Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk

This morning I walked in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk in memory of one of my closest friends who passed away from breast cancer last summer. Today would have been her 49th birthday and walking today felt like a great way to honor and remember her.

Our birthdays were about a month apart and we always used to go out to dinner in between the two dates to celebrate every year. It's been really hard not being able to do that the past 2 years. It's also been difficult with each year older I get knowing that I'm living into a future that she never got to have.

She left behind a young daughter, parents, siblings, and so many friends. She had a charismatic personality that just drew everyone into her sphere, and she had the most infectious laugh. I think that's what I miss the most. Hearing her laugh.

Her mom put together a team of Kim's family and friends and together we raised $3760.00. Not too shabby!

The walk was a good experience but at the same time it was heartbreaking. The number of people whose lives have been touched by breast cancer is astounding.

I took a lot of photos at the walk, but our whole group was never together at the same time, so unfortunately we never got a complete team photo. Here are some of my favorites from the day:

There was talk about making this an annual event, which would be a great way to continue honoring Kim!

Catching the Running Bug

I can feel myself starting to catch the running bug!

I felt so amazing last night and today after my run yesterday. It's a hard feeling to describe if you've never experienced it but the best way I can put it into words it that it feels like my body is wide awake but completely comfortable at the same time. It's a glorious feeling and I had completely forgotten it existed.

I came home from work today and was itching to run, but I knew it wasn't a good idea. I am slightly sore from my run last night and my left knee is very unhappy with me (more on that in a minute), and I knew another run would be too much the night before the 3 miles Breast Cancer walk. So, sadly I refrained from hopping on the treadmill no matter how much I may have wanted to do so.

Ok, the knee. I had surgery for a torn meniscus in November of 2021. It healed really well and I went through a lot of intense PT afterward to regain as much funciton as I could. Post surgery, I discussed a return to running multiple times with the therapist and he was confident I would be able to run again as long as I maintained the strength in my leg muscles to support my knee. However, it took more than a year to regain full range of motion and to be able to resume all normal activity. During that same year my life completely imploded and maintaining my PT exercises was the furthest from my mind. I still have a full range of motion but I no longer have the strength I had built up.

And yesterday's run proved that just might be an issue.

I hadn't given my knee much thought because I didn't have any issues with it acting up the few times I ran in the middle of getting my StepBet steps in. However yesterday was a different story. I could feel my knee a little bit as soon as I started running but it seemed to settle in once I got going. Unfortuantely, as soon as I stopped running it started to really hurt. I immediately iced it for a while and the pain subsided but it hasn't felt great today and I've been taking some ibuprofen and wearing a brace this evening.

I'm definietly going to have to dig out my PT exercises and get going on them again if I have any hope of giving this running thing a real go! I also need to run with a brace on, at least for the forseeable future. But in some really good news neither my right knee nor left ankle are bothering me at all. Since those are the injuries that sidelined me in the past, I'm very happy that neither has reared its ugly head today. And I have hope regarding the left knee. When the physical therapist explained what it was going to take to be able to run on it, it made perfect sense and I know I don't currently have the strength I need. But if I got there once before, I can get there again with some effort!

First Official Run

So remember how I posted that I was going to go lace up my shoes for my first official run yesterday? Well, the second I closed my laptop my phone rang. The caller was the auto body repair shop telling me that my car was ready to be picked up, so I ended up having to deal with that instead of getting my run in before heading over to visit my parents.

So I decided to get the run into today. Unfortunately, it's dark by the time I get home this time of year and I just don't feel safe enough to run alone at night where I live. So, I hopped on my treadmill instead. If I would have done the run yesterday it probably would have been a 'leave it all out on the road' type of run. My intent at least, was to go all in and see just what I was capable of as a gauge for where I'm starting from. However, doing a run at the end of a very long work day is quite different than doing a run in the middle of the afternoon on a lazy day off. And I just didn't have it in me tonight. Also, going all in to test my current limit is going to hurt. Probably a lot. And I don't want to be miserable for the Breast Cancer Walk on Saturday. Tonight feels a little too close to Saturday morning and I know I'd still be sore. So instead, I made it my goal to see if I could run for 30 straight minutes at whatever pace felt doable.

