It’s official: My crunchy knee requires surgery. It will be minor, outpatient and supposedly quick. I’ll be off work Thursday and Friday (Aug. 11-12) and should be back to my routine by Monday. The doc said I’d need crutches for a few days, and I’ll have to undergo some post-surgery physical therapy, but I should be back to normal (and running!) within a few weeks.

People, I wanted to do the Dance of Joy right there in the doctor’s office! (I didn’t, mainly because I didn’t want to embarrass Bruce. Like it would faze him.)

This means my training for the 2012 Olympic trials won’t be on hold for much longer.* And those running-shoe deals they’ve been after me to sign? Well, the shoe companies will just have to duke it out for my much-sought-after endorsement. There have been so many calls, I’ve had to change my phone number.

Yes, this is very good news. Penciling in my new training schedule now …

Oh, yeah, you may be wondering about the surgeon’s diagnosis. Of course the official diagnosis by my primary-care physician is Crunchy Knee, but the surgeon came up with his fancy new term from some medical book or something: torn meniscus. Sounds like a made-up term, doesn’t it? I bet he got it off some quack website.

Nevertheless, that’s the term we’re going with, unofficially (I’m humoring him by going along with it). So in three weeks he’ll go in with an arthroscope and clean out the area around the injury. He’ll trim off the torn part of the “meniscus” and take out any floating pieces, if there are any. The surgery is called a “meniscectomy.” Supposedly. According to the surgeon’s alleged medical research.

Apparently this diagnosis and the resulting surgery have gained popularity. You can even read about them on reputable websites such as WebMD. So, rather than trying to ’splain, I’ll just let you click here and read about it for yourself. Some clever person was even commissioned to draw pictures of what the “meniscus” looks like.

So the weeks and months of wondering and fretting are over. My crunchy knee can be fixed, and I will run again (Lord willin’).

Woo hoo!

*Lest you think I’m already under the influence of anesthesia and thus delusional, please be assured that I am merely giddy with excitement that my orthopedic surgeon did not give my burgeoning running career the same death sentence my primary-care doc pronounced two weeks ago. Yes, I am over the top (don’t worry; I’ll come back down to earth tomorrow). I like my orthopedic surgeon! Even if he does make up medical terminology.

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The orthopedic surgeon scheduled an MRI for Monday morning (the X-rays this morning didn’t tell him what he needed to know).

He said I may not have to give up running, depending on what the specific problem is. It may be a tear in the meniscus, or it may be this or that, blah, blah, blah. (The only part I heard was that I might be able to run again after the problem is treated.)

I’ll update you again after Monday’s MRI: 8 a.m. – first thing in the morning!

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I’ve been thinking about this knee thing. (You knew I wouldn’t be able to let it go, right?)

Since the doc told me a week ago that I should stop running, and to walk only on non-hilly surfaces, I’ve been sticking to walking, mostly (only about 1 percent running – really).

But … after a frustrating few days of trying to stay in the flattish parts of my neighborhood, I started doing the 4-Mile Class route again – walking (mostly).

And it really hasn’t bothered my knee (much).

So this morning as I was on my way home, trudging down the overpass over the bayou, a realization hit me: I totally misunderstood my doctor the other day.

She didn’t tell me not to run in hills. She said not to run in heels!

Well, every smart girl knows that! So, really, I’m ahead of the game. I never run in heels. In fact, I haven’t even worn heels in more than a decade, since the last time I had a bout with plantar fasciitis, was diagnosed with bone spurs and spent $200 on a pair of custom orthotics that got tossed out with my old running shoes last year (they didn’t help much, anyway). So I can keep walking in hills. Why didn’t I realize this before?

I’m so relieved.

It was all just a misunderstanding.

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I’m back.

I mean that in an I’m-over-my-pity-party kind of way.

Last week, after my doc told me I should stop running (she didn’t say I had to stop, merely that I should stop), I had a meltdown.

My appointment was Tuesday afternoon – my lunch break. After leaving her office, instead of heading to Subway – my usual lunchtime haunt – I headed to Wendy’s. Not good.

