I have never thought of myself as athletic. And I have never liked to run. I would do just about anything to get out of it in PE when I was a kid. I have spent most of my adult life overweight and not active.
But one day, a friend casually mentioned she was doing the Disney Princess Half Marathon and said I should do it too. At first, I laughed. Me? Do a half marathon? Do you not know me at all?? But then, I did what I do best. I researched it. I watched videos. I read blogs. And I discovered that it's totally possible to walk a half marathon within the time constraints that Disney makes, principally a minimum of a 16 minute mile rate. Part of me yearned to do it and another part of me told that other part that it was crazy. Remember you're overweight? Remember that you shattered your ankle and were told you would never be a runner? Are you crazy? And as I deliberated and went back and forth on it, I realized I really wanted the challenge. Could I do it? If I didn't at least try, I would never know. And I thought about my son. My perfectionist, have to be great at it on the first try or I'm not going to do it son. It would be a great thing for him to see me work at something so outside of my comfort zone and wouldn't it be a great lesson to him if I actually succeeded? So, I did it.
On November 2, I announced my intention to attempt to do 13.1 miles with about 16 weeks to go before the race. The plan: train to walk a 15 minute mile to give myself a little cushion. At first, training went really well. I started doing 4 miles at a time and outlined a training plan to get me to my goal. Walking a 15 minute mile pace was very difficult at first. I felt like I was going to fall on the treadmill and had to spend a couple of weeks working up to it. Once I got there and it got easier, something strange happened that I hadn't anticipated. I started getting the urge to run instead of walk. So I listened to my body and started to run a little. I would walk 3/4 mile and run the last 1/4 mile. My run was awkward and slow, but I was running and I was DOING IT. And, even more: I was LIKING it. No one could be more surprised at that than me. Everything was going great until Mid-December....
We had gotten a little ice the night before. Ice and I have a long sordid history. We don't get along very well. It was ice that caused my broken ankle that took about two years to recover from. I'm a little (OK, a lot) terrified of ice. But on that December morning, it wasn't too bad out there. I took our dogs out for their morning jaunt and was playing with them when I slipped a little as I was turning. My knee hurt, but it didn't seem like anything to be too concerned about. I rested it for a couple of days and then headed to the gym for my distance workout. I was supposed to do 5 miles. Everything was fine for the first 3/4 miles of walking, but then I decided to run. It started to hurt almost immediately, so I slowed down, but the pain continued to intensify, so I stopped. Uh oh.
It took me awhile to make the call, but when I finally got in to the orthopedist's office, it was a month later. I had missed a month of training due to injury, travel, illness and a death in the family, not to mention Christmas. I had about 6 weeks left to train. And I found out I had a torn meniscus in my knee. The doctor didn't seem too concerned and said I could ease back in to training and would have to push through any pain if I wanted to complete the race. My first workout, I walked 4 miles at a 15 minute mile pace with only a little discomfort. Yay! I was back to it. Of course, then I decided to push it too far, too fast and had to take a few days off. Eventually, though, I ramped up the training program and pushed to complete 10 miles before the race. I was slower than I had hoped to be, but I was going to do the best I could. Next stop: Disney's Princess Half Marathon!
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