A New Year
After the year of running and learning in 2017, I'm going to take a different approach in 2018. 2017 was filled with amazing challenges, extreme excitement and some of the Lowest lows I have ever felt. When you have to drop out of 2 dream races because of injury and deal with the injury on the 3rd race, it really changes how you think about running and the training. Do I want to continue doing this? Can my body take it? If I want to continue can I do it better? How do I stay injury free? Am I willing to sacrifice more family time to achieve my goals?
After my Oregon Coast 50K performance in October of last year I took November, December and most of January off to heal my IT Band injury and think over these questions. My calf wasn’t giving me problems anymore so I thought if I got a bunch of rest and time away from running I could start 2018 pain free. For the most part it worked! I had the usual aches and pains of starting running again but the knee and the calf felt great! So I started running. I did some short and medium length distances and they were a lot of fun. Now I had a decision to make. How can I move forward an really push myself? How Can I get to the next level? I’ve been volunteering at the Orcas Island 100 Mile race the last few years and I might want to run that in 2019. How in the world can I make that happen? What do I have to do to qualify for that race? Run a lot and race a lot. That’s how! How do I race a lot if I'm prone to injury? Hire a coach. That’s how! So I did.
As of today I will be training under a coach to see what I can do this year. From what I've heard I've hired the best and probably don’t deserve to be training under him:) I plan of doing everything he asks of me and giving my best effort. I want to learn as much as I can so that I can make running something I can do until I'm super old. I can’t wait to see how 2018 goes.