Not good because I went for the wrong reason: I felt sorry for myself. I took on a so-what attitude after getting the news. I ate a cheeseburger and fries, and I didn’t even enjoy it that much, partly because the burger was dry and partly because I felt guilty. An occasional indulgence is fine, but only if you’ve planned it and decided it’s an okay fraction of an otherwise healthy diet. Not because you’re trying to drown your sorrows.

Thank God the doctor didn’t tell me I had cancer. I mean, let’s put this in perspective for a minute. She didn’t give me a death sentence, but that’s how I acted for three or four days. Like someone had stolen my best friend and demanded a ransom too high to pay.

What she said to me wasn’t unreasonable, but my response was surprisingly unreasonable. It probably didn’t help that I had started off my week tired (after a three-day holiday weekend). I am a completely different person when I’ve had a good night’s sleep. I can be unreasonable when I haven’t.

She told me not to run, and not to walk on hills. Wednesday morning I tried to walk a modified version of my typical route (the racecourse of the White River 4-Mile Classic). It has hills. (We love hills. Normally.)

Do you have any idea how stressful it is to carve a new course that’s flat out of a familiar one that has hills? I can’t even tell you what exact route I created; I just wandered around the flattish parts of the route, avoiding the steepest section of North Heights, the entire “Craig Mountain” (Craig Street) and the hilly part of Hill Street. I didn’t even look at the overpass (well, yes, I did, but I didn’t approach it). I retraveled some areas of the route because I still wanted to get my 4.5 miles in (that includes the trek from my house to the racecourse and back again).

By the time I was finished, I was exhausted – mentally, if not physically.

I had started the day physically tired, probably because of my mental state. I just felt as though I had no energy. I felt like I used to feel when I was depressed 15 years ago. Ick.

Because of my pity party, and the fact that our group was still training on the Lyon College route (the Army National Guard 5K was Saturday, and we won’t even go into how I felt for not participating), I didn’t work out with the group Tuesday or Thursday nights and I didn’t walk Thursday morning by myself. But because I knew my weigh-in was Friday morning and I had indulged in ice cream Wednesday night, I walked Friday morning. Those times I did walk last week, I just didn’t feel like doing it, but I did it anyway. I felt like someone had taken the wind out of my sails. Each workout was an effort, so unlike the other times when I actually enjoyed being out there.

But I knew I had to keep truckin’ because it is so easy to get out of the habit, and I don’t want to end up right back where I was – overweight and feeling heavy in body and spirit.

So Friday’s weigh-in was a bit of a relief because I found out that I hadn’t gained weight. I lost 0.4 pounds for a total of 21. (I deserve to have gained after the self-centered week I had.) The happy part of it is that it means I maintained my 20-pound loss for a week and could have a reward. But instead of the $18 chin-up bar or the Runner’s World subscription that I had planned to get, I went to Hastings and browsed the books. I found one by a favorite author and psychologist who was key to my overcoming that long-ago depression I mentioned. (And it cost less than $10.) It’s called God’s Love Letters To You: A 40-Day Devotional Experience by Larry Crabb.

I needed a good spiritual boost.

Saturday morning I decided to do my typical route, hills and all. It didn’t hurt anything. Much.

When I was finished, I felt better. Then Bruce and I went to the Army National Guard race, and I watched several of my friends take trophies or medals. I was bummed, but I didn’t dwell on it all day (only part of the day).

This morning I did my typical route again, and not only did I start off feeling great (physically and mentally), I was happy again as I walked. The hills didn’t even seem that bad.

When I was finished, I had that same feeling of accomplishment that I’ve experienced over and over for the past few months. I was back.

Feelings are so untrustworthy. I’m glad to know that God doesn’t abandon us when we take our focus off Him. He doesn’t let us hang in the wind; He’s always there. Sometimes we just don’t recognize it because we’re too busy focusing on ourselves.

I think He’s allowing me to experience these feelings, though, so I’ll understand that He is the only One I can truly count on. I can’t count on my feelings. I can’t count on my body. I can’t count on the weather. I can just count on Him.

I’m back, but He never left.

Thank God.

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I am not normal.

(You knew that already.)

This afternoon I went to my primary-care physician to have her take a look at my right knee, which has been bothering me for two to three years but has gotten worse since I began running again in November. It has had noticeable swelling for several months, and it “crunches” when I bend it, especially when I climb stairs (this has been true since before I started running). I had been waiting until after July 1 to see a doctor about it so that my insurer couldn’t accuse me of having a pre-existing condition before my one-year waiting period was up. (It happened to Bruce last year, and we’re still paying the denied claims.)

