Missing: Cardiovascular endurance and leg muscles...

It's been a while since my last blog, I know. Let me take a few moments to explain the insanity that has been my life for the past several months.

Over Christmas Break, I became engaged. When I got back to work in January, I suddenly found myself planning an out-of-state wedding, while working a full-time job plus tutoring and babysitting on the side. Things were quite stressful but for January and most of February, I was able to keep up with my running. However, by the end of February, my body and mind were telling me that something was very, very wrong in my life. After a lot of prayer and soul-searching, I made the extremely difficult decision to break off my engagement and end that relationship. I am so very grateful for the decision that I made because it was the right thing for me to do. I was emotionally relieved and expected to bounce right back into running after getting rid of the cause of all of my stress.

My body, on the other hand, had other ideas. I got sick. Really sick. It started with a bad cold. A few weeks later, as the cold was finally getting better, I woke up one day with a super sore throat, swollen glands, and just a general feeling of crappiness. I had mono, and it was brutal. The entire right side of my face was swollen, and my throat hurt so bad that I wished I didn't have to swallow. Every day was painful. After a few weeks, the swelling went down and I was starting to feel a tiny bit better when...BAM, I was hit with bronchitis. Seriously, I felt like my body was attacking me, and I didn't know how to get better. At first, I felt terribly guilty for missing work outs, but then I realized that running was not a priority anymore. I was in survival mode, and just making it through the day without collapsing was difficult at times. Often during the day I would get light-headed and spent much of my teaching time sitting down. I walked around school like a zombie, talking myself through the day hour-by-hour.

Needless to say, it hasn't been my best semester. Weeks passed, and I only felt minimally better. Then, finally, I started to feel like my old self again. I tried walking a few times during April, but just going a few miles would wipe me out for days (thanks to the after-effects of mono), and I just didn't have time to be sitting around in bed, as I was still working and tutoring on the side, putting in 50-60 hours/week. May came, and although I wanted to start running, I just couldn't handle it, physically or mentally. I was afraid to face the truth--that all the months I had spent training for my 1/2 marathon were most likely going to be erased, and I was going to have to start all over again...

So I waited. I blamed my lack of activity on the "end of the year stress" and "still recovering from mono." I told myself that as soon as school was over, I would get back into running. Then, I learned that National Running Day was June 1, so I promised myself that I would start running again on that day. Well, that also happened to be the day that my parents were arriving for a visit, and I was still working, so the hours passed and I didn't get out for a run. I excused myself by saying that my family was visiting, and that as soon as they left, I'd get back into it.

This week, they left on Tuesday. Yesterday I was at a professional development class all day, so again, I put off the exercise. I'd gone walking a few weeks ago, and I've been swimming laps at a friend's pool the past few days, but I hadn't been able to bring myself to try running.

Today, I decided, was THE DAY. The day that I faced my fears and benchmarked myself. I realized that I've been avoiding this day for weeks, because it's now been 3 1/2 months since I last ran. And, if I'm being honest, I just didn't want to see how bad it was--how out of shape I've gotten. I was avoiding running, thinking that somehow, if I put it off a little longer, I'd magically be able to do it well again. Maybe if I put on my running shoes, much like Dorothy's Ruby Slippers, clicked the heels three times and said "there's nothing like running" then I'd suddenly find myself in the middle of a long run with 4 miles easily under my belt.

Ha. No such luck. What I did find this evening, when I finally faced the music and went for a run, was that 3 miles seemed like an eternity, and that that first two minutes of running felt like the longest two minutes of my life. I use the run-walk method, and usually complete my runs by running for 2 minutes and then walking brusquely for 1 minute. I have this neat-o Garmin watch that beeps at me so I know when to walk and when to run. So, I started my run with every intention of running those 2-minute stretches but going slower than I normally do. Yeah, if by slow you mean that I was being passed by snails, that would be about the pace I was going at. And after those first two minutes, I wasn't even able to run the full two-minute intervals. I would run as far as I could, and then walk. About half way through the run, I couldn't run at all anymore. I was feeling faint, and trying hard NOT to pass out, so I walked. When I felt better, I walked faster. When I felt faint, I slowed down. But I was determined to finish those three miles, even if I had to crawl.

While I was running I started thinking about the last time I started an exercise program, a year-and-a-half ago. I kept thinking of how I weighed almost 70 lbs MORE than I do now, and yet, I was motivated to get out there and run. And I thought about how, this past semester, I HAD to put running on the back-burner and focus on healing my body and mind from the fall-out of my very stressful relationship and break-up. And you know, that's OKAY. It's okay that I took a sabbatical from working out, because sometimes, there are things that are FAR MORE IMPORTANT than running. We all have times in our lives when the poop hits the fan and it's all we can do to get out of bed in the morning. I had several months of that. My body literally broke down. And it's going to take a while to get back into the shape that I want to be in. But I've done it once before, so I KNOW that I can do it again.

Instead of focusing on how much I've digressed, I instead choose to focus on how much I have LEARNED about myself in the past several months. I am much, MUCH more appreciative of my general good health, and although it's going to take several weeks to build back my endurance and muscles, I feel so blessed to BE ABLE to build those things back up. I'm grateful that my poor health was temporary, and that I'm not strapped with a debilitating disease that would prevent me from running. I ran/walked 3 miles today. I have recorded my mileage and time on my calendar, and I have ONE goal for Saturday morning--to run/walk three miles in LESS time than it took me today. There's no sense comparing now to my OLD times...that was a different Anela, in a different place in my life, the Anela who hadn't faced the enormous challenges of this year, who hadn't yet OVERCOME those challenges and ended up BACK ON TOP. I wouldn't trade what I've learned for a faster mile time. NEVER! This is the NEW ANELA, and now I have a place to start. It took me 42:04 to go three miles. Saturday, I will do everything in my power to improve that time, even if it's only by one second.

After all, the most important thing isn't where you've been, it's where YOU'RE HEADED. And right now, I am a RUNNER, who is headed back to the sport that I love.