I am a marathoner!

I did it. On October 4th, exactly a year after Lydia, Jocelyn, and I committed to running a marathon I ran 26.2 miles. Sub 6. I still can't believe it :) The support I had behind me was incredible & kept me going! Thank you everyone! Race recap will come in the near future, I'm a busy girl the next couple weeks!

The plan

revised my plan based on where I'm at now & the time I have left. Feeling good about this.

12 miles, done!

The past week has been rough. Upon my retun from atlanta last Monday I learned a cousin had passed away tragically. He took his own life. Something that no one ever wants to face or anyone will ever understand. Its like a nightmare to think about and you never wake up from it. Ugh. My brother Bobby came down from Canada for the services and I did get to see him before I left so that was nice. I miss him a lot. A typical ride in the car with my brother from Thursday:

After all of those formalities I did have a good weekend, I went to a jazz and wine festival at Glenora with Seth and his family and it was a blast. He surprised his family with a gorgeous portable table he made and we had a big picnic overlooking the lake while listening to some good music. Can we just say perfect? His mom had all sorts of vegan foodstuffs for us, it was awesome! I made oatmeal cream sandwiches the night before to share with his family and those were a hit. I had Monday off so we took our time, stayed long after the band stopped playing and then went to Watkins Glen for some vegan soft serve ice cream. What!! I haven't had that since I went vegan! Amazing. He mapped out a 12 mile route for me to run and guess what.. I did it! Felt like I was going to die.. But I covered the distance and made a wrong turn or two along the way. Good times. Its weird running in rochester, a great way to see the city. Fortunately none of my wrong turns landed me in the ghetto. In all it was an awesome weekend. Annnndd.. Now I have some baking to catch up on.

Right of passage!

Oh my goodness! I'm so excited! I have the beginning of a black toenail!!!!! I know, I know, contain your excitement.. I've got enough for the both of us. I feel like its a right of passage, this black toenail thing. And while its just a small bit of my left index toe I still could not wait to share it with all of my running buddies because.. Well.. The general population thinks its gross and couldn't give two turds. But I've been working hard on sticking to my training schedule and feel this baby black toenail is a trophy. Annndd I will be covering it it nailpolish ASAP. Hahahaha

i did it! INDEPENDENCE!

10 miles! YEAH! so excited! the fun part about this training is everything is a personal record. i like this. Definitely felt the high on this run. felt amazing. now off to the beach! Happy 4th of July! Today I will also celebrate this day as independence from my hip. TAKE THAT HIP!

its going to be a good weekend

san diego here we come :)

So its been a tough ride for me the past couple of months. many ups and downs & one false alarm that I wouldn't be able to make it out to watch lydia and jocelyn run the marathon. now I hear jenna is going to run for as long as she can with lydia and jocelyn. I'm so excited. I've been running and doing well, just not pushing myself and certainly not training for 26.2. I feel strongly about being there & supporting my girls on their journey. I'll be there at the finish line cheering them on like a proud momma. there will be pictures :)

i dig this

A lot has been going on in my life as of late! Things have been great and admittedly blogging has taken the back seat. I've been chillin' on the running front, the past couple haven't felt so great so I'm focusing on getting myself stronger & healthier. I've started doing bikram yoga, its AMAZING. I do it next to where I work, at www.bikramyoganyc.com. Its pretty intense & I feel like I'm going to pass out sometimes but I really do love how I feel when its done. Anyways, I'm about to fly out of town for work but I just wanted to stop by and say "hi! i'm alive!" and share this video with you. I've always been fascinated by science and being able to see what we cannot possibly see with the naked human eye. I think I need to work on incorporating this love more into my photography. This is why I studied biomedical photography in the first place. Its only natural for me I feel..

Check it out. I'd love to learn how to do this someday, animation is another interest of mine..

p.s. I love Seed Magazine. Anyone else a fan?

Back at it

Woo! So many of you know I commute via train into work everyday. I'll have you know I haven't had to do any train sprints lately, been rocking on that front! Sorry Jocelyn, no more "thanks Mr. Train conductor man, now I can marathons" moments! Anyways, for the past couple of months blogger hasn't let me update from my blackberry. But today I tried and look! Here I am on the train updating my bloggity blog. Victory.
So although I haven't been posting much I have started running and cross training again since surviving the sickness. You can see my progress in the side bar to the right. Went for my first 3.3 mile (such an odd number right? But I feel like that .3 counts for something) run in a long time (since my injury? 4..5 months?) this weekend and it felt so good. I'm very excited, a good friend from high school sent me a message the otherday, she's training for a half marathon at the beginning of May in Long Branch, NJ! Guess who is going to aim to do it? This gal. Can't wait, I'm so excited. Now if only I can start getting enough sleep so I can squeeze in long runs before those train sprints in the morning. Gotta love the train sprints.
On another note, I miss Lydia terribly. And I'm driving up to Rochester with Jocelyn this weekend for some fun!!! Joc, maybe we can run together this weekend? Yay? Nay?
Tonight I'm going to see the Harlem Globetrotters, wahoo!

