Happy Anniversary!

Friday was a pretty special day for me...it was my one year anniversary. If you're looking to the right side of the screen, you're probably shaking your head and thinking Umm, no...you got married on MAY 19 and that first anniversary was a few months ago, you freak. Nope, it was the first anniversary of my relationship with running. Yeah, I remember the date...like I said, it was special. Granted, it led to about a month off because of some sucky shoes and a knee injury, so it wasn't really, really consistent until February (Feb 2 of this year, if you must know...ok, I'm just weird about remembering dates...my hubsand freaks out over it, but seriously, I can remember ANY date. Honest, it's some kind of weird thing I have) but yeah. Sept 19, 2007 I set out for my first run after having mulled over the idea of running the Duke City Marathon in 2008...I'd spent the couple of weeks before researching training plans and decided to start out running for 2 minutes and walking for 2 minutes until I hit a total of 30 minutes. Yeah, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be and it wasn't until I joined a beginners group later on and got on a good training program that I saw the light at the end of the tunnel (and some good shoes...God, shoes are SO important!).

And, not only was it my one year anniversary, it also marked the one month countdown till the Denver Marathon!

Anyway, since my sister got hitched yesterday (Saturday, Sept 20), which was totally awesome and pics will be posted as soon as I can get some, I had to do my 12 mile "group" run on Friday. What a great way to celebrate my anniversary. Um, yeah. Not if your stupid foot is still bothering you from your 18 mile run 2 weeks ago. It bugged me last week on my 6 mile run (also alone...5.00 AM is not the same as 5.00 PM and I realized the importance of this while setting my alarm clock last week...unfortunately, I didn't relize the importance until I missed the group run because the alarm did not go off). I didn't run at all during the week because of the pain in my foot and the fact that I was in Chicago for work, and I figured it would be nice and rested for the 12 miler. Nope. 2 miles in it was hurting. The 12 miles turned into the 10 miles from hell...I finished it by walking the last .75 miles crying and talking to the hubs on the phone and trying to figure out what I've done in my past life to deserve this. In all, I must have walked at least 2 of those 10 miles.

So I'm not really sure what to do now. I have a 4 hour run scheduled on Saturday and it's the last long one before the race. I'm not skipping the race...I've come too far for that. It's feeling pretty good now and I know that by tomorrow it'll be even better. Come Saturday morning it'll be 100%, but by Mile 2 on Saturday morning is when I usually start having my issues. My plan is to make an orthopedic appointment and beg for something this week, but it'll probably take a couple of months to get in (damn new insurance companies!)...other than that, I'm going to hit it with some serious ice and bond with my bike. Lord knows I miss it anyway. Anyway, that's that. Figures. I go this long just fine and six weeks before the race SOMETHING has to happen.

Countdown to Denver: 4 Weeks!