I really didn't push myself too much on the pace, and I'm sure I could probably have gone faster, but an oh so fun new addition to my life the past 5ish years is that I've started having panic attacks. Luckily they are very rare and fairly controllable because the thing that triggers them is when I feel like I can't breathe or when something doesn't feel right with my body. And most of the time I can control or change those triggers.

Not so awesome when it comes to trying to improve my running speed, though.

The last time I tried to test how fast I could run, it ended up triggering a full blown panic attack on a treadmill in the middle of a crowded gym. That was one of the top 3 worst ones I've had. The other two that top the list were in a Bikram Yoga Class and while doing a workout video on You Tube.

Are you sensing a theme here?

It takes me a very long time to mentally recover from a really bad one. (In the case of the Bikram Yoga, I have never been back to another class). So, I REALLY don't want to trigger another bad one while running ever again. If that means I need to run slow as molasses, then so be it.

Anyway, back to the point.

I made it the whole 30 minutes with only a few breaks for water. I've still never mastered the whole running and drinking thing. I choke every single time. I also stupidly was drinking out of a tumbler with a straw in it which felt a bit dangerous to try to drink out of while moving.

I'm not exactly sure how far I ran. My apple watch and my treadmill were about 1/4 mile different. It seems like the treadmill should be more accurate and that was the lesser of the distances. However, the treadmill has also been moved and it has a few weird glitches now so who knows. My apple watch gives splits and data that the teadmill doesn't give, so I guess I'm just going to go with the data from that so I have comparisons going forward.

So here are screen shots from my apple watch for today's run:

I ran for 30 minutes and then walked for 5 minutes to cool down. That mile 2 split is nowhere near accurate unless my treadmill is way off! I know I never bumped the speed up higher than 4.3 mph, which is just under 14 min/mile, so no freaking clue where that came from! But some data is better than no data, I suppose.

Overall, not too shabby considering the last time I ran was in 2020!

Final Preparations

I've been thinking a lot about what I want to get from running if I decided to jump back in. I suppose you could say I've been searching for my 'why' for a comeback.

After a lot of soul searching, I realized that a(nother) return to running is an attempt to return to myself. An attempt to remind myself of the person I used to be before life took a big ole shit in my cheerios. I feel pretty lost these days. I'm not really sure who I am any more, or who I want to be, but I'm positive that it's not the person life has turned me into over the past decade. I guess running feels like the best way to claw my way up out of the bottom of the pit I am currently sitting in.

I moved to Arizona more than 12 years ago, and in all that time I've never felt 100% settled in here. A large part of me still resides back in Indiana with my friends that are still there. I have never found a place where I truly fit in or feel at home here. If I could take the warm weather with me, I would have moved back to Indiana long ago. Unfortuately, I know all too well just how miserable I was living in the cold Midwest winters and never want to go back to them! I can't imagine any place else I'd want to move to right now, and I'd never leave the place where my parents spend half their time, so Arizona is home for the forseeable future. I need to find my way back to a version of myself that I am happy being here. I need to cultivate a life that I am happy living here. And as of right now, I'm barely going through the motions.

Running is a whole entire vibe. And it's a lot of work. If I'm making a comeback it needs to be for real this time. It needs to be thoroughly thought out and I need to be clear on my reasons. Because if I'm doing it. Really doing it. Then I've gotta be all in, with both feet, because another half assed attempt that I end up giving up on just might do me in.

I've spent two entire therapy sessions talking about a return to running, which quite frankly seems a bit silly given all I've been through in the past 2 years, but this is really a big effing deal to me. During one of the sessions my therapist said something to me that I really think is at the crux of the entire thing. She said, "I think you need to do it. You need to prove to yourself that [your ex] didn't take anything away from you that you can't get back." I don't want to get into the divorce drama, but I think she's right. The not so awesome marriage and even worse divorce are at the heart of why I now feel like a lost shell of my former self, and I really do think a return to running is the only way I'm going to find what I lost.

So, come hell or high water. I'm back.

I don't know what that looks like, yet, though. It might mean running 2 miles twice a week at a 16 minute/mile pace. It might mean training for a marathon. It's going to be dictated by whatever my body will allow me to do. But I do know that as long as it feels like a challenge to me, it will serve the purpose of bringing me back to myself.