Hope everyone enjoyed their St. Patricks day!!

short n' sweet

sorry i've been MIA.
in quick summary:
1. colorado was a-mazing!
2. i've been sick (damn you jocelyn!)
3. i've reached my first goal weight of 125 (what!). although probably as a result of being sick & not being able to eat much or keep food down for that matter. still, i'll enjoy it.
4. there is a cute boy in the picture... just having fun.. no expectations.. i'm enjoying this :)
5. i'm nauseous
6. the thought of running makes me nauseous
7. i still want to run the marathon in may even though i realize its not a realistic goal
8. i hope i get better quickly
9. i'm feeling restless.
10. i did some shooting last weekend, i can't wait to scan the negs. maybe i'll post a few here.
11. my friends are amazing. Lydia ran 9 miles and Jocelyn ran 7! someday I hope to be as awesome.
11a. i should add that jocelyn ran 7 miles in a thong. i didn't know that was humanly possible. she's nuts and i love it.
12. i'm nauseous & i'm going back to bed.
13. i promise i'll be back at it soon
14. its bad luck to end on number 13, so i'll end here.
good night :)

I'm so excited I'm so excited!

Woo! I am so happy to get back into all of this, I feel a thousand times better. Yesterday I went straight from the gym to work and then back home to work again so I didn't get the chance to update. I'm operating on 2 hours of sleep here, I'm exhausted! And really sore. But in a good kind of way. For some reason the training log doesn't show what I did for strength training but I did the stability ball thing in my little corner of the gym. I wanted to die but it was good that I stuck it out and didn't give up. I did crunches, reverse crunches? , roll ins, push ups, & dips. 3 sets of 15, non stop alternating muscle groups. I'm out of shape. sldjfosidjfosdfh
I'm going to Colorado this weekend to spend time with two of my favoritest people in the whole world and we're going to be skiing and snow shoeing and doing all sorts of crazy things those people in Colorado do. I can't wait. In other news, I am officially in the 120 range! 127 this morning! What! Haven't seen that since high school? Before high school? I've been subscribing to the Eat to Live philosophy again and I feel really good. Being able to be active again also helps me feel good. I felt like such a blob the past 4 months. Overall I'm doing well. Since I didn't sleep last night I'm taking a rest day. Its okay, I'll make up for it this weekend :) Although I know Jocelyn & Lyds will leave me in the dust, that is ok!

Self, Get yourself out of bed!

When the alarm went off I wanted to hit snooze but I pulled a Jocelyn and said "Self, get yourself out of bed! If Jocelyn can wake up at 5am to do a run, you can wake up at 6:45am and do a run!"
So I did and it was great and now I have to shower before I catch the train. k tnx bye

happy president's day on a stationary bike

So this morning I had plans to catch the early train and get my XTraining on at my NYC gym but much to my dismay all of the trains were running on a holiday schedule. GRRR! I planned on catching the 7:47am train but that doesn't exist on a holiday schedule. There was only a 7:31am and an 8:31am train. I literally just missed the 7:31am train & had to wait for the 8:31am. Gosh I LOVE THE TRAIN.
So I was late to work and had to stay late to make up time & decided to go to the gym on my way back home..
It was fine, I did the bike for 45 min & just above my left knee was bothering me a bit not sure why but I'll see how it feels tomorrow when I run. I also felt really odd on the stationary bike, it was one of those ones where you lean back into the seat. I hate those bikes! I feel so lazy sitting back like that. I feel like my upper body has nothing to do. I felt so awkward!
I must have been looking cute in my awkwardness though. A nice lookin fella walked past, met eyes with me.. then later came over, smiled, said something I couldn't understand, & walked away. LOL. I just smiled and nodded.. I have no clue what he said. I'm an idiot sometimes. But I was in no condition to carry on a conversation! When I'm in the zone, I'm in the zone.
Tommorow I'll run & maybe do some core later in the evening.

P.S. My runner's world log tells me I burned 500 something calories on that ride. THAT IS NOT TRUE. I think it gauges that based on riding outside.

Just what the doctor ordered!

First run since November 4th :) Felt goooood & I took it easy. No pain! stretched well before & after. I've also lost about 10lbs on the break up diet! Its great! I felt so much lighter running this time around. The other morning I was actually at 128. I hope I can continue to drop the lbs because the lighter I am, the less stress on my joints. And you know how much my joints love me.

