Better

Thanks to everyone who read my last entry, and thanks to those who left a comment. :) I'm better now. It had been a downer of a week. I really took that race to heart, blamed myself for all that went wrong and just felt like a failure. I was so hard on myself and really lost a ton of confidence in this entire thing we call running. After MANY, MANY go rounds with my coach, we made some changes in my training that begin this week. Last week he told me to take all my easy days OFF and I could cross train or completely rest on those days. I chose to take them completely off of any activity, with the exception of Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and yesterday. Tuesday I did run very easy miles. Thursday I did cruise/tempo intervals at 10K pace. It was difficult for me to get out there and do those because of fear of failure, but I said, "Screw it. I have to just get over this." So I did the workout and felt almost 100% better about things, but not quite. Friday I ran very easy, just 20 minutes. For each of these runs, my foot/ankle problems were ever present. Just a downer! Oh well. Yesterday I had a long run of 18 on schedule with a ton of speedplay built in and I felt the need to do it. I wanted to do it. I had the fire in my belly to do it.

I called Larry and he agreed to run with me. My husband and little guy were with us on the bike. It was the best run I've had in a LOOOOONG time. I hit all the paces and even ran :10 faster per mile than I needed to in the later miles. I felt so strong and so fresh, mentally and mostly physically. But my foot/ankle still hurts. :( Overall though, it gave me the boost of confidence I needed. And it reassured me that the anaphylaxis and what it did to my body on race day was out of my control. There was no way I could stop my body from fighting it. Either it had to fight it, or it had to run hard... obviously fighting it was my body's priority! So my apologies to the race.

Anyway, did I pray out there on the long run yesterday? Yes. Did I pray a lot? Yes. I also just let go and gave it over to God. And my last 5 miles were my strongest. As I ran them at 10K race pace and felt my body fatigue and my breathing get really rapid, I thought, "This is what it's all about. This is what God has made my body capable of doing. Use it." I was so happy after that run. Ask my husband! Ask Larry! I was beaming. The overall run was done at a 7:45/mile average. Not too bad after a shoddy week.

Went to church with the family last night and felt so refreshed and thankful.

Talked to Miguel and he reassured me that I am very fit and in great shape and when it comes time to really taper for the CIM, I'm going to be very ready to attack my goal. He does not sugar coat stuff. He does not lie to people about how they're running. So to hear that from him after all the crap I was feeling last week is good.

Going to the sports doc today to get things checked out. I hope it's nothing that won't require more than a few days rest/cross training. But after yesterday... my foot is one big owie!