Whew! It's been a crazy few days but I think I'm over another major hurdle. I shared last week about my episode and now that's it is behind me and I can think more clearly I think I have come to some conclusions. First, my last 3 runs have been awesome! And I had a great time last night at taekwondo. No chest pains, no dizziness and even though I took it easy I had no difficulties at all. Well, except the fact that this fat old lady got her big toe caught in the pant leg of her uniform and jerked a toe out. Why can't I have normal injuries or at least noble ones? lol I've been spreading out my runs and it seems to be helping. I only run two days in a row. Overall my new strategies seem to be working but it's all new. I'm committed to the journey at this point and determined to be fit in the midst of personal struggles and physical roadblocks. I'm a thinker and a problem solver. Of course this leads to overthinking most of the time. But over the...

Okay - I know I am old and slow - and coming off a semi-major injury...but when I did the 5 miler in under an hour I was very happy with that. I actually had just a little over 11 minute miles. It felt like my work had paid off. I was still way behind the pack - but for me it was a good run! And by the way - the outside temperature was 19 degrees F.... just to finish this cold booger was quite a feat! The really cool thing is when I crawled back on the treadmill yesterday I realized my base time is faster. When I started running on the treadmill I stayed at 4 mph on slow runs. I had been working on it all this time and shot for some 5 mph and 6mph  speeds. Yesterday I did almost my whole 2 miles at 4.5 mph. I know that it not much - but sometimes we need to celebrate the small progresses we make. Today - take some time to celebrate some type of progress you have made. Maybe you have stayed on an eating plan for a day or two - celebrate your accomplishment! Some may have added d...

Last night I ran my 15th 5K! (it was my 17th race overall) It was a wonderful experience. Although it was so hot I thought I may get to experience what it's like to throw up during a run. I got very nauseous toward the end, but I figured since I wasn't dizzy I wasn't about to pass out so I just kept on going. I thought maybe I would throw up and add it to the unique race experience list! lol! But then I didn't...almost disappointing as it would have made such a great story later... oh well.  I had a lot of emotions going into the race as I thought back about that first 5K. It's been such an invigorating, addictive journey! I started just to survive...and now I survive just to run! My legs just feel strong - I cannot really explain it any better than that - they just feel good under me. I thought of all the accomplishments that I've managed to do over this two years of racing... Of the 15 5K races I've placed 6 times. I don't think that's too bad! I...