One of My Greatest Accomplishments

This last winter I agreed to train and run a half marathon with my sister Fern, and...we did it! We spent about 10 weeks training. I started out fine going from barely being able to run a mile with my side collapsing in cramps to running 5 miles straight no sweat. Then I got lax and Fern made me run our 12 mile day with her. I did better than I expected but the next day when I ran a measly 3 miles I stressed my Iliotibial band in my right leg. It's the tissues just on the outside of your thigh running from the hip down to the knee and although it doesn't seem that bad it hurt like crazy to run on it. So I kept off of it for a while and then started to just run through the pain. Next thing I knew the big day was here.

The race started at 8:30am on a Saturday morning in May. I took ibuprofen before we started and again at mile 6. Stopping to walk and then starting up again hurt my leg more than just straight running, so whenever Fern and I needed a bit of a break I jogged next to her in the slowest, most ridiculous fashion possible just to save myself from too much pain. We beat our goal of running it in under 3 hours and I felt so great about it. It was no marathon but for me that half marathon was a big goal and milestone and I'm proud we did it.

Before the race, mind you, I think I fell asleep around 3am the night before because I was so anxious about running, so I had about 4 hours of sleep. (Also, Fern and I did not mean to match at all)

During

 

After

I've only really been running once since then, but I owe my speedy recovery to leg massages from Bobby, ice packs from Aaron and very few stairs in the last couple months.