Love Hurts

According to the date stamp on my last post, I haven't written or published an update in almost exactly three months, since September twelfth.  Just scrolling through my photos, one could see that a lot happened in those three months.  I made my return from injury and redshirt running to racing in the USU jersey again, one of my friends and I dyed our hair blue, I rediscover Only Time by Enya and played it at least three hundred times, I got Tiny Hand (a tiny hand finger puppet that comes on all of my trips now because I find it to be indescribably funny), I started working in a psychology lab on campus, my friends and I became heroin drug mules (just kidding mom, for real none of us traffic drugs), and I went from having a ferritin level of twenty-three to one of seventy-six.  Truly iconic.  Still, though, well all of this was going on, I had no desire to update my blog with anything that was going on because I kept waiting to have a good race that I could talk about.  I only raced four times this season, and up until the very last race I kept telling myself the next one would be the one.  Paul Short didn't go as I'd hoped, but I figured it was a good way to ease back into competing as a team and racing in such a large field.  Then pre-nationals didn't go well either and I told myself that I was just tired from the workouts we'd been doing.  Then conference didn't go well and I didn't quite know what to think anymore, I just hoped that regionals would be okay and that my collegiate cross country career wouldn't have to end like this.  Then it did.  Initially, after the season ended, I kept looking for what, exactly, had gone wrong.  Was it that one week over the summer that I got sick and had to lower my mileage?  Was it that I didn't run my long runs far enough this year?  Was it that I decided to do seventy miles a week during season instead of eighty?  It took a few weeks to realize that there wasn't necessarily anything that had gone catastrophically wrong, but maybe just some things that had been draining my energy through the season and some difficulty transitioning back to the mental aspect of competing after having been injured.

Before my back injury, I was frankly a narcissist every time I lined up to race.  I was confident in the fact that I was good, and I knew that what I was about to do was going to hurt and hurt a lot, but I was ready for that.  After such a long break from structured workouts and competition, I didn't quite seem to remember that it was going to hurt.  I went into the first race of the season with the confidence that I would do well, but then when it started to hurt, there were a lot of "what ifs".  What if I'm not fully back from my injury?  What if we don't win this race?  What if I didn't do enough this summer?  What if my diet isn't good enough?  What if my mental health struggles make it so I can't get a contract after college, even if I hit the times for it?  Over the season, all of those question marks weighed down on me until I reached the regional meet agitated and exhausted, putting all of the physical and mental energy I had into a finish that didn't even make all-region, when last year I had managed all-American.  After spending the first weeks after the official end of my collegiate cross country career digging into what possibly could have happened, I finally accepted that I might never have a concrete answer, and that's okay.  I can never get that season of competition back, and it makes no sense for me to throw away the two years I have left in track over it when I can start fresh training for the indoor track season now.

Something that I discussed with my wonderful therapist, Monique, immediately after the season was whether or not I even wanted to continue running.  If you've never experienced the huge ups and downs of running, this might not make sense to you, and questioning my desire to keep running didn't make sense to me either, but at the same time, it made all of the sense in the world.  Running has been the center of my life since my freshman year of high school.  That's a full seven years of balancing school and social life around early morning workouts, of telling people you can't come to there get-together to catch up this weekend because you'll be at a meet, of perpetually being tired and just sort of accepting and embracing that exhaustion.  It's also seven years with some of the best people you could possibly have the opportunity to know, of working with coaches who want to help you be a better human being and a better athlete, of traveling to some seriously amazing places and competing with people who push you to your absolute limits, of the thrill of discovering how much your body is capable of.  Running is the great love of my life, but like any love, it breaks my heart in a big way.  So at the end of this season, after I felt like I had poured everything I had to give into running and it gave me nothing at all in return, her questioning whether or not I even wanted to continue felt entirely valid, and I didn't immediately say yes.  After thinking for a few minutes, I said I wanted to keep running.  She asked if I would still feel that way if someone could look into the future and tell me that I would not get the results I wanted, and my answer was still yes.  Because at this point, I feel that I deserve to see for myself.  After all of the energy I have put into my running career, and all of the love I still have for running, I owe it to myself to see just how much I am capable of.

With that in mind, she and I set about structuring a new way for me to look at my running so it's not so devastating to get disappointing results.  For the upcoming track season, rather than thinking in terms of have-to, such as "I have to be All-American" or "I have to run --:-- in the 5k this season", I'm working on thinking of my training and competing in terms of cans.  What can I do today?  What can I accomplish this season if I take care of myself, remain consistent, and just run to see how far I can go with my career?  Running is so much more enjoyable without the pressure of the have-to attitude that I put on myself.  Looking forward to winter break, I'm planning on getting back up to eighty mile weeks before the beginning of outdoor season and I am once again hyped.  Prayers and snacks still not only accepted, but welcomed.

When I Say "Send It", You Say "For the Boys"

Hey guys, it's me, ya girl.  I don't know why I even apologize for the large gaps between posts anymore as if I don't know for a fact it will probably happen again immediately.  I am sorry, but it will almost certainly happen again because the second I face any minor inconvenience, I refuse to do anything I am not required to do outside of school, running, work, and sleep.  That may be a slight exaggeration, but not much of one.  Some quick updates since it's been such a long time since I last posted:

-I started a new job in mid-July working at an RTC for disorder eating here in Logan.  I love it.  It's dope.  We get to do so much fun stuff with the clients there, and there are three cats there, so obviously it's an ideal workplace.

