Sunday, September 13th

The day came so quickly. It was the day of the Legs on Lungs half marathon. Signing up for this race I was feeling great, running up to 28 miles per week and sometimes running 14 miles in a day. I thought, “half marathon, piece of cake.” Well I jinxed myself: about a week after signing up I started having foot pain on the top of my right foot. It came most apparent on a Tuesday night run when I wasn’t able to run more than 2 miles, feeling severe pain. After three weeks off, two doctors visits, and an orthotic shoe insert – I thought I was good to go. The race started at 7am at Damonte Ranch High School. We started with a good pace, but by mile 4 I started to feel it. Mile 6- started hurting pretty bad and I had to stop and walk, telling Andy to run ahead without me. Still 7 miles from the finish line I thought to myself, if I walk the rest of the way, I won’t finish for about 3 more hours. I didn’t want to turn in early because I don’t like the thought of not finishing. I have never given up on a race before, and I wasn’t about to today. After all, the first half marathon I ran I had bad shin splints and managed to finish, so why not today? So I kept on running, slowly, with walk breaks in between to give my foot a rest. I was thinking my time would be about 2 hours and 30 minutes, but was pleasantly surprised when the clock said 2:05:39 as I crossed the finish line. It may have been foolish to run on my foot, but the rest of me felt good and I was glad I did it.

Running seems like a relatively inexpensive sport. Just put on some shoes and head out the door, right? Wrong. You become obsessed with trying to prevent injury so you are good to go for the big race day that you do anything you can..

  • Gel packs for energy- $1/each
  • Water Belt for easy hydration- $40
  • New Shoes- $100
  • Lifetime shoe inserts- $60
  • Running Socks- $10-20
  • Running Books- $14
  • Lightweight wiking Clothing- $100
  • Glucosamine- $30
  • Joint Cream- $25
  • Prescriptions- $40
  • Doctors visits- $15 copay
  • Muscle Roller- $20
  • Anti Blister stuff- $30
  • Garmin GPS- $225

Sounds crazy right? So why do runners put themselves (and their wallets) through so much pain? For me, the feeling of running is so serene. It is an individual sport and you have no one to blame but yourself if you don’t do well. I usually feel amazing after runs, seeing what my body is really capable of and how much I can push myself.

As for Andy, he had some knee pain and took several weeks off to heal. He visited the doctor’s, purchased some new kicks and was ready to go. He ended up with a personal record in the race of 1:52:56. He didn’t seem to excited about his time in this, but he really did well!