Don't worry, this story actually has a happy ending

I changed my mind. I'm not going to write about Irma anymore.

In fact, I'm not going to be writing about anything anymore.

I've got a real Dr. Jekyll and Hyde thing going on sometimes. Is there a pattern here? Cyclical? Dunno. Not that I've ever been like...

But the Hyde in me definitely seems to be making a lot more appearances as of late. And the only way to get rid of it is to start accepting that there are things I will never be able to change.

I'm coming to the realization that perhaps we've all been lied to. That there's a business out there of trying to get you to believe you can change and improve, because people tend to thrive on hope. And they like to think they are in control of their lives.

Because it can be very distressing to know things are out of your control when you aren't ready to know that. I'm pretty good proof of that.

So I'm short and fat and not an athlete. And when I tried to change that... and took drastic measures to do it... of course things went horribly wrong for me.

I've known for a long time I wasn't gifted with the right genetics. One of the biggest reasons I'm choosing not to have children of my own is I don't think anybody else should have to suffer being me. Or even being 50% me. And people think adults who don't want children are selfish. I think this is pretty damn selfless, don't you?

Anyway, I started thinking about everyone I know in real life and realized that nobody I know personally has ever made permanent, lasting change to their weight, or went from being a band geek to a super athlete. And I do happen to know a lot of people in real life. This is not a small sample size.

I wasn't being overdramatic when I said every success story you've ever read must be fake. They're either lies intended to get you to buy something or stories from naive people who are going to end up right back where they started.

Sorry, this is very Mr. Hyde of me. Let me get to the good news.

You don't have to suffer anymore. You can accept the cold, hard truth, as much as you may hate it, and just try not to let it ruin your enjoyment of the short time you have in life. Spend your energy on things you can actually control. That's what I'm going to do.

So the very few of you whom I know and shared RttDS with in real life and read this, I look forward to not ever saying anything about eating, sleeping, training, and thinking like an athlete again.

And those of you I don't know in real life who still keep coming back here for some reason, thanks for your loyalty. Save whatever external links you want in the next week because you won't be able to after October 6.

Overwhelmed

I went running this morning. It was my first time back out there since before Irma. Gosh, was that only two weeks ago? It feels like another lifetime.

At about mile 2, I entered the marina in my city - you know the one, where the friendly cat comes running with me for a bit (she wasn't there today) and sometimes I stop to take photos like this:

St. Petersburg Municipal Marina at Demens Landing

And I stopped running. And I cried.

Like, ugly cried.

I couldn't tell you exactly what emotion I was feeling though.

I wasn't sad. I knew everything was fine, that St. Pete made it through Irma ok. Less than two weeks have passed since the storm, and I noticed during the first mile of my run that there's barely a sign that anything happened. Just some large debris piles still waiting to be picked up by the city. And some houses that still have plywood or hurricane panels on their windows.

And I wasn't surprised. Or relieved exactly. Like I said, I knew everything was fine. We're all ok.

It was just making that left-hand turn into Demens Landing Park where the marina is, and seeing the sunrise and how beautiful everything is, and seeing all the boats just floating there like they normally are, and maybe I had a particularly emotion-invoking song playing on my iPhone at the time... just made me think of what might have been, and I still can't get over how fucking lucky we all are.

I eventually recovered enough to finish my run, although it wasn't great, but I wasn't expecting much from it today. I just have had a really hard time finding the energy to get back out there since Irma came, so this was an important step in becoming normal again. And I do still have a half marathon to train for.

So at some point I'm gonna tell you my family's escape story, for sure, but I need to throw something out there first. This is what I don't need to hear:

"I'm glad you are safe, but if it were me, I would have left sooner."

Awesome. Good for you. When you're staring down "End of Days," feel free to do whatever you want.

I've heard this from a few friends and family after telling them what happened. There was certainly pressure from some of our family members up north to leave sooner. But those who have said something to this extent do not know the circumstances we were facing, and definitely do not know my family dynamic as intimately as I do. Even my husband has only known my mother and grandmother for 15 years... not 37 like me. And he knows I struggled with this, especially the day before Irma hit. There were tears.

