2011: not great with the getting regular exercise. But I had to do something: In 2008 when we were training for the Boston Marathon, my friend Ben pointed out a brand new event happening in Jacksonville, Florida. 26.2 with Donna: the National Marathon to Finish Breast Cancer. They were holding both a marathon and a half marathon in February; the half would be perfect timing for our marathon training. So three of us went down, escaped from winter and ran 13.1 miles. Ben and I have been there every year so far and I can't break the streak.
On Sunday I lined up with thousands of other runners. My usual approach to distance runs is to walk one minute, run for 2-4 minutes, depending on how fit I feel. With no training in the past year, I wasn't sure if I should even run at all. I had 7 hours to finish 13.1 miles, which is plenty of time to walk the whole thing. But it seemed I should work for the medal, so I decide to walk 1 minute, run 1 minute, repeat until I can't do that anymore, then walk the whole thing. It is my tradition to run (well, jog) the mile that takes place on the packed sand of Jacksonville Beach. So I did that, and ended up maintaining the 1/1 intervals for the whole race. I finished in 3 hours, 33 minutes and 8 seconds.
My feet hurt. No surprise there. But then a new thing happened: my left foot kept hurting, even with advil and ice. I slept only in snatches all night, trying to make it feel better. But it still hurt in the morning, so I went to a doctor, just to be sure. Thank goodness it appears to just be tendonitis, with no fracture. This is new for me in all the running and biking I have done. It's now Tuesday night and it still hurts some.
I have a series of shorter races coming up. I hope I can do them.
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