Running for Fun!

"The woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep." Robert Frost

I went back to the family doctor that told me I have pneumonia. I finished the antibiotics and still felt like I couldn't breathe or take a full breathe. I was told that it takes 6-8 weeks to be able to breathe again. 6-8 weeks? That's either the week before or the week after the marathon! Breathing is kind of a problem but I'll just go slower.

I continue with the training. I find that I'm SO TIRED and get worn out really quick while I run. I wonder if I'm not getting quite enough oxygen or something while I run because of the pneumonia? Maybe I'm just not getting enough sleep or something? I have no idea.

15 miles on Saturday, that's what I was supposed to run. 15 miles. I mapped it out on the computer on Thursday. Holy Far Batman!!! On the Rail Trail... it would take me from my house to the edge of Salt Lake City. If the trail even goes that far! Salt Lake City!??! People drive there! You don't run there for FUN! OK, NEW course. I map out a loop that takes me from Kaysville, through Farmington, back through Kaysville to Layton, west in Layton and back to my house. OK, I'm still freaked out. I try not to think about it and I figure by Saturday I'll be pumped and ready to go for it.

Saturday. I was DREADING Saturday. I didn't want to get out of bed. I reluctantly put on my running shoes and headed out the door. My older girls were going to ride their bikes the distance with me and carry my water and carbs in a basket on their bikes. I warned them they had to stay positive and only say nice things. No way could they say, "How much longer?" or "Are we there yet?".

Around mile 1. "Wow! I think we've gone like 5 miles already! We're doing good!" Me- "Um. No. We've gone about 1 mile. Yes, we're doing good." I personally felt like we've gone 5 miles also. "So 15 take away 1... we still have 14 miles left?" Me-"Yep. That's right." 14 miles left? Geesh! I'm tired already!

There's a wind that picks up and starts blowing pretty hard right at us. "It sure is hard to ride our bikes in the wind! I think it's going to knock us over! Wow! I'm TIRED! I think I need a drink! Aren't you so thirsty Mom?" OK, this is NOT working! I'm cold, I'm miserable, so are my kids, I didn't want to do this anyway and I'd rather be doing... anything... else... with my kids right now. We get about 4 miles and I call Zach to bring the truck to pick us all up. The girls were relieved. "It's just too windy for riding bikes today." I tell Zach it just wasn't working out with the girls and I'll try to run the 15 tomorrow after church or something.

I get home and start thinking. Why am I doing this? I don't enjoy it anymore, I actually dread it! It used to be fun! I used to look forward to it. It used to be time just for me, time for me to take care of myself. Am I still taking care of myself? I have plantar fasciitis that hurts and pulls when I step on it. I'm running on a weak, sprained ankle. I have pneumonia and can't breathe well enough to feed my muscles oxygen. I've missed 4-5 weeks of training because my daughter has been in the hospital. Missing that many weeks of a 16 week training program is kind of a big deal! I've been trying to skip ahead, make up time, push a little harder and instead of feeling like I've got this, I feel like... I'm falling apart. I'm missing the base... the foundation. Could I finish the marathon? I know myself well enough to know that I could, only because I don't give up easily though, I might be crawling across the finish line. Would I enjoy it? Absolutely not. Right now it sounds more like a personal hell than any type of fun. I think I just had so much go wrong in my life lately... I just wanted SOMETHING to go right! Anything! Even if I had to FORCE something good to happen.

I think when I first started this whole thing I felt like in order to say "I'm a runner." I needed to accomplish something big. Runners run marathons! They have a medal to prove it! The sad part is I've accomplished a lot on my journey to run the marathon and it all has meant... nothing. It was just another step to achieve the big goal. I ran a half marathon and wasn't happy about it at all! There was no sense of accomplishment, no "Wow, I did good!", I was just trying to make it through, if I did it, maybe I could move on to the next level, that's all.

That's CRAP! I should have been excited! I should have felt awesome about it! I ran a half marathon and that's amazing! Most people could never say that they've done that! Let alone the girl who skipped gym class and the most athletic thing she had ever done was tap dance in the school musical.... that's amazing that... THAT girl did THIS! She's come this far! I did that! Me! The girl who couldn't run for 30 seconds straight a year ago, just ran a half marathon! That rocks! I'm happy about that. I also think that's about as much as I can handle right now.

Final decision. I'm NOT going to run the marathon in May. I might want to run one in the future but I want to do it with the proper time and training. I can't miss weeks of training and still expect to get the same result. I don't want it to be something that stresses me out or something that I absolutely dread! It kind of defeats the purpose of why I started in the first place! I want to be healthy. I want to be happy. I want to have time to just myself. Time where I show that I care enough to take care of my body. That's all. I just need to take care of myself. Pushing my body to do this in this short amount of time is not taking the best care of me, not mentally, physically or any other -ally.

When it comes right down to it... I don't need a medal from a marathon to call myself a runner. I AM a runner. I LIKE to run. Sometimes it might be 3 miles, sometimes 10 and on bad days when we're in the hospital with my daughter I might not run at all. I don't give up though, I may not be running marathons but I keep going.

Next goal... run uphill for 3 miles straight. That's part of my run when I do Ragnar in June with my friends. FOR FUN! I'll tell you how training is going for that in my next post! First things first though... I'm going to get fully recovered from my pneumonia!



"We can't all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by." Will Rogers