I have had one big change though. I have started running again. Some of you may not realize that I used to run a LOT. I trained for several years. I ran the Houston Half Marathon in January 2006 and then I finished the Rocky Raccoon 50 Miler in Huntsville just a few weeks later. I had peppered in a few 5Ks too. I have a nice shiny little pile of medals to show for it and some cool t-shirts too.
So why did I ever stop? Well, we eventually decided to add another little one to our family. My legs and hips cannot handle running during pregnancy...my joints just get too loose. I stayed pretty fit through my pregnancy with Reagan though, and as soon as she was born I was back on the road and putting in my miles.Reagan and I put hundreds of miles on our now worn out jogging stroller. I had worked hard to build up my base mileage and I had finally decided to start adding a weekend long run to my weekly mileage. One fateful afternoon in the middle of my 12-miler I developed a pain low in my hip. It wasn't anything I had felt before, and it stopped me from running. I walked the rest of the way home. The pain lingered for several days, and then I had an awful fever and chills for a week.....I had never been so sick in my life. I had gone to the doctor and was told I was fine, so I sucked it up and moved on.
Nothing was ever the same after that. My mile times got slower and slower. I never managed to run anything close to a 12-miler since the day that I walked it in with the unidentifiable pain. Eventually I couldn't even push the jogging stroller because of fatigue. I never realized how sick I had become. It wasn't until 9 full months after that awful run that I would learn what had happened. The first weekend in October of 2008 I developed a pain under my ribs so excruciating that I could not lay down. Steven vetoed any effort I made to avoid going to the ER. In the ER a CT scan showed that I had a mass on my liver that we later found out was large abscess. That abscess had festered and grown for those nine months and was caused by an untreated case of appendicitis. (That's what had sidelined me all those months ago)
So after all of the recovery from my medical mess we decided that we needed at least one more set of little feet to run around our house.....so another pregnancy and still not much running.
Well, now my time has come! I have been working out pretty regularly for the last year. When the weather turned nice this fall I took to the roads for a nice run outside instead of my usual run on the treadmill at the gym. That's when I got bit by the bug. I realized how much I missed running. I have decided that I WILL run the Houston Marathon in January 2013, and I will most likely shoot for the 50-miler again. I love, love, love to run long distances. I love heading out the door and knowing that I will run a step farther than I did the day before. I love the accomplishment I feel when my muscles feel like jello. I love the time it gives me to de-stress and meditate. I love being able to do something that most people cannot do.
So far I am 3 weeks into a training plan that will have me running a 20-miler in just another 13 weeks. Next Saturday my long run will take me 11 miles. Some people have asked me what I am running from, but I'm actually running TO something. I am running to finally overcome all that I had faced. Next week I will tackle an 11 mile run....That's just one mile away from conquering all of the bad medical stuff in my past. I am looking forward to putting all of that behind me and reclaiming my health and my body.
It's about a lot more than just the miles.
