Remembering Where I Came From

WARNING:  This is a very self indulgent post, but I'm going to publish it anyway...feel free to skip on over to the next blog on your reader roll!  I still love you.  I promise, I'll post something better next time!  :D


No, this post is not about where I grew up...it's about how far I've come in my training.  I am SO GLAD I've been blogging faithfully about running.  I am such an in-the-moment kind of gal, I forget what it was like any moment before the one I'm in right now.   Since I went for an MRI this morning, I've been feeling a little down-a lot down.  There's part of me that wants there to be something "wrong" so that this pain I've been feeling since close to the beginning of when I started running (as evidenced by my blog entries) isn't just me being a "princess".  At the same time,  I don't want to stop running, even for a short time for PT, so if they were to say it's just strain, then it would seem to me I could keep running and just learn to suck it up.  But, if they do find something, then there will be an "answer"--stretches, strengthening exercises, ice/heat, massage, medications, injections--and I would know after a certain amount of time (even if I did have to stop running for a short time) that I would be able to run "pain free".  If they don't find anything I'm going to be left with nothing to point my finger to.  I don't know if I have what it takes to run through this pain.  It really hurts.  Granted, there have been better days than others, but, right now, I can't even run from my front door to my car!!


Okay, anyway.....it's very interesting to go back and read how excited I was that first time I ran longer than a minute in one stretch.  Another very interesting thing is to see how fast I was going initially.  My pace was much faster in the beginning.  Granted, I couldn't run for long, but boy was my pace fast.  That seems to tell me I can run fast.  Even yesterday (after going almost 3 full miles to "warm up") on a hurting calf (but not as much as it was when I started the walun for the day)---I kicked it up at the end to a pace of 7:52.  It felt good to run.  It didn't feel "good", but man do I love to run.  I can not wait for my leg "issue" to be solved one way or another.

I think the truth is that I just started out too fast.  One thing I was adamant about in the beginning was training VERY slowly.  I "should have" signed up for the 5K training, like I had originally planned.  But, when it came down to it, I "thought" I could handle the 10K training.  But, even that might not have helped, because as I've read back through my original posts, my leg pain showed up very early on.  I think, no matter what, the truth is that I should have done some strength training in the very beginning--especially for the front calf muscles.  What's bad is that I KNEW that.  I knew it from a trainer I worked with a couple of years ago...and I knew it when I first started running.  I just didn't trust myself to believe what I thought my body was telling me!

It's funny because I feel about running sort of the way I feel about my husband.  In the beginning, I was consumed.  It/he was all I thought about all the time.  Now, it's/he's part of my life like my arms and legs.  It's more than just an emotional love or obsession....it's/he's a part of me in a deeper way.  I don't feel the same exact euphoria because I think that was sort of the newness of the relationship, but the love of running, and the love I have for my husband is so deep that to lose it/him would be like not being able to breath...like having my heart stop beating.

Okay....I'll stop gushing now (but only on the blog, I'm still doing it on the inside--just in case you were wondering).

I saw a post on a running forum written by someone who was so excited that she had just run a whole mile without walking.  She was so excited because it had ONLY taken a year to get to that point.  She said her next goal was to run a 5K by New Year's.  It really put into perspective for me the fact that I just started running, at 40 (with arthritis I might add), in January.  Five months of training and I ran 5 miles straight just a couple of weeks ago (with only a 10 second walk break), and 6.23 miles last week with only a couple of walk breaks.  I'm so hard on myself because I look at that achievement and I'm so quick to down play it in my mind-to waive it off like shooing a fly away from the picnic table.  As if what I've accomplished means nothing---less than nothing.  I would NEVER do that with anyone else.  I would cheer my heart out for anyone else, but (so far) not for myself.

NO MORE!!

Yea me.  There, I said it....and I'm not going to take it back!  I've gone from never having been a runner to being able to call myself a runner. 

Hi, my name is Dana and I'm a runner!!

Thanks for stopping in, come again soon!
:D