AHHH I'M SOO HAPPY I CAN RUN AGAIN!!!!

I did some cupcake deliveries today & it was great, I'm baking up some new stuff tonight to put up on my site before I go on my date tonight ;-). I've got some delicious flavors coming up.. so excited :) today is a good day.

GOOD NEWS!

I CAN RUN AGAIN!
YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just came back from follow up with doctor and it looks like all this rest I've been doing has paid off! He did all the normal twisting and prodding and I felt no pain! Very different than the last time I was in there :) So he said to begin running again only doing 1-1.5 miles and increase .5 miles every 4-5 days. Because of the layout of where I live its easy for me to run 3 miles and not even think about it so I'll really just have to run down my street and run back to do a mile. That seems silly to be but you know what's even sillier?! Being a dumb butt and not listening to the doctor and then ending up not being able to run for another 4 months. I don't want that to happen again. He said I had some fluid in the hip joint and some inflammation combined with a bad soft tissue injury. But it looks like I am all better!

Happy Valentine's Day to all of you beautiful ladies out there! And to me!

Running is my boyfriend now.

Roller Coaster of a Week

First: I don't have a stress fracture in my hip! YAY! This is great news. I'll probably be going for a second opinion just to make sure but I'm pretty confident in the news. The doctor said there is fluid and inflammation around the joint so this is probably what is causing the pain and restricted movement I'm experiencing. I have to see him next week some time and he'll probably be sending me for physical therapy.

The rest of this week has been nuts. 2 photo shoots, some great sales on etsy, and my aunt Doris passed away. The day after my boyfriend of over three years and I broke up in a single phone conversation. Oh well.. life goes on. The next day I was out again with my friends and probably had a little bit too much to drink (but that's allowed right?) and I sit here writing this a tad hung over while my mom waits in the car. Going upstate to see Renee & the baby & get our hairs cut!
Hows that for a quick update! I'm so behind on blogs I promise I'll read and comment sooon!!

please please pray that I don't have a hip stress fracture

I went for my sports medicine appointment this morning and the news is even worse than before. There was some good news though, the MRI came back negative on my ankle! So that's good. But the reason I really needed to make it back in there was because my hip has continued to bother me and has not improved at all over the past month and a half. Upon further examination he determined that I do not have a hip flexor strain, that it was something else. He x-rayed my hip & came back in the room shook his head and said "Shannon, this really doesn't look good. Thank God you've not been running on land for the past month." He said based on the x-ray it looks like I have a hip stress fracture & if that wasn't bad enough its one of the worst kind I can have. He told me it looks like a femoral neck stress fracture, of the tension kind. If this is what I really have, if I had continued to run, he told me, the stress fracture would have been completed & my hip would have collapsed. He told me we'll see what the MRI says but I may need surgery to put a pin in my hip if I do have a fracture. He asked me a whole bunch of personal questions & then said he thinks he'll send me for a bone density test after the MRI results are back.

I'm devastated. I'm 25 years old & might need hip surgery. If I continued to run I may have even needed a hip replacement... I'm the kind of person that will say "it'll be okay, you'll be better soon & there is nothing to worry about." but it has really hit me that this could be serious. I am beyond upset. :(

No more running, can't even water run. Can't walk a whole lot, can't do anything that puts stress on my hip. Guess I'm going to be focusing on my upper body! He did say I can cycle if it doesn't hurt so we will see. I wonder where this leaves me as a photo assistant. I can't believe this. I really am turning into an old lady.

Here is more information on FNSFs:
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/86808-overview

Ladies, please please be careful. Don't do too much too fast. Do your cross training & listen to your body. I'm glad I listened or I'd probably be a lot worse off right now.

Brief update & Cover Shoot for Runner's World is on stands now!

So.. I'm sorry I haven't posted and update but my doctor canceled my appointment again & then I find out he's not working at the practice anymore. Figures. I have an appointment this Saturday though, so we'll see what this new doc says. My dilemma is whether or not I should sign up for this marathon. I want to run it so badly. Even if I have to walk half of it. I don't care. I want to run with Lydia and Jocelyn & we'll probably cry when we cross the finish line & I don't want to miss that. I am tired! I have to wake up and water run tomorrow.. first time in a while! I am bad.



Anyways, I have something cool to share with all of you runners!
Back in November we did a shoot for the cover of Runner's World & the cover hit stands this week! Lolo Jones was amazing & incredibly sweet. She worked so hard to give us the best shots possible & really was a class act. Not to mention she is GORGEOUS. Absolutely beautiful. Check out the video of behind the scenes and an interview with lolo. I'm in the video too, see if you can spot me!