So I'm going to try to help you understand first and foremost exactly what was going on and why we didn't... couldn't... leave Florida sooner than we did. Consider the following:

1. Predictions: Let's say you live on the West Coast of Florida. Everything said Irma was going East. It was the East Coast that needed to evacuate. Wouldn't you have left the roads clear for the people who truly needed to get out? It wasn't until the Thursday before that things started shifting West... and that Friday 5pm update that St. Petersburg was looking at a direct hit. 
2. Your "Bunker:" Say you've got a secure house. Yet another reason to let the people who need to find shelter do what they need to do. Our house is secure. As I mentioned, we're out of the flood zone and we were serving as the evacuation point for my grandmother, mother, and their pets. Our first floor is concrete block (although the second story is wood). We also had impact windows installed last year. It killed me to take out perfectly good windows in our new construction home to do this, but our builder didn't offer an impact window option. They were required by the state to provide us with "hurricane panels" to cover our non-impact windows, which is great... but with my husband travelling a lot for work, I didn't want to be stuck in a position where I'd need to climb a ladder to install these panels on the second story of our house. I didn't really want him climbing ladders to do this either. So even though we had the impact windows, we still decided to put the hurricane panels on the first story of the house for added protection when we were planning for Irma. But... we're in a neighborhood where most of the houses are quite old. Even if our roof stays put during a category 3 hurricane (we're putting a lot of faith in our builder), our house isn't going to survive someone else's roof blowing into it. But again... see scenario 1... we weren't expecting to get hit that hard until everything changed Friday night. 
3. Traffic: There was a mass exodus from Florida. There are only two major roads out of the state, and everybody on the East Coast was trying to flee. My friend told me a story about people she knew from Miami who had a flight out of Orlando to evacuate - and even though they left at 2 am, it took them 10 hours to get there when it should normally take 3.5. They missed their flight and couldn't get on any others. So traffic was bad, sure, but maybe that would not have been enough to stop you from leaving sooner. So how about...
4. Fuel: There wasn't any by the end of the week. How are you going to go anywhere if you can't get gas?
5. Animals: Let's say you have a full gas tank and maybe some spare gas in canisters and you can handle the traffic. Who is going to take you in when you have 5 cats and 2 dogs with you? Nobody, that's who. Cats do not travel well. They each needed to be kept in separate carriers, which don't leave a lot of space left for 4 people and 2 dogs, and the supplies needed to feed and care for all of the above. Oh, are you going to leave the cats behind? Cold, buddy. Pretend they are your children (or baby brother/cousin/niece/whatevs) who have no idea what's going on, because that is how everyone in my family feels about their pets. Then pretend you come home after a category 3 hurricane has demolished your house with your children inside. Leaving them behind is not an option to someone with even half a heart.
6. Exhaustion: Ok, so you've got the fuel and can handle the traffic and know someone who will take your entire family, including the animals. Keep in mind that you didn't just have to prepare your own house for a hurricane, though - you also had to help your mother prepare hers. Ben and I were so certain my mom and Grams's house was going to be destroyed, so we did everything we possibly could for them. This involved fighting for sandbags, trips back and forth to move Grams's artwork and other irreplaceable items to our house, and doing our best to save what we didn't move by getting things higher up - on top of beds, shelves, or covering it with plastic. Also, nobody in the family had been sleeping very well under all of this stress. So we were physically spent and there wasn't much energy left to give for what was likely going to be an extremely grueling road trip.  
7. A mother who isn't known for patience: So you're willing to make the drive, even though you haven't slept in a week and your body feels like it's been run over by a steamroller. Are you ready to handle what could be a twenty hour car ride with someone who develops instant road rage in any sort of traffic? My mother has so many amazing, wonderful qualities... and you'll see I've learned I can count on her to make the right decisions... but sitting in traffic with her is a very stressful situation. 
8. A 90-year-old disabled woman: And this is the ultimate challenge right here. Solve for all of the above, fine. But at the end of the day, what is it that Grams can really handle? Hours upon hours in a hot car with the stress of traffic and not being able to find fuel? Or at least being comfortable but not entirely sure if your roof is going to stay put? Also, guess where my mother's lack of patience comes from? 

So there you have it. My husband and I kept our eyes on the news... and as the days passed, we watched more and more of our neighbors leave... and we struggled knowing that leaving could be worse for us than staying. 

