March Came Pretty Fast

What initially felt like months away has come faster than I thought it would. And now I find myself eager, anxious and perplexed at what I signed up to take on.

All was going well in my training world until the end of January. I went down to run the 2009 Walt Disney World Marathon with Heather the second weekend of January and wound up running the race far faster that I thought I could and would be able to do given the volume of running I'd been doing since September. Finishing the race feeling strong and confident I was even more psyched about my desert adventure.

The weekend following the marathon my training group and I set out to run/walk around the island of Manhattan. It was by far one of the coldest days we've had all winter. We covered approximately 35-37 miles in about 11 hours. What an experience! All in all I felt pretty good and learned quite a bit about mental toughness and nutrition. It's really amazing how the body reacts to calories.

The following week my right foot started to feel funny and by the next weekend I was sure that something was seriously wrong with it. Fortunately enough... I didn't have a stress fracture. Just a v.e.r.y. bad case of tendinitis. My doc put me in a walking boot for 14 days and then had be lay off the running for almost 5 weeks.

I started to run again last Thursday and have gotten up to 60 minutes on the treadmill. I've been assured that I will be able to do the race but have obviously had to alter any sort of expectation I may have had of myself. Now it's about survival and crossing the finish line each day.

You can keep tabs on me here while I'm in Morocco and see what I've been up to. We will have email access so I will be emailing Heather and she'll be posting my updates here. I will also be able to receive emails from friends and family daily and you will be able to track my progress. I'll let you know where and how to do that before I depart.