Always Learning

Hello! Working to improve healthy habits and overcome my bad knees/hip/back and depression. I post mostly about my workouts, personal emotions, knee/hip/back pain, and any extra drama I happen to find. My side blogs are @smallwoodenbeches and @A5M5B5. Join me on Nike Run Club! my username there is ShorterStrides FasterPace.

[akindplace]

depriving yourself of anything you need won’t help you in any way. it will only leave you feeling uncomfortable, stressed, hungry or even sick. you’re not making yourself stronger by denying your needs. needing anything is not a sign of weakness or selfishness. it’s not morally wrong to have needs, even if they are different than others. you don’t have to earn things, your life should not be about self-sacrifice. this is not martyrdom. you don’t have to suffer so much to prove you need anything, or to earn anything. this is your life and your body. don’t be ashamed of meeting its basic needs.

[shorterstrides-fasterpace]

5K with friends this morning!!!!!!!! I did so well! I planned out walking breaks and stuck to them. I walked 60sec after each mile and completed the 5K in 34min37sec. Heck yeah!! I hope to get back to regular training next week. The 5k was a nice re-set after missing so many runs due to stress these last two weeks. I am a happy finisher and after a nice warm salt bath to recover I am out in the garage working on my motorcycle.

My heart rate is in the 70s and 80s post race. I have not seen in this high (healthy) sustained before!! It is a good day. ❤️

[madsgoesthemiles]

@rockingred52 tagged me last week for a Flex Friday! Thank you!

My flex is that I've already got 18k steps in and I'm planning to walk another 2 miles before the day is up. I've got to enjoy the beautiful weather while I can.

@goldensquirrel @npctomc @coffeecatsandhealth @shorterstrides-fasterpace Happy Flex Friday! Join if you feel like it 😊

[shorterstrides-fasterpace]

Good morning!!! I'm late to Flex Friday but that's okay!!! My flex is that I ran last night, got plenty of sleep, and am enjoying the present. @runrunningrunner @robinruns @jenfightsback how have you been?? Flex Friday?

[a5m5]

Today's biggest adventure: using Dawn to remove alllllll the adhesive from my hospital stay. I am doing well but my heart rate dropped into the 30's on Monday and Tuesday with a low of 33bpm. It was not fun and might be the source of some of my fatigue issues. I am on a heart rate monitor for the next month. Besides that, life has been good! The fatigue for depression is slowly receding and I have been able to work out and make progress! I am not able to work out three times a week without a major energy crash. Have not made it two weekends in a row without needing a ton of sleep, but over all things are improving. Now that spring is here, I am so excited to have my motorcycle back out. The heart rate is simply another piece of the puzzle.

[shorterstrides-fasterpace]

Ope I posted to my side blog

[shorterstrides-fasterpace]

Flying Pigeon

How it began in early 2022

September 2022

Summer 2023

Summer 2024

Summer 2025

I am so grateful for how far I've come. I've had my ups and downs, but overall I still have more ups than downs!

[smallwoodenbechses]

It's been a while!! Well, the bike still does not run. Put it all back together, found the battery was dead, and went for a hike instead. After, I did get to stop at my cousin's farm and see the remains of the crankcase from her boyfriend's pulling tractor. Hell of a thing. About 650 in^3 displacement, cast case, broken in two pieces. He is ordering a new one made from a billet. I have a lot to learn, but it was cool to see.

Next step with the bike is figuring out electrical. Not looking forward to it.

[shorterstrides-fasterpace]

I just realized I never added this years State Park Flying Pigeon!! This summer my friend took me to Wyalusing State Park. They have a monument to the Passenger Pigeons and I took the opportunity for my yearly pose. Not as grand as 2023 or 2024, but proud to still do it. Looking forward to what comes is 2026!!

[m0tiv8me]

Feels like -5 today with the wind.

Also feels like stay inside in my pajamas and enjoy a calm and quiet Saturday.

[shorterstrides-fasterpace]

-2° with wind-chill today here. Staying in bed and reading is my plan!

[rarestsparkle]

There's a thin line between someone who's emotionally unavailable and someone who just doesn't want you. And when you're emotionally invested, that line doesn't just blur, it dissolves. Because when the heart is hungry, even breadcrumbs feel like a meal.

[shorterstrides-fasterpace]

Made it on a run last night :)

Fatigue from depression is reducing. Looking forward to 2026 and continued improvement of health.

This week I reached 200lb. It is scary. But no more scary than reaching 195lb this summer. The weight gain seems to be slowing. The lowest I've seen in 2025 was 185lb. 2024 I was size 8, now I am size 14.

I am ready for 2026 and for my health to change.

[shorterstrides-fasterpace]

Wow, it is really really muggy out there

[shorterstrides-fasterpace]

Don't mind the heat 🤣🤣WOO!!

[tonyrackstonx-deactivated202110]

Y'all better be drinking water.

