Half

I ran my half a couple of weeks ago!  This one was a little rough.  I've been having some stomach problems, so I haven't been able to train like I wanted to.  I ran a lot slower than I planned on and had to walk through a couple of water stations, but I finished it.  The night before the run it started getting really cold down here, so I had to go buy some pants.  When I got up to the buses the next morning it was 28* and they said it was about 10* colder at the starting line.  Yuck.  I had a hoodie, a jacket, a long sleeved shirt, and my tank top, plus two pairs of pants and I still was frozen.  I had to use the porta-pottie before running and was nervous that I would freeze to the seat!  :)  Thankfully, I didn't. 

 

 Stan snapped some pictures of me as I was just coming into the finisher's chutes.  I figure if I can still be smiling like that after running 13 miles, then it was a good day.  I was only sore for two days afterwards, even went running this week without any problems.  As I was at about mile 8 a lady turned to me and said, "this sucks", and my response was, "I would rather be doing this than anything else, I'm so glad I have a body that can do this!!!".  Yeah, it is hard to run, and I complain about it sometimes and call myself crazy for getting up early all summer so I could do this, but I would be so disappointed if I wasn't able to.  I love being active and getting out there to enjoy life. 

I think that because of my stomach I have found that I am more grateful, because I know how lame it is to not be able to go out at all because I hurt too much.  Friday I had my gallbladder and appendix removed.  They were both inflamed (I'll spare you the pictures), and my appendix had some gross fatty-tissue growing all around it (be glad I'm sparing you the pics), but I have faith that this will fix my problems.  I'm glad though, that it is making me appreciate what I have and that I need to take care of what I have so in 50 years I can still *hopefully* be running this race.  :)