won’t have to read though any more long-winded catch up post like this one.

I’ll post tomorrow after the race and let you know how it went! Happy running!