Foot Update & More..

Last week before the 4th of July I was limping around so bad I was in tears. Even my 13 year old son who has no sympathy for me EVER was concerned. I couldn’t put the foot flat on the floor and was walking on my heal and with my toes all squeezed together. To make matters worse I went online and did a Google search on Plantar warts and after seeing articles and posts about people who have had these things for over 10 years that really put me over the edge. So that night I decided to take matters into my own hands literally. Warning gross content ahead: When you are putting the Compound W on your wart is just killing the skin and I slowly started to remove that skin and worked on it for about an hour and the next day it was like a miracle had happened overnight. I could put my foot down flat! I could walk without my toes all mashed together! I was walking more normal than I had in months!!! Since that night I have continued to remove that excess dead skin and treat with Compound W and duct tape and it feels great!! The wart is either dying or dead but is still visible when looking at my foot but as far as pain goes there isn’t any. I can’t even begin to tell you what a relief it is to walk normal again. It was definitely depressing thinking that running could be over with but even more depressing was the damage I was probably doing by walking the way I was to stop the pain.

So on that note I gave running a shot again on Monday. I received my Runner’s World magazine in the mail on Saturday the 5th and there was an article in there about 3 people who were training for a half marathon. One of the people was labeled “The Beginner”. The article was very interesting and they gave this woman a training schedule for 10 weeks to prepare her for the 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles). While I’m not planning on doing a 1/2 I do have a 10k (6.2 miles) to prepare for in 8 weeks in Chicago. The training schedule is realistic for me. The paces were something I could manage. Many times when I see these training schedules in RW they consider a medium pace around 8 minute miles…. well folks I don’t hit an 8 minute mile very often and even less with the bum foot. This schedule has 3 paces Easy (12 to 12:30 min./mile), Medium (10:20 to 11:05 min./mile) and Hard (9:40 to 10 min./mile). Now you’re talking!!! I can handle these paces! So I started Monday with 2 easy miles, Tuesday 3×10 min medium with 2 minute breaks and today was scheduled to be a 30 minute walk. I skipped the walk and rode my bike for 38 minutes instead. So I’m pretty excited about this schedule and plan to do everything in my power to stick to it. There are some days that I will (might) need to tweak, for instance this Saturday calls for 8.5 miles easy, with 2 min breaks every 12 minutes… I’m not sure I want to do that distance yet but on the other hand this may be just the challenge I have needed to get my butt motivated again. I’ll let you know what I end up doing. I’m going to try to post my weekly updates on the progress. I might even get fancy and put a video diary on here. I’m so amped up for the run in Chicago on 8/31. We just found out that the band that is playing after the run is Fall Out Boy. Some of you may know who they are… alternative type music. Not one of my top 10 favorite bands but it will be fun.. The run starts and ends at Solider Field and the concert happens after the run. This race is going to be so much fun, I can’t wait!!!

We are running at Gem Beach this Sunday and I will be posting the results and hopefully pictures afterwards. Thanks for reading!

T.