She Did.

What strange times we are living in right now.  I have a couple of blogs that I want to write about our experiences living in quarantine because of COVID-19, but I won't lie, I am struggling to write them.  I want to be sure that when I write them and make them forever part of this blog that I write not of the reality of what we have lost, but the beauty of what we have gained.  I will write them, sometime.

But today I am going to share with you about my virtual half marathon and the victory of running that distance.  My foot and health has been arduous and never ending.  I seem to gain one thing only to lose something else, and I won't lie, I am tired of feeling the next "thing" in my body.  Its been disheartening to be sure.  

6 months ago, as my foot was improving, I set out to run another half marathon.  It had been well over a year since that distance was even possible.  I was so excited.  Then came the mono diagnosis and all that changed. Thankfully the race director allowed for a virtual race option and I jumped at the opportunity to still earn the medal......just on my own time.

While getting back into running, and upping my mileage, I have had a really hard time breaking the 10 mile mark.  Be it time, or physical strength, it has been a major roadblock for me.  When I set out to run this half marathon a couple weekends ago, I still had not broken that barrier.  I had run 9, I had run a 6 and 4 mile combined day, but never had I hit that consistent 10 mile mark.  So lets face it, I wasn't really trained to run 13.1 miles let alone on the trails, but C'est La Vie.  I am so glad I did.

I needed to.  For a lot of reasons, I just needed to do something really hard that had eluded me.  So Ellie and I began with a glorious 7 mile journey out on the Hawes trail system.  

Ellie gets tired and starts to lag around the 8 mile mark so I came back home, dropped her off and picked up Bob.  I knew I was going to need some camaraderie to make it the last half of the race.

I am so glad that I had him because right at the 10 mile mark, I hit the doubting phase.  I was tired and the trails are technical and challenging.  Even going slow, its a lot of work.  But the desert is simply beautiful this time of year, and it provides energy in ways I can't quite express.  So we carried on.

The end required more effort than I am ultimately proud of, BUT the victory of finishing was truly sweet.  I did it.  I ran a half marathon again.  I CAN, I WILL, and I DID.

It felt really good to unbox my medal and hang it around my neck.  Its such a beautiful medal and it really makes me happy.

Sometimes you just gotta do hard things because you can.  Sometimes you have no idea how drastically your life will change in a minute.  Don't wait to do big things, go out, and do them.  Even if recovery lasts a little longer than you remember.  Heres to looking with hope towards the next races!