So, in that regard. I've done some final preparations:

First and foremost, I feel better from the horrific cold I was fighting. I still have a very minor cough but I think I finally feel well enought to actully start running. So, I'm starting to think about how I want to frame my comeback. I'm trying to decide if I should commit to doing a couch to 5K program, if I should sign up for a local 5K, or maybe sign up for a virtual run. I haven't decided but I'm considering the options. In the mean time, I commited to walking the Making Strides Breast Cancer Walk on Sunday in honor of my friend, Kim, who passed away last summer, to at least get me out moving and remind me what it's like to be out among a race-like crowd.

I ordered myself a new Road ID for my shoes (actually, I ordered 2 so I could keep one on my hiking boots, too). Because my ex was the main contact on my old one, and let's get real - there's no way he'd help me in an emergency!

I joined my local chapter of She Runs This Town and found the facebook group, as well. It looks like they are fairly active, so I am going to challenge myself to join in on some activities in the coming months.

And, our temps have finally broken!! Sunday was the last day in the 100s, and Monday was the last day in the 90s for the forseeable future. WooHoo!

And on that note, I think I'm going to go lace up my running shoes and hop on the treadmill for my first official run!

Dipping My Toes In

As I've been clawing my way out of the post-divorce haze, one of the things I have done is participate in some StepBet games. If you aren't familiar, it's an app where you meet daily step goals. The app calculates your goals based on your history and you meet them every week for six weeks. You pay to join and if you make it to the end having met all your goals, you get your money back plus a little extra. No one's going to get rich doing it by any means, but for me, not losing my money is the motivation I need to keep moving.

I've been using the games as a starting point to drag my butt off the couch and back into the world of moving, functioning individuals. I've been doing nothing but the bare minimum to meet my daily goals but that is a major improvement from where I have been the past several months. I don't have a super active job so I don't get a ton of steps organically throughout the day. Sometimes I get to the end of the day and still have a lot of steps left to get.

Fortunately, I have a treadmill and it's been easy to hop on there and get my steps in. But lately I have just wanted to get my steps in as quickly as possible and get on to other things. So, in order to speed up the process, I have started running (and I use that term very loosely) in the middle of my walks so I can got done faster.

I'm not sure I should really be calling what I am doing running. I'm averaging a 16-17 minute/mile pace, but whatever. The good news is I can easily maintain that pace for 10-15 minutes. I end up slowing down because I've met my step goal and I'm ready to finish up, not because I can't keep going. So, I'm feeling pretty good about that. Especially because I've been fighting a cold for the past 3 weeks and I still don't feel 100%.

I have to say that it feels A-MA-ZING to be dipping my toes back into running. I honestly feel better than I have in years. I can acually feel little bits of my soul waking up and coming back to life.

There just may be something to this comeback after all.

Get to the Point Already!

So, the burning question is WTF am I really doing here? Right?

It's been 16 years.

16. Freaking. YEARS.

Sixteen years since I said Goodbye. Goodbye to training. Goodbye to running. Goodbye to this blog. Goodbye to all my online running friends.

And Goodbye to my dream of one day running a marathon.

Only, I never said Goodbye to the dream. Not really. I thought I did. I pretended I did. But I didn't.

It's been hanging out in the back of my brain, just under the surface, waiting for just the right time to poke it's head out and look around.

Apparently it decided that right time was a week ago.

Last weekend, I was watching the Amazon Prime Movie, Brittany Runs a Marathon for something like the 20th time. Only this time was different. This time the movie hit me in a way that it never had before.

***** SPOILER ALERT *****


It gets to the part where Brittany finds out she has a stress fracture and won't be able to run the New York City Marathon. And I start crying. It reminded me so much of finding out I had an ankle injury and wouldn't be able to run the Chicago Marathon. Then it gets to the part a year later where she is gearing up to run the marathon, and I start absolutely bawling. Bawling because I know that deep down, I still want to run my own marathon.

No. I NEED to run my own marathon.

For the rest of the week, I could not get it out of mind. It was all I was thinking about every time my mind wasn't occupied.

