My best 10 miles. So far :)

Getting hurt sucks you guys. Always. Getting injured while training for something like a race sucks even more. Unfortunately I got to know it firsthand, and I'm absolutely not a fan of the experience.

But also, it's an almost inevitable part of life. Very few people get through life without an owie or two :)

I do several things to train my body: lift, run, and lately climb. Also I teach classes, but it shouldn't be considered MY training.

So, today I have something to celebrate. Look at this happy person on the picture. It's me after finishing a 10-mile run this morning. It was a smooth and lovely run in a perfect weather (52F (11C), light drizzle on and off) on a beautiful trail.

So, what's special about this particular run?

Well, it's my third attempt to running long distances. My current goal is to run a half marathon in the end of June. And since I decided that I'm interested in distance running I had to stop twice. First time - for more than a year.

On this picture is my first EVER 10-mile run. It was April 2019, when me and my husband Simon ran a Tenacious 10 race in Seattle and covered the distance for the first time in life. It was hard! By that moment I've been training for many months, and yet - look at my spotty red face 😅

That race happened to be my last run before a year+ break I had to take to deal with a neck injury. It was a really long and fairly miserable year after which I had to start all over again

This is July 2020 - the first time I was able to run again. It was not even a run run. More walking mixed with VERY slow jogging, careful and somewhat scary. Red face again 😅

But that time I picked it up pretty fast and by the Fall I was back to full-blown running, building up some distance. And one day me and Simon got a chance to do a long run together again (thanks to our dear friend, who kept our daughter while we were having a trail date!) and instead of running the planned 8 miles we covered 10. Just because it felt good. And was easy. And was fun.

That's when we have scheduled our first half-marathon, that had to be virtual (2020, guys!), we have figured out our medals, arranged child care, set a date. And just about 3 weeks before THE DAY I came down with an overuse foot injury.

Happy new 2021 dammit! It felt SO unfair! And again - no running. But also, NO WALKING, no teaching aerobic classes, pretty much no moving at all! THAT sucked BAD.

But. The thing with all these injuries is you HAVE TO let your body heal. Have to wait for as long as it's needed before getting back to your activity and start over, and start slow. I had hopes that this owie was minor, and that I will still be able to do the race. Never happened. 5 weeks with ice pack taped to my poor foot. Very slow recovery. Getting back to walking after 6 weeks, and to running - only after 2.5 months!

That's why today's 10-miler felt so good. Because I've earned every bit of it. Because today I could go and do. Because it was not just doable, but also it felt easy again. Because being able to move my body in freakin amazing!!!

Let's celebrate our lives together today! Let's be grateful for what we have and take good care of it in order to become better versions of ourselves tomorrow.