But when we woke up early Sunday morning and saw nothing had changed, that the last of our neighbors were also packing up and leaving because the models were still predicting a direct hit for St. Pete - we knew we were going to have some "End of Days" decisions to make.

So I dunno, maybe we should have left sooner.

After all, we were trading one set of stressors for quite another, as you'll see. 

Or... knowing what we know now... maybe we didn't have to leave at all.

Or maybe we left when we did and everything worked out better than we ever could have hoped for and we should just leave it at that. 

Happy birthday, blog

Just stopping in to wish the blog a happy 2nd birthday. Look at how far we've come in two years!!

That's sarcasm, people. For all of this "learning" and "discovery" I've done - not just in the last two years, but since I started half marathoning five years ago - I've gone pretty far fucking backward. I've really just traded one set of unhealthy signals I had five years ago for another much worse set today.

Yeah, remember this? I don't think I'm even moving pebbles anymore. And my writing has kinda gone to shit. 

And I am just so goddamn tired of getting advice from so-called experts who know nothing, Jon Snow. And speaking of Jon Snow, maybe that's part of my problem. Why is all of this expert advice I'm getting coming from dudes? I really gotta rethink my "resources" page because none of these resources have actually helped me get anywhere close to my goals and maybe it's because it's all "expertly" crafted by men using research on other men to the benefit of future men and NOT ME.

I probably just offended 2.53% of my readership. Sorry. I know at least my husband will forgive me. Bear with me for a sec, though, this is not a gender issue.

Here's the truth. I've been steered wrong by female docs too.  Female coaches with specific expertise in my problems charge too much. Holistic health professionals in my area that accept my insurance are hard enough to find, and females are nonexistent, but at this point I'm thinking none of these "professionals" really know what they're doing anyway and they're all just throwing spaghetti. Or zoodles, and those are NEVER going to stick.  

And every success story I've ever read online must be totally fake because how is it that I can do what they're doing and not improve? They're either lying to me or not giving me the whole story. Don't give me that "unique snowflakes" BS, we're not THAT unique. Otherwise, what's the point of even doing research and sharing stories? I should just shut this down right now, right?

The thing that is working for me right now is chemical and short term. Why didn't anybody tell me about this option years ago? Why did I have to fight with this for so long and only have this offered to me after I went asking for something else New Doc couldn't actually prescribe me?

I don't know. Maybe I did have the right answers in my younger days. I don't have time to keep getting it wrong here, people. Hurricane Ethel could take this all away from me tomorrow. No, there's not actually a Hurricane Ethel right now, but while we're on the subject, let's start a petition to change the way they name hurricanes because I hate having to tell people I've been beaten up by an Irene, Sandy, and now an Irma. How about Hurricane Vader? Hurricane Palpatine? Even Hurricane Death Star would work. Seriously, you could get enough villains out of the Star Wars universe to get through a few hurricane seasons just fine.

Blogroll Irma

Here, read this while I figure out how to go back to being normal Nicole and not traumatized Nicole:

Tampa Bay's escape from Irma was more than luck

Read the Washington Post article that comes up first. I'd link to it directly, but I think it will prompt you to purchase a subscription if I do it that way, hence the Google Search approach.

Irmageddon

I spent some time cleaning the house this morning, then made my way over to the gym for arm day. Actually, it really could have been any workout day of my choosing, given it has been over a week since I last did any voluntary exercise. I also checked the runDisney website for an update on Tink. Still no news. Rats. (I've decided to clean up my language a bit. It's been pretty terrible lately, and I'm better than that.)

Oh, I'm sorry. Is an update on my half marathon training not the story you're here for?

The story you want to hear is one I'm not quite ready to tell. Because even though it has a drop-to-my-knees-and-thank-a-higher-power-I-don't-really-believe-in happy ending, it was the most terrifying thing I've ever lived through. And all I've been able to do this past week is envision the different ways it could have played out: how my family could have been split apart, how we could have been looking at a best-case scenario of homelessness and a worst-case scenario of.... well, THE worst-case scenario.

Remember how I said things had to get "End of Days" bad for me to leave my home?

Yeah. Irma was looking THAT bad for St. Pete.

