Catching Up

Two and a half weeks have passed since my last post, so I have a lot of catching up to do.

Briefly, I’ll tell you about my new shoes. At the beginning of the year, I went to Gary Gribble's in Kansas City to purchase my first official pair of running shoes. They seemed great at first, but after three miles gave me a feeling of intense pressure on the toes of my right foot. The pain became so bad during one of my long runs that I had to stop after 8 miles and walk home barefoot.

So I went back to Mr. Gribble's about three weeks ago to figure out what was wrong, and it turns out that the shoes were a half-size too small. And also too narrow. The man helping me said that my foot doesn’t begin to taper where most peoples’ do, so he put me in a 9 ½ wide. Now my feet have tons of room to expand and my runs are pain-free – well, for the most part.

And now, onto new teammates! Two weeks ago, I received a phone call from my mentor, Meg Sytnick, wanting to set up a meeting with my fellow TNT teammates. At that point, I had no idea that Meg was my mentor or that I had specific teammates besides everyone in the Kansas Chapter, so I went to our meeting not sure what to expect. And I met three wonderful women! But I didn’t learn how great they were until our team run the following Saturday.

I showed up to the team run planning to do 12 miles, but bumped it up to 13 after learning that the majority of the people in my running group were shooting for the baker’s dozen. And it was TOUGH. Let me set the stage by admitting that I hadn’t completed a long run in three weeks due to inclement weather, a visit from Tom, and general laziness, so my legs were in for a shock. And also, the furthest I had gone in my training was 8 miles, so adding 5 on to that in one fell swoop was quite a shock to my system.

The first 10 miles went surprisingly well, but then I really started to struggle during the last three. Mutiny was running through my mind once we hit 12, but Hannah, Michele, Yvette and a few other TNT members kept me going by slowing their pace so that I wouldn’t have to finish the mileage alone. I really didn’t think I could do it, but the last half-mile was a breeze with their encouragement. I almost felt like crying – something I hardly do unless I’m watching a Pixar film – after finishing because I had exceeded my own expectations and reached a HUGE milestone in my training.

And I know I couldn’t have done it without my teammates’ support. I’ve now pledged to make it to every team run from here on out so that I don’t miss any more opportunities to get to know these fantastic ladies. Thanks again, girls!