Plantar Huh??

So, here I am two months into my training and fundraising for the Team in Training Houston Marathon, and I'm finally starting a blog. I blog to myself as I run, narrating my agony (or victory, if it's a good day) in my head, and it's making me start to feel a little crazy. And it's bad for my health. I could get hit by a car. Or a man with a bat. Two weekends ago we had our 8 mile run, and when I got back to the park, I realized I had dropped my keys somewhere when I pulled out my refueling chews from my fancy new running pouch (yes, I now resemble a marsupial when I run. Instead of joeys, I carry Blueberry Pomegranate refueling snack Gu, whose texture is very accurately described by the name, much like Nickelodeon's Gak, for those of you who were young in the early 90s, and mp3 players). When my wonderful mentor Kelsey drove me back over the route, not only could I not remember where I pulled out my pouch, which side of the street I was on, sidewalk or not, I didn't even recognize most of the houses we drove past. That lack of awareness surely cannot be safe, and I blame my inner-monologue induced trance for it. Hence, the blog. Now I can tell everyone all about my fun with running after I finish and save my running time for looking out for cars and attackers.

I would like to start out by saying...I love running. Yes, I said it out loud. I know I said I hated running, I know I said I could never do it, try as I might, I KNOW I said that exercise doesn't agree with my body many, many, many times, but I have to admit, I was wrong. Yeah, sometimes it hurts, sometimes I don't feel like it, yeah, I'm REALLY slow (me and the girl WALKING the marathon are usually neck and neck), but generally, I feel pretty good during and after. It's almost like yoga. It gives me time just for me. And my pants fit better. Like, a lot better. Like, oh, that's where my body's been hiding all those years!! That's what muscles look like!!! And, since I'm constantly starving, I just eat pizza all day every day and it doesn't seem to matter!! I'll take a little cleavage chafing and plantar fasciitis anyday for that.

What's plantar fasciitis? you may be asking. Until yesterday, it was one of those runner phrases that everyone tossed around and I pretended to understand. Now it's starting to look like I shouldn't have missed the injury prevention clinic last week. After working a double waiting tables on Thursday, I started to feel like a metal rod was being shoved up through my heel. I chalked it up to being on my feet for 10 hours and continued on my merry way. Since it was feeling not so much better by Saturday night, I started asking my runner friends and they all said it sounded like, you guessed it, plantar fasciitis. So I googled said diagnosis (thank god google is smart enough to figure out what you're asking, since I had no clue how to spell that), and it turns out it's just a little case of the muscles in the arch of your feet (the fascia, go figure) being slowly ripped away from the heel bone. Oh, okay, no biggie. Most common and useful treatment is to stretch and stay off your feet. Yeah, I'm a waitress and training for a marathon - that's gonna happen.

But never fear, my friends. It doesn't hurt very badly, so that probably means it's just inflamed, not torn. And I put ice on it. That fixes everything, right? I definitely don't want to end up unable to run, but I'm reminded of why I'm doing this, why we're all doing this. There are people every single day who get up and deal with life with cancer. And you can bet it sucks a lot more than a little foot pain. I'm sure people in chemo would love to have the chance to have foot pain be their only problem. There are pills that cancer patients have to take that probably hurt worse to swallow than my foot hurts. There are people who have lost loved ones that face a pain everyday that would shame my foot "ouchie." Just last month, we lost an Honored Teammate, Jesus Torres, an active 24 year old that had gone into remission twice since his diagnosis three years ago. He had just had his birthday, was so excited to work with us at Team in Training to help eradicate blood cancers, and was full of optimism and life. I know his family wishes they could think about foot pain instead of the hole that is now in their life. And then there's Andy, a 5-year-old crazy redhead who has been in chemo since he was 2! He's in remission now, and loves to come give us a dose of energy and happiness after we run, but he has already dealt with more pain in his little life than I have ever known. So, does my foot hurt? Yes. Is it going to stop me from raising as much money as I can to fight cancer and help make the treatments less and less painful and more and more effective until finally cancer is no more? Hell, no!!

If you want to join me, post a comment to give me a little encouragement to keep going! Follow me (or subscribe to my blog, whatever it's called, I'm new at all this) for updates and let me know you're sending out positive thoughts! Or click on the link below to go to my page and donate...every teeny little bit helps, and even if you can just afford $1, that is one dollar closer to knocking this thing out and if everyone gave something, it would be huge!!

http://pages.teamintraining.org/txg/houston10/aclack

Thank you all so far who have donated and/or sent words of encouragement...it's what keeps me going when I really don't think I can take one more step. This is for you. It's for all of us.

Autumn