But in the end, we got lucky. And things are slowly starting to return to normal, beginning with my mother and grandmother finally being able to go home yesterday. Although their house survived Irma, they had no power, so they stayed with us until it was turned back on. We've been helping them over the course of the last few days move the contents of their house - which they had moved to "safety" into our house - back into their house, including their three cats and dog.

Hence the house cleaning and getting everything back in order in our own house this morning.

I'm tired.

#Irmagerd

So give me a few more days to finish eating my Hurricane Irma leftovers, catch up on sleep missed over the last two weeks, and stop inwardly crying so much, and maybe then I'll be able to share exactly what happened from September 9th and beyond.

List of Things that are the Worst

1. Hurricanes

T Minus Two Days

Not getting much sleep lately. Wonder why.

You can say you aren't going to worry about something until you know the facts, but knowing the fact the Atlantic's worst hurricane ever is possibly coming right for you is pretty worrisome.

Shooting Irma won't help.

But I was still slightly relieved by the fact most models predicted on Wednesday that Irma may head East, giving us on the Gulf Coast a fighting chance.

And then yesterday's predictions came out, and a friend of mine called it to my attention on Facebook:

Yeah. Everything shifted West. 

The biggest picture on top is the most horrendous scenario, because that puts Irma going right up the center of Florida. It also comes from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which is considered to have the most accurate model for predicting hurricanes.

K. Am I scared? You're goddamn right I'm scared.

So it looks like it's coming right for us. BUT - another stroke of luck - what we thought might be cat 3 Irma has been downgraded to a cat 2 Irma by the time she gets to us. So 80 mile per hour winds then. Fan-fucking-tastic.

Anyway, I had sprint intervals on the agenda today, so since sleep wasn't happening and I had a little time before project "Help Husband Apply Hurricane Panels to Windows" started (and try to put in a full workday as well, because who knows what's going to happen next week), I decided to go complete my sprints around the lake near my house. You know, the same one with ducklings and otters and cute baby animals of all types. Speaking of ducklings, they're still there. A little older, of course, but not fully grown yet. I wonder how ducklings fare in 80+ mph wind?

But back to running... there was something particularly liberating about each one of those 30-second sprints I did this morning. Because when you are running your heart out, there's no chance to think about the what ifs. My mind was free from all of the planning and worrying and catastrophizing - it only had two priorities: A. breathe and B. get Nicole as far as possible as fast as possible. No room for any other thoughts.

Thoughts like... Will Disney World be ok?

And more importantly... Will my Mom's/Grams's house be ok?

They got the mandatory evacuation order yesterday afternoon. At first, they didn't get any other details except that evac was happening at 6 am on Friday, and panic ensued. They weren't exactly prepared to be ready that quickly, so my mom called me freaking out about everything that needed to be done. "Well... how long do you have to get out?" I asked her. It appears the city neglected to give them that information.

After doing a little research, I found out that, yes, evac began at 6 am this morning but at least they had until 8 am Sunday morning to get out (not that they should wait that long). However, what evac means is that if you don't have a special sticker on your car indicating you're a resident of the evac area, you can no longer get in. And a major part of their preparedness plan involved mine and Ben's help. So last night, we spent most of the evening doing what we could to help them get ready around their house.

And evacuated Grams's cat, Mittens, and 30 cans of soup to our house. Progress.

We also took one of their two minivans so that we could get back and forth to continue helping them tonight. Man, their two minivans have really come in handy this summer.

Anyway, I also learned we're expecting additional guests on Sunday. Our friends down the street live in a 100-year-old house. With a newborn baby, they didn't want to take any chances, so they are also coming with their dog to hang out when Irma arrives. Party on.

Between the painful process that is evacuating my family, prepping their house for what might be its ultimate end, and making last minute preparations for our own house to keep everyone safe, I'm not sure how much time I'll have in the next day.

5 pm update. Irma shifted West again. Awesome.

So I guess this is it. You probably won't be hearing from me again.




This weekend. I meant you won't be hearing from me again this weekend.

Nicole's Hurricane Checklist

Ok, so how the hell do you prepare for a hurricane when:

• you've been trying to hammer in good eating habits by consuming 99.9% fresh meat, veggies, and fruit, and most of the edibles that will survive a power-outage are highly-processed nutritionless crap;
• you adhere to a structured (but sensible) mostly outdoor workout regimen; and
• your livelihood depends on you having a working laptop and internet access?

