My Leap of Faith

For the last six years, I have walked or run the Ukrops Monument Avenue 10K. Before I had my surgery, I felt that streak would have to come to an end this year.

Yesterday, exactly one month after the surgery to remove the neuroma and its associated nerve from my left foot, I made a leap of faith and signed up for the 10K. Probably an even bigger leap of faith was signing up for a time slot to finish in 1:15 or less, meaning I am going to have to run a good portion of it. I have not run in a good long while, and have not even tried it since the surgery.

One month in, my foot still has some pain, and considerable stiffness and numbness. I think that will fade as time goes on, although I wonder if the numbness will always be there. After all, I am missing one of the nerves that branched off to my toes. Sometimes, I feel like I have a big “donut hole” in my forefoot. Other times, it feels kind of like I am stepping on something. I think in time, my brain will compensate and learn to ignore it. It will just become the new normal.

So, now I know I must try running soon. There are five weeks to go until the race. I am going to start walking three miles at a time this week, or perhaps even four. If that is feeling okay, I will start mixing in run intervals, even if I only start with a 30 second interval. If that is going well, I’ll up it by 30 seconds every week.

I will be wearing my sister’s picture for this race, and also a photo of my good, late friend Judy. I still can’t believe Judy is gone, and I cannot believe that my sister’s breast cancer just will not respond to anything so far. So, all I can do right now is try my best to honor them. That is far more important to me than whatever time I can make in this race. I just want to finish, prove I can do it, and honor my sister and friend. Oh, and you know that I will wearing my purple Team in Training shirt – bank on that!

Even though TNT has not yet started for me, I will use this event as a springboard into the new season, which starts up in late May, I think.