-I got a super h*ckin' cute dog, an Australian shepherd by the name of Atticus Sugar Perkins-Snyder.  We had a whirlwind relationship, and he is currently living with my parents in Coalville.  I don't think I am ever going to get him back, because my mother has fallen in love with him in a big way.  Ask me the story behind how I got him and how he ended up living with my parents sometime if you feel like it, because it's a funny one.

-My last ever (sad face) cross country camp was amazing and involved a cat named Dani DeVito, a salt lick, a banana suit, a naked mile (Am I joking about that?  I'll just let you all wonder.), pranks on the coaches, a full hour of skits putting Artie on blast, and a group of loose cows in the backyard.  The running part was cool too, I guess.  (Just kidding, the running part was great).

My camp child, Dani DeVito

-School right now is testing my patience in a big way.  I am still determined to get a 4.0 GPA this semester, but the lord is testing my resolve because several of the classes I am in this semester are freshman-level courses that I'm required to take to fulfill requirements for my recently added psychology major.  I know I still have to go to the classes, but it causes me physical pain to be in a class where we spend a full hour going over how to write a paper in APA formatting.  Sometimes it be like that, though.  All jokes aside, I do really enjoy some of my classes this semester.  Social psychology especially has been neat, as I am a snoopy overinvolved gossip and it is the study of how humans influence one another.  

Run hard, recover harder

Some unfortunate news-I found out that my ferritin is low (blood-iron levels, for those of you all who aren't majoring in a health-related field).  I know, we are all shocked that after going pescatarian for six months and eating absolutely no red meat my iron levels are low.  But the good news is, we caught it early on, right after my levels dipped below the "normal" level, so I'm on a supplement for it now and back eating red meat.

Live footage of me going in to get my blood tested.  Was not as excited as Hannah was.

Onto the running portion of my life, I can't tell y'all how weird running has been lately.  I've decided to stay at seventy miles a week for cross season this year to avoid burnout, and it's been a bit of a challenge arguing with my brain goblin that seventy really is sufficient, and that I don't need to do eighty to be successful in the season.  I still intend to start doing eighty after cross season to prepare for the 10k, but for cross season, my coaches and I have agreed that seventy is just fine, and that it might even be better to help me get to the end of the season still feeling fresh.  The "weird" isn't necessarily bad weird, though, it's just taking me some time to adjust the idea that you don't have to hammer every run and run more miles than anyone in the NCAA to be good at what you do.  

Some good news without any "weird" tacked on is that, for the first time post-injury, I've been doing full workouts with the team, and will be competing out of redshirt for the cross country season.  I typed that pretty calmly, but the reality is that I feel anything but calm about it.  I love this team so much, and I genuinely cannot wait to be lined up to race with them again.  As for when exactly I will be opening up my competitive season, that is a secret for now. ;)

The Trinity is ready 4 the season, folks.

Also, if you thought last year was a breakout season for USUXC, you'd best buckle up for this year.  Coming into the season, we are already ranked top ten in the nation, and we plan to live up to those rankings and more.  Keep your eye out for the Aggies this weekend at the BYU invitational.  We've got a very strong group returning, and some new faces that I think will shock some people with how talented they are.

Don't Be a Bummer, Babe

Four score and seven years ago, I wrote my most recent blog post.  I think the first step in anything is admitting that you have a problem, so this is me admitting that I have a problem with staying consistent with my posts anytime I have finals, start a new job, decide that my nails are too long and the clicking sound of them on my keyboard is annoying, or get mildly inconvenienced in any way at all, so I apologize for that.  I'm buying a new planner this week, since my old one is all used up (Sorry not sorry that buying new planners is honestly one of the best things that ever happens to me, I just can't function without my old-fashioned paper planner telling me what to do every hour of the day.  Honest to goodness, we had team practice at three pm every day during the last school year, and you know what was still in my planner just in case I developed spontaneous and rapid-progressing Alzheimer's at two pm on a weekday?  "Practice, three pm), so hopefully I can shame myself into more consistency by penciling in blogging once a week.

"What have you been doing that takes up so much time that you couldn't spend thirty minutes updating us so we didn't all think you died or had converted to some religious practice that doesn't believe in the use of computers because it teaches that technology all comes from aliens?", you ask?  Well fellas, allow me to update you.

This summer, I started the first job that I have ever really felt fulfilled at.  I work at a residential treatment center in Brigham City, about thirty minutes from Logan, where I decided to stay for the summer to run and have better access to treatment and teammates to run with.  For those of you wondering what on earth residential treatment is, it is essentially a rehabilitation center.  The center I work in is a home that works specifically with boys aged fourteen to eighteen who live there twenty-four hours a day until their treatment is completed or they are pulled from the program.  They attend school there, and meet with therapists on-site for group or individual therapy.  My official job title is "Mentor", and my role in the house is basically to hang out with the boys all day.  I am there to first and foremost make sure they are safe and supervised, but more so to help them establish healthy connections, learn how to communicate their feelings effectively, feel as though they have people in their lives who genuinely care for them, and guide them through difficult experiences or uncomfortable encounters.  I started there just over a month, and I already love the boys in the house a crazy amount.  It's honestly like I suddenly have twenty-five rowdy, sensitive, fun, caring, sometimes obnoxious teenage sons-I always call them my Catalyst babies outside of work.  These boys are amazing.  Even during the most difficult shifts with them, I learn something new, and their capacity to listen to viewpoints they don't agree with and be open-minded to new ideas is more than they even realize.  They also keep me laughing, which is what gets us all through the rough days.  Somehow, they manage to simultaneously make me want to adopt or foster a child immediately and never ever ever ever ever have children.  The feeling that I make a difference for even one of these boys, though, has given me so much joy that I feel for the first time that I've discovered a career that I feel content allowing to define me outside of my running.  All of our boys have their own difficulties to work through, and whenever one of my boys feels comfortable opening up to me or even just being willing to take a walk and listen to options when he's upset is one of the most rewarding things I've ever experienced.  For every moment that is emotionally exhausting and you just want to throw in the towel and apply for an easier job, there are moments that make it all worth it-Last night's moment was when three of the boys were goofing off and refused to stay in bed until they were all tucked in and sang lullabies.  Other times, it's the out-of-the-blue quotes from the boys that mentors share at the end of the shift that bring us all to tears with how amusing they are-Like a boy who walked up to me during the middle of one of his classes, applying chapstick like a young girl putting on her mother's lipstick for the first time to say, "Lys, I have to keep my lips as smooth as a baby's butt.  I look way more attractive that way."  