I don't know about YOUR plan, but here's mine for what it's worth. Of course, if you are starting to plan now for Irma, um... procrastinate much?? Put this in your back pocket for the next one, though, it may not be very far behind...

Step 1: Go to the library. Be grateful that your employer gives you paid time off, and you've banked enough to get you through two weeks of a power outage if for some reason you can't work for that long, so you're not going to worry that much about it and you might as well have something you can entertain yourself with by candlelight. It's also very important that said entertainment is Grandma/Mom appropriate, because they got the news today that they are required to start evacuating beginning at 6 am tomorrow, and who knows how long they'll be staying with you for.

I'ma curl up with a good read and 120+ mph winds. You?

Step 2: Go to the grocery store. Implode when all of the canned tuna, salmon, chicken, and veggies are sold out. Compose yourself and ask your husband about how you can keep stuff cold for as long as possible if the power goes out. 

My provisions currently include the following:

• Fresh chicken and salmon: To be cooked the night before the hurricane arrives and used in salads before fresh veggies go bad
• Eggs: To be hard-boiled and used in the same way
• Bananas: Slightly green, have some shelf life
• Green smoothies made with pre-frozen bananas: To be blended before power goes out and kept in the refrigerator with ice packs and consumed first 
• Almond Milk. Not shelf stable, unfortunately. They were out of that. I do have two cans of coconut milk though
• RX Bars
• Gluten-free cereal - both hot and cold. Wonder if I'll be able to get hot water, though... When I lived in NJ, I had a gas stove and was still able to cook when the power went out during Sandy. I have electric here, so not as lucky.
• Coffee. But there's that question of hot water again. Wait, no coffee??? Are you fucking kidding me?? (We've been over this, iced coffee is not my jam).
• But jam is my jam. Got two types of jam, actually.
• And sunbutter
• Nuts
• Paleo Wraps - just a stroke of luck I had these from a previous Thrive Market order
• Loaf of bread, chips and salsa - food to keep the husband happy should definitely be part of your hurricane survival checklist
• Bottled water
• Whatever my mom's bringing

So most of the above heavily rely on the fact that I have plenty of ice, will keep my fridge/freezer cold for as long as possible, and also have two coolers I can use if needed. But if it comes down to it, I'll eat damn PB&J (er... SB&J?) sandwiches. 

Step 3. Go for as many runs outside along the bay as possible while you still can. Sure, you'll probably have one or six of the worst runs of your life because of exhaustion and stress and the like, but... who knows if your favorite path along the bay will still be there in a few days and when you'll even be able to go running again? No regrets.

And I'm going to die.

Step 4. Marry an Eagle Scout to handle everything else. You know, the minutiae like batteries and flashlights and candles and boarding up windows and filling up bathtubs and first aid and stuff. 

Run Boy Run

This world is not made for you. Irma's coming. The west is on fire. Nowhere is safe.

Meanwhile, in St. Pete, Florida, things felt pretty dire yesterday, when in reality we just still knew nothing.

Maybe we've all got a better shot living north of the Wall these days. 

Now, things have to be "End of Days" bad for me to leave my home. I'm not in an evacuation zone. My husband says we live at the top of "Mt. St. Pete," because at 43 ft above sea level, we're at the highest point you can get here in the 'Burg. Hey, maybe that's why my first mile on any given run is always a teensy bit faster than the rest. I get the extra bump from running down the world's smallest, most gradually rolling hill.

Another reason we won't leave is that our ideal position makes my house the evac point for my mother and grandmother (+3 cats and a dog). They live in nearby Treasure Island, right on the water in a lovely small duplex that was built in 1952-ish. SO yeah... I may have mentioned yesterday that I was worried about our landscaping. Meanwhile, a cat 5 hurricane will send Casa de Mama right to the bottom of the bay.

The real potential tragedy here is that my grandmother has been an artist for most of her 89.5 years of life, and her home is filled with her oil paintings, prints, and stone sculpture, which will go to various family members that live across the country once Grams is no longer with us. I have some of her stuff. I'd happily take more. Let's just hope I'm being overdramatic here per my usual MO and her house would be fine, just fine.