The doctor had me move my knee back and forth while she held onto it, and she said she felt it “crunch.” Her diagnosis: Crunchy Knee. I don’t know what she wrote in my chart, but Crunchy Knee is what she told her staff.

I like her.

Except for this: She told me I should stop running. I told her I’m registered for a 5K this Saturday. She said maybe I could walk it. Then, dad-gum it, as an afterthought she asked, “Is the course flat?” Uh … that would be NO. In fact, it’s quite hilly (we love hills, remember?).

She would forgo the race, she said, not even walk it. And, in fact, she would find a less jarring type of exercise. Permanently. At “our age,” we should find something that’s easier on our aged joints and bones. (This is hard for a 48-year-old woman to hear, especially when she finally has gotten serious about fitness and weight loss. And is in a Biggest Loser competition at work.)

The doc made me an appointment with a local orthopedist, who will probably order an MRI before possibly going in with a scope to “clean it out,” if that course of action is indicated. (We’ll wait for him to determine what’s necessary, but she was just sayin’.)

My emotions when I left her office were varied. Nothing too strong – I think I was in a state of shock, or denial. I’m still in a mild state of shock.

Here’s why I’m pretty sure I’m not normal:

Any normal person – after writing the $30 check for the office visit copay, having her vital signs recorded and telling her doctor that her knee “crunches” when she bends it – would have expected her physician to reply, in essence, “Stop doing bouncy exercises that make your knee worse.” Even temporarily.

Any physician worth her expensive medical-school degree would have said that, and she would have been correct in doing so. Any normal person would have thought this was sensible advice. After all, the expectation of sensible advice and treatment is why we make appointments with our physicians in the first place. (That, and unnecessary antibiotics.)

And when I called Bruce to break the disturbing news, he was not surprised. My mother was not surprised.

Why am I the only one who was surprised?

I am not normal. I live in my own little fantasy world. A world in which pounding on the pavement every day and causing an injured knee to get worse (not to mention the foot with plantar fasciitis) makes perfect sense, because the runner has come to love the sport in a way she never expected. At age 48.

I don’t want to stop running.

In the little scenario I had fantasized about in the weeks leading to today’s exam, the doctor was going to send me to a specialist, who would take some images of my knee, possibly slice it open and fix the problem. (I was even going to ask if I could watch. My brother watched his knee surgery.) Then (not before the specialist visit, but after; not before Saturday’s 5K, but after) I would forgo running for a few weeks (six at the most) and be better and faster than ever when the knee had healed. Super Suzy in stability shoes.

My doctor had a different scenario.

But, hey, maybe there’s hope. Maybe my aging doctor (she’s probably in her 50s), who had to give up tennis and has aches and pains she didn’t have in her 20s, is the one who’s not normal. Maybe she’s just bitter and doesn’t want me to have any fun. Or lose any more weight. Or win the Biggest Loser.

Maybe the orthopedist is more realistic. And not bitter because he had to give up his favorite sport. And understands how I have come to love running.

Yes. He’ll be more reasonable.

He’s going to take one look at my 20.6-pounds-smaller self, smile at me and say, “We’ll fix you right up, and by the weekend you can go back to your running schedule! Here, have some heavy narcotics!”

I’m not normal.

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Before I get to today’s news about me (it’s always about me, right?), I want to give a special shout out to Chelsea Willis, a young Batesville woman who has won two gold medals this week in the Special Olympics World Summer Games in Athens, Greece. (She won golds in the 400- and 800-meter relays.) Way to go, Chelsea! You are showing us what can be accomplished with hard work and determination, and you are making Arkansas proud.

Today at our weigh-in at work, the scale showed a 2-pound loss. Finally! The past two Fridays I had lost less than a pound and was a bit frustrated. When we began the first Biggest Loser contest in February, I didn’t care whether I won or lost – I just wanted to have the accountability. By the end, when I had been in the lead for a few weeks, I wanted to win it (and I did). Now, in this second go-round, I definitely have become competitive about it. But I’m really just competing with myself – I have no idea how anyone else is doing, except for one co-worker who recently started sharing her successes with me. She has lost about 22 or 23 pounds to my 20.6, but she had more to start with so my percentages are better. And Biggest Loser is about percentage, not actual pounds.

