A Smidjin at a time

I'm not gonna lie. I've been pretty frustrated lately. I skipped a race I had been looking forward to. My mile time I swear is getting worse. I joined a weight loss challenge and GAINED weight. And I feel like my PT progress has been 2 steps forward 1 step back...with a couple random extra steps back. I have questioned why I haven't quite yet. But you know what? I almost gave up on another race this past weekend, but through the encouragement of a friend I showed up and walked 3x farther than any of my "training" walks this year. And you know what, it wasn't so bad. My legs didn't actually fall off, my back behaved the majority of the time, and the after party was a blast. I'm making more mental progress than physical progress. But I guess progress is progress. I audibly admitted (complete with sweat and a couple tears) how frustrated I am with my backs progress at physical therapy to the PTA I was working with this week, cause you know ...

DNS. Did Not Start Three letters that no "runner" ever wants to see next to their name. But alas, last week those letters and my name were used in the same sentence in regards to a race. Remember how this all started last year? Shamrock Run 8k, a wet and windy and pretty dang miserable first race of what would be an amazing year. Well, somehow I allowed myself to be talked into registering again. And really, I was excited to. I wanted to do a repeat race and be able to compare. But the closer and closer race day came, the less and less my body felt ready for it.  If it was simply a matter of just not getting enough runs in to feel like I would accomplish my goals. But more like a legit my back is still freaking out and I haven't really trained at all, and I was doing another run the day before that meant a lot more to me. So I found myself making the hard/easy decision to skip shamrock, even though I had my bib and shirt already. But here are a few things I learned fr...

What can I say, 2016 was an adventure that is for sure. Everything from joy to pain, progress to setbacks, 2016 certainly didn't hold back.  I ended 2015 registering to run the Shamrock 15k with some friends. Mind you, at the time I didn't run at all and I had only done one "race" that year, and it was a simple 5k that I walked. While I eventually had to admit that I would only be able to walk the 8k, Shamrock became the starting point of 10 races I would do in 2016, including a half marathon! Can we talk about that Half-Marathon for a minute? I freaking did a Half-Marathon! 13.1 miles, 21km, 69217.5 feet! I did it 21 and half minutes faster than the half-marathon I did on 2010. And while the journey to get there was full of frustration and pain, the sense of accomplishment is amazing. I will forever be proud of that day.  Speaking of frustration, pain really is the most obnoxious teacher there ever is. The 2nd half of 2016 found myself doing 17 weeks of physica...