Beyond the interactions with the boys, there are countless other enjoyable aspects of my job.  On rec days, we get to go cliff jumping, mountain biking, hiking, skating, and trail running with the boys, among other things.  We also watch movies with them, cook with them, play games, and do morning workouts together.  Most of the time, we are just there to hang out with them and do whatever it is they are doing at the time.  For this summer, my job has been my life and I'm loving it.
Running-wise, I think this may just be the healthiest summer I have had since starting my running journey freshman year of high school. There is still a lot of internal conflict when I go for a run without a gps and just go by time and feel, but I'm learning to be comfortable with doing what is best for my body and trust that doing so will be better for my career in the long run.  Also, I've learned to take days off when I'm sick or cut mileage for cross training when I need to.  I had some kind of viral infection my first few weeks of work because TBH working at Catalyst is kind of similar to working on the Mayflower with plague rats running loose-once an infection gets into the house, you're absolutely not going to avoid catching it.  My immune system has taken a beating on this job-but I actually took a day off to recover when the infection clung on for over a week. Honestly, who is she? Staying in Logan for the summer has been great for my running, because I actually get to meet up with teammates and see trainers (ILY Sonia) when I feel like I'm on the verge of losing my mind to running and becoming a nut case who lives alone in the mountains living off of tofu and mileage.  It's also given me a chance to branch out and meet new people outside of the running world.  I love love love my teammates, of course, but I also believe strongly that it's  healthy to have people in your life with no connection to running to keep you grounded.
Brace yourselves for more updates on Catalyst adventures, because lord knows this job provides me with stories for days.

*If you didn't catch the reference in the title, Lana Del Ray has a song that absolutely vibes called Summer Bummer.

Call Me Louie Zamperini

Get it?  Because I'm "unbroken"?  Because my back is officially completely healed?  It's fine if you didn't laugh, because I definitely did.
Guys.  It has officially been five months since I received the diagnosis that I had little cracks trying to form in my L5 vertebrae.  FIVE MONTHS.  In that time, I have learned more about respecting your limits, listening to your body, patience (barf), and perseverance than I realized my little walnut goblin brain was capable of.  I discovered that it's possible to be excited at the possibility of being allowed to run two miles at 8:30 pace under extreme supervision on a treadmill if it means you're able to run again.  When all is said and done, I am grateful beyond words for Margaret and Gerald (Okay, so I named the pedicles of my L5 vertebrae, so what?  I had a lot of time on my hands.  Too much time, probably.) giving out on me, because this experience gave me back the joy and love for running that I felt I was losing my grip of.  Every day that I'm allowed to run now, regardless of how tired I am or how much easier it would be to stay in bed and watch Grey's Anatomy, I am endlessly happy for.  I have done four workouts now (!!!) and each time I'm allowed to run another interval, I feel as though I've won the lottery.  It's weird.  If I was someone else observing, I wouldn't trust me.  No one should be that excited about running a 400m interval, yet there I am.
Even more exciting than the fact that I'm working out again...I'm RACING again! (!!!!!!)  USU hosted their only home meet of the year this last weekend, and The Man himself, Artie Gulden, cleared me to race it.  What's more, he really spoiled me and let me run 5:25 pace.  It felt bizarre racing again.  The last time I raced was at cross country nationals, and my withered asthmatic lungs weren't 100% convinced they would remember what to do.  Fortunately for my psyche, Nicki Minaj dropped a new song for me to listen to pre-race, otherwise I could've been in some real trouble.  I'm extremely glad my first race back was at my home track, because it allowed me to compete with the support of my teammates, friends, and family.  All in all, it was a v solid first race post-injury.  The first 2.6 miles felt like I had never left.  It's amazing how quickly your body remembers how to settle back in and tempo.  The last eight hundred meters were a little rough.  Here's how the conversation went between my lungs and my brain when I tried to pick up the pace:
Lungs:  Hey, you remember the last time you did a workout that would justify you trying to run at this pace?
Brain:  Yeah lungs!  It was just this last Tuesday!  And it was so fun!
Lungs:  Okay but when was the last time before that?
Brain:  ...Before nationals?
Lungs:  Yep.  You and legs are being pretty rude right now and you know it.
Then my lungs bailed on the operation without permission from brain and legs, which was inconsiderate, but I'm not bitter about it.  With altitude conversion, I actually ran a PR for the open 5k, which is pretty embarrassing for Past Lyssa.  (I've run faster 5ks back to back in the 10k than I have in the open, don't @ me.)

I'll be racing the 5k next weekend as well at BYU's Robison Invitational, after which my coaches and I will be making a decision and I may or may not have an exciting announcement.  Stay tuned.