So, back to the exciting news of the day: I’ve met my 20-pound goal, and then some – a total of 20.6 pounds, to be precise (and we all know I like to be precise).

Of course I have to maintain the 20-pound loss for a week before I can reward myself (in case it was a fluke, or some kind of scale malfunction, or I pig out next week and gain 6 pounds). I’ve changed my reward from a pair of sandals (more expensive than my new idea, plus I’m not sure my injured foot is ready for wedge sandals yet). I can get a six-month subscription to Runner’s World magazine for $9.97, so that will be my reward. I’m told the Sara Low Memorial 5K (Sept. 10 in Batesville) will be featured in the August issue.

(In case you don’t know, Sara was a Batesville High School grad and a flight attendant for American Airlines. She was on the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center on 9/11. One of her high school running buddies, Mindy, co-founded the 5K in her honor five years ago. This year is the 10th anniversary of 9/11, so my guess is that the Runner’s World feature will focus on that. It would be nice to read of other memorial races relating to 9/11.)

Thursday evening Bruce and I went to a planning meeting for the Sara Low race. If you’re looking for a way to contribute to the local running community, let me tell you we need volunteers for this race. Post a comment letting me know you’d like to help, or e-mail Ken McSpadden at macandmichelle@sbcglobal.net).

I would love to run the Sara Low race, but we’ll have to see. Despite the fact that I still have a bum foot and my right knee is a mess, I’ve still been running (I’m registered for next Saturday’s Army National Guard 5K at Lyon College, the route we’ve been training on for the past three weeks), but I have an appointment Tuesday to get my knee examined. (No news on when I will get my head examined.) If my doc sends me to a specialist, and that specialist recommends knee surgery, I won’t be able to run the Sept. 10 race. Bruce and I will be traveling in early August, so any potential surgery would have to wait until after that. This would put me out of commission in September, I assume.

Despite how crazy the thought might have been eight months ago (just before I started exercising again), I really have come to appreciate running in a way I never did before.

I have to admit it’s a love-hate relationship, but mostly love:

• I love the health benefits (my foot and knee problems notwithstanding), and I love the feeling I get when I’m finished, or when I’m about to be finished. I love that I’ve learned to push through pain and discomfort – although it could be argued that I haven’t had much to challenge me in that area; I’ve never run more than a 4-mile course, I’ve never had to run on ice, etc., etc. I love the sense of accomplishment, even when what I’ve accomplished is minuscule. I love seeing the progress I’ve made, even when it’s slow and barely noticeable. I love how it has helped me to shed more than 20 pounds in less than five months.
• I love being outdoors, even when it’s hot, humid, cold, dry, wet or wild. I haven’t told you, but I got caught in the thunderstorm that popped up early Tuesday morning. I was up on Main Street when the wind started blowing hard, headed back home when the rain started coming down hard, and really hustling when the gravel and dust from the overpass started flying into my eyes. It was kinda scary and kind of exhilarating at the same time. (Yes, I know, I’m a lunatic.) The next morning a lady I see each day around 6:15 slowed her car, rolled down the window and said, “I was kinda worried about you yesterday morning in that storm.” I didn’t tell her, but I sure wouldn’t have turned down a ride home if she had offered it. I see and wave at some of the same nice folks driving (or walking or biking) by me every morning on my route, and I would have felt safe hitching a ride with her – at least safer than I felt in the storm!
• I love, love, love the time I have to myself out on the streets of Batesville as the sun is coming up. Is there a more perfect time to talk to the Creator of the universe than when a new day is dawning?
• I love that Bruce and I are working out together and growing closer because of it. I love that he has a team to coach and feels a sense of purpose that he lacked before we moved to Batesville. He really loves coaching the ladies, and they (we) really love him. Plus, I get the added benefit of having a live-in running coach! (So far the positives have far outweighed the negatives.) Check out Bruce’s blog for his running tips and encouragement.

