Running Bullskirt: Why Female Runners Don’t Need Your Cutesy Gear

Look, Active.com, and every other running company, we need to talk.

Do me and all my female runners a favor and treat us like people please. Stop trying to market to us ridiculous skirts to run in. What the hell do I look like? I can’t handle shorts or long pants? I’ve been doing fine in them. I feel “fashionable” in durable, name brand, overpriced Under Armour compression shorts, ok? Next thing you know Victoria’s Secret will be introducing the sexy push-up sports bra and you’ll be saying that’s a must-have or I’m doin’ it wrong.

And I’m pretty sure, about 99.99999999% positive, people will not confuse me for a man if I’m not flouncing about in an “adorable” piece of running gear, like a fruckin’ skirt.

Ok, maybe when I wear 3 layers of shirts and a beanie and I’m braving 20 degree weather for a run, I may look like a dude. Guess what? Don’t give a shit. I’m not running to make sure people know my sex. If I were, I’d just go naked. The fact that people don’t know my sex may even benefit me so I don’t get harassed. God knows female runners aren’t taken seriously already. We’re hooted and hollered at while we’re staining and stinking up a well-worn sports bra or compression pants or ratty pair of shorts, which do not scream for attention, but we get it anyway.

I run to be healthy and because I like to. Your skirt will not enhance that in any way. In fact, I’ll feel like a real asshat in that thing.

I’m not training for hours and miles a week to look all cutesy while I do it. I’ve got my game face on and quite frankly, your skirt would ruin it. It says, to me, “I need this to prove I’m still feminine.”

Female runners are the ultimate woman, the ultimate person. We are dedicated, independent, driven, in love with what we do, and on top of the world when we do it. So thanks but no thanks, and screw your skirt. Women are bold enough to wear the pants in this sport, and that’s just what we’ll do.

Stressed to Fracture

This is the hardest part of being an athlete.

It’s not the training. It’s not the nutrition. It’s not getting myself out the door when it’s 20 degrees outside and the world is all ice and I’ve got a 10 mile run staring me in the windburned face.

It’s the injury. It’s the sitting around not doing what I want to do. This is where it really is an addiction because when I can’t do it, it’s awful. It’s maddening. I feel gross, I don’t eat well, my stomach issues get worse, I’m one helluva demon to be around, I’m depressed.

Sure, there are other things I can do. I plan on a lot of upper body and swimming, and as soon as the swelling goes down, cycling. But none of that is what I really, really want to be doing.

And you can’t play with a stress fracture. Because it’ll turn into a full-on break. Then I’m out for longer.

6 to 8 weeks is bad enough.

And I just hate being inconvenienced. I hate limping, being in pain, walking slower than usual. It’s all just a pain. I’m very much about efficiency and this shit is not efficient.

But I also did this to myself. My shoes are over 500 miles, they’re broken, and I was having twangs in my foot because of them. Did I listen? Hell no. Thursday was so bad for me, I needed the release, and I ran harder and harder the more it hurt. A little masochism, I took the pain because I wanted the run and because it was a release and a way to have control over things I can’t control.

The worst kind of runner is a control freak. Type A. But it’s also the best kind of runner. Because I’ll get the job done, until I break.

So yeah, this is the hard part. The grinding my teeth and twiddling my thumbs and watching my runner’s body go down the drain and not thinking about how I have to start my shit all over again. From mile 1.

This doesn’t really threaten the San Diego race. But it threatens me. And that’s enough.

For now I have to just sit; this injury is too fresh to try any cross-training. Until I can walk with only a moderate amount of pain, then I’ll hit the pool. For now I’ll try not to find other ways for release and just bite down on my aggravation.

So far, no go.

But breathing in. Breathing out. 6 to 8 weeks to go.

D Day: Diagnosis

If you’ve been following my life this month at all (I mean, after the race), then you know I had my doctor’s appointment yesterday to get the results from all the tests I had this break. You also know I said I’d post as soon as I knew. But by now, if you’ve known me for any length of time, or read my past and/or current blog, you know I don’t post when something is up.

