Friday I ran 1.82 miles. My shin splints were so painful I had to stop running. I sat in a corner on the running track and got very emotional. The only person I wanted to call was my sister, Ashley. And she's in boot camp right now :( I felt defeated. I sat there and stared at the track. And after about 8 minutes, I got up. I had to turn over on my knees and get up backwards because I was in so much pain. I walked slowly around the track once. It probably took me about 3 to 4 minutes. When I made a full loop I told myself that you don't get to Boston by sitting and looking at the track. So I started to run. In excrutiating pain, I ran 8 laps, which is more than half a mile. I held my breath, bit my lower lip and ran 8 laps. Then I sat down again. Someone who sees me there often came and sat with me and introduced himself. His name is Matt. He said, "You come here often, right? Like three times a week at least." I gathered that must be how often he is there for work. My reply: "I'm here everyday." He said, "Yah, have you already done your 50 laps?" I said, "Yep! now I just need to do 100 more!" He told me that I inspired him. I told him I was feeling defeated and wasn't sure what to do. While I knew the best thing to do was to rest and let my legs heal, I couldn't get my mind to wrap around that. After all, I had run 8 miles previously on shin splints. So why couldn't I just keep going? I told him I was going to take the weekend off. He told me he'd see me Monday and come to check on me. It was kind of nice to talk to someone instead of just running right past people and never getting to know them.
So here I am, on the couch, oiling my muscles and shins like crazy with my new doterra essential oils. I feel really good and hope to do an easy run tomorrow (easy run=distance, not speed). And you may have noticed, I let myself slip up in the previous paragraph. I've been telling people, so I figured I may as well tell the blog. And as I said before it isn't a huge deal, but I didn't want the added pressure of disappointing readers. I'm trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon. To do this, I have to run a marathon in 3:30. So far I am at 4:20. And I need to get that down in about 5 weeks. I'm not really sure it's realistic. I can do another race later in the year, but I fear if I go to pick my back up race I won't try my darndest to make it on this one. So I'll wait to after this race to see if I need to do another qual race.
Now, onto a question my new friend Matt had for me and that I have often been asked by others: Why am I running this marathon. There are so many reasons. One HUGE one, but many others that I will just bullet here. Some you may have no clue what I am talking about, and I won't delve into each of them. But you can just know that it is something that inspires, keeps me going something I want to get over, heal from, not think about, put in the past, or improve on.
-EDS III
-Grandma Joyce Jowels and grandma Ida arms
-Grandma Joyce and Grandma Ida :(
-Preston, Chris, Angie, Justin, Matt, Carl, Ben, Ryan, Talia and all my other friends whom I have lost over the years.
-Stress, Anger and frustration
- Home Remedy Designs: Cure For The Common Home; An act of betrayal that has hurt worse than any other pain I have experience.
-My children
-My mom
-My husband, as running has improved my general well being and makes me a much more pleasant person to be around ;)
-My seamstresses whom I owe my entire business to! Running makes me a better manager.
- Heavenly Father, I feel like running is my way of thanking Him for still being mobile in spite of the disorder.
- And lastly, because someone told me it wasn't possible. And that may be right. This may not be possible. Someone told me it wasn't possible for someone with EDS to complete a marathon. And that could very well be true. But I wanted to decide for myself. I will be the one to say that it is impossible for me, someone with EDS, to complete a marathon. And that is what April 27th is all about. I'll be the one to determine what I can and can't do. And if I can't complete it I am totally fine with that. Because I do know and understand that is a very real possibility for someone in my situation. But I won't know till I try. And I won't accept someone else telling me that it isn't. Even if they're right! Maybe it wasn't for them. And if I can't, you won't ever hear me telling someone else with EDS that they can't do it. Because every person is different with a different situation. I'll decide for myself what is possible and not possible for me.
I have had to deal with a lot of pain and grief in my life. When it has come to the death of my friends and family and dealing with health, I have mostly kept those feelings and emotions bottled up. I used to set aside a time during the week when I would allow myself to fall apart. That way, when I felt it coming on during the week I could just tell myself it wasn't time. Then I wasn't in danger of losing myself and wasting a whole day to grieving. So I had a pity party hour. And training for this marathon has helped me cope with a lot of that. I think about these things while I am on my run. I imagine myself running away from it and in the end I symbolically always end up in the same place: right back at home. So even though I imagine I am running away from it all I end my grieving runs with the understanding that I am just going to end up where I Started. Then I begin to heal. I have started to think about my friends and loved ones as I run and all the good memories we had together. And I like to imagine that they are cheering for me to complete this seemingly impossible task I have put before myself. And now instead of running from them, I feel that they are uplifting me.
Even with the betrayal pain I have had to deal with, I have found myself running toward the finish thinking, "They can't hurt me at mile 26." But now, as I have completed half of my training, I have found that I want to take Home Remedy Designs with me all the way to mile 26 and wish them the best of luck. It started out as a painful healing process. But I feel so uplifted by all these events that have happened in my life that I can't help but focus on the positive. I am so glad that I could give these women something that they could take from me and make their own to help support their families. Thinking on it that way has given me so much peace. And now when I think about it as I run to heal from it, I don't feel that I need to heal. I don't feel the weight of it and the pain in my chest that it used to bring. I feel peace and contentment that I was able to help improve their lives and their own families. And that peace helps me run a little faster, and that weight taken from my shoulders helps me run a little faster.
I used to imagine myself running across the finish line with a list of names of people I'd lost that I couldn't cope with any more, and with Home Remedy Designs on it. And I imagined myself just throwing it away at the finish line with all the other pain in my life. But I already have rid myself of it. I often find myself meditating and praying while running and I have felt that divine peace come over me where these people and this business are concerned. And I love the fact that I can now imagine myself crossing the finish line for no other reason than to help inspire others and teach my children to decide for themselves what is possible for them and not live their lives based on what someone else told them was possible.
Training for this marathon has already been a life altering experience and I imagine race day will be as well, whether I complete it or not.
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