I ended my 40th Birthday Week celebration with the 8k Beat the Bridge this morning. I'd once hoped to celebrate 40 with a spectacular running feat (a Boston qualifying marathon, for example), but I'm doing my best to be grateful that I can run as far as a can right now, in spite of some ankle pain that is holding me back from longer distances. Several months ago, I couldn't run at all without pain, so this is good progress.
Plus, I'm now getting to run with a friend who is new to running, and seeing her enthusiasm for setting and meeting new goals is helping me look forward to setting and meeting my own, as I continue to heal. I decided to forego barefooting for my Vibrams today-- a healing blister on the ball of my foot near my pinky toe was just still too tender for 5 barefoot miles. But the desire to do this run barefoot had me out barefooting more often than I might have been otherwise these past couple weeks, so I'll just have to keep that momentum going.
I set a whole plan for Birthday Week -- and while some of the plans came off beautifully, others not so much. Nonetheless, I like the planning part -- even if having a plan means that sometimes the plan has to get adjusted to the day's realities. My big-picture running "plan" was to try to qualify for Boston this year. Clearly that's on hold until my ankle issue is resolved, but still I think I can set a BQ marathon as a goal. I want to qualify for Boston. Preferably while I'm 40. I'm pretty frustrated right now, with an injury once again impeding forward progress, but I'm saying out loud, I'm not giving up. My goal is Boston. This year, next year, whenever. I've been fighting back from injury for a year now, and I'm a lot better off than where I started -- and at least now I'm running with dramatically better technique. So WHEN this thing finally gets resolved, I have every reason to believe I will be able to run stronger than ever. Until then, I won't give up. I just won't.
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