Don't worry!

I promise I haven't forgotten to type up my play-by-play of the race!  Life has been super crazy/busy the last week.  My goal is to have it up in the next few days :)

13.1 MILES... ALL DONE!

Wooo hooooo!!!!!!! I'll give a detailed update later, but I made it!!!!! :)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was told by Alex (marathon man), that I should try and run 2-3 miles this week.  This way my legs will remember how to run ;)

My foot has good and bad days.  Today was a bad day and it was bothering me.  I knew when I left work I had to try and run anyways.  Got home and suited up!

Well, I ran 2.5 miles..... and.....

1) My legs did indeed remember how to run

and

2)  MY FOOT DIDN'T BOTHER ME!  I was super close to bursting into tears because I was so excited.  I was anticipating full on pain the whole run.  My foot was tingling in the area it's been hurting, but no pain!   I can tell my other leg is compensating for the other, so I just have to be aware of that as well.  One stride at a time :)

Tonight is just what I needed to give me a boost.  Yesterday, I was completely dreading the race.  Today, after the run, I feel more prepared.

God is faithful  :)

5 days

That's not long.... at all.

Yikes.

Lots of thoughts are running (ha, no pun intended) through my head right now.  More emotions than I'm used to having all at once.  Life at school lately has been overwhelming too, so my brain is currently freaking out.

That's about all I can process at the moment.  Prayers would be appreciated :)

I did get to have dinner with Beth tonight (the one who talked me into running the half marathon).  She ended up getting plantars faciitis a few weeks ago and can't come this weekend because she can't run :(  BIG bummer.  But she was able to give me some inside scoop of race day and LOTS of encouragement.  I'm very thankful for her!

Here's a picture of us at a wedding a few weeks ago

More updates to come as the week progresses!

Running with 22,999 other people will be interesting!  Maybe "running with the crowd" is a good motto to go with this weekend :)

Just Keep Swimming

....Just keep swimming... Just keep swimming...

Gotta love Finding Nemo.

Today my foot is feeling a little bit better.  I don't feel pain in every step, so we're making progress.

Decided to swim tonight to do some cardio.  Ended up swimming a mile.  Note: It took me FOUR times as long to swim a mile than it does to run one, but it is much more difficult!  Considering I haven't swam in quite some time, it is pretty impressive I made it that far.  I will contribute it to my running legs and cardio endurance ;)  My arms were dying though.  It's funny because when I swam in college, I got most of my power from my arms vs. my legs... and now the opposite is true.  Dee claims I'm truly a runner now because of that fact!

Today I was reminded why Swimming > Running.
1)  You can't tell you're sweating.
2) You don't smell like sweat when you finish.  (You just smell like chlorine which is much more pleasant).
3)  You get to float and glide through the water.
4)  I felt more "cleansed" after swimming.  No, not because I was in a big pool of water, but I feel like my veins got cleansed from lots of blood circulation because swimming uses all of your muscles.  Kind of hard to explain.
5)  Brought back lots of Greensboro College swim team memories!

So, once again, I will be VERY excited when these next 2 weeks are over and I can do exercises other than running!

Yesterday at church, I ran into a friend who is in PT school right now.  She was in town for the weekend and I hadn't seen her in a while.  She asked me about how my foot was doing, and I gave her the scoop and explained what was going on.  After church, she looked at my foot and gave me some exercises/stretches/etc for me to do between now and the race.  God is good!  She said that reality is it will come back during the race, but at that point to push through it.  Until then, I'm not supposed to over-do it.  Hence, why I swam today.  I might try and run again on Thursday... we'll see.  I'm signed up to run a 5k on Sunday... we'll see what happens between now and then because I don't want to make it worse again.

Friends who have done similar races keep reminding me that since I've done 10 miles, I should be fine for the half marathon.  I am trying to keep reminding myself of that!

I will leave you with some pictures from the Greensboro College Swim Team days....

Stuart and Mom at one of my swim meets.

Jo!  Rockin the wet curly hair.

At the championship swim meet - with Alex.

That's me swimming the butterfly.

And again... I clearly remember this race because I came from behind and beat our rival team in the lane beside me!

Sharon and Mica

Yay some of the team! Go GC Pride!

No long run this weekend

:(

My foot still hurts, even when I am just walking around.  Being a teacher doesn't help this situation, in that I'm on my feet all day long!  I did wear my tennis shoes to work this week, and that did make a difference.

I talked to a family friend, Alex, who has done multiple marathons, and he said that the best thing to do is rest and ice it.  Running this weekend would just get it inflamed again and we'd be back at square one.  He said glitches like this are expected during training.

It's pretty frustrating because we are so close to the race.  I know it will go away by then, but I was looking forward to being able to run this weekend.  Oooh well!  I might try and go swim today to release all this energy I have built up since I haven't been running.  We'll see.

Alex said that once it healed, I would just pick up where my training plan says I should be that day, and not to try and make up for the miles I didn't do.  Good to know.  He also said that since I've hit 10 miles, that I should be fine in terms of being able to do the race.  That did make me feel better (especially coming from him!).

Well, one perk that came out of all of this is that I got to sleep in this morning and have a lazy Saturday morning.  Can't tell you the last time that happened because for the past couple months I've been running each Saturday  morning!

Time to go drink a cup of coffee :)

Stumbling Block #2

#1 was shin splints a few weeks ago.  Thankfully icing those each night has made a HUGE difference and I haven't had any problems since.

#2 occurred after this weekend's 10 mile run.  I did something to the muscle that goes from my big toe under the ball of my foot... therefore, every step hurts.  It didn't start hurting until Sunday.

Here's what it is.....
http://www.foot.com/info/cond_sesamoiditis.jsp



and yes.... that BRIGHT red area is a good indication of the pain it creates :(  From the list of things that says causes it, I'm going to go with the increased activity (aka the 10 miles).  And I might have overstretched it afterwards.

I looked this up today and found out what it was... wish I would have looked it up sooner.  I made the decision to try and run yesterday... only made it 3 miles because it hurt a lot towards the end.  Yeah, definitely shouldn't have done that.  My theory in going was that maybe running would toughen it up. Also, I tend to lose my running momentum if I don't run every day, so I was afraid going more than 3 days without running would throw me off.  Ummm yeah, should have ignored that.

So I'm currently icing and don't plan to try and run again until Saturday.  The plan is 12 miles, and I was all excited to do it because it's our last long run until the race.  We'll see.

I'm just bummed because we are SOOOO incredibly close to the race (relatively speaking) and I've been doing so well.  Grrrr.

Praying the icing helps and the pain goes away ASAP.