I won’t beat around the bush or make jokes. The celiac test was negative. The gastric emptying study was normal. Great news, right?

Not particularly.

I was late to my doctor’s appointment by about 10 minutes. If you know Houston, traffic around Memorial is awful. As if getting to an appointment on time isn’t a feat in and of itself. But OK, I’m a native, I’m used to Houston horseshit traffic. That wasn’t the problem.

So I get into the examining room and my doctor magically appears in a decent amount of time which is always nice. She asks me how things have been. I told her when I ate gluten, I felt like I was swimming across the Atlantic that had suddenly gone from ocean water to lava, so it wasn’t a good time. She nods and smiles and goes, “Well, your celiac test was negative. So it’s probably just IBS.”

Shit.

And let me tell you why. Celiac, yes it’s a life-long disease that takes a lot of changes and it’s not something one wishes to be diagnosed with. But it would explain why I’m tired all the time. It would explain nausea and why I can’t ever give blood because my iron’s too low and why I feel like I have no strength at all some days. It would explain why my body flips out more than IBS would. IBS just doesn’t fit. IBS feels like a fallback.

“So we have some medications, three of them, we can use. Unfortunately we don’t have any new medication that helps IBS so we stick to the old stuff. Take it right before you eat. It’s an anti-spasmodic to relax your intestines. It may cause dry mouth, dry eyes, and constipation.”

OK, I don’t care how gross this is to you, but you’re getting the honest deal: this whole damn thing started with constipation, right? Already as a super-dehydrated athlete, constipation is part of the problem. Luckily, years ago when all this first started my doctor gave me some really basic over-the-counter fiber stuff to help. I take it on and off mostly because I hate the idea of it (so I like to keep some cool points, I ain’t gonna lie, I’m a naive 20-something. Who wants to take fiber supplements?) But lately it’s been bad, painful, like for a while I thought it was plain Jane weight gain I’d get that bloated. It was like being on my period. And that shit (literally) hurts. Why the hell would she give me something that exacerbates the problem?

And I asked her.

And she said, “Well, drink plenty of water!”

….Okay….

“And if these don’t work?”

“We’ll try the next pill. And the next. And then play with the dosage. And if those don’t work we’ll do a very low dose of tricyclic antidepressants. Those help stomach issues as well.”

She took out her pill pad and prescribed me my quick fix and sent me on my way. Done deal. Three years of all this and according to her, I just have some moody bowels.

“But what about the gluten free diet helping?”

“Oh, a lot of people are allergic to gluten. It’s just hard for people to digest. So if that helps you do that too.”

And out the door I went. Done in 15 minutes.

Needless to say, I cried a lot yesterday. Yes she has a medical degree, she knows more than I do, but I felt disregarded and discarded. Three years and you think previous doctors would come to IBS as a conclusion. And I’m too tired of all this bullshit to cycle through medications and play with doses and deal with side effects.

So I’m doing this my way. I’m done with doctors. I’m done with tests. And I’m sure as hell not starting medication.

My plan is to just be gluten-free/dairy-free and see how that helps. I’ll also incorporate more meat and vegetables so I get my iron in. If it doesn’t help, I’ll try the medication.

It’s not that I don’t have a gluten allergy, the doctor said. And maybe it isn’t to the extent of celiac. But it’s still an allergy that causes me a considerable amount of discomfort, enough that it’s not worth eating. So why not?

I guess why this hurt so much was because I wasn’t given a definite answer, as I haven’t been. For years. And every appointment is harder and harder to take. And every doctor has a different opinion. At this point I know how to manage my symptoms, or I’ve learned how to deal with them is a more accurate statement. So that’s what I’ll do. I just wanted an answer.