I can’t think of much I hate about running right now, except maybe that I still don’t have much lung capacity despite the speed (albeit small) that I’ve gained (an indicator of increased fitness, so you’d think I could breathe better by now, darn it!). Several months ago Coach Bruce told me I might never have the lung capacity I long for. I’ve had respiratory issues, mostly mild but still nagging, for much of my life, so it’s just hard, hard, hard to breathe when I run. I guess time will tell whether I can ever run an entire race without walking. Argh!

But mostly my relationship with running is love.

And today I celebrate it because it has been a large contributor to my weight loss.

Did I mention that I reached my 20-pound goal today? I did? Good. Also remember that I started walking/running in mid-November, added the healthy-eating component in February but didn’t get serious about it until April 5. It has taken me nearly three months to achieve a 20-pound loss, but that’s okay. In fact, it’s appropriate – a healthy way to do it, mentally and physically.

Remember that when you tell yourself you can’t do it. When you don’t see any progress, or you see so little change on the scale – or in your breathing, or the tightness of your pants, or your blood pressure or cholesterol or triglycerides – remember that baby steps will get you where you want to go if you’re patient.

Remember, friends, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

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I have had complaints from my vast network of readers that I haven’t written in a while.

OK, my vast network consists of about three people. And there was just one complaint.

But she was very convincing. And it wasn’t my mother.

The lack of posts is not because I haven’t had anything to say – it’s just that I can’t seem to pull my thoughts together in any coherent and compelling (and, most importantly, amusing) way. I’m just not very interesting right now. I’ve had a lot of irons in the fire – with work, with church volunteer stuff and personally. (So, really, “running on empty” is a misleading headline, but I have a headache and it’s all I could think of.)

My blog topic for more than two months has been my journey to fitness, and I know this bores some people. Heck, it would bore me if I were reading someone else’s blog about the same topic for weeks on end. Especially a topic that involves exercise, humidity and profuse sweating.

And, I have to admit, it’s been a little harder to stay accountable lately, possibly because I haven’t been writing about it. At each of the past two Friday weigh-ins at work, I’ve seen less than a 1-pound loss. But at least that means I haven’t gained, and I couldn’t say that before the “Going public” post. (For the record, at the last weigh-in I was at 187.8 pounds; that’s an 18.6 pound loss.)

I’ve been doing more exercising lately (seven days a week instead of three or four), so that should mean 1-2 pounds a week, but the past couple of weeks I was really hungry and ate more than I had been. I have healthy snacks at work, but my dinners have been difficult on the nights we do our 5K workouts. Some nights I just have a bowl of cereal because making a salad takes too much time and effort.

I’ve been taking it easy on my foot since the May 7 emergency room visit, and I have made my right knee worse by favoring my left foot. So I’m kind of schizo about my workouts. One day I decide I’ll just walk; the next I decide I have to do some jogging. Thursday night I ran the Lyon College course as though I were running it on race day (July 9, the Army National Guard 5K, which I finally decided I was healthy enough to enter – after discussing with Coach Bruce the advantages and disadvantages; funny, I don’t remember the disadvantages).

Saturday we did a timed Magic Mile because we hadn’t done one since the last week of the women’s running clinic. Between May 3 and June 25, I shaved 4 seconds off my mile, despite my bum foot and knee. As Bruce noted when he posted our times on his blog, we were running in more heat and humidity this time, too. Rah!

So, really, running on a foot with a pretty significant case of plantar fasciitis hasn’t slowed me down as much as I thought it had. And taking the 17 days off after the ER visit doesn’t seem to have made much difference, either. I’ve just learned to run with pain. I think the humidity has had more to do with my pace than the injuries. As for my knee, I plan to have that seen about soon. Because I’ve had this knee problem for a couple of years (it has just gotten worse since I started running again a few months ago, and still worse since I injured my foot), I have this fear that my insurance company is going to call it a pre-existing condition and I’m waiting for the one-year waiting period to be up (I got on my new employer’s insurance plan July 1). We’re still paying for Bruce’s “pre-existing condition” claim denial for the colonoscopy last summer (don’t get me started). Fortunately the hospital is giving us a year to pay for that portion; we have managed to pay off the doctor’s part. The total bill was about $3,500, so we’re careful not to do anything stupid like go to my annual cardiologist appointment – or have a doctor look at my knee – until after July 1.