So yesterday, we knew absolutely nothing about our role in Hurricane Irma other than it COULD come our way and it COULD be a gigantic storm of epic proportions when it got here. And this is why I fucking hate hurricanes - because this is the hysteria it has already caused:

1. No bottled water anywhere. (Don't worry, I've got two cases. That will last me at least a day. Ben and my mom have more).
2. No gas at Wawa - ONE local gas station - but I'm sure there are other gas stations that could be out. (I also have a full tank, thanks to my husband and the fact that we're Chevy Volt owners that telecommute and mostly drive on electricity).
3. No canned food. This is where I will admit I am under-fucking-prepared. I am not a fan of food that has a long shelf life, don't buy it, don't cook with it. But I went to Trader Joe's yesterday to stock up and there was no tuna. No canned chicken. No canned veggies. No soup! Umm. Maybe now is when I try intermittent fasting, that seems to be trendy. Perhaps I'll share my Hurricane Preparedness Pantry with you tomorrow. 
4. Sandbag mania: So yesterday, the city of St. Pete announced they were opening 3 areas for residents to pick up 10 sandbags per resident from 4 pm - 8 pm, and that they'd be giving out sandbags every day this week beginning at 7:30 am. My husband and I planned to pop over there after work to pick some up (not for us, but for my mother's house, for which - when you think about it - sandbags are going to do Jack Squat), but by 5 pm, the lines were so long at each of the 3 locations, they were turning people away because the last people in line likely weren't going to be able to get in by the time it closed at 8. So instead of going for my Wednesday morning run today, I was up and out the door with Ben by 6:45 to get on line for goddamn sandbags. I knew we wouldn't be the only crazy ones - the line was already forming at 7 am for these things. So we passed the time by playing the only appropriate music we could think of: "It's the End of the World" by R.E.M. and "The Final Countdown" by Europe. We got our sandbags by 8am, thanked the city workers for their help, and went over to my mom's place with our precious loot. But seriously, you may need a police escort or an armored vehicle in the future if you go anywhere with sandbags around here. The craziness continued today, with 2+ hour lines forming at every location (and they even added three more locations!) There were people posting on city forums all "IVE BEEN WAITING 2.5 HOURS, ST. PETE NEEDS TO BE MORE ORGANIZED, RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE." Come on, people. The city doesn't HAVE to do this. They aren't responsible for protecting your home from a natural disaster, but it's a nice helpful FREE service they offer to those that choose to live here. Here's a photo I borrowed from the city website, which doesn't even begin to show the giant lines of cars I saw around town this morning:

The struggle is real, people.

And the REASON people are scared shitless is that we just saw what Harvey did and know our time here in Florida - and very specifically, the Gulf Coast - is coming. 

We just weren't thinking it was going to be this soon.

But then some new predictions came later this afternoon, and for the first time in a few days, I found I could breathe again.

That red box is me.

So this is about as good as it could possibly get for us, knowing fully that being anywhere within the path of a hurricane is bad news. AND I'm not trying to downplay the suffering that anybody who is currently experiencing Irma is going through. But if this scenario happens, here's the hope:

• That we're looking at maybe a cat 3 by the time it gets to us instead of a cat 5. Now, my frame of reference would be Sandy and Irene, both cat 1 when they hit NJ, though, so it would be great if Irma slowed her roll just a teensy bit more. 
• That the Gulf of Mexico isn't going to drown my Grams/Mom's house.

And this is the biggest relief of all. Because having to live with my mom and Grams for an extended period of time is much scarier than the hurricane itself.

Summer Sads

Before I got all crazy about Hurricane Harvey, I started feeling what I call the "Summer Sads." I was wondering when this would set in again - it seemed to skip over me the last two summers. But for most of my adult life, I still got the Back-to-School Blues, even though I haven't gone back to school in ages and I have perpetual summer now that I live in Florida. Yet something just feels...over.

This is how I feel when Labor Day comes and goes.

Maybe the Summer Sads are back because I've been watching too much depressing shit on Netflix. So on a positive note, at least Stranger Things will be back soon. And we are getting into my most favorite time of year - Pumpkin everything!!! (Although I have yet to decide how I'm going to handle pumpkin everything. I had a pumpkin coffee from Dunkin Donuts, and it really wasn't as exciting as I remembered it. Not worth it.)