Being as upset as I was, I tried to just run yesterday. Run run run as far as I could. Stupid procrastinating me, I just got new shoes when my Newtons have hundreds and hundreds of miles on them, but they’re being sent to Missouri, so I was booking it in my old ones.

Around mile 3 I started getting a bad pain in the side of my left foot, similar to peroneal tendonitis I had about a year ago. But I kept running on it. Tendonitis hurts like a mother but doesn’t necessarily mean anything serious. But it got worse, and I ran faster until I felt a pain so sharp I stopped 3 or 4 miles away from home. I ran on and off on the way back, but I’m shot for who knows how long. I can barely walk. So much for dealing with stress right? If it is just tendonitis, it’ll go away hopefully.

But with my stomach and no way to relieve the stress, and not getting my 20 miles in like I wanted, I was a mess yesterday. I was scratching at the bottom of a pretty deep hole and bathing myself in filthy self-pity, which only upped how depressed I was feeling. My mom, however, made me an awesome salad and a hamburger patty (no bun for me! Or cheese), and got me to buck up and realize it’s not the end of the world. My close friends also listened to my sob story and encouraged me. They’re damn good at things like that, friends and family are. And always have been for me.

So, despite a busted foot, I’m back on my feet (hobbling or not), nose clean, eyes dry (and not from some medication), ready to get back to the business.

Did I learn anything new about my stomach? Not really. What I could have learned I already know: I’ll be OK, because I’ll take care of myself. I always do. As long as I can run, I can train, I can do what I love, who cares if I have IBS or celiac or 3 stomachs in all the wrong places. I don’t. I just want to run. And I can. And I will.

That’s good enough.

Thanks to all my readers for the support, for the questions and for the concerns. I post because you all are so interactive and I love the conversations. I appreciate the love, thank you thank you thank you.

Medical Test #1: Tracking

I had my gastric emptying study today. I’ve done this before, for my last stomach deal. Only this time, instead of weird eggs, I got weird oatmeal. And, woo yeah, guess what? There’s a debate as to whether or not oats have gluten in them. Already starting the morning off right.

So they fed me this radioactive oatmeal, and stuck me under an imaging machine to track how long it took for my stomach to dump it. This round I got to plug my iPod in and sleep, whereas last time I just had to be still, no music. Not a big difference except it was: I didn’t have to let my brain talk to me. Because god knows, I was having some PTSD laying there underneath that imaging machine, the same way I did three years ago when I was 20 pounds lighter and 100 pounds emotionally overburdened.

Not to say I wasn’t feeling that today. I mean I try to shrug all of that off, because I am so much better than I was. But I’d be lying if I said this stuff, these tests, these same situations aren’t bringing back old symptoms. Yeah, I’m sure it’s a mental thing, but it’s still there. I was going to put my 13 miles in after, but that test brought back too much. Back then I couldn’t run – I didn’t have the strength or the calories to spend – so I released my anger and stress is less healthier ways (though nothing serious like self-harming or hardcore drugs, let’s not turn this into a stomach soap opera, kids.) Those same wants came back too, but I know better.

I don’t know if I’m overreacting. I do know I’m scared shitless tomorrow won’t tell me a damn thing. What am I going to do then? I know the gluten-free diet helps. Except the past couple of days I’ve felt not so great. But I think it’s stress and, of course, the diet takes a while to work and I only went off it a week ago for the blood test. Relief doesn’t happen overnight.

So I plan on packing in my 13 miles tomorrow morning, with some weights and a 90-minute cycling class on top like whipped cream and cherries. And I’m hoping it’ll be just as satisfying. I hate sitting around but when I’m super stressed, super emotional, super caught up in an issue, my running is botched because my stomach is kaput.

