3 days

I am back to counting days. I woke up this morning and realized, as I stepped gingerly from my bed, that my foot hardly hurts at all. I think if I can just take care of it in the next 2 days, I will be able to participate in one way or another in Sunday's race.

I am so grateful for you bloggers. You are the absolutely only people who understand WHY I have been so upset. I kind of got over it a bit yesterday. Today I am feeling much better and I think I can just muster through... even if I walk the course.

After work tomorrow, my daughter and I will go and pick up our packets at the expo. She has not trained for this race and has decided that she will walk it. When I talked to her about not wanting to "throw in the towel," she said she not only wants to throw it, she is pissed at it, and she wants to burn it! And she is 28 years old! Oh my.

Now I will plant myself on the sofa and work on a pair of socks I am knitting... while icing my foot... and watching the Rockies!

Proportion

I have lost all sense of proportion - and I need to get it back, quick!

I went to see the workers' compensation doctor this morning. My foot is sprained. He advised me not to run a half-marathon on Sunday. When I started crying, he was surprised, to put it mildly. He told me I could do another one after my foot is healed. I cried and whined and told him it is so hard to train for a half-marathon, I don't ever want to do it again. The race is the reward for all of the hard work. No one but a runner would understand this. He looked at me like I was NUTS. He asked how much it cost to register - oh, not much, only $75. and months of running in the heat, in the rain, in the cold mornings, in the mud, and when I don't feel like it, when I have a headache and I am tired, and when I should be cleaning my house, or spending time with my family... that's all.

In other words - WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He finally said "Okay, if on Saturday it doesn't hurt AT ALL, try running around your block and if it doesn't hurt AT ALL, maybe, just maybe try running the half-marathon." But he still didn't think it was a good idea.

So I came back to work, ate the nutritious lunch that I packed for myself - and then I went and purchased a bag of vanilla creme cookies and a bag of chex vanilla strawberry yogurt evilness. And then I came back to my office and ate the entire two bags of crap (sorry to borrow your word Marcy.)

I called one of my friends to complain and he said "There's a war in Iraq." Like I don't know that! He was trying to suggest to me that there MAY be more important things in the world than if I get to run this race. I am just not there yet. In time, my sense of proportion will return, won't it?

Oh Dear...

If you are the praying type, please say a prayer for me.

I woke up this morning with a migraine. I went to work anyway. At noon, I fell down the stairs. I twisted my right foot... the foot that I broke in 1993. I was stunned and tried to kind of figure out whether I was hurt or not... I walked away and decided I couldn't possibly train for months for a half-marathon and get hurt 5 days before the race.

My foot hurts like hell. The good news is that it is not discolored or swollen. Some of the medical professionals at work told me to get home and RICE. (rest, ice, compression, and elevation) Of course, I went to the grocery store first, and then I went to get some new nail polish at Ulta, and then I went to Runner's Roost to get gu for the race - being the eternal optimist, I guess. The woman at Runner's Roost told me not to wear high heels anymore... I think I might finally be ready to take that advice. It certainly isn't the first time I have heard it, but I might be ready to listen now.

I could not run if I had to right now. But I don't have to right now, so I will practice at living in the moment and not projecting into the future. And I will eat my steak for dinner and plop my butt on the sofa, ice my foot and elevate it.

6 days

The training is over. The planning should be kicking into high gear. It looks like the weather will cooperate. I am just sickened over what happened in Chicago yesterday. How do you run out of water at the beginning of the race? I am so relieved to hear that Jess is OK. What a mess.

I don't have a good hydration/nutrition plan for this race. I have a bottle that I was planning on carrying watered down Powerade in... and I could refill the water at the water stations. I don't think I will have gel with me.

In my first, last (and only) half-marathon in May, I had gel, and also took gatorade at the water stations. By the middle of the race, I had a stomach ache. I have since learned that one should not combine sports drinks AND gel.

I seem to have gotten over my psychosis about this race. I am really looking forward to it, and particularly looking forward to it being over! What an attitude.

One Week

One week from now, I will be one hour + into my half-marathon. I will be enjoying myself and I will be about 2 hours away from being done with this. (really)

I have turned some kind of mental corner - and it is good. I had a thoroughly enjoyable run yesterday morning. 3 miles is a nice distance to run. I like this tapering stuff. I also like the cooler weather. I *think* I am suffering through runs in the winter when it is cold, but the truth is, I really would rather run in 20 degrees than 70 degrees.

So, my friends in Arizona - we can still remain friends through the next week of baseball, right?

October 5

I don't know what happened to this photo, but I spent the money to send it to myself, so I will use it! I had a glorious early morning autumn run this morning. The leaves of the cottonwood trees practically glow in the sun, they are so golden.

I think I am realizing that running is a form of psychosis. In our blogging community, we have all levels of runners - we all are stellar because we go out and do this thing - but some of us are really, really good. But nearly all of us do the same things... we discount our talent, or our effort, or our abilities. We say I ONLY ran such and such. I ran 5 million miles, but I was SLOW.

I am 9 days out from my half-marathon, and although I have trained appropriately and according to plan, I am wondering WHY I am even doing this. Surely I am not good enough. Surely I am so slow that walkers will pass me and I will drag across the finish line - humiliating myself with my extreme out-of-shapeness. Surely people along the route will marvel at this overweight elderly woman out there (in a skirt yet!) trying to run a half-marathon.

I loved reading John Bingham's article in Runner's World this month - " I am not a jogger". Written in response to the inane Pearl Izumi advertising campaign - insulting runners of all levels. Isn't it silly that we have to defend this?

Forgive me for my ravings this morning. I am tired of training. I am mainly tired of the things that my mind tells me. What the hell does it matter that I am slow, or that I am not rail-thin? I am a healthy woman who is capable of going out and running 13.1 miles. That is indeed miraculous for a woman who drank too much for too long, and smoked 2 packs a day for 25 years. Who has so much hardware surgically inserted into her neck that her X-ray looks like Frankenstein!

To hell with all of it! I am going to go out and rejoice in who I am today! And thank God for it!

12 days

This is a cell phone photo from today's early morning run. It was dark, it was cold, it was windy... in other words - it was wonderful! I ran a nice 3 miles. I head out of my house and run .95 miles for an elevation gain of 200+ feet. And it is slow. Then I get two miles to lose that 200 feet - those miles are fun!

I am in my taper weeks now. I am kind of enjoying them. Then last night I got this month's Runner's World magazine and they are now saying that tapering is not as good an idea as we all thought? Well, screw that!

I am tired of running. I hope that when this race is over, I will revise what I am doing with my running. I cannot possibly stop because I would gain 350 lbs. But I hope to go back to faster short distances as opposed to the lumbering heavy-weight slow long runs. I know I will miss them, but for now, I long to not be spending hours and hours each week running.