I haven't blogged in a long while. My foot has mostly healed. It took over 9 months.It still hurts when I strap it into a ski boot. But I am blogging to write about something very strange and wonderful that has happened to me over time. I began to limit myself to only one hour of exercise every day, and a maximum of only 3-5 miles to walk or run since my foot healed. And suddenly exercising is fun and energizing again. While I understand that I have for a time, trained my body to run, long, hard and fast--I became injured, defeated and depressed when unable to perform. I became bored with races and running in general. I came to understand that at 47 there I had developed serious blood sugar issues and had limited energy that was split meagerly like a remaining roll at the dinner table between Teenage children, a husband, and my job (s). I simply did not have enough energy to do that and also running more than 6-8 miles. I have come to peace just excersizing to feel good. I do 3-5 miles after 30 minutes of targeted strength training, PT and stretching. I feel the best Ive felt in 4 years and I'm finally at peace understanding that my liver will not process enough glycogen for more than 60-90 minutes without it ruining the rest of my day/life. Maybe when my kids are grown and out of the house, , which will literally be 5 minutes from now, I can regain my hours long Saturday running schedule. But for now, I'm reconciled to health and strength. My body did not like so many years in a row of the abuse of long distances and it will have to wait until later. I am a slow learner. I desperately needed running for many years to overcome the grief of my childhood, the death of my father, the strains of marriage and raising children. But somewhere, as my children took up the torch at school, performing well and making me proud I needed running less and less for mental acuity and meditation. I was healing outside of running and running became a burden on my mind and body. The FRB was an essential tool in my marathon training for many years, and Sasha the inspiration to qualifying and running Boston with great success. But I am content for now, finally, after so many in ride and I'll eases, to be at peace with not treating my body like a machine, but a member of my family who needs care and attention. It took breaking my stupid foot to teach me that. I will be back on the trails in summer as always, but for now 3-5 miles and a few ski days a week are filling my heart with joy in a way I haven't felt in many years. When my children leave me, there will be a hole to fill. And for that, there will always be running.
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