I am grateful to not be in the situation I was in three years ago. I am grateful I can run. I am grateful I’ve run as much as I have. But that doesn’t mean the memories don’t still affect me. And I never thought they would, you know? Sometimes to me it doesn’t seem like a big deal because I don’t remember what it was like before this anymore. I don’t know if that’s sad. I don’t think so. I think it’s for the better, you know? You can learn to live with anything, you can work around anything, if you really want to. Sometimes I get upset, sometimes I get tired and depressed, I have days like today when I’m fed up and worn out. But I’ll bounce back. These appointments loom over me like some gastrointestinal impending doom. Will I finally get this figured out or is this all a tease?

Guess I’ll find out at 1 p.m. tomorrow.

What Not to Do: At the Gym

OK, can we talk about this, please? Because I’m in the gym a lot. So I know gym etiquette. But it’s amazing how many people don’t know gym etiquette. But also, the things I see are why people don’t like to work out, and they do it to themselves. Look, just hear me out.

Maybe it irks me because I also work at a gym. But I mean really, everyone knows when you mention that one person who does this or that at the gym whoever you’re talking to is like, “OH YEAH. Ohmygawd, that person! And then they…..”

So lemme e’splain some things, and don’t take the “you”s personally unless you do these things.

1. Your family. Don’t bring them to the gym if they aren’t going to work out. Or your groupies. Or your homeys. Nothing is more obnoxious than you lifting weights and your mom/wife and kids sitting on the bench press machine in err’day clothes chatting away with you. Your mom’s purse could carry half a rack of dumb-bells it’s so damn big, and it’s in the way, and she obviously just came from work. Visiting, cool. Hanging out through the hour-long squat workout, not OK. Give her a ring on the cellular while you’re on the bike or something.
2. Your hygiene. Yeah, you’re going to sweat. I sweat a lot. I’m one of those soaked athletes. Sweat is just liquid awesome, it’s your body’s tears of joy. Embrace being sweaty. But please clean it up afterward if it gets everywhere.
3. Your baggage. If your bags/purses are bigger than your face, do not carry them around with you. Get a lock, put them in a locker. I promise, unless your lock sucks, it’ll be OK. Is it your comfort bag? If so, it’s good behavioral therapy for you to ditch the thing for a few hours.
4. Your pants. Make sure they will stay up, because your workout will be so much more comfortable.You, sir, getting onto the elliptical, if you have to pull your pants up, they aren’t going to work for your workout. Unless you’re trying to get some upper body in, but I doubt your pants are that heavy. Granted, that might explain why they can’t stay up over your butt.
5. Your vanity. You don’t need to worry about it. The gym is not a singles’ bar. Though it can be a place to meet people but still, if they hit on you when you’re sweaty, you got that shit in the bag. And anyway, they should love you for how much you can curl on your biceps, not what you look like doing it. That’s for later when you’re enjoying all your hard work and flaunting it in sexy clothing. Makeup is unnecessary unless a) you came from work b) you came from hanging out with friends c) it’s covering up a drunken incident involving a door/chair/furniture. Or a hickey. But if you’re at the gym and you have a black eye/fat lip, you might be able to get away with saying you’re a boxer. Otherwise, I know you’d like a nice hot muscular partner to walk on the beach with, but really, they’ll be more impressed if you can keep up than if you sweat mascara all over yourself. Cologne: same with makeup. Except when it mixes with sweat, it smells awful. It’s the opposite of what you’re striving for. Some people like muskiness, but just put on some deodorant. That’s the way to go anyway. If a potential partner says you smell bad after working out, you may need someone with more brains than brawn.
6. Your attire. This kind of goes with Pants but I’m going to make it its own category. For the love of the gym gods, no jeans. No sandals. Dude with the plaid punk pants and scruffy F-U boots, you get away from that hamstring machine. If your clothes are too small/big and you can’t move in them, reassess priorities. And your workout.
7. Your performance. Isn’t that why you’re at the gym? Why would you spend 90 minutes in a spin class with no resistance on your bike, texting on your phone, staring out the window, not giving a hot, sweaty damn which is what you’re supposed to give when you go to the gym? I’m looking at you, people who walk on an incline on the treadmill and grip the handle bars like a lava pit awaits you below. I’m looking at your people who plod along on the elliptical for twenty minutes at a pace slower than a melting, prehistoric glacier. I’m looking at YOU guys who marvel at themselves in the mirror and spend more time getting water than lifting anything and god FORBID you do any cardio. I’m looking at you romantic couple who looks like they took a wrong turn trying to get to a club. I’m looking at you person texting the majority of the time they’re on a machine others are waiting for. This is my thing: if you are at the gym, the hard part is over. Don’t waste the time and effort and self-motivation it took to get there by screwing around. You don’t have to go for hours to be healthy! Quite the opposite! So take advantage of being there and do work, son. Make it worth your while and you’ll feel great about it.

