A New Beginning

Wow-what a couple of weeks. Between E's first birthday, making Christmas candy for all of our friends and family, cleaning the house and having holiday visitors, A and I managed to maintain our training schedule until Christmas Eve. We were both extremely proud of ourselves and discussed that on that last run. Of course the end of the week got a little nutty with family coming and going so our Friday run got pushed to Saturday-got pushed to Sunday. I was starting to get cabin fever when the run got pushed back til Sunday and decided to start my cross training 3 days earlier than planned.

I don't know if any of you are familiar with Cindy Crawford's line of strength training videos. I have a long and storied history with the first tape in the series. (Long and storied enough that my version is still on VHS :) For some reason, I always come back to it because it really does get results. It does kind of amuse me that my approach to this tape even as I was doing it was different. All I could think about was how the exercises I was doing would affect my running. Usually all I think about when doing it is "how soon will my ass look presentable in a pair of shorts?"

Anywho, Cindy and I had our first date in a long time Saturday the 27th. I kept the remote close by so I could hit pause to huff and puff my way to courage for the next set of reps. It was not exactly the image I wanted of my current health but I was really proud of myself for doing something that day instead of just sitting on the couch. I did the leg work. I did the arms. I even made it through the butt stuff. I finished one set of ab reps. Then as I adjusted myself on the floor to do another set I heard the fateful pop underneath my left shoulder blade. I tried to roll over, get up, sit up-anything. Everytime I moved I had a stabbing pain in that area. Finally, terrified that E would have free reign over the house until someone came and saved us both I made myself stand up.

To make a really long and boring sob story short-It really hurt. The chiropractor told me it was a pinched nerve and adjusted me the first three days of the week. I didn't get to run for a week.

But---A and I finally hit the road yesterday :) Maybe I haven't really been doing this long enough to know but it was amazing to me how much it killed my soul to be sidelined-even for as short of time as it really was. In my past, this would have been the event that crumbled my resolve. All of the feeling sorry for myself and change in momentum would have led me to my couch where I would sit until the next wave of enthusiasm came along. As little as I actually feel like a runner, as awkward as it feels when I'm in the middle of an interval, maybe-just maybe-underneath it all I might be cut out for this gig. For a minute yesterday, A and I were gliding along. Both of us are used to our plodding, we'll get there when we get there pace but I don't think either of us have really paid much attention to how fast we really are getting. I could see the forest for the trees and thought---wow, I could get used to this feeling!!! By the time we were at our 7th interval I was begging for some of that enthusiasm back lol

So the last run of the old me is out of the way. It is a brand new year. Today, I will go purchase my first pair of devoted running shoes. Tomorrow A and I will embark on a year full of promise and change.

GO US!