To be honest I have not felt this excited about training for something since the last time I trained for Lifesaving Worlds. Lifesaving, although most of you are not familiar with the sport, was and still is one of my biggest accomplishments. I have been to 3 world championships now and a handful of other events all over the world from Australia, Japan, Italy, Germany, and most recently Egypt. After each of my world events something significant happened in my life. After my first one, I moved to a new city. After my second one, I tore my right ACL and after my third one I tore my left ACL, MCL and meniscus. So each one although extremely rewarding in one aspect was also very challenging in a physical way for me. Yet for some reason, maybe the travels, the people or just my drive to overcome adversity I decided to keep going after it.
Now I have a new challenge to overcome-26.2 miles. Who would have thought the girl who talked her way out of swimming the 500m for 18 years and the girl who never ran more than a mile at one given time would decide that running 26.2 is the next challenge?! What I see this as is another test. After my second ACL surgery I was ready for something new so I took up Triathlons (sprints of course :) ) but out here in Cali I don't have a pool or a wetsuit and the ocean lets be honest you all know I'm terrified of it lol. Sooo my thinking is hey why not.
So back to the 5mile run. The route we did is my absolute favorite so far, or one of them!... We ran down California Ave. to Ocean Ave and ran along the path that is lined with Palm trees overlooking the Pacific where you can see out to Catalina Island and up to the Malibu Mountains... heaven... 5 miles is a lot of running lets just lay that out on the table right now haha and it is the most rewarding feeling after the run when I realize that I ran 5miles and my knees DONT HURT!!! Everyday I continue on and my body is letting me do this I thank everyone who had such an instrumental role in my athletic career to have help me recover and strengthen after my surgeries to even allow this moment to occur. I have mentioned my past athletic trainers before but again Dougie Fresh, Meg, Will and Craig will forever be my lifesavers but I also want to thank Harrison. I literally do not know what I would do without this man! Getting me through EVERY tough transition I have been through. From moving to DC to all of my surgeries and all of my troubles college athletics gave me I always had him to lean on. So naturally before I even committed to running this 26.2miles the first phone call I made was to him. Without the confidence of him and his belief that yes, I can do this I do not think I would have been able to get over the mental hurdle. So Harrison, thank you so much for being here even when you don't know you are helping me.
Training Day 6 of 2012 LA Marathon: 5 miles Route: California to Ocean to San Vicente to 20th to 9th to Idaho :)
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