Saturdays Are For the Girls

There is something beautiful and at times underappreciated about the world of female distance runners, and since Women's History Month is coming to a close, I'd like to take a minute and discuss it.  The women I know in this sport are fiercely competitive.  You can watch these ladies shift from sweet and innocent, incapable of even saying something hurtful to someone into warriors, out for blood, speed, and glory on the track and right back in front of your eyes.  It's amazing, and at times alarming.  There's nothing like catching an elbow from a girl who can't even bring herself to kill a spider to remind you that all women have incredible fighting spirits if you give them the right opportunities.  But beyond the fire, beyond the competition, there's something that runs much deeper, connecting us all across ability levels, from pro to fitness runners.  Maybe it's a spark of insanity that pushes us all to run those mile and unites us, or maybe it's the simplicity of the pure love of the sport, but there is something there that makes us legion, a group striving together, seeking for bold new heights rather than fighting to bring one another down.  
The first and most basic connection is with the unknown, the strangers that you encounter out in the streets and on the trails day to day.  You may have but a fleeting moment with these people, no intimate connection with them or knowledge of their lives, but that you are both out in the world is enough for a brief locking of eyes, a smile, and if your lungs will allow, a quick "Hello" or "Nice work".  Small, simple interactions that may not result in any meaningful relationship, but nonetheless lift you both up and remind you that we support one another, no matter what levels we are at, how old we are, or what our beliefs are.
The next type of connection I've observed is the inter-team connection with individuals you don't know.  You may not be well acquainted, but you can still respect the effort they put in, and they still have your support.  For example, Elle Purrier, distance runner at New Hampshire, and I have never had a conversation, but that doesn't stop me from being excited to see when she runs well.  One of my teammates and I have had multiple conversations about how we admire her and how strong she is.  Obviously there is still a spirit of competition with these other teams, and we all still want to perform at our best.  In the race, we put all of our energy into catching the next girl, but the moment we cross the line, we all turn to embrace and congratulate each other.  We all carry each other at some point, whether teammates or strangers.  We can all appreciate when someone accomplishes something amazing, and mourn when someone has an injury or setback, whether or not we are close.
Even more pure are the inter-team moments of cooperation and relationships.  These are some of the moments that I consider when I'm forced to reflect on why I stay in this sport after all the abuse it has dealt me.  My favorite example of this took place at the Mountain Regional cross meet this last season.  I was struggling through the six kilometer race, battling with the side effects of a medication that I had started on a week previously, and had not yet realized was the cause of the migraines and nausea I was experiencing.  I was not racing like myself at all, and were it not for the thought of my teammates and how desperately we wanted to go to nationals, how hard we had worked for this opportunity to show the nation our ladies and our coaches were worth consideration, I would have walked off the course.  As we finished our first time on the upper loop, with just over a mile to go, Makena Morley, a runner from Colorado was running side by side with me.  Makena and I have crossed paths several times through high school and college, having been connected by one of my high school coaches and meeting up a few times while I was living in Montana for runs as well as at various meets throughout our collegiate careers.  She is an amazing runner and a wonderful person, and I would definitely recommend following her running career.  As she passed me during the regional meet, she turned to me and said, "Come on Lys, come with me, you've got this."  I absolutely was not able to go with her, but her encouragement helped me get through one of the worst races of my career.  Additionally, when I was diagnosed with my injury, many lovely ladies from different teams sent me messages of encouragement and advice for overcoming injury.  It's one of the most wonderful things about running and a huge thing that keeps me in the sport-Not only being familiar with the women on other teams, but developing relationships with them, or maintaining ties from previous interactions (@ my NXN gals) and being genuinely excited for them when they race well.
One more unique relationship I get to have with running and ladies is with my sister.  Since we were both athletes from the high school to the collegiate levels, we got to watch each other progress and overcome.  I got the opportunity to have my sister guide me into the world of distance running and pave the way for me to join a highly competitive and skilled high school team.  She remains my favorite running partner, as she has been there from the days when I struggled to find motivation to run over twenty miles a week and had to be bribed with donuts to run a 400m interval under ninety seconds to the season when I broke through and placed fourth at NCAAs.  She is always game to participate in Sunday bun days with me (a sacred holiday wherein the participants go for a long run in buns and sports bras), and can discuss and understand any part of the running world with me, from armpit chafing to eating disorders to injury to falling over a steeple barrier (sry Kenzie, but we've both done it).  We share similarities from our need to run to our matching exercise science degrees and our budding interest in social work.  I can tell her anything, and she can trust that I will always be around to give her terrible and dramatized advice.  We share so many personality traits that Sonia has said more than once that she would be terrified to have had us both on the same team at the same time, as we just magnify each other when we are together.  My favorite memory of training with my sister was a run when our mother dropped us off ten miles from our home to run back in.  We started squabbling on the drive up, and by the time we got dropped off, a full-fledged argument was taking place.  I am guilty of trying to run away from my problems at times, so I tried to literally run away from her, since at that point in time she was my problem.  What I neglected to consider was that she is also a distance runner, and her fitness levels were just as good as mine, so she stayed right by my side, which just pushed me to try harder to run from her.  We came through the first mile shouting and shrieking at one another like a pair of pissed-off alley cats, then checking our watches to see that we'd run under 6:30, which at that point in time was below tempo pace.  Upon realizing what we'd done, we immediately starting laughing like a pair of choking asthmatic snakes and struggling through the remaining nine miles, all disagreements forgiven.  About four miles in, we had to stop and drink out of an unidentified water pump in a field next to a local church.  I'm reasonably certain we both contracted giardia as a result.  We have always been one another's biggest fans, with her driving ten hours one way to watch me compete at NXN in high school, and one of my teammates at USU once questioning whether she was actually a real person or if I had made her up to make a Twitter fan account for myself before she met her because her account had so many tweets about my running career.  If that's not sibling love, I don't know what is.
The last type of relationship I've encountered in my years running is the relationship with your teammates.  These relationships are wild, as you can talk to the same women about how many times you had to poop on your run when you had caffeine belly the other day as you do about how you are passionate about social work because you have a desire to make a difference in the world in the same ten minute span.  You share so much, from the daily struggle of running when you don't necessarily feel like it, the heartbreak of a race that didn't have the outcome you wanted, the pre-run rituals, the recovery from injuries, the sacrifices of the typical college experience for something so much bigger than yourself, the sweaty 800m repeats at three in the afternoon in August, the date with the boy with the dreamy eyes you went on last weekend, the pictures of your cat, the stress you have over your upcoming exams, and anything in between.  These strong, wonderful women share your life with you for months or years, and they become your family.  They are the people that you text if you are kept awake late into the night by your thoughts and you need reassurance that things will be okay, and the first people you tell when you get good results back from an exam.  They are the family you have at college, and the people who you will have ties to for the remainder of your life.  They are the ones that you feel like you haven't seen in years after two days apart, and the best part of your day every day.  
Names that simply must be mentioned when I talk about female teammates who became my family at some point or another:  Ali.  Annie.  Emily.  Maddie.  Haley.  Claire.  Lauren.  Rachel.  Keeks.  Chiara. Madi.  Layne.  Christie.  Weezy.  Lelo.  Ellen.  Payt.  Ci.  Tylee.  Kels.  Hannah.  Karen.  Katie.  Rae.  Megan.  Shannon.  Jackie.  Carol.  Heather.  Pres.  Tori.  Kash.  Elli.  Jos.  Tav.  So many women who I love and cherish and couldn't imagine life without now that I've met them and shared the triumphs and trials of life with.  You guys are going to change the world.