But I feel reminded about all the things I wanted to do that I just didn't get to, and there's not enough time to cram it in with only three weeks before summer officially ends. And all of the better parts of summer are behind me, and I just need to get into the mindset of homework and early morning bus rides again. Err... that's not right. I need to get into the mindset of fighting off the two H's: Hurricanes and Halloween candy.

That isn't exactly what has me down.

Each season is a metaphor for life, which reminds me how fleeting it all really is. Spring: your childhood, where everything is fresh and new. Summer: your best years, still young and free. And here I am, coming to the end of the summer of my life. Sure, there's beauty in fall, but... things just start falling apart. Cooling off. The sun doesn't shine as brightly and your days are so much shorter.

There's some beauty in winter, too, I must remember. When you look at winter with the eyes of a child, it's full of wonder. Only through the wisdom of adulthood does winter bring misery. It's one of a few reasons why I said "peace out" to New Jersey a few years ago.

Of course, some of us don't even make it to winter. I could be outside walking my dog tomorrow and this could all be over. We act like we have all the time in the world, but you don't know. You just don't know. You can only hope.

And, ya know, do everything within your power to try to keep your summer going for as long as possible. Eat right. Exercise appropriately. Try not to stress out too much. That sorta thing.

It's hard not to stress when you've got the "End of Days" staring you in the face again, though. Just as we were putting in our last palm tree in our new landscaping last week, Ben and I got the news that Hurricane Irma was potentially coming our way, so that was excellent timing #sarcasm. And now it's looking very likely that we're going to get hit.

When exercise becomes unhealthy Part 2

I was investigating a dip in traffic to the blog this week and discovered I inadvertently changed my privacy settings. Way to go, Nicole. It was a particularly bonehead thing to do given I'm still trying to rebuild an audience after killing RttDS last January. So if you're here, I am very grateful you're still sticking with me. Thanks.

Yesterday, I introduced the moment I started seeking new answers to problems that had been building throughout my entire life. I had been juggling a restrict/binge/purge cycle for years, and prior to 2012, I had tried unsuccessfully to end this through therapy. I think part of the problem was that I wasn't willing to stop the intense exercise - I was only focused on the "binge" portion of my problem. Here are some things that were happening to me that should have clued me in sooner that I was overdoing it:

1. Loss of menstrual cycle: I didn't start journaling until about 2010, so I have fuzzy timelines on this, but I had been taking hormonal birth control up until 2009. I stopped because I figured taking hormones for 10+ years was a bad idea. Shortly after I stopped the BCP, I stopped getting my cycle regularly. I likely would have lost my cycle sooner - BCP was artificially keeping it going. As I shared in this post, it came back late 2015 after I stopped the running madness.
2. Compromised immune system: Like I said yesterday, I was sick all of the time in 2012. It was particularly bad that year because I faced lots of stressful events then, and wasn't doing myself any favors adding in the extreme exercise. But even in the years following, I'd find myself feeling run down frequently. Since 2015, I've had less of a challenge fighting off infection.
3. Night sweats: TMI? About once a month, I'd wake up in the middle of the night absolutely drenched. It could be the middle of the winter, it didn't matter. This was the absolute WORST because a. Gross and b. There was no chance of me going back to sleep when this happened. I never tied the hormonal chaos my body was going through back to this, but given that it hasn't happened in a few years, I think it's safe to say the intense exercise was connected.
4. Compulsion: While not a physical symptom per se, I feel like it's important to address here. Exercise was *the* thing my life revolved around. All social engagements were prioritized around my training schedule. I was even late to my bridal shower because I needed to hit the gym the morning of, and my husband wasn't ready to go to the gym with me on time, but I just would not cut my run short. It's no longer the end of the world if I miss a workout these days.
5. Lack of improvement: Remember I said yesterday one of those overtraining signals is still hanging around? This is the one. The thing is I DID get faster and I DID lose weight when I began half marathon training, even though some of the other problems above I had already been experiencing for a few years. And things kinda evened out for me in 2012... and then started to get worse, and haven't improved since. 

Things are supposed to be getting better now, damn it.

