Progress!

I feel like I took a giant leap from injured runner to being on the comeback trail.

I had a serious motivation problem this morning, I could not get my butt out the door. I was intimidated by the combination of 20 degrees and gray skies.

It's one thing when the sun is shining, but when there's nothing to warm you up and there's a cold breeze from the north, as mild as it might be, I have a hard time getting out there.

By ten o'clock I'd checked my email, surfed Facebook, and done all the other things and made all the excuses that it's possible to use for procrastination. I knew if I didn't get out I'd be finishing late in the day and I wanted to get it done.

So I dragged my butt out, thinking I'd do 16 miles and ended up with just over 18, slower than snot, but I did it. I had no problem running or moving, it was just slow. My legs were tired and then I remembered I just started the weights this past week and I did squats yesterday.

What really blew me away was when I looked at my running log and figured out how many miles I ran this week: over 47 miles. I wasn't paying attention, didn't realize I got that many miles in. That's progress.

I froze my butt off out there. I dressed the same as I did the morning of 18 degrees and snow, but there was no sun and there was just enough wind to keep me in a constant state of freezing. The threshold for freezing my ass off was exactly the pace I was running. If I stopped or slowed down at all, I was screwed. So I kept moving.

I did stop halfway through at Pelican Marsh Natural Area and sat on a bench, ate a Lara bar, drank some water, and texted my friend Kathy to see if her daughter had her baby yet. Not yet.

A pretty uneventful run but I felt good about the steady pace and no issues.

I noticed something this week. Looking in the mirror I noticed the skin on my face looks different. There are wrinkles there, not sure when they appeared, but it's not from dry skin. The reason I was looking so closely at my face is because I got this HUGE zit on the side of my nose, looks like a new nose is growing there. My face rarely breaks out anymore but this is one lone gigantic mountainous explosion waiting to happen.

I just found it amusing, this big old zit and then I saw the tiny wrinkles in my cheeks, that you can't see unless you look super close. Gray hair, wrinkles, what the hell, it's bound to happen. I just happened to notice. I put extra sunscreen on my face before I went out today. Nothing else I want to do about it. No botox for this chick.

I've earned every one of my gray hairs and wrinkles, and I'm proud of them. I suppose the real test will be in this next year's racing, because I'm hoping that my menstrual cycle has completely stopped. At least I won't have to deal with the race day surprise anymore. The hot flashing has subsided quite a bit recently, and best of all, I have slept through the night almost every single night this past week, since I stopped working at the hospital. Imagine that.

This coming week is Thanksgiving, and I'll be volunteering at the Pelican Lakes 5K in Windsor, doing registration and race packets. I might run the 5K afterwards. Probably will. Lots of studying and writing this week on the agenda. It feels great to be here...