Even Dragons Have Their Ending

First things first, I hope everyone recognized the reference to The Hobbit.  J. R. R. Tolkien is a literary wizard, and I am strongly of the opinion that there is a Tolkien quote for every situation.  Many of my college bonds have been formed as a result of a mutual affection for Middle Earth (Perhaps most significantly, my first true college friendship and the realest human being I've ever known, Andre the Great Vandini, freshmen chem lab partner extraordinaire, slayer of snakes, and Twin Tuesday partner for life whose friendship with me can be marked with the response, "When we look back on college and remember when exactly we became friends, this is it" to a tweet of mine about watching LOTR to get through treadmill runs).  Team Tolkien nights are a bonding experience that I would definitely recommend.

So, now that I've distracted myself with my own blog title and gone off on a complete tangent, please allow me to get to the actual point of this post.  Guys...I'm running again!  On dry land!  With extreme supervision from Sonia to ensure that I don't get over-eager and misbehave and take off sprinting at five minute mile pace until my heart explodes and I drop dead in the training room!  I did my first run outside of the underwater treadmill since early December last Tuesday, and they were the most wobbly and wonderful three miles I've ever run.  If I were to paint a word picture for you all to imagine how I looked, I would have to describe the scene as Sonia looking on in half-amusement, half-horror, as I weaved back and forth over the midline of the treadmill because I was too excited and too busy grinning like a sociopathic baby deer learning how to walk while simultaneously trying to convince a panel of my peers that I had a full range of human emotions by refusing to wipe the creepy smile off my face to care about silly things like running in a straight line.  Three delicious, pain-free miles with no throbbing in my back afterwards and no protestations from my body.  And what's more, between dry land miles and underwater miles, I was over halfway back to my normal weekly mileage (eighty miles a week) as of last week, AND Sonia has me running faster on the underwater treadmill than I ever did pre-injury.  Based on my progression right now, I could potentially be racing again by the end of March, although I'm still intending to take this season as a redshirt so I don't feel pressured to rush into anything too fast and risk getting re-inured.

Another big step took place this week in the form of me running outside for the first time in three months.  (!!!!!)  I decided to visit Bozeman for spring break to catch up with some old friends and teammates, so I got to do my first run back in the open air on the first route I ever ran as a collegiate athlete.  Never again will I take for granted the ability to spit freely and remove your shirt on a run.  In my months confined to the training room, I forgot just how liberating being outside was.  Once again, passersby most likely thought I was an escaped convict based on my overeager grin and the fact that I was bolting through the streets like I was running from the law.  It's very fortunate that I was given a strict set of paces for this week, because otherwise I think I would've run the first ever female sub-four mile for my first outside mile then immediately dropped dead on the spot.  It would also seem that the state of Montana is still a little bitter about my abandonment because the two years I lived here, I never once slipped or fell on a run, and on my second run here after being back in the state for just over twenty-four hours, I hit a patch of ice and wiped out hard.  I guess that's what I get for being overconfident and declaring myself the indestructible queen of winter.

It's been a little strange this week and last, celebrating benchmarks like running five miles at eight minute pace or running over forty miles in a week, when this time last year training for my first season as a true distance athlete specializing in the 10k was in full swing and I was running several workouts and seventy miles a week.  Almost exactly one year ago, I was running my first official 10k workout which consisted of eight miles of tempo work (4, 2, 1, 1 mile repeats) and wondering how on earth I was going to survive this season.  It's also definitely not easy seeing competitors that I ran with all through the cross season toeing the line at nationals this weekend, but I realize that isn't something I can change for myself so there is no point in stressing myself thinking of all the "if only" scenarios that could've been if I hadn't gotten injured.  The important thing is that I am on a path to a place that is better than where I started pre-injury, and I didn't lose anything in the process.  (Based on my first run back outside, I actually gained from this experience both physically, mentally, and emotionally).  More than anything, when the what-ifs try to start cropping up, I just remind myself that I am HAPPY now and I have re-discovered the pure, untainted joy for running.  I have officially made it through this injury and come out the other side better for it.  

