November 14th: Bring on the 4th Half Marathon!!

Hi All,

Today I reached a final decision, which I have been debating to one degree or another for that the past month-and-a-half.  Change is hard.  It is hard physically, emotionally, and mentally.  You can learn to adapt your behaviors to minimize the effect change brings, but it still impacts you greatly.

The food issues continue and for the past 2-3 weeks I have been exhausted and unable to get a solid night's sleep.  When you are training, sleep become crucial to recovery and to maintain a normal lifestyle.  Trying to run 5 miles on inadequate food and sleep is awful, but I did it two weeks ago.  I will not be repeating the experience.  Right now, the doctor's are not quite sure what is happening in terms of me and the food.  I have been given the ok to reintroduce new foods every four days, but the acid reflux has been bad enough that I had to coax myself into eating anything.  TicTacs do an amazing job, but I was not willing to pay loads of money for them and the acid reflux medicine was making it worse - read the Hilarity of Sunday post to get an understanding.  The TicTacs arrived last night and I had a ton of them.  I slept soundly and finally almost feel normal this morning for the first time since Monday.  If I can keep on this feeling normal routine, then I will consider adding in other foods and resume running.  Another thing to consider is whether or not allergies are really the core issue.  Is it, for instance, a digestive issue instead?    I don't know, but I can tell you that not having solid answers is enough to make me a bit insane.

While volunteering for a race in April 2009 and serving at a water station early in the race (mile 2 or 3), I kept hearing really heavy breathing.  At this stage of the race, heavy breathing is not a good sign at all.  It means either you went out faster than you should have (easy to do) or you are not properly trained.  Regardless of the reason behind it, this had a huge impact on my approach to racing.  If I am not trained, then I do not race.  Given that and the food issues, I will be delaying my first full marathon yet again and I am no longer keeping track of how many times I have done this.  Productive thinking is the key and I am battling enough other issues that I do not need to further complicate the situation.

For all those who have expressed support, weighed in on the decision, and yet allowed me to make the call; thank you - I am at peace with the decision and I can move forward with it.  On November 14th, I will probably not set any records (personal), but I can run with the confidence that I am trained and ready to fly for this distance.  Some day I truly hope to run a full marathon, but I want to be confident, rested, and ready rather than checking of a box on a list of "to dos."

Happy Saturday, all!