Marathon Woman

  Well, this blog has a stupid title.  But I couldn't come up with anything better, and the only other option was just my name and that's pathetic.  Plus, how to you eloquently say, "It's a mess of random shit" that would make people want to read it?

   Anyway, I am just an average 33 year old housefrau.  I got no job (other than the kids), no prospects, and no real ambition.  My husband tells me I need a hobby, so here it is.  I am blogging about my adventure into the painful world of long distance running.

   I should begin by saying that I've come a long way in the past 7 years.  Jeez, it's been that long already.  Yes, 7 years ago I had a minor stroke.  Minor in the sense that I am still breathing today, but strong enough to knock me on my behind for about a year and a half.  My doctors don't really know what caused it either.  It could have been that I was one the birth control patch, it could have been that I had a pulled muscle in my neck, it could have been that I smoked, it could have been that I was having such a good damn time that God needed to take me down a few pegs.  Who knows?  I don't really care what caused it, and I don't even like calling myself a stroke survivor.  In that grand scheme of things what happened to me was a minor blip on my radar screen as compared to countless others who have had devastating strokes that life becomes an everyday battle.  Those are the survivors, those are the heroes.  Not me.

So having come back from that I needed to DO SOMETHING.  Not anything grand or spectacular, just something.  Something to keep me busy.  Something to keep me sane.  The easiest thing I could come up with was running.  I started by joinging the local YMCA three years ago.  Three years ago I started by only going one mile.  Holy Hell!  How do people run 25 plus?!?!  Those people are CRAZY!

After three years of huffing and puffing away on a treadmill I am finally ready to go for the gold.  Well, a finisher's medal anyway, and I am pretty sure it's not gold.  It's like tin.  It might be a little crappy thing, but it will mean a lot to me.

Starting today, I am going to hold myself accountable for training for my first half marathon in Septmeber.  That's 13.1 miles.  Miles as in, FAR.  So I will check in here and whine & complain about my various aches and pains.  And maybe, just maybe a triumph or two.  I have a couple of smaller races I plan on running before the Big One. 

So stay tuned to hear my many struggles (even the ones I make up) my failures (there'll be plenty) and see if I made it 13.1 miles.