All the Small Things

My new BFF

It has been quite sometime since I have visited my own site. Perhaps I have avoided it because the injury feels so fresh (literally), or maybe I was too embarrassed to admit defeat.  Whatever the reason, I feel like it is time to face it and move forward. From the moment I fractured my foot and until now, my emotions have been up and down – a real life roller coaster.  Today I decided I would just come home from work, take a shower and sit in front of my computer and let it all out.  And as if it isn’t hard enough to do this, I thought I would make it more interesting by indulging on Wild Habanero Cheetos all while trying not to stain my white keyboard and rub my eyes (I guess if it happens, it will be well worth it – kind of like my 12/12 goal).

It has been near 18 weeks since my injury and I am not anymore ready to run than I would have been during week 6.   I speak of this experience as a roller coaster and if you’ve never been to Magic Mountain you may not understand what I am talking about.  I kind of thought this injury would be like similar to Freefall – I would just close my eyes, raise my arms in submission and just FALL, it would be over relatively quickly.  Unfortunately this ride seemed more like Revolution – a longer ride with several unsuspecting turns, 360s and I kept my eyes open the entire time trying to predict the next path (run) until it finally stopped and I ended up with a migraine AND foot pain.

I am sure I could keep going on about these feel-sorry-for-me stories but that really isn’t my intention.  As awful as I feel sometimes, I have had some pretty amazing things happen to me.  Maybe they happened because I wasn’t so focused on running – who knows…

Just a few days ago I received an email from a friend of a friend who was trying to achieve the same goal and unfortunately fractured her femur during her third race.  Such a simple email from someone going through something similar – someone who didn’t even have to take the time to contact me.  Sometimes it is easy to forget how sometimes a few simple words of encouragement can affect a person.  Fortunately for me, I experienced several words of encouragement by many other runners and although I am probably a little too emotional, they weigh equally on my heart and memory – THANK YOU.

Bay to Breakers - In for the long haul!

The view is actually not so bad from up here

Supporting my friends through their running journeys

New friends, new memories.