An Accidental Victory

"Never forget that even an ounce of believing in yourself can carry you past a million ounces of doubt"


Sorry, I don't run. I am, after all, training for an ironman. It's not like I have time to run half marathons you know. I am too. cool. to. run. 


Or at least, this is the lie that I kept replaying in my head. This past Saturday my crazy mother and my boyfriend had just signed up for a half-marathon in my old hometown and I grudgingly took off of work at THE BEST JOB EVER in order to go cheer them on, for a race that I wasn't running, that....let me add I was pretty bitter about not running. I've wanted to win this half marathon for the past two years, and both times I've been dealing with a crippling injury that has withheld me from said race. 


Come to think of it...bitter doesn't really even begin to cover it. I didn't want to watch. I wanted to run, and as far as I was concerned the fact that I couldn't run it...I might as well be selling people more $2,000 mountain bikes where, at least I would be more useful. So I decided to do my run during the race and did my best to give off my "I bike too much to care about running" vibe which was not true in the least.

Soon after I started running though the tables turned. Running in Fort Atkinson where I grew up is so much better than Milwaukee. I almost always have good runs regardless of how I'm feeling when I come home to visit my parents. Yesterday was no exception, though I expected it to be. By some happy accident, the more I ran, the further I ran, the better I felt. I ran to different points of the race to meet the runners and cheer for them running the course backwards. By the time I finished my watch read 1:11. In addition I had run to the racecourse from my house. An additional, unaccounted for 7 minutes.

Panic. Panic. Panic. Panic. I didn't mean to run for 1 hour and 18 minutes you know. I only meant to run 50. But...slowly I realized that in fact, my legs felt fine. And more importantly, my foot felt fine. No pain...and slowly the panic subsided and was replaced with this incredulous joy. Even being extremely conservative concerning my pace I had run 11 miles. Maybe 10.5. I haven't run that far in months. I haven't even run that far since before the breaking of the foot. This was my longest run in possibly 9 months. And I didn't even notice.

Turns out that watching that half marathon awoke something in me that's been trying to surface again for months now, something that I've been ignoring. That something is the fact that I don't hate running, that I love it. Oh...and that my foot is not broken. It's time now to stop saying that.

This week I've run:
8 Sunday
8 Monday
Biked 112 Tuesday
8 Wednesday
7 Thursday
11(ish) Saturday.
(plus miscellaneous biking and swimming)

That equals ....WHAT?!? Even as I type it now, I don't believe it. I haven't run that many miles...in forever.  NO WONDER I've been sore and tired. I didn't know I was running that much. I didn't think I could  run that much. And with an 11 at the tail end of it? Friday's off-day was totally worth it as far as I'm concerned. How is it that I'm already running that much?

It's like an accident, like I was just trying to keep the reins on and keep myself under control and try to get better and try to get healed and all of a sudden I found myself back where I was months ago. Somehow I wound up back...maybe even better than when I started.

So thankful for the week, so thankful for my body that bounced back into a 40 mile week without me even realizing it, without me even trying. So thankful that I went kicking and screaming to watch that half-marathon so that some kind of running-loving could re-awake inside of me.  The best is, of course yet to come. :) No more panic, no more pain, no more broken foot.

It seems I have conquered something which I never thought I would- a broken foot along with a broken confidence.