Don't Call It a Comeback

There is not a single person on God's green earth who is more obnoxious about their rehab than me, I am utterly convinced.  I love doing rehab, and I am not afraid to make sure that everyone around me knows that, whether they want to or not.  My trainer, Sonia, is an angel sent directly to the Utah State training room from the gods of injury and recovery.  She knows I'm a bit of a head case and exercise makes me into much less of a goblin full of spite, and she is a fountain of rehab knowledge, so she has been making my rehab progression so enjoyable.  Last week, she texted me to inform me that she had some ideas to make my exercises harder, and boy did she come through.  Not gonna lie to you guys, I am getting pretty jacked.  #BodyBySonia  The other day, I caught myself checking out my own legs while doing single-leg squats, and I have asked Sonia and Tav roughly seventy-three times in the last week if my butt looks like it has gotten bigger.  I told Sonia that my comeback goal is to be able to be described using the words "Stoopid thicc".  Additionally, I made up my own comeback/rehab progression theme song.  Like I said, obnoxious.  But also extremely happy and excited to be coming back stronger, which hopefully balances things out.

Huge exciting announcement (drumroll please)...I'm running again!  As of this week, I am back on the underwater treadmill.  Thus far, I have had two sessions lasting twenty and thirty minutes with my boo, and the reunion has gone so well.  It's not always easy to work things out after a breakup-there are a lot of hurt feelings and emotions-but running and I really took some time for self-discovery before talking things through again, and we're both willing to ease back into our relationship slowly and make it more stable and healthy.  Those fifty minutes spent on the underwater treadmill held so much pure love for the simple joy of just running.  To run again has been bliss.  Obviously I haven't been permitted to run any record-shattering times, but the motion of running at all is a delight.  Even more exciting is the news that Sonia is planning on allowing me to run on dry land (or I guess technically dry treadmill) on the twenty-eighth.  Under two short weeks!  It feels like I have been floating since I got to start treadmill running again and discovered that I would be running regularly again before March.  I feel like the female lead in a young adult novel, but instead of a complicated, emotionally unavailable poet with dreamy eyes and a leather jacket making me feel this way, it's running.  ILY so much, bb.

Also, as we already knew, the sports psychologist that I work with is a worker of miracles.  This week, we did an exercise that had me charting three major trials and three major triumphs in my life on a sort of graph and connecting those points to illustrate the point that every major trial is eventually turned around and often lead to a greater triumph.  It was a wonderful reminder that this injury will just help me to appreciate the next good thing to happen with my running all the more, and to value the running that I get to do daily rather than taking it for granted.  I am extremely eager to get back into workouts and really appreciate the wonderful exhaustion that comes with them, but I'm also willing to wait until my body is ready for that.  Shoutout to my L5 vertebrae for teaching me about patience, listening to my body, loving running in its purest form, and valuing every little ache, pain, and sore muscle that come with difficult workouts and progression.  Sorry I was so bitter towards you in the beginning of this little baby journey.  You were right, and I was less right.
 

Dear Mainstream Running Media

Dear Mainstream Running Media,

Eating disorders are not cute.

Going over a week without eating a full meal because it makes you feel in control then being unable to run two miles because you don’t have the energy is not cute.

Developing acid reflux so bad that you have stabbing chest pains from esophageal spasms because you drank black coffee on an empty stomach to give you the artificial energy to carry your hollow body through a sixteen mile long run far too fast for the stores you actually have is not cute.

Hassling your trainer to let you do just one extra thing every day, not because you want to get better but because you want to get smaller, is not cute.  Begging to be allowed to go walk on the treadmill for two hours to burn calories is not cute.

Sneaking out and doing more than you’re told even though you’re exhausted and on the verge of tears because you have an anatomy exam on Monday and you can’t make your brain focus on the words on the page is not cute.

Eating jars of baby food for a meal is not cute.

Breaking your spine because you were so obsessed with pounding your body into submitting itself into the right shape is not cute.

Recovery from an eating disorder is not cute.

Refusing to eat all day then binging at night because your trainer told you you’d never heal and be able to run again if you didn’t fuel your body isn’t cute.

Battling the urge to stick your fingers down your throat each time you actually eat a full, healthy meal because you want to be skinny and in control isn’t cute.

Feeling sick every time you eat enough calories because it's been so long since you actually let your stomach feel that it no longer knows how to cope with the presentation of crucial calories is not cute.

Stop glorifying eating disorders.

STOP attacking the women in this sport with healthy bodies.  Stop writing articles about why they won’t do well at nationals even after they win big meets.  Stop making a point of putting a microscope on them when they are a 3k runner and get beat in an 800m race but STILL run the second fastest time in the nation.  Stop trying to take away from the success of strong women who don’t fit your model of a distance runner’s body.

Stop trying to make us believe that eating disorders are cute.  Stop letting us think that changing our bodies will make us into what we want to be. Stop glorifying a culture of repetitive injury and long spans of time off from the sport due to unhealthy habits. Stop putting a very specific body type on a pedestal. Stop refusing to acknowledge the very real presence of eating disorders in this sport, because the truth is, they are there whether we are comfortable with it or not. We all have teammates or friends who have struggled or are struggling to overcome the demons that a culture of obsession with being smaller and running faster has planted in their psyche.

