Iron Girl Recap A few weeks ago, I ran the Iron Girl half marathon in Clearwater. This was the last "big" race I'd planned for the spring, so I wanted to do well, but I also hadn't been training to PR (I guess I never really do). And since my sister had planned to bring her family out to spectate, we decided we'd attempt to have my four-year-old niece, Evie, run across the finish line with me. (We tried this once before , but I was too close to a marathon PR to slow down, so I left her trailing behind me.) Because this was a smaller race and a women's-only race, I wasn't too worried about being a disruption to the race. So my focus during the race was on Evie--and it's a good thing I had a focus other than time, because, as it turned out, my watch wasn't charged, and it wasn't going to last my whole race. But in my experience, this lack of knowing, of constantly monitoring my pace, has served me well during races. (In fact, during last year...

In line with last year's  2013 Year in Review , I wanted to do something similar for 2014, but with a separate new year "goals" post to follow.  2014 began on a good note with a marathon PR at the Clearwater Marathon A happy finish with my adorable niece running behind me! and then quickly declined after injuring my foot. I got to wear leggings like every day. After taking six weeks off, I felt recovered enough to run an "easy" Iron Girl half-marathon in April Just happy to have made it through uninjured! and then moved through highs and lows as I began summer training for the Marine Corps Marathon and transitioned to a new job in September, after more than 12 years of working at USF. My good-bye picture as I drove away on my last, sad day. I trained through some still-lingering foot pain for 15 weeks, but in the end, I successfully completed the Marine Corps Marathon in October, exceeding my goal.  ...

Date Workout Miles Avg Pace Monday, 9/1 Regular Run 5.25 9:35 Tuesday, 9/2 Rest 0 -- Wednesday, 9/3 Regular Run 10 9:53 Thursday, 9/4 Regular Run 7 9:48 Friday, 9/5 Rest 0 -- Saturday, 9/6 Long Run 2.3 9:26 Sunday, 9/7 Rest 0 -- Total Weekly Mileage: 24.55 This past week not did not end up the way I'd hoped it would. Although it started strong, with high mileage weekday runs and little pain, by the time Friday rolled around, my foot was hurting more than usual. I hoped it was a fluke. I went to bed Friday night and hoped a good night's sleep would have me feeling better in the morning and ready to conquer 20 miles. That did not happen. I met my friend Nicole for an early warm-up mile, and that mile didn't feel great. I couldn't decide whether I should just quit there or try to start with the group and hope for the best. Nicole reminded me that I bailed on her this same time of year last year, around her birthday, because I felt like I was going ...

Ten weeks after I ran the Clearwater marathon , I returned to the same race site for the Iron Girl Clearwater Half Marathon . Of course, the plan was never to take all of those ten weeks off; in fact, I don't know if I would have even raced this past weekend's half if I hadn't been injured at BDR and gotten suckered into signing up for Iron Girl at the expo. But I did, and I'm glad. I wasn't feeling wonderful in the days leading up to this race, and all along I said I wasn't going to "race" it. I really just wanted to prove to myself that I could push myself through the distance and not get hurt doing it. Also, I was adamant about going by myself; if I fell apart, I didn't want any invited witnesses present. So on race morning, I got myself up, got dressed, headed out the door on time, and after driving away realized I'd forgotten my GPS watch. I panicked for a moment, as I've come to rely so heavily on my watch during both training an...

I've been reluctant to write anything about my continued progress  in the past weeks because I'm afraid of cursing it. But now I'm ready to write. First, an anecdote: Sunday I went to  boot camp  (I don't know what to call it anymore) for the fourth time in three weeks, which is a great accomplishment considering I wasn't able to go at all for about seven weeks straight. And of course I'd lost some strength during that time away, and I prepared myself for that fact, initially. But after being back for a couple of classes, I expected to be able to do what I could do pre-injury, and when I couldn't, I got really frustrated. I had a rough start to the morning: I woke up late, almost didn't go because I felt like crap and had no motivation, but Tim talked me into going, even though I made us both late for the warm-up run. So when I then tried to jump into the first team drill, going head-to-head with a woman who was stronger and faster than me--injured...

