WOW!

I got up at 4:45am this morning after less than 4hrs of sleep. I dropped Ethan off with his Grandma Jill and made it to Lake Murray by 6:04am (just 4 minutes late). Then, I did something REALLY amazing!

I ran 4 whole miles without stopping! NO WALKING at all!! (okay, so I technically took about 10 walking steps when my water bottle wouldn't open, but come on! We're literally talking 10 steps here! That shouldn't count!)

I am feeling GREAT emotionally! Physically.... I think I'll go take a nap now! :-D

(BTW I did go to a chiropractor on Tuesday and he did some adjustments- so far the pain in my knee and ankles seems to have completely disappeared! My whole range of motion seems better and easier. I'm really glad I went. And the best part is that he donated his fee right back to my fundraising, so it was like getting a consult and adjustment in exchange for donating to my own fundraiser! -His name is Dr. Chad Wells and his office is in UTC if you're interested. It's called The League Chiropractic. He has a website.... I'll have to add the link later though. I don't have it right now and like I said... I'm going to take a nap now.)

Better

As I am now officially over my cold, I got up am at 5:15am Saturday morning to run with the team. It was the first time I'd run in nearly two weeks (not counting my brief jog last Monday) and the distance set for that day was 3 MILES longer than ANYTHING I had EVER run before! Add to that the fact that Ethan decided less than 4 hours of sleep was a perfectly sufficient amount of sleep and.... I'm just happy I did it at all! Actually, it wasn't as bad as I feared it may be after such a long hiatus.

I deliberately joined the slowest group that morning and managed to keep up with them for the first 4miles or so. At that point my ankles starting hurting so I decided to stop and do some additional stretching which took about 1 minute, but set me behind the group. So, it's difficult to say how well I did on the last part of the journey. (The mentors usually call out the walk/run intervals... I still need to get my own watch.) I do know that I did not go as hard as I normally would, (the pace that morning was 6minutes running 1minute walking) partly because I was trying to protect my ankles, partly because I'd forgotten my hat and the sun was creating tension in my face (you'd be surprised how that effects your entire body), and partly because -let's face it- I'd missed two weeks of training. Soooo I did not do as well as I normally would have, but I didn't do as bad as I'd feared either. I think I'll be able to "catch up" to my normal speed again with good, consistent training over the next couple of weeks. I'm determined to run with the group next week.

I'm also going to have a chiropracter who specializes in sports injury check me out and see if there are any special exercises I can do to strengthen my weaker joints- such as my ankles. For those of you who don't know, I have flat arches and in 1999 I broke my right ankle and it's never fully returned to normal strength (easily injured) so I'm very consious of using proper running gear and proper running form to protect it. I think the weakness in that ankle may be effecting my right knee as well, so hopefully the doctor will have some good advice.

When I was running on Saturday, I kept thinking of all the people who have expressed their support and encouragement to me and it was a strong motivation to keep on, even when I knew I was nearly the last in the pack. So thanks to all of you! You know who you are!

I am also especially glad not to have missed that training run because it was little Dylan Fritzges' 3 year birthday! (He's one of my honored teammates for those of you who don't know- he has leukemia.) He and his dad were at the run that morning and the Society had made a giant cake and presented Dylan with an adorable magician's-style purple cape that had his name on the back in gold letters. He ran around with it on as if he were a super hero. Watching this kid is amazing because he is SO well behaved! There's sort of a feeling that he's matured beyond his age in some ways..... but like I said, he was also running around like a regular kid, and that was good to see. So remembering him when all I really wanted to do was walk was another good motivation.

Running these distances is showing me once again, just how amazing the human body really is. You really can do so much more than you would ever believe you could! The truth is, it's really more to do with your mind than it is your physical condition- though, that is a factor. If you don't believe in your ability to complete something, if you don't override that natural instinct to stop when it gets HARD, if you don't mentally decide to test just how much farther you really can go... then you'll never know what you might have done. Long distance running really is about 25% physical conditioning and 75% mental training. Because of this truth, I honestly believe that this training is making me a better person.

BTW I keep hearing these stories at the runs... :-D Many of the mentors keep referring to "the train run". I thought you might be interested to hear about it. You see, when we get farther along in our training, we'll be parking our cars in Del Mar and taking the train to Oceanside.... then running back to Del Mar! Would you believe I'm looking forward to this?