Lots of exciting things have happened this past week. I'm too lazy to attempt to make some sort of cohesive blog post out of them all, so I think I'll just do this one list style... here it goes:
Exciting thing #1: I finally got my act together and sent out my fundraising letter! (I probably should not be admitting this) I would be lying if I said that the fact that I have been injured didn't play a major role in my lack of motivation to get this done. But I also have to admit that writing this letter for my second year on DFMC was much more difficult than last year. Last year I relied heavily on the "WHOA! Lauren is running a marathon... I'd pay (or rather, donate) to see that!" factor to pique people's interest, make them aware of my cause and bring in donations. This year, me running is old news. But this past weekend, I had an epiphany. Me running a marathon may be old news, but cancer is most certainly not. And with that in mind, I wrote my letter, got my first round of emails out the door, and am well on my way to raising $17,000 (fingers crossed) for cancer research.
Exciting thing #2: I ran! I ran 3 miles, no stopping, outside, and with very minimal hip pain! If you could have seen the smile on my face as I came into the final stretch of the run over the Charlestown Bridge... a 3 mile run has never made me quite so happy.
Exciting thing #3: I walked down the hill the morning after my run with no pain! While this doesn't seem like much, trust me it is. Every morning, whether I'm going to work or going to get coffee on the weekends, I walk down the same hill and feel like a 90 year-old woman hobbling around on my bum hip. There are days when the pain has been so bad that I have to inch down the sidewalk, making what should be a 2 minute walk into upwards of 5. It was to the point where I had forgotten what a normal, pain-free walk downhill even felt like. And then Sunday morning as I prepared to hobble down for my coffee, my hip greeted me with a pleasant surprise... nothing! I felt like a normal person walking down a hill- sad that this is exciting.
Exciting thing #4: On Sunday afternoon, I did my long "run" on the Arc Trainer at my gym. Now, I think I've already made clear my dislike of this machine, but with the marathon fast approaching, I put my hatred aside and spent the next 3 hours rocking out to my ipod, kicking my own butt on the AT, and receiving strange looks from nearly everyone around me. Sure, 3 hours on a machine is a little crazy, but when I'm in training, anything goes. I left the gym feeling a little woozy, a little crazy, and a lot of proud that I managed to stick it out.
And finally, Exciting thing #5: Despite some hard workouts and some running, I have been pretty much pain free for the last 5 days or so. What does this mean? Well, I'm hoping it means I'm on the road to recovery, and more importantly, just on the road in general. I talked to Jack last night at track and he gave me the okay to try and get myself ready to run the New Bedford Half coming up on March 15. Of course, this is all dependent on the fact that my hip continues to feel good, but the prospect of maybe, just maybe, being able to run 13 fishy smelling miles (walking through the water stops of course... see Jack, I did listen!) in 2 and a half weeks has got me feeling positively giddy! (I cannot believe I just admitted that, remember when I hated running?)
Anyways, all in all, it's been a good week, and I'm in good spirits... here's hoping it stays that way. Between New Bedford, fundraising and Boston, I've got a lot of work ahead of me , but I'm ready for it (and so is my hip hopefully). 1 month, 22 days to go...
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
I'll admit I've sort of fallen off the face of the earth lately. I've been busy dealing (and not very well) with a seemingly endless hip injury that has kept me off the roads for nearly a month now. It's been taking up a lot of my time between thinking about how miserable I am not running, going to physical therapy, and spending countless hours on indoor workout machines. But this past Saturday, while boring myself to death on the elliptical machine as my dear DFMC teammates enjoyed the bliss of a cool, crisp morning long run, I had a sudden realization about training and my state of injury. It is time to make a decision. If I'm going to do this, if I'm going to try and get myself better and try to run this marathon, I had better suck it up, stop wallowing in my body's inadequacies, and work my ass off for the next two months.
Now, this isn't exactly news to me. I knew what it would take to work hard through an injury and still run the marathon. I was so aware of what it would take, in fact, that I have always said that I would probably quit before doing such a thing. Clearly, I underestimated my own stubborness. Despite the fact that I have kept pushing on through my injury though, I honestly cannot say that I have been giving it my all. Physically I may have been pushing myself as much as possible, but I've been putting my body through the motions- my heart just hasn't been in it. Even though I've continued my training on the machines since my hip has become a problem, I have merely been putting in the time and logging the "miles." Sure, the time and the miles are important, but that's only half of the equation for running a marathon- in fact, for me, it's probably more like only 20% of the equation. Being a mental runner whose biggest opponent in running is my own head the vast majority of the time, the physical aspect of running has never really been my problem. That's not to say that I can go out and run any distance, any speed with ease (which is quite obviously not the case, even when I'm healthy) but I have learned that when my head and my heart are in it, my legs are nearly unstoppable.
