Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Running .... Keep Running

The count down is on to the Des Moines Marathon. I'm only doing the half. My goal for this year is to finish. I don't care about the time but just finish. Since hurting my knee in May and going through physical therapy my therapist told me I should not run the whole half to avoid future injury. She said the best training program for me would be to run 10 minutes walk 5 and do that until I finish. Right now I do about an 11-12 minute mile so I'm trying to get my time down to 10 minutes but if I don't no biggie...I just want to do it and be able to finally say I completed SOMETHING.


That has always been my downfall...I have great hopes and dreams for success and go at it hard in the beginning but then fizzle out. I've done this with my weight for years! While I still slip up more than I should I can feel and see a change in me. There is something different this time. This time I'm not going to fizzle out. This time I have made a choice to be stronger to not give up.

All I have running in my head right now is Eminem's song 'Til I Collapse...
'Cause sometimes you feel tired, feel weak, and when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up.
But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strength and just pull that s* out of you and get that motivation to not give up and not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face and collapse.

So this year I finish, next year I run the full 13.1 and when I'm 40 in October 2013 run the full 26.2!

Running...Keep running...If you don't run then move...just move!!!









Saturday, August 20, 2011

Thankful!!!

I am so thankful that I can run.  In May I injured my left knee because I went took my miles from 3.2 up to almost 5 in one run and come to find out I was wearing the wrong shoes for my feet that didn't support me the way I needed support and they were too small.  Yes I did buy them from a "running" store that was supposed to ensure I had the correct shoes for me.

A little PSA & advertisement for a local small business owner here before writing more...If you're in the Des Moines area you must go to Kyle's Bikes in Ankeny.  They record you running on a treadmill barefoot and slow it way down so they can see how your foot hits and then find the best shoe from there.  I then tried on shoes that were designed for my type of foot, ran more in each shoe, watched how I hit and how it felt for me and then bought the perfect shoes for me.  They spent about an hour with me making sure I walked out with the perfect shoe for me and shoe that would help in getting to my goal of running the half in October.  They even told me to first run a few times on the treadmill and if I didn't like how they felt after those runs to bring them back and they would exchange them.  Needless to say I love them and didn't need to exchange them.

So back to why I'm thankful.....I am so thankful that I have fell in love again with running.  I used to run cross county in high school and I did like it.  I was always near the end of the pack but I always felt so good in finishing and how it felt.  It is also such an amazing support group...Runners IMHO are some of the nicest people.  It's a great way to re-connect with old friends and make new friends.  Today I had the honor of running with my friend from high school, Shelly.  Until facebook and our 20 year high school class reunion we totally lost touch.  Had it not been for these two events I would have most likely gone with out ever seeing her again and I'm so thankful for having these outlets to re-connect (same with many I went to HS with and now I think of the Friday night of our HS reunion and I still can't stop smiling and laughing.  It's like we never missed a beat we just got better!).  I told her I'm super slow and to run a head if she wanted and she ran with me for a while and then went off to her own until the end.  It was so fun to run with her, talk to her, get to know her more outside of a high school setting.  She still looks the same as she did 20 years ago but it's great to see how she's grown into a woman..it's been great seeing how all of us grew into great women.

I'm so thankful for my DailyMile family.  For those that don't know DailyMile is an online social network for athletes (in my case I'm not an athlete but I like to play one on TV).  It doesn't matter your skill level it's just a big community of like minded people who push one another to exceed what they thought possible.  I've never met most of them face to face but they are always there for me with a word of encouragement when I feel like I'm not succeeding in my sport and there to cheer me on when I kill a run or a work out.  

I am so thankful that this injury did not totally take me away from running and that I've learned from it.  How to not get injured in the future and how to teach others not to injur themselves.

What I've learned in this journey (not just in running but in life really) be thankful for all good and bad.  In the bad times it is not fun but when you get to the other side and look back you really realize it's all for a reason and when you peel the layers of the onion back you realize it was for your own good, you learn and grow from the struggles.

Frederick Douglass said it best,  "If there is no struggle, there is no progress"

Monday, August 8, 2011

Ode to the outdoors

So I haven't written in a long time.  Way to long.  I have a physical therapy appointment tomorrow and chances are I'm done with PT.  WOOT HOOT!!!  I can say that I have learned a lot about myself coming out of an injury.  I learned too that my injury was due to shoes.  My shoes were to small and not right for my feet.  I now have the perfect shoes and my knee and I are in love again!!

Recently it began to cool down enough to run outside again which is so choice.  I have missed running outside.  I have picked up a running buddy at work.  In the last year she has run 2 marathons and she hurt herself this last time and had to scale way back so now she's on my level (LOL).  We've ran together twice and I'm so thankful for her.  She is just the sweetest person.  Another co-worker started the C25K program based on my raving about it.  She was off to a strong start but then her knee started acting like mine and I told her she has to stop, make sure she's got the right shoes and showed her some of my PT stretches.  Then she caught my sinus infection...Sorry girly.

Today marks a milestone since my injury...20 minutes running up hills with out stopping.  It was a *beep* of a run but I loved it!!  What is that...the more it hurts the better.  The more it makes me internally want to quit the better.  I think I love it because for once I will not give up and that pain is the kick in the ace that I need to get me to the next victory!

My PT thinks I should expect to run the whole half but to finish for sure and that this year is my goal.  I want to finish...I have so much doubt right now but I'm running through it and pressing forward.  Next year I'll do it to run the entire thing then train the following year for the full.  I want to be almost 41 and running my 1st marathon.

Sorry this is short but I just felt like writing a quick not.  Now off to rest and do it all again tomorrow.