[murraysiskind-deactivated202511]

It’s so crazy that suicide prevention is just people going awwww don’t!! Awwww come on noooooooooo stopppppp

[allhailklisz]

[yokelfelonking]

One of the best ones I saw was a thing noting that every single one of the few survivors of suicide jumps off of the Golden Gate Bridge realized, on the way down, that the problems they were killing themselves over actually were fixable or could be worked through...except for the now - extremely unfixable - problem of gravity.

[authortobenamedlater]

Went to the Holocaust Museum in DC once. There was a video interview of an Auschwitz survivor who said he and some other prisoners stayed up all night with a man who wanted to kill himself. The man didn’t kill himself and survived to liberation.

In the video the survivor said “Never seek a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And they’re all temporary problems.”

Hearing that from a guy who survived the Holocaust rewired my brain a little bit.

[drgrlfriend]

I think something a lot of people don't understand is that depression is not suicidality, and suicidality is not depression. People can, and are, depressed without being suicidal, and sometimes suicidality peaks as people are emerging from depression. Suicidality is a wave, and the trick is to allow that wave to crest and subside WITHOUT acting on it. Whatever it takes to ride it out. For some people that's distraction, like watching television. For others it's calling a friend -- not to talk about the suicidality, but just to talk. For others it could be as simple as going to sit in a coffee shop or library, because the presence of other people is a huge diminisher of suicide risk. That's what suicide safety planning is about. It's like having any other type of emergency plan, like a plan for fire or evacuation. It's making a plan when you are in the frame of mind to do so, so that you can just DO the plan without having to think about it when the occasion arises. When you're in the midst of suicidal ideation, or even intent, you're not in a problem-solving mood. So knowing past!you, with the help of a therapist hopefully, came up with the plan and all you have to do is follow up until the wave crests and subsides, is what allows you to see another day.

ETA: Here's a link to a safety plan. https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/988-safety-plan.pdf

[shorterstrides-fasterpace]

Tomorrow will mark ONE YEAR of being able to run consistently.

An entire year! I have done so much.

I have done so so so so so so much. What a ride since spring of 2020 when it all fell apart, to spring of 2021 when I started trying again (stretches, learning to do the splits, pushups) to spring 2022 starting yoga (so scary!!) and starting PT... Discovering I could run without pain on at the 4th of July Parade last year and starting Zombies! couch to 5k training. Running my first 5K since 2020 in March 2023, and a second 5K in April with a time of 29:50. Starting rock climbing, continuing Yoga, and now focusing on running again.

Sure I still have some pain BUT LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!!!! LOOK AT ME GO!!!

[shorterstrides-fasterpace]

TWO YEARS EVERYBODY!!!!! TWO YEARS OF BEING ABLE TO RUN!!!!!!!

2023 me would have been SO impressed by what I accomplished last summer. And SO impressed with my climbing last fall. 2023 would never have expected me to join Hurling! I am resilient! Here is to the rest of 2024 and looking forward to 2025.

[shorterstrides-fasterpace]

TRIGGER WARNING DEPRESSION

06.26.2025

TW Self Harm and Talk of Suicide (No action, I am using medical resources, I have clinicians able to deal with this, I know where to ask for help, they are aware of my situation)

I need to say this in a place it will be heard, even if it belongs in a journal and not to be shared.... I want to be understood, and to not be alone. Not comforted or fixed, I can do that myself. But to be understood and not feel alone.

Today was a good day at Intensive Outpatient Program for depression and anxiety, but I did become triggered during processing group. I panicked, and then dealt with intrusive thoughts/compulsion to punch myself in the head, scrape my hands/arms on a wall, cut myself with paper, stab myself with a pen in the hand or eye, find a way to cut my wrists.... These thoughts are normal for me. And sometimes I do act on them. I have stabbed myself with pen and pencils in the hand, punched walls, scraped my arms, punched myself in the head. But it has always been sudden, unplanned, and uncontrolled. Often, I have intrusive thoughts/urges towards suicide.... On Monday I had thoughts of suicide again, but they were actual plans, not impulses. It was weird and so different for the norm. (Please understand, I will not act on this and my doctor/therapist/psychiatrist and nurses are aware and have decided I am safe to be out of inpatient. If I need to go there I will). But this is a new symptom, and honestly it is way less scary. I am thinking of suicide, but I am in control. It is a step away from desperation. Which is a relief. But also eye opening.

I calmed down after my intrusive thoughts from earlier and drove home. On the way, I started having plans for self harm. Planning where my razor blade is, how I would hide the cuts, what location would be best, how to clean up etc. I have never had the ability to plan self harm before. The wild thing about planning, is that the advice we are so often given for depression actually works. In a plan, I can counter "I love my body and don't want scars." "Doing that would make my boyfriend sad. He would still love me, support me, and would not be disappointed - just accepting. But it would make him so sad, because he loves me" "It would make future-me sad too". And it WORKS. It WORKS when things are at a planning phase. But I have rarely had the presence of mind surrounding my emotions to plan. Only to have impulse.

[shorterstrides-fasterpace]

Wheeeeeeeee!!!

😊😊😊

[shorterstrides-fasterpace]

Had a good run last night!!

But of yoga this morning :)