I placed!

This weekend I ran the Women Running Wild 5k race in Palm Springs with my friend Bev and her daughter. We all came in within seconds of each other (with Tracy coming in first), but I got lucky and the people in my age bracket were a bit slower. So that meant that I actually won by placing second for my age! Not too bad. Actually, I was pretty excited. The race was a hometown race to raise money for breast cancer, so there were no chips or anything for timing. And of course, being the anal type of person that I am, I had my timer on and checked and was 10 second behind in crossing the starting line. But that's okay, because the time they have for my race (25:48) is still my pr!

Here is a picture of me with my tile award!
Here is one of Bev, Tracy and me.
And one of Jim and me waiting for the awards to be given out!

Running

Well, I did 5.1 at a pretty good pace and felt fairly good - for almost 24 hours. Then I got such a bad cramp in my upper leg/hip joint that I couldn't run the next night. I took of Thursday and Friday and was rather worried about my run this morning. But, I made 8.5 miles and didn't have a cramp until mile 8, in my calf this time. Now tonight that I am getting ready to go out and celebrate my birthday, I have a slight cramp in both legs. I won't wear too high of heels. And I had both an orange and a banana for the potassium today already. So I guess I just need the garlic cheese fries tonight for some more potassium! Hey, I'm justifying it since I lost another pound. It could be a continuation from being on the high blood pressure diet - or it could be the low dose water pills. Probably the later, but it's my birthday celebration so I'll use that excuse!

Bummer

I just got back from the doctor's office. Two months of going every two weeks to check my blood pressure. After altering my diet just a little (I added more vegetables and cut back on my red meat) and trying to add some relaxation techniques (I already do enough exercise) to try and get my blood pressure down I finally had to give in today and start going on some medicine :-( It's the lowest dose and I start tomorrow - to be checked again in two weeks (plus on my own at home). The semi-positive news is that the doctor said if I wasn't doing all of this stuff I would probably have really high blood pressure and be on a lot more medicine. And the good news, well, the doctor said that normally she would tell patients with my level of blood pressure to try and lose some weight first, but she said I don't have any weight to lose :-) That's really nice to hear from a doctor's office!

In the meantime, they told me to just pay attention to my body for the next few days while it gets used to the medicine. I already worked it so tomorrow is an off day on running, and we'll see how it goes for Wednesday. If I feel good it will be the full five miles. Otherwise, I want to do at least 3.1!