The gym is like any other place. You’re out with other people. Who paid to be there. Who are trying to do something a lot of people already hate to do. As I said, you have conquered the hardest task: getting out the door. Getting to the gym. Proper attire, proper attitude, a good environment is going to make something tedious, boring, and painful a lot more fun. Yes, whether or not you wear your pants down to your knees isn’t going to affect me directly. But I know that’s not going to be comfortable. It’s your decision but I’m jus’ sayin’. Respect yourself, take advantage of that gym membership. Take care of business. For you.

Reasoning

I feel like every post I look like I have to explain myself. And I hope with every post you get me more. And I hope it isn’t repetitive (if it is, do tell me) but here it goes:

I have already set up plans for my third marathon, as you’ve seen from me. Over. And over. But, by now, you know you’ll hear about running, and cycling, and dancing, from me, over. And over.

But I want to talk about running now. I want to talk about what it does for me. Because I’ve seen a couple things today that make me ask questions about what the hell I’m doing as an athlete. As a runner.

First, it was this from Active.com. In case you don’t want to click, I’ll make your life easy: it’s an article titled “What Has Running Taught You?” That’s about as relevant as that article will get to this post, so don’t bother to read it unless you really want to. I’m not here to give you cheesy motivational speeches.

I didn’t have to stop and ponder what running means to me. Answers came hard and fast, no filter. Then I tossed them aside and went about my day.

Then I saw an ad for the NCAA during the Independence Bowl game. Showing all those team sports, it made me think. I don’t run with anyone or represent a group. I don’t even seem to train well with people. I do better on my own. I can’t play well with others. What does that say about me, as a person? Am I doing it wrong?

I’ve said numerous times why I run. The physical thrill of it, the endorphins, I’m that kind of junky. I popped out 14ish miles the other day after being out for a week, simply because I love how it makes my body feel, the pain and the release. It’s so good. I wouldn’t say it’s better than sex, because it’s a different kind of game, but you still get a rush, and tend to want to be satisfied with your performance. Except it’s just you; you don’t worry about anyone else.

It could be seen as selfish love, or self-love. You can decide that.

But because it’s only me, it’s not just taught me a lot of things about myself as a person. It’s made me a different person. Before I was training for an ultra, I was different. Ultra training knocked down a lot of walls and now I don’t know what I am but I have one hell of an appetite for things I love, and for a challenge. For exhaustion. For pushing myself to the brink. But the one I can never, ever, get enough of is running. Even when I feel burned out, I want the feeling to go away so I can love running again.

And the other thing is, physical ailments (besides my stomach) don’t stop me from running. Injuries, colds, if I can get away with running with it I will. But mentally, emotionally, a break up, a fight with someone close to me, cripple my runs. And only my runs. I can cycle, I can lift, I dance better when I’m emotionally hurt, but I have the shittiest runs when my heart’s broken. And that sounds like the kind of cheese I said I wouldn’t force-feed you, right, that you’d find in an Active.com article? But it’s the damn truth, I wouldn’t tell you if it wasn’t.

Because my confidence, my trust and love for myself is gone. And it’s because what I put into those relationships is the same feelings I put into running. When one goes, the other is sure to follow.

However, running helps me get over those moments, those heartbreaks. Everyone has something that helps them when the rest of the world fails.