Please start acknowledging the strong and beautiful women of the sport.  Acknowledge that it's okay, in fact it is wonderful, to have a team full of wildly differing shapes.  Since we are not clones, it would be extremely concerning if we all looked exactly the same.  Just as different athletes need different types of training to be successful, different athletes also need to accept that a different body composition or overall appearance is not only acceptable but necessary to be successful, because if we keep trying to force our bodies to fit a mold, we will keep breaking them and feeling like we are not enough.  Until the mainstream running media is willing to make these changes, there will be a sea of voices in the running community here to push back and tell men and women in the sport that they don't have to fit a certain size to have a running career worth following.
If you struggle with an eating disorder, or even just knowing exactly how much of what things you should be eating to maintain a healthy body, there are many resources that you can reach out to.  Many teams and schools have a nutritionist available that you can meet with to discuss healthy dietary habits (USU has a lovely nutritionist named Natalie who has been a wonderful resource for myself and my teammates), and if your school doesn't have that option or your aren't in school, there are also other options.  Basic nutrition classes are available at most schools, as are nutrition students who can help you understand the basics.  There are also dieticians and nutritionists who work at most hospitals and would be more than happy to meet with you and help you optimize your diet for wherever you're at.
As always, I hope you are all happy, healthy, and loving your relationship with running. 

Human Subjects Wanted: Applicants Inquire Below

Being a runner who can't run is one of the strangest phenomenon I've ever experienced, especially on a college campus.  While I still sport the backpack, sweaters, and running tights to class that identify me as a runner, I am uncertain of how I should answer when people ask me about my running.  As a chronic oversharer, I don't know how to stop at, "Yes, I'm on the team" because then my brain goes "Well, what if they ask about your racing schedule?  What if they think you're lying about being on the team?" and all sorts of other weird directions.  I feel obligated to tell people I'm redshirting, then I feel obligated to tell them why and just end up confusing them to the point that they regret asking about the backpack at all.  So, after doing that a few more times than I'm proud of, I talked to my main man Clint about the fact that I'm not running and what exactly I should do about it.  After that chat, I came away with a list of values that I take from running and an assignment to fulfill those values in other ways, which brings us to my *goals* of the 2018 spring semester.
Since achievement and self-discipline are values that are a large part of why I enjoy running so much, I decided to put more effort into my academic achievements.  This semester, I am in anatomy, which is widely regarded as one of the more difficult classes at USU to get an A in from the particular professor I am taking it from.  Instead of focusing all my energies on getting my 5k down to a certain time, I am putting effort into staying ahead on schoolwork, doing extra outside reading and research, and really understanding the material I am working on.  Additionally, I am still doing the most I am allowed to do in my rehab (Today I was allowed thirty-five minutes of normal biking in addition to twenty of arm biking and my back and lower body core exercises, and I was so excited about it that I did my own variation of a touchdown dance with limited back motion), and, drumroll please, I got my ethics certification last weekend, so I am now officially eligible to be involved with human research.  Currently accepting volunteers, so if you're looking to be psychologically experimented on, just stop by Logan or shoot me an email.  JUST KIDDING.  I will hopefully be working on psychological research in the USU labs under professors from the health and human development college.

Proof that I am, in fact, allowed to work with human people

To ensure that I actually meet my academic goal of getting a 4.0 this semester, I've put some actual guidelines in place for myself because the good lord knows I will just let myself run rampant otherwise.  As of this year, I am no longer allowing myself to use my phone in class, and I've made it my goal to not miss a single class this semester.  Since I won't be traveling, I figured I might as well make the best of it, because this is most likely the only semester in college that I will not have to miss any classes for my sport.  #SilverLining
Outside of rehab and school, I've taken up knitting lumpy socks similar to those I imagine Dobby the house elf would make and watching Grey's Anatomy.  Y'all.  You need to watch it.  I thought it was a stupid hospital soap opera, then I ran out of shows I felt like watching right before I found out I was injured and my sister recommended Grey's, so I spent the entirety of break watching it.  It is so much more than a hospital drama.  I am obsessed.
So, then, what about running?  What about my bittersweet love, my favorite escape, my drug of choice?  What do I do when I am encapsulated by the overwhelming need to drop it all and run; let go of my fears and pains and trade them for the sharp burst of air in my lungs and steady wonderful ache in my legs, the urge to fling aside my backpack and just start sprinting through the parking lot in my jeans like a madwoman?  What then?
Then...I take a deep breath.  I envision the wordless joy it will be to take my first steps on the track, to experience my own rebirth.  There is pain in looking to the future and knowing you can't have what you want now, but also joy and excitement in knowing that you will have a new love and appreciation for every hurt, every workout you have to fight through, for your second chance.  When I am overcome by my need to run, I think of the incredible happiness that will come from not only being able to run again after my time away, but the sense of accomplishment that will come with not only running again, but running entirely healthy and strong, having allowed my body to come back on its own timeline.
Have you experienced an injury that kept you from doing something you loved?  Feel free to tell me about your experience or coping methods in the comments below!