And now I’ve made that “pre-existing” condition public. I hope no one from my insurer is reading this. It’s fortunate I have only three readers.

My time lately has been spent working, running, editing (and sometimes writing) the church blog, trying not to go off the deep end with my food choices, and making feeble attempts to spend time with my mom, who lives half a mile away but doesn’t see us as often as she should (our fault, not hers). But in about six weeks our Biggest Loser competition at work will be over, and I won’t be wogging (walking/jogging) seven to nine times a week. (Yes, that may seem extreme, but I don’t work out that hard each time – just Tuesday and Thursday evenings with the group.)

And I got new running shoes yesterday. I needed more stability to help correct problems I didn’t realize I had until recently. Who knew I had high arches and I overpronated with my right foot? (Actually, Bruce noticed the overpronation recently, but it had taken us a few weeks to find the correct shoe.)

Aches, pains, grunts and crunchy knees. Getting old is not for sissies.

I’m going back to bed.

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So many things to tell:

• Saturday morning, I get to have coffee! It’s the first Saturday morning coffee I’ll have been able to drink since the running clinic began in February. Why can’t I drink coffee before running? It’s the pee factor. I mentioned it in an earlier post, and I’m not gonna tell you again. (You’re welcome.)
• My employer is open to the idea of a healthy-workplace initiative! We met Monday morning, and he started telling me some of the things we’ll implement (such as putting fresh fruit in the main break room in addition to the Friday morning doughnuts, all courtesy of the bank). I’ve done lots of reading on the initiatives in other workplaces, and it has got me excited all over again! I had no idea there was so much information out there, much of it from folks who are doing it right.
• The reason I get to drink coffee tomorrow morning is the same reason I can’t run the local 5K that all my women-running (running-women?) friends – and some male friends – will be participating in: It’s these darned crutches and “the boot.” I should be rid of them soon, but I’m trying not to overdo. And running another race this soon would certainly fall into the category of overdoing. And I never overdo – just ask Bruce. (On second thought, don’t.)
• We have the Crohn’s fundraising walk in Little Rock on Saturday evening (yes, evening. Why evening? I have no idea). Click here to donate to our team (Team Taylor Trotters) if you have a spare dollar or two. Any amount will be appreciated.
• I plan to watch a lot of Food Network tomorrow morning, too – until I have to go gas up the car and run a few errands before we leave for LR.
• Today was the second week of our second round of Biggest Loser at work. I lost a pound. I wonder how the other ladies did. Great, I hope. I made myself a spreadsheet and projected out several weeks – even beyond the BL challenges – to see how long it should take me to reach my goal. I’ll share more about that later. BUT I’m only 7.6 pounds from my next reward: summer sandals. And I will have the ER doctor’s endorsement of the kind I want – a cute pair of wedges, perhaps espadrilles, which have come back around in style (I know, it’s shocking that I would mention wanting to buy something that’s in style in the same decade that it’s actually in style). Anyway, Doc told me to wear high heels to help my plantar fasciitis. Go figure.

It’s bedtime, so that’s all the happiness I can talk about for now. More later. Gotta get up early and drink that big cup of coffee!

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It’s time.

As a woman in labor says to her husband while grabbing her overnight bag and the car keys: It’s time.

It’s time for me to get serious about healthy eating, healthy living, this extra 50 pounds of baggage – and go public with my struggle. Public because it’s the only way I will stick with it. (Well, it’s not the only way [more on that later], but it’s a hugely important way, and the one I’ve chosen.)

Many factors have converged to bring me to this point, but tonight was decision time. After more than a year of wishy-washy, excuse-filled thinking, it was time to paint or get off the ladder (my former pastor’s variation on a more colorful and well-known phrase).

As with many of my so-called good decisions, this one came while I was jacked up on too much oxygen – toward the end of a 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) run in a beautiful neighborhood – blue skies, green trees, a slight breeze, low humidity, bicycling kids and dads, jogging moms. A perfect evening.

It was the perfect end to a not-so-perfect day at work – a day of being out of control with my eating. Today was April-birthday-celebration-day at work. Can I tell you all the things I ate without making you sick? It makes me sick (emotionally, mentally, spiritually) to think about it, so maybe I won’t. I will let you imagine. Because, if you are reading this is as a person (especially a woman) who has struggled with food issues for any length of time, you don’t have to know the specifics of my particular brand of food insanity; you have your own specifics and can fill in the blanks using your own food-drug of choice.

