The First Step

I like wet hair and sweatpants.  I like sneakers and ponytails. ~Chris Evans

I’m trying to be grateful.  For the past two weeks I’ve worn these shoes every day.  They are comfortable and stable, easy to slip on and off with no pesky heels or laces.  I can walk now.  It’s slow and there’s a hitch in my step.  The further I go, the more my hips ache and my hamstrings tighten at the unfamiliar gait.  I start physical therapy on Monday, start on the real path to recovery.  I am anxious to begin, anxious that it will be difficult as well, and hopeful, even though I know that hope is not a plan.  Throughout this week, my pain has eased, and I give thanks to modern medicine and the knowledge that I will slowly find my way back to myself in the days and weeks to come.  Yesterday I walked around the block in these shoes.  Soon I will put on my running shoes.  Some people love their Jimmy Choo’s.  I miss my sneakers.

 

Checking in with the team this week, I discovered Rachel Gardiner and Christine Haskins ran the Dick Batchelor 5K down at Universal this weekend.  Here they are before the start! Woo hoo!

A 10 mile trail run from Amanda Dean and a 52 mile ride in 3:06 from the speedy Rose Ray lifted my spirits on a lazy Sunday.  I can’t wait until my Sundays are fuller…

I have been thinking about what to say to you in this last full week of January.  This month is meant to ease you back into the idea of a triathlon in May.  For this month you’ve been able to wrestle with this thought while you acquaint yourself with muscles you haven’t used in a while.  You’ve started thinking about your diet and wondering if maybe you should eat better.  Perhaps you’ve earned a little more sleep and started to adjust your schedule to fit in an extra workout or two.  It is the beginning of the path.  Whether you have begun or not in these last few weeks, this is the path I am now on, and I am asking you to join me. 

In this last full week of January, I am making a commitment to all of you to train to the best of my ability and do everything in my power to complete the Danskin triathlon in May.  I make no promises as to whether I will be speedy or slow, whether I will be able to do the sprint or the super sprint, whether I will make it up the hill on Jalarmy or find myself pushing my bike Spunky up its length.  I do not even know if I will be able to run a single step.  But I commit to you that if there is a way for me to finish this race, I will do it.  This is my only goal.  To be honest, this is always my goal, but I face it today with new circumstances in play, new challenges ahead.  This is my pledge, and I make it based on yesterday’s single block of walking.  I believe in my own strength and the support of all of you in the next few months.  And I believe in all of you as well.  I can walk one block today.  Will you walk a block today and then the rest of the way with me? 

I could really use some company.

PS:  A little Inspiration.  I'm not asking you to win.  I'm only asking you to try.

 

Take the first step in faith.  You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.  ~MLK, Jr.