It sucked--I'm not gonna lie. I wore my "cam walker" boot for about three and a half weeks, minus a couple of weekends. That doesn't sound like a very long time, but it felt like ages. Getting dressed each day was a new and interesting challenge. I couldn't wear just anything; many of my usual clothing items didn't fit well with the boot, so I often opted for leggings (that part I loved ). Also, I had to wear a running shoe on my other foot to approximate the sole height of the boot on the other foot so I wasn't lopsided. This never made for a cute look. I even purchased a custom-made decorative fabric to go on the boot to make it less clinical-looking. But when said fabric arrived, it seemed to make the visibility of the boot nearly triple. (I never actually wore it this way in public.) Cute, no? No. I don't see anything diff--oh, there it is. Also, I wasn't entirely sure the boot was helping my foot get better. I originally got i...

I've been dealing with foot pain since completing the Clearwater Marathon , over a month ago, and while I surely thought I'd be past it by the time the Gasparilla race weekend rolled around, I am not. My meager attempts at resting my foot (in between little trial runs every few days) have not been sufficient. So I decided this past weekend to let go of my hope to run the Gasparilla half marathon. It was a really hard decision, as I look forward to this local race each year. It's my favorite. The Gasparilla 15k was my first long(er than a 5k) distance race, and the half marathon has been a great PR (personal record) course for me in recent years . But I knew that if I ran it, I'd want to run hard and try to PR, and that would possibly seriously injury my foot and certainly set my recovery time back even further. So I emailed the Gasparilla folks to see if I could get a deferment of my race registration for next year, almost entirely expecting a firm "no" b...

Saturday morning, I woke up to my alarm, set for 4:55am. I took a quick shower, put on my race outfit, including the cute new pair of shorts I'd bought for half-off at the BDR expo, and I stopped to consider the pain in my left foot. I felt it when I merely walked from the bathroom to the bedroom--each time my foot went from flat to flexed and pushed off the ground. And sometimes, unknowingly, I'd step in a way that made the pain suddenly sharp and pinching. Also, my neck was a little sore from having been rear-ended on my way to work the previous morning (no damage to either car). So I doubted out loud whether I should try to run the half marathon that morning. Tim helped talk me down from the ledge, repeating the logic I'd already told myself over and over again: I wasn't going to have a good race no matter what, and chances were, I'd only make my foot worse by racing on it, and then I might not be able to run the Gasparilla half marathon three weeks later. Also...

This past week was a rather tumultuous one. I started out with two evening runs, which I hadn't done since switching to mornings , and they were both done in what felt like cooler, breezier weather. That part was exciting; but my pace was still slower than it used to be for weekday training runs. I was still proud of myself for pushing through the six and nine miles. But I wanted to feel stronger. So for my Wednesday night Crossboot class, I decided to ride my bike to class. I hadn't yet ridden it there since moving to a new location, so I wasn't entirely sure how long it would take. And instead of leaving early, to be on the safe side, I left with what I thought be enough time and turned over the pedals as quickly as I could on my large, weighty single-speed bike, for six miles, which took about 40 minutes. When I finally got to class, the workout began. I was doing just fine on the warmup and nine-minute ab set, and then when we got to the main set, something happened. ...

This morning I ran four miles at about a 10:30 pace. It was not easy, and I did feel some residual pain (not from the calf injury , but from shin splints), but it's four miles I couldn't run a month ago. I'm grateful for that. I actually started back running several weeks ago, after a nine-week break, and I had about three successful four-to-five-mile runs, and then on my next run I felt pain in my left leg and thought it was my calf injury letting me know it was still there. I was pretty disappointed about that, but then when I was telling a friend about the pain, and how it was a little different than what I'd experienced before, he said it sounded like shin splints. Now, I'm no stranger to shin splints, as I'd trained through them for the Chicago Marathon, but it simply hadn't occurred to me that I was feeling something new; my mind just went straight the injury. And because the soleus muscle (which I'd injured) is really close to the tendon where ...

I don't pretend to know much about Reiki . What I knew before going into this session was that it was a form of energy healing of Eastern origin, based on the body's chakra system . Throughout my injury, I've done every kind of hands-on treatment I could think of or read about, but it occurred to me that there was another source of healing I hadn't tapped into: energy medicine. Actually, my aunt Pattie is the person who suggested Reiki early on in my injury when I posted about it on Facebook. Only later did it occur to me that I had a friend who was a Reiki master and practitioner. So I asked her if she'd be able to give me a session. She happily obliged, and we set a date. I had my session a couple of hours ago, and this is what my experience was like: First, it was a casual meeting, as Melissa and I had known each other for years, and we met in my office and closed the door. She sat across from me and put her hands up, palms facing my body, and pretty much s...