It’s official. I’m training for my fourth half marathon.
This is the first halfie I’ve run since before I was pregnant with my daughter, Alice, who is now two and a half years old. I actually did try training for a half marathon at the beginning of 2014 with this beautiful plan of running a half marathon the morning of her first birthday party. Because, after all, how awesome does that sound? I ran a half marathon less than a year than giving birth to a child. Rock star awesome – that’s how that sounds.
But, of course, that was just the plan. It never came to fruition.
I could say that it wasn’t my fault – and, really, it wasn’t. After all, the race I intended to run was canceled due to lack of participation. It was a local, small race, and I was sad it had to be canceled. But by the time it was canceled, I wasn’t going to be participating anyway.
See, I had this issue with my stairs…
To put a long story short, I fell down the stairs in my home and broke my tailbone. It was the most painful experience I’ve ever endured. It didn’t help that my door was locked (limiting the individuals who could come “rescue” me) and my daughter, who was 10 months, was crawling on the floor wondering why I wasn’t getting up. By the grace of God, I managed to get in touch with my mother-in-law, who came to unlock the door with her spare key and watch my daughter, and a family friend, who drove me to the hospital.
I didn’t run for five months after breaking my tailbone.
It was the longest running hiatus I’ve ever taken since starting running. I tried to look at the positives of walking, but to be honest, I just missed running. I missed the satisfaction of having run in the morning. I missed my running group. I even missed the sweat pouring down as I ran.
I just missed it.
When I started slowly to run again, it wasn’t quite like starting all over again, but it was close. I had to start with shorter runs that weren’t nearly at the speed I had been at before I broke my tailbone. However, by the middle of fall, I had gotten back into the groove of running. I celebrated with a new pair of running shoes.
And now, over a year later, I’m getting ready to run my next half marathon. It took me longer to plan than I had anticipated, but I can’t wait to have my husband – and now my daughter – watch me cross the finish line. I think she’ll be excited.
The other day, she was supposed to take a nap while I ran on the treadmill. From where her bedroom and our den are situated, if she opens her blinds, she can see into the den. Apparently, she had decided that naps are overrated, so she opened her blinds and saw me running. My husband had the baby monitor and was startled when he heard her yelling. He looked on the monitor, and she had climbed up on her nightstand with her face pressed against the window and shouting, “Go, Mama! Go, Mama, go, go, go!” while running in place.
That’s my little cheerleader.
Tomorrow, I plan to run in the Sisterhood’s Great Pumpkin Dash, a virtual 10K, 5K, and 1-mile fun run. I can’t wait to see who all participates and hear the stories about the race. With any race, every story is different, and with different locations and times for this race, I’m sure everyone will have a great story to tell about the run. But perhaps some who registered will not be able to run. That happened to me with a race earlier this month. I registered, I trained, but due to timing conflicts, I was unable to participate.
Plans don’t always go the way they’re intended. I planned to run a half marathon over a year ago. I plan to run a half marathon in November. But if injury or illness prevent me from participating in that race, it’s okay. I won’t be happy to miss it, but I’m proud of the training I’ve already put in to the event. And after all, another race is always out there, just waiting to be run.
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