Patience? Never Heard of Her

Minutes after I heard the results of my MRI, I got my first piece of advice from my coach:  Write down the word "Patience" on as many post-it notes as you can get your hands on, then stick them anywhere you'll see them.  At that point in time, I laughed in the face of him and Sonia, my beloved athletic trainer, and informed them that if I tried that, those post-it notes would more likely get torn up after a few days.  Then burned.  Then the ashes would probably get buried next to the track next to my dreams.  No, I am absolutely NOT dramatic and I do not overreact to anything at all ever.  I told myself that I would be patient, but I also somehow got it into my head that I would be allowed to run immediately after I got back from winter break.  Not only did I not get to run or even get on the underwater treadmill when I arrived back, after trying the elliptical for ten minutes and having pain on that, then trying the bike for ten minutes and having pain on that, I was informed that I would be limited to no activity at all or arm biking.  Having been thriving in my state of denial all break, getting jerked suddenly into the reality of my injury was extremely unpleasant.  Turns out spinal injuries are not a quick fix, and there is no definitive timeline for how quickly they will recover.  Also, if your back hurts while you're biking, you should not just assume that it's muscular pain and continue biking for the entirety of break without telling your trainer or she will NOT be thrilled with your actions.  Forgive me Sonia, for I have sinned.
So, that brings us up to last week when I was laying flat on my back in bed wallowing in self-pity and depression.  Being stuck on a bike was bad enough, I thought, and now here I was unable to do anything at all, betrayed by my own stupid body.  There were a few days where my only time at practice was the twenty minutes spent hooked up to the stim machine, and my first day "back" from my brief break consisted of ten minutes on the arm bike.  Had you told the Lyssa of last summer she would one day in the near future be excited to be on the arm bike, she likely would have choked on her carb drink and possibly verbally assaulted you for saying something so ridiculous.  I told Sonia that I missed even running on the small underwater treadmill and her reaction was similar to if I had confessed to missing gastric ulcers.  I am not a patient individual, but the learning of patience is being forced on me right now whether I like it or not.  I allowed myself to be cross and mean and miserable for a few days after learning that my spine had not and would not heal on the timeline I wanted it to, then after a chat with my therapist, Clint, came to the conclusion that being a vindictive, angry shrew trapped in the body of a twenty year old woman would not make my recovery come any faster and would certainly make the time that I waited for it to come much less enjoyable and full of self-pity.  Since 2018 is the year of skincare, mental health, and good grades, there is no room for self-pity on the agenda.

Here's a super cute pic of my spine, the white spot by the arrow and to the right of the spinal cord is BLOOD IN MY VERTEBRAE (!!!)

Remarkably, when I took several days entirely off, my back started to feel better.  There was no miraculous overnight recovery, as I'd hoped for, but there was a gradual decrease in pain levels over the last week.  After a few days of only stim, I begrudgingly took to the arm bike.  Today, my pain levels were between 0-1 out of ten all day with no increase due to my rehab or arm biking, and I was allowed to move up from twelve to fifteen minutes on the arm bike.  Even last week's Lyssa would have been irritated and anxious about doing fifteen minutes on the arm bike and calling it a day, but the Lyssa of this week is working on gaining a fresh new perspective, being patient with her body and her recovery, and being happy and excited with the small steps taken forward rather than focusing on where a body without injuries could have taken this indoor season.  An injury is frustrating, heartbreaking, and difficult, but it doesn't have to be the end of your world or your running career.  It will take time and patience (patience, patience, patience-I've heard that word so many times over the last month and I definitely have a love/hate relationship with it), but you can always come back.

#NoMakeup #JustWokeUp

Some things that have helped me over the last few weeks:
-Acknowledge that it's okay to not be okay.  When something that is such an integral part of who you are abruptly gets taken away, you are going to have a lot of emotions, and most of them will probably not be pleasant.  Don't stick yourself in a negative cycle for the entirety of the time you are injured, but it is acceptable to take a moment to be frustrated or disappointed or to yell some cathartic curse words while your roommates aren't home.
-Find a hobby to throw yourself into.  Take challenging classes.  Do everything you're allowed to do in terms of cross training, rehab, and recovery.  Figure out a way to fill your time and distract you from dwelling on the thing you'd rather be doing.
-On the instruction of my boi Clint:  Identify the values that you take from running that make you enjoy so much and find a way to integrate them into your life and daily activities.  For example, if the value you take from running is accomplishment, you could instead focus on academic accomplishment and achievement until you're back to running.  Additionally, Clint has instructed me to journal about what I'm doing to integrate those values so I actually have to consciously make an effort to think about it and do it.  10/10 would recommend.
Also, since writing this post, I had a chance to meet with the team doctor and look at my MRIs.  Hooray!  It was actually super interesting for me to see what's happening inside my body instead of just throwing hateful thoughts out in the general direction of my spine.  They identified the stress reaction because of  the blood pooling in my vertebrae.  On the images I included, my bones show up as gray and my spinal cord and liquids show up as white.  The white in the sea of grey on either side of my spinal cord is blood, indicating that there was damage to the bone that my body was trying to repair by sending blood and nutrients to.  Way to go, body!  Additionally, I learned that had I waited to say something, this injury could have been much worse.  Initially, I was somewhat bitter that I spoke up because it meant that I got removed from practice when I was convinced I could've run through this, then Dr. Campbell started throwing around words like "spondylolisthesis" and suddenly I felt much better about speaking up.  I also felt slightly more charitable towards my body for not doing THAT to me.  For those of you keeping score at home who don't have a weird obsession with the body and exercise science (@ Myself), that term describes a condition in which, due to cracks forming in both pedicles, the vertebrae slips out of position and can pinch or damage the spinal cord.  Huge shoutout to my body and my wonderful trainer for shutting me down before we reached the point of vertebral slippage, because as much fun as that is to say, I doubt it's at all fun to experience.