Getting back on track one half-mile at a time

Fall in love with fighting and I guarantee you’ll never lose another battle. – Corey, Fit to Fat to Fit

  

You know that feeling you get when you’re laying on the couch, cuddled up with a blanket, while watching TV and maybe sipping on wine? It’s great right? But you know what’s even better? Doing that after a nice hot shower or bath right after an intense workout. It’s luxury covered with accomplishment. That’s how I feel right now...with an added ice pack on my foot.

Earlier this week, I had so many things going on in my head that I needed to get out and share with the world and I decided that maybe I should start blogging again. But I felt that I needed some validation to go along with it. I mean, who wants to read a blog about waking up, going to work, watching TV, going to sleep and hitting repeat the next day?

I’ve been wanting to get back on track, but I’ve had some setbacks, physically, where I couldn’t work out, and for some reason I don’t feel accomplished if I’m just eating well and not working out. I know it’s all mental, since we all know that the balance is an 80/20 percentage of what you eat vs. your activity level.

I’ve been slowly doing a few things to try to get back on track, but nothing really made me feel accomplished. Until today.

Today, I ran a half-mile.

You read that right. The girl who hates running, voluntarily ran a half-mile. And when I say I ran the whole thing, I mean, no walking. Usually my running is a run/walk method because I can’t run that long or that far. But I ran that half-mile, one tenth of a mile at a time, with a break and grand plié squats in between. It was good enough for me. I feel accomplished.

A half-mile may not sound too fascinating to you, but it’s a big thing for me. I haven’t run in almost 8 months. I did the Runner’s World run streak in 2015 from Memorial Day to July 4th: a mile a day, every day for 41 days. I did it the year before and had great results, but I was coming off a broken ankle from October 2014, and hadn’t run in several months then either. I was plagued by plantar fasciitis and had trouble progressing at all. Since then I’ve just been discouraged to get back into running. The pain just doesn’t seem to be worth it.

Now I’m just sick and tired of being sick and tired. I’m ready to step up and make things happen again. I’ve been taking baby steps to get myself started, but the lack of pain free days makes it really hard. I’ve tried literally everything for plantar fasciitis relief, short of surgery, and nothing has worked for me or helped. So, I’ve just got to stretch and ice my way through the pain, since I’m done with sitting around, waiting for it to get better.

In 2012, I attempted to run the Disney Princess half marathon and I got swept at mile 5. It was tragic. Today, 4 years later, thousands of women and a handful of men ran those 13.1 miles through the Cinderella castle that I missed out on. And I figured, if they could get up at 3 am to kick ass for a few hours, I could run a half-mile and mean it.  So I did. It was nowhere near the 13.1 they did today, but it was another start, and sometimes a start is all we need to become great again.