I started training for the Half Marathon I'm running in February This past weekend, I did 3 miles of running and walking on Saturday and walked (briskly) 6.5 miles. I can feel every tiny bit of it my 47 year-old joints. Especially my left knee and right ankle. So I am not sure if one is causing me to favor the other, etc, etc, and so on.
I kept saying I've checked this off my bucket list. I ran my first (and at the time had said my last) Half in April of this year. See that smile? That's me so excited to have finished. There are no pictures from the sheer madness that ensued maybe 6.5 miles before. About half way through, I decided I was tired. No, exhausted. I wanted to walk the last 6+ miles and hope the sweepers didn't catch me. I had passed by the bathrooms in Animal Kingdom and said, "I'm just going to keep moving forward. Catch up with me, it won't be hard." I'd rather finish the race than stop to pee. Bad idea. At the edge of the parking lot I was crying. I thought at the time from exhaustion, but it turns out, I needed to pee. So I made the stop in the port-a-john and immediately felt brand new. How could that be? I just needed relief, not a miracle? I started running again. The 2:30 running group caught up to us and we ran as long as I could with them They run one minute and walk the next. They do it the entire race and finish in 2 and half hours. Then my goal became finishing before the 3:00 group caught me. Well, they passed me in Epcot. And that's not too bad, because you come in the back of France or somewhere near there, and run around the world and then under the ball and out of the park to the finish line. By this time, my feet felt like I was wearing cinder blocks. I was beat. There was no more Adrenalin. There was only hope for the finish and that I would make it. I knew I would, I was too damn close to give up at this point. Here we are for a selfie....because I knew we were almost finished heading out of the park a perfect photo op.
I hadn't trained well enough. There are plenty of reasons. Most don't matter at this point, but I had managed to adopt a 3 month old puppy in February and get sick in March. It derailed my training quite a bit. Up until February, I was on target to crush these 13 miles.....easily. Getting my runs in at the gym 3 or 4 days a week and lifting weights to give me the strength I needed.
Ah, but when the opportunity to run a Disney race that actually goes through the Magic Kingdom presents itself AND it's on your birthday weekend, you reconsider your goal of one Half for this lifetime. You realize you will have a medal from the Princess Half AND an "It's my Birthday" button on while in park. Do you know how extra nice everyone is when it's your birthday?
Anyway, I'm struggling with finding the right shoe for me. I've always run in Brooks and Asics, but neither are working for me today. I'm hoping those are the reasons for my pains, too. I guess it's BACK to the fitting room for me to find a shoe that works. I'll get by this week, as training is fairly light.
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