In the past year I have continually pushed myself past what I thought my body was capable of. From the half marathon in New Bedford, to the marathon in April, to track workouts and races throughout the summer, my heart and my head have carried me faster and longer than I ever thought I could go. Now, in the face of injury, I need to push my heart and my head- to be smart, to not give up, to accept that not everyday and every workout is going to be perfect, to work hard, and most importantly, to believe that I can do this. On good days, it is relatively easy. On good days, I believe that I can train indoors, get my hip flexor to cooperate, and be out there on April 20 lined up to run 26.2 miles with 25,000 other crazy runners, confident that, while I may not have the best race of my life, I will finish. On bad days though, that all seems far fetched and... well, pretty impossible. On bad days, it makes me sick to my stomach to think that I will be sitting on the sidelines and watching as my friends experience that euphoria that only finishing a marathon can create, knowing that nothing but my own body held me back from that same elation. I know that if I have any hope at all of running in April, I have to put thoughts like that out of my head- they only obscure the view of my goal to get better and to run, and right now, my head needs no distraction from the task at hand. I certainly have my work cut out for me over these next two months, and I know that it won't be easy, but I think... no, I know, I'm ready to take on the challenge.
No matter how much work I do, how dedicated I am to physical therapy, how hard I push myself in training, there's still a chance that I may not be able to run in April- but I'll never know what I'm capable of unless I put everything I have into training for the next two months and give it a shot. My body has surprised me countless times before, and with my heart and my head pushing it along, who knows what it will be able to do this time. I certainly will never know unless I try.
Now, this isn't exactly news to me. I knew what it would take to work hard through an injury and still run the marathon. I was so aware of what it would take, in fact, that I have always said that I would probably quit before doing such a thing. Clearly, I underestimated my own stubborness. Despite the fact that I have kept pushing on through my injury though, I honestly cannot say that I have been giving it my all. Physically I may have been pushing myself as much as possible, but I've been putting my body through the motions- my heart just hasn't been in it. Even though I've continued my training on the machines since my hip has become a problem, I have merely been putting in the time and logging the "miles." Sure, the time and the miles are important, but that's only half of the equation for running a marathon- in fact, for me, it's probably more like only 20% of the equation. Being a mental runner whose biggest opponent in running is my own head the vast majority of the time, the physical aspect of running has never really been my problem. That's not to say that I can go out and run any distance, any speed with ease (which is quite obviously not the case, even when I'm healthy) but I have learned that when my head and my heart are in it, my legs are nearly unstoppable.
In the past year I have continually pushed myself past what I thought my body was capable of. From the half marathon in New Bedford, to the marathon in April, to track workouts and races throughout the summer, my heart and my head have carried me faster and longer than I ever thought I could go. Now, in the face of injury, I need to push my heart and my head- to be smart, to not give up, to accept that not everyday and every workout is going to be perfect, to work hard, and most importantly, to believe that I can do this. On good days, it is relatively easy. On good days, I believe that I can train indoors, get my hip flexor to cooperate, and be out there on April 20 lined up to run 26.2 miles with 25,000 other crazy runners, confident that, while I may not have the best race of my life, I will finish. On bad days though, that all seems far fetched and... well, pretty impossible. On bad days, it makes me sick to my stomach to think that I will be sitting on the sidelines and watching as my friends experience that euphoria that only finishing a marathon can create, knowing that nothing but my own body held me back from that same elation. I know that if I have any hope at all of running in April, I have to put thoughts like that out of my head- they only obscure the view of my goal to get better and to run, and right now, my head needs no distraction from the task at hand. I certainly have my work cut out for me over these next two months, and I know that it won't be easy, but I think... no, I know, I'm ready to take on the challenge.
No matter how much work I do, how dedicated I am to physical therapy, how hard I push myself in training, there's still a chance that I may not be able to run in April- but I'll never know what I'm capable of unless I put everything I have into training for the next two months and give it a shot. My body has surprised me countless times before, and with my heart and my head pushing it along, who knows what it will be able to do this time. I certainly will never know unless I try.
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