Usually, I’m patient

I’m a patient person. I typically just wait in line and amuse myself while not really behaving like my plans for the day somehow are more important than those around me. I was aware that my ankle injury would require starting over. I just thought that I’d be starting over at a slightly less quick pace. I didn’t think about how much it would hurt my body to push myself. I didn’t know that not using my foot would cause swelling in other areas like the plantar fascia and the Achilles tendon once I got out of the boot and back to using it normally.

I mapped out my 20 week training plan for the marathon. Yesterday was 3 miles run/walk. I decided to try to do it by how I felt. So, I was walking within 1/4 mile. I ran less than I walked. 1 mile in, the bottoms of my feet felt like they were bruised and tender. My left calf was tight. The wind was whipping into my face and I started trying to run again after a break at a water fountain. I made it less than .1 mile before I realized I was not going to run through any pain. I turned around and headed home with a few spurts of a slow run to test the feeling in my feet. While the pain wasn’t only on the hurt side, I didn’t want to chance it. I went 1.5 mile by the time I got home.

I was disappointed. I was angry. I felt defeated. I couldn’t finish even 2 miles of a 3 mile run. How am I supposed to run a marathon? First of all, I’m supposed to train for a marathon, not worry about running 26.2 miles this week. Next, I didn’t run 3 miles when I started out a few years ago. I couldn’t do 60 jumps in therapy a couple weeks ago. Now, I can do it. I couldn’t do 60 calf raises in therapy without pause. Now I can do it. We get stronger through persisting. We get stronger by trying. I will get there. I will rest today and I will go back out tomorrow if I feel rested enough and I will see how far I can take these legs. I won’t push through pain. I’ll push through being tired and I’ll look away from ‘can’t’.

I am not always feeling the most optimistic. Nobody is always going to be. You could say “fake it ’til you make it,” but I’d rather just say that you should believe in the best possible outcome and be prepared for it to not work out that way without a few tries. Giving up is the true failure, though. I’m going to keep my head up. I’m going to try again. Maybe I’ll be able to run a full 5k by the time my race comes around at the end of June. I have a one mile race on Memorial Day to worry about. One race at a time. One goal at a time. I can run a mile. Now I want to run 2. We’ll worry about the 26.2 as it comes along.

Thanks for reading!

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I made a new collage pic for it to make the Facebook page more attractive. My friend donated her time to help me with my profile pic that I absolutely love. I used it as the background for this collage.