So, I went to my therapy appointment at the end of the week, and sat in my therapist office once again bawling about it. Bawling because I wasn't able to run the marathon back in 2006. Bawling because I gave up in 2013. Bawling because I'm now 16 years older and I really don't think my body would be able to handle training. Bawling because I'm going to always regret it if I never try. Bawling because I don't know if I can handle going through the grief if I try and can't do it again. Bawling because if I do try and don't succeed, I know it will be the absolute end of the dream. Bawling because I'll have to give up on it once and for all. Bawling because I don't know if I can handle losing that hope of 'one day' being able to achieve my dream.

It was probalby the most emotionally draining therapy appoinment I've ever been through. And I've been through some pretty tough stuff the past few years! But, realizing that I wasn't going to be able to run the Chicago Marathon absolutely gutted me. And the grief I went through when I gave up training all together was tremendous. I had tied so much of who I was to running and I felt completely lost without it. Quite frankly, I still do, which is why I keep coming back here every handful of years. I'm still looking for that corner card that holds up the rest.

So, I guess all of this begs the questions: Why now? What's different this time?

I think the answer is twofold:

First, while I still feel a bit lost, I'm not profoundly unhappy like I was during the previous comeback attempts. This time I'm not looking for running to fix problems it was never going to fix. Namely a failing marriage and a very stressful, unbalanced, unfulfilling life. If, and that is a very big if, I comeback again it really is about the running. At least about what running gave me. About who I was when I was running. About who I want to be again. If I comeback again, it's about finding myself. It's about melding the good parts of who I used to be, but lost sight of, into the good parts of the person I am now, while trying to let go of the parts of myself that I desprately needed to get through the past 10+ years, but are no longer serving me. It's about finding the grit, drive, and determination that I used to have and reclaiming the confidence that those qualities gave me.

Second, I have spent the last year working very hard to cultivate a calm, quiet life for myself. My life is simple and peaceful. My stresses are few and far between. Unlike with the previous comeback attempts, I now have the time to put toward training and there aren't any external factors to derail me. I could fully focus on training if I choose to do so.

I just haven't decided if I want to make that choice yet. Or just what that may look like if I do.

(Also - As a side note, but a very important side note none the less, I purchased a treadmill during COVID, which would make a HUGE impact on my ability to train. It's almost impossible to train year round here without access to one since the temps top 100 degrees 5 months of the year.)

Let's Talk Comebacks

When I decided to revisit my running blog a few days ago, I went back and read all of the posts I had written since my goodbye post in 2007 and I realized a few things:

1. The comeback in 2013 was never going to happen no matter what I did. Pretty much every aspect of my life was coming apart at the seams and I was powerless to do much about it. So, what did I decide to do? Start training for a marathon. After I hadn't run more than a handful of times in YEARS.

face palm

I think the idea to comeback was two fold - First, I didn't want to examine what was happening in my life so I was looking for a distraction. Second, I was completely miserable and trying to return to something that brought me a lot of joy in the past.

I can't say it any better than I already did when I reexamined things back in 2015:

Looking back, I've realized that I set myself up for failure when I tried to resume running in 2013. I was so desperate to regain the happiness I have lost that I went running back (pun intended) to the one thing that I thought could bring back that happiness. Not so coincidentally, it just so happened to be the one thing that I had control over during a time when I was feeling very powerless to change the things in my life that needed to change. Ultimately, my life was so full of stress and disappointment that I was unable to get past it to commit to giving running a real go again, and I quit before I even got started. I never even decided to quit, it just happened - which speaks volumes about my lack of commitment at the time.

2. The comeback in 2015 was never about running. At the time, I was lost and searching for something. Anything. to make me feel something other than the unhappiness I was drowning in.

I think I was really missing my old life. I was missing my real life friends back in Indiana. I was missing the connection I had with so many online runners back in the glory days. I was missing keeping a blog, which is something that I really enjoy doing. But most of all I missed feeling like a happy whole person, instead of the miserable empty shell of one that I had become.

But at the time, I really wasn't at a place mentally or physically to come back to running. And I knew it. In the few months that I dipped my toe back in, I never really even started running.

3. The comeback in 2020 was for real. I actually was running at the time. I'd started running before I even thought about resurrecting my running blog. The return was about the actual running for the first time.

And I was loving it!

The calf injury had me sidelined for a while, but I would have come back from it. I know I would have.

But then COVID happened.

And then my life imploded.

4. Which brings us to 2023. And the burning question, am I coming back? The answer being I don't know. But I'm thinking about it.

(Stay tuned!)