Through running, I have become independent. Through running, I have become stronger. Through running, other tedious tasks aren’t so bad, because I have learned what’s actually hard and what isn’t. Sure, I still whine and get on Facebook when I should be studying or park my car close to the grocery store so I don’t have to walk as far. But I don’t have an excuse to do those things anymore.

It’s all about this: What are you, and what can you do?

If I hadn’t trained for an ultra, I wouldn’t be on marathon number three in about 2 years. If I hadn’t trained for an ultra, I wouldn’t be so hungry to know what my limit is. And running makes me feel like something, someone, and it’s something I do for myself. To find out why I’m so satisfied, but still so hungry, to run. I’m proving myself to me.

Maybe when I learn all I can, I’ll stop. Maybe I’ll never know. So I’ll never stop running.

Does this make me sound like a pretentious ass? I could see it coming across like that. But this is what running does for me. I’m not saying it’ll do it for you so everyone should go out and do what I do. Hell no. You probably have something that builds you up as person. And I think, if I didn’t run, I would be weaker. I would be more dependent.

But I also know running has made me push myself too hard, be too independent, made me skip out on time I could spend with friends and family, has even calloused me, because I use it as Novocaine too often. It has shaped me negatively and positively. But I can’t stop because I’m captivated by what I’m learning.

And for sure, I can’t stop, because I’ll always have one hell of a ways to go.

Stomach This. Again.

Three years later and I go see the doctor again. Because three years later and I really shouldn’t have to.

But this time I keep my problems in my hometown. Not that Missouri couldn’t take care of business, because they had the stomach equivalent of Enron to clean up, but it’s home base and Texas’ hospitals and medical centers ain’t no joke.

So in I went to see this lady and talk about all of the things that happened forever ago.

She narrowed it down to three things:

1. Celiac Disease
2. Irritable Bowel Syndrome
3. Acid Reflux

Celiac disease means my body thinks gluten is evil and creates antibodies to attack my small intestine, essentially. I’d have to stay on a gluten-free diet, which I’ve been doing since break, but this would be for the rest of my life. I have a lot of the symptoms, like being tired all the time, and feeling sick, and feeling bloated, and other unpleasant things. Because I’ve been on a gluten-free diet, if I were to be tested now for CD, I’d come up negative because my body currently isn’t trying to fight gluten. Because there isn’t any. So good news is, gluten-filled weekend, bitches! Blood test is on Monday, where she’ll also check my thyroid (just in case.)

I also have to have another gastric emptying test, where they feed me radioactive eggs and track them through my digestive system to see how long it takes me to get rid of them. I had to do this when this ish all began and it took my stomach 26 mf’in hours to deal with a couple of scrambled eggs, no butter or nothin’. Ridiculous, right?

This test sucks because 1) I have to fast beforehand 2) I have to eat creepy eggs 3) I have to lie around for 2 hours under an x-ray machine without moving.

Last time I just slept, which is what I do best, so that’s the game plan. I am interested in the results so it’s not completely useless.

The doctor also is making me take something for the (possible) acid reflux, and then if it’s IBS (meaning everything else is ruled out) I get some medicine to keep my intestines from being so spasmodic. Awkward, right?

But my money is on CD, because of all the symptoms. I don’t want pills for the rest of my life. Though CD is no walk in the park either.

If my blood test shows the anti-bodies, I have to have an endoscopy (they shove a camera down my throat and into my stomach, Blue Man Group style) then they biopsy my small intestine.

Merry happy Christhannukwanzaa to me.

No really, though. If they figure this out, I will take it. I will take whatever it is because it’s better than the three years of not knowing why I’m uncomfortable, why I can’t eat a decent-sized meal anymore, why I feel like vomiting, why I have to lapse in my training. I’ll feel better, which means I’ll train better, which will make me a better athlete.

Damn good holiday gift, I think.

My follow-up is January 5. Update you then.