BONUS SYMPTOM: Anxiety. I don't know whether to include this here or not. It COULD be related. I can't ignore the fact that it certainly peaked in 2012 while I was training for two half marathons, but there was a lot of other stuff going on. I've experienced it less intensely over the last few years, but I think there are other things in my life besides my running and eating habits that are contributing to that as well. 

I've noticed my anxiety has increased since I started the meds. I confirmed with New Doc this week that bupropion acts like an amphetamine. "That can be a bit uncomfortable for someone with anxiety," he says. Gee, doc, ya think?! He's changing my script, although the lower dose has more of an immediate release. We'll see how that goes.

Anyway, I share the above in the hopes that it can help you or someone you know to figure out if you have an unhealthy relationship with exercise. There are plenty of other ways your body could be yelling at you to slow down, but the biggest thing is that you've gotta be in a place where you are willing to listen. Something about living through a natural disaster like Hurricane Sandy finally got me to listen and start looking for answers. Gotta live our best lives now because tomorrow is not promised.

When exercise becomes unhealthy Part I

Hurricane Harvey had me thinking a lot about my experience during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

2012 was kind of a crazy year for me. I had started a new job in November, 2011, so I was still learning the ropes in 2012. I ran my first (and still my fastest) half marathon in April. I was planning a wedding, got married in June. I then left that job I had started in 2011 for another one right after the wedding. Oh, I ran my second half marathon in September. And then I went on my honeymoon a week later. While I was away, my grandmother died, which was pretty hard on my dad's side of the family. I began another serious job search. So... yeah. A lot happened.

Right before Hurricane Sandy, I was hit with an infection. I had a nasty abscess under my arm - I used to get these frequently in college, but hadn't had one in about ten years. I had attributed the abscesses to being overweight, and figured they were a thing of the past since I had dropped about 20 lbs and kept it off. So I was very surprised to see one return. Maybe it had nothing to do with weight, and everything to do with stress...

In any case, I went to see a doctor, who suspected it might be MRSA and gave me a powerful antibiotic to fight it. I didn't get better, though... I got worse. For two and a half weeks, I suffered, and woke up one final morning covered in hives. Turns out I was allergic to the antibiotic they gave me.

Between that experience and a glimpse into the "End of Days" that was Sandy, I knew something had to change. I began to question what my existence had become.

1. Why was I getting sick all of the time? Even before the MRSA problem, I was always frequently feeling run down.
2. Why was I job hopping all of the time? Before 2013, I hadn't held the same job in a calendar year since 2005. Anxiety wasn't the whole reason for that, but definitely a major part of it from 2011-2013... coincidentally around the time I began training for half marathons.
3. And why could I show so much control and delayed gratification in so many facets of my life - exercise, finances, volunteering - but could NOT get my eating disorder under control?

So I can pinpoint that late 2012, right after Sandy hit, is when I started to look into unconventional approaches to solving my issues. Because "diet and exercise" weren't really getting me anywhere I wanted to go. My initial search lead me to read Wheat Belly by William Davis, and I started my first public blog in 2013 about my experience trying to kick wheat and gluten grains from my diet. Spoiler alert: it failed.

Now, what's the most logical next step to take when one has trouble restricting one item from his or her diet? Why, find an even MORE restrictive diet, of course! In 2014, I found Paleo and started reading things like Mark's Daily Apple and It Starts with Food (aka the Whole30 or Whole 9 Life). Yet what drew me to these resources was not so much the attention they gave to food, although food featured prominently... it was the information they provided on living a healthy lifestyle.

And that nudged me towards the fact that I needed to quit running cold turkey.

Which is why I started this blog in 2015. Because I wanted to stop running... except I didn't want to do it until after I got a sub 2 half marathon. So here I am, still running, and maybe that's a dumb thing to do.

But maybe it's not.

Because it's easy for me to look back NOW at all of the signals my body was giving me in 2012 (well... from 2009 to 2015) to stop running so HARD, start eating more, and maybe take a break once in a while.

And I'm not getting a single one of those signals today.

Ok, I lied. One is still kinda hanging around.

And I'm not 100% sure what to do about that. 

Tomorrow, I'll share what those signals were in the event you are experiencing any of them... so that maybe you can recognize if you might be in the run/eat/repeat cycle, and get some help getting out of it sooner rather than later.