So Where Were We?

I sorta scrolled through to see what I had written over the past year, and really most of it, while sporadic, basically was all about me leaving Texas for Nebraska, my injury which reared its head early April if I remember correctly, rehabing for 2 months and just as I was getting back into running and CrossFit, well Nebraska happened.

Before the injury I had just come off of 3 marathons in 99 days...oh wait, the 2nd one due to rain, cold and wind, I took the easy way out in Dallas and turned at the half mark  :O)

So there was Chicago, Dallas (hey I retrained for the full so I count it) and then Houston...and then...blargh.  The horrible back injury which had me out of commission for a month of immeasurable pain, to seeing chiropractor and slowly working my way back.

Moving to Nebraska set me back again.  It was too much of planning to move, to moving, to living in a hotel for 6 weeks, to then moving into a new house, and settling into a new job, a new business model, new people, a new 'culture', and adjusting to life in a small town with limited resources that I was used to having at my fingertips.

Before I knew it, winter arrived and it became clear to me that training for a winter marathon (Houston) just wasn't going to happen here.  I am not one that can do a 22miler on a treadmill if the weather turned bad.  And for the record it does that a lot here.

Its constantly beyond windy, and cold as hell.  Once I ran outside when it was 19real temp, but the wind chill was below 10.  Sorry but that just sucks.

So I ran outside when I could, ran on a treadmill the rest of the time, did weights, did CrossFit, etc.  I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I had no real desire to train for anything.  It was OK.  I had realized somewhere along the way that so much of the stress I put on myself to run farther, faster, more races etc., werent necessarily for myself for the most part.

It was for other reasons, of which I will get into in another post.

But then things started to settle down and I started missing the training aspect.  Having a goal, so on a whim I put myself in the lottery for the NYC Half.  Well lo and behold when I was in Houston for Christmas I got the email that I was in.

Holy shit.

At that point I was running a long run of 6-8 miles or so and not regularly and now I only had a short period of time to be able to finish a half.

Obviously I knew I could finish it, but the old me came out for a bit and I begin worrying about what anyone would think if I clocked a 'bad' time.

I don't want to fall into that frame of being again, so I quickly just realized that even if I posted a PW, it would be OK.  If I had to run/walk it, it would be OK.

I had to put the fact and the number of 2:06 (my PR) out the window knowing there was no way in hell I would come close to that with the past year that I had had.

So I've been training, and most of my long runs on Saturdays have had to be done on the treadmill due to ice and/or snow (and its looking like this weekend might be that way again as we are supposed to get snow and ice this evening and tomorrow but I am hoping it doesnt!)  .. but then I have to pray that it warms up enough and a not so bad wind chill for me to be able to do it outside and not relapse (I've had a very bad cold for over a week now, its better, but I dont want it to come back)

And when I say I've been training, all that means is that I am doing the miles.  There is no speed work, I've done hill work a few times, when the roads/hills allow me to by not being covered in ice.

I am LOVING the training again...the having a goal race, and Lord knows I love running in NYC.  Plus another girl will be there and we plan to run together.  In prior life I would be way ahead of her finish time, but not so much anymore :O)

In fact I have been enjoying training again, I went ahead and signed up for a 3rd round in Chicago.  I honestly thought I had finished with the 26.2 distance, but ... well, I am excited about it which I havent been in quite some time.

So that's it for now....Since life has settled down so much and I've changed so much...and the fact that I will be training solo and I havent done that since I first trained for my first half (2006) and my first full (2007), I thought it might be interesting fodder for the blog to be rejuvenated.

I see I still have a few followers, but not sure anyone will come back to read regularly, but I sure hope you do!!!!

Peace.