It sorta sucks that my regular day has come up two days too early for what is obvious to write about. I am doing the Niagara Falls Women’s Half Marathon on Sunday and for someone pretty marginally prepared, I’m feeling strangely calm.
I registered on impulse after Tracy posted about it last year. I was looking for a new and different challenge after two years in a row of the Friends For Life Bike Rally.
I have thoughts about this choice of trial and training and now is as good a time as any to reflect on them.
First of all, running has been lonely. I don’t have great connections for running in Milton where I live. There are running clubs of course but they meet when I am working so that was out. My partner who I live with loves to run but he developed Plantar Fasciitis in September so running with him was off the table for months and months. He is able to run again but not longer distances. Not many people want to hang out with me for over two hours running 15 kilometers. It isn’t fun for me either.
Biking is a super social thing and I have lots of friends and opportunities to bike. However, I am not a person who likes to do two big things in a weekend so long runs interfered with those chances to bike. I’m feeling very disconnected from my biking community right now so that is also a little sad. Honestly I’ve looked at the bike and thought about going out myself but all the fibers in my being have screamed “NO!”. So I listened.
I have also been struggling (as I seem to mention in almost every post I make these days) with the lingering effects of what was actually a pretty major RA flare up in September. The fact that I trained for this thing at all, given how I’ve been feeling is pretty spectacular. I recently got cortisone shots in the remaining troublesome joints. Don’t ask me why I waited so long. I seem to be very stupid when it comes to my own self care some times. It has made a world of difference in my attitude toward everything from running to walking the dog to getting up in the morning. Self! Take care of yourself! *headdesk*.
There have been some good things about this troublesome task of training for the Half. I am amazed at what I can do. I have finally entered the zone of running where I can basically keep going, as long as I keep a steady slow pace and walk for one minute every 10 minutes. I have not had any running related injuries except for my toe nails. But I feel like toe nails are part of our blood sacrifice to the goddesses and gods of longer distance running.
I am going to go and do this thing and if I have to walk the last five kilometers because 15 kilometers of running is all I have in me, so be it. I won’t feel bad about that.
The dog and the dude will be waiting at the finish to cheer me no matter what and I am going to stuff my face so full of food I can’t even.
I am also signed up for the Army Run in September. Stay tuned if runner’s amnesia makes that an actual thing.