I am typically not a binge eater, but I do tend to overdo, and today I pushed the limits of common sense. I ate a lot of junk – so much, in fact, that even though I was no longer full by the time the Women Run Arkansas clinic started at 5:30, I felt heavy. Not body-heavy, but heart-heavy.

I didn’t want to run. For this reason, I knew I had to.

One thing about the running clinic: I always feel better when I’ve pushed myself, made myself persevere. I never want to go; I always am glad I did. It’s kind of like when you’re tired and don’t want to get up and go to church. You’re in a bad mood, don’t want to do it, but you know you’ll receive a blessing if you just go. And you do. And you do.

Tonight, as always, I got to the designated running spot and walked around the parking lot while the other ladies chatted. I don’t like to do the stretches without warming my muscles first. I started off feeling like an elephant (“I can’t do this tonight. Why am I here?”) but slowly began to feel more capable, confident. By the time the group stretching began, I was ready (I had also found a bathroom in the nearby gym – an unexpected, happy bonus: I could pee one last time before jogging! [More on that later, filed under “A Million Excuses”]).

I’m sure they told us the following fact after our last Saturday morning workout, but with the wind blowing, the music blaring and the stretch leader’s head turned in the other direction, I do not always hear all the details: We were going to run a 5k tonight. In a hilly neighborhood. (Saturday workouts are on the high school track. The flat-as-a-pancake high school track.)

Tonight we ran the route of the upcoming 1040 Tax Fun Run/Walk. Sure, we’d been running nearly 3 miles in our thrice-weekly workouts for quite some time, gradually building our endurance with longer jog/shorter walk times, but tonight we took a big leap. Instead of an alternating run-2-minutes/walk-3-minutes workout, we skipped ahead to  a run-3/walk-1 pace. What? Are you trying to kill us? (Really, they’re not. Quite the contrary – they’re trying to save us from ourselves.)

But it was run-3, walk-1, and I was game. I have been building endurance, even though with my respiratory issues (Excuse No. 697) Bruce thinks I may never get the lung capacity I long for. My physical endurance, while not ideal, nevertheless has been improving.

When I finished my 5K (in 41 minutes, 15 seconds!), I walked back to find some other joggers and walkers, mainly because Bruce was with them. (He has been volunteering as a coach at the clinic for a couple of weeks, since the day we both needed the car and he stayed to see if they needed help instead of simply dropping me off.)

Strangely enough, after my run, I felt good. I am sure I won’t be saying this once the humidity pods descend on our city, but tonight it was all good. Especially when I crossed the finish line.

I felt so great, in fact, that I doubled back to jog in with the group behind me, encouraging the ladies as they neared the finish line. And when we reached it, I doubled back again to pick up the next group. “Go, ladies. You’re almost there! You can do it! Finish line just ahead!”

It made me feel good to encourage them. They may not have wanted or needed my two cents’ worth of encouragement, but I felt good giving it to them.

That’s when the crazy idea hit me (remember, my brain was all endorphined up):

“Next year I am going to be in good enough shape to be a leader of one of the running groups.” (We have several groups, starting with Walkers, then Beginner A runners, Beginner B runners, Intermediate …)

“That is my goal, my New Year’s resolution (nevermind this is April). I am going to get serious about this unhealthy, out-of-shape body and be a serious runner! And then I’m going to help others!”

If you have ever made a New Year’s resolution, or gone on a diet, or committed to anything important in the throes of an oxygen high, you know how risky and tricky the next few weeks are going to be. I’m not stupid – I know I will have many obstacles, not the least of which will be the enemy’s attempts to short-circuit my resolve. The evil one will throw in my face every single excuse I’ve ever come up with for quitting.

So let me list a few of them here, just to get them out of the way. I’m sure I’ll think of more later, but here are a few of the Million Excuses:

• My feet hurt. (I have bone spurs in the bottoms of both of my heels. I’ve seen them in X-rays.)

• My knee hurts. (I did something to it quite a while back, and it gives me grief sometimes.)
• I have a heart condition. (But my cardiologist told me 18 months ago that I needed to lose a few pounds.)
• I have developed a problem with urinary leakage upon exertion. (Don’t make me explain. If you’re a middle-age woman or have been pregnant, you probably know what I’m talking about. Explain it to the other girls.)
• I don’t have the right apparel. (Solved the most important one recently when I figured out How to buy a sports bra. This was a tongue-in-cheek post; some people didn’t get that – but he was a guy.)
• I don’t have time. (Haven’t we all used that one? If you don’t have time to take care of your body [and your spirit], you’re too busy!)
• I’m not very fast. (Solved that one, too, when I read No Need for Speed: A Beginner’s Guide to the Joy of Running.)
• I have respiratory issues. (So what? See previous item.)
• It’s too cold/hot/humid. (Since I began running again in November, I have run in below-freezing temperatures and lived to tell about it. In the past, I have run in high temperatures and not died of heat stroke. As for the humidity – well, I’m still talking to myself about that one.)

Those are some of the excuses I’ve used for not exercising. The ones for not eating right are fewer but more ridiculous:

• My oven is 40 years old and burns everything. (So make a sandwich.)
• I can’t afford to eat healthy. (But you can afford a cardiologist’s bill?)
• I don’t have time to cook healthful foods. (Salads do take a relatively long time to prepare, and cutting up the vegetables too many days in advance causes them to spoil faster. But good alternatives exist. Figure them out, and stop whining.)
• Fresh produce spoils so fast. (So go to the store more often. Or send hubby.)
• But this tastes so good. (So eat a little of it, savor it, and put your fork away.)
• The Weight Watchers calculator is out of stock, and I can’t count my points without it! (Good news – I finally got the calculator.)

The excuses pile up like stacks of old newspapers. And the excuses are a lot easier to recycle.

The bottom line is that, left to my own devices, “wisdom” and appetites, I will die young. And I don’t want to leave Bruce and the dogs to fend for themselves. I love them too much for that.

That is why I’m going public:

This morning, my scale said 199. That means my actual weight is 201 (I cannot calibrate my scale to the correct setting, so I trust the one at work, where we are doing a Biggest Loser competition and I’ve been losing the same 2 pounds for about three weeks now).

My weight issue is largely an accountability problem. (At its core it’s a spiritual battle, but that is a post for another day.) And because I need accountability to my friends, my family, and even total strangers, I am choosing to go public.

I’m not going to post my “before picture” tonight because I have to find it first and it’s already two hours past my bedtime, but I am committing to writing something every single day in this space. I do have a busy schedule (job, school, family, volunteer work), but I will at least post a brief thought. Not sure yet how often I will post my weight (at the moment, I’m weighing myself every morning), but I’ll figure out the specifics as I go.

In reading this, you have found out some ugly things about me that you may not have known. I invite you to take this journey with me, whether you have pounds to shed or some other type of heavy weight that is keeping you down. I am doing this not only to help myself but to help others, Lord willing.

This journey will require prayer, commitment, obedience and a lot of listening to God’s voice (the only way this will really and truly work). I am finally ready. Are you?

It’s time to go public. I hope you’ll join me on the journey.

Share your struggles, words of wisdom or a bit of encouragement with me by posting a comment.

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On May 15, 2010, I will walk in the Take Steps for Crohn’s & Colitis Walk. Take Steps is the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America’s evening walk and celebration and the nation’s largest event dedicated to finding cures for digestive diseases. It is a 2- to 3-mile stroll to raise money for research, bringing us closer to a future free from Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. More than 1.4 million U.S. adults and children are affected by these digestive diseases.

Your donation will help support local patient programs and important research projects. Because my husband, Bruce, has suffered from Crohn’s disease since 1998 and my cousin’s young son was diagnosed several months ago, this cause is very important to me, and I appreciate your help as we fight for a cure.

If you would like to do more than donate money, considering joining me at the event. There will be food, music and children’s activities. The more money we raise, the closer we will be to making life more manageable for patients who live with these diseases every day.

Please join me May 15 at Riverfront Park in North Little Rock or click here to donate to my efforts to support CCFA in finding a cure.

To read about some of Bruce’s struggle with Crohn’s disease, visit some of my previous posts: November 2007 and December 2007.

Thanks for your prayers and support.

Suzy

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