16km today.

So I found a new path today. I left my house and headed over to McKenzie Lake and then down into fishcreek park and walked the trails along the bow river. What a beautiful morning for sure. It made me think that walking in Greece might not be so bad cause I will be so occupied checking out the surroundings I won't even have realized I just walked 42k ...hahahaha !!!
I was alittle disappointed that the route was only 16km but it was good. My hip is pretty sore so I will be off to see the chiropractor again tomorrow. I was there a couple of times last week, as well to see the sacrial cranial therapist. So hopefully a couple of visits this week will make it feel good again.
I wrapped up my feet in tape this morning to see if it would help with the burning and prevent blisters on the bottoms of my feet. All was good so as long as I don't forget my tape I should be good. I can't believe the race is 4 weeks today and I leave for Athens in 3 weeks and 3 days.
Complete craziness. Since our training isn't supposed to increase the distance we are walking/running now I guess I go into the marathon as 21k being the maximum I have a walked. I plan to do 10k 3 days this week and then do my 16k route on Sunday again.
I have to say the adrenal is already starting to kick in so I can't imagine what it's going to be like once I get over there. I just really wish I wasn't having hip issues this close to leaving.
But as I said before, it is what it is and I will go and do the best that I can. :-)
Thanks again everyone for the support and keeping up with blog (even when I'm not so good at keeping up with it...lol)

Have a great week everyone !!

only 4 weeks !! :-s

Oh my goodness ... only 4 weeks to go !!!! Being sick for the past 3 weeks has taken toll on my training. I've only been able to do light workouts and no long walks. Today wasn't the longest I've done in 3 weeks and that was 10km. It turns out I've been fighting a chest and sinus infection for 3 weeks so no wonder I've felt so horrible. I was glad I could do 10k today but I really was hoping for more. Now that I am on antibiotics I'm hoping this week of training will be
better.
Thankfully my chiropractor lives across the street so I got to have a house call for my hip today after my 10k, cause along with everything else I am dealing with, that has been giving me grief too. I'm starting to think my body is trying to tell me something ... something like "what are you thinking doing 42k..lol"

Onwards we go for the next 4 weeks!!! Ughhh I really feel sick to my stomach thinking about it only being that far away ..lol !!

Let the countdown begin !!! :-)

tick tock ....

And the clock is ticking... I can't believe it's only 6 weeks to go. I have to say I am freaking out a bit. I've just been hit with a nasty cold which has once again slowed me down a bit. Still not doing bootcamp, just focusing on some core exercises and my walking, walking and more walking.
I was thinking that I probably need to go and buy a new pair shoes to alternate with the ones I have now so they are ready to carry me across the finish line ..lol (I really wish someone was going to be there to carry me across ... lol)
We got some bad news that our trainer that is working with us right now isn't going to be going to Greece with us, so that's kind of a bummer. It would have been nice to have someone there that's done this journey with us and knows our strengths and weaknesses. I really hope we get to meet the trainer that's going to be there before we go.

Well we will see how my cold is on Sunday that will determine how far my long walk will be. I forsure think I can do at 10k even feeling like crap .. :-S I will let you know how that goes.

Have a great weekend everyone and once again your support is awesome !!!!

No Bootcamp !!!

Well it appears that I won't be incorporating bootcamp into my training. The constant impact on my foot is too much. We are going to come up with a plan for core training that doesn't involve my feet ..lol
I can't believe it's only 2 months away .. yikes !!! We will see how my next 6 weeks go and then decide if I will be able to finish the marathon walking it only or if I will have to give in to the 10k . My heart is still set on the Marathon so I'm relying on my positivity to pull it all together as planned.
Some encouraging words from a friend today in an email she sent :
So shitty about your foot :( you have worked so hard towards this. Regardless, you have done fantastic and completely transformed yourself, so remember that there still has been some huge payoffs! Every little set back you have is just "the old you" trying to win you back and take you down. Don't let it win.

Thanks ... it meant alot !!!Thanks to everyone for your continued support !!!

First 1/2 marathon

Wow ... I can't believe I just did my first 1/2 marathon walk. My cousin registered and did the walk with me. We started at 6:30 am this morning and finished in 3 hours 27 minutes. We crossed the finish line together with the exact same times placing us 1st out of 127 women , 1st in our age category 30-39 and 2nd overall in the event !!!! I am so excited with the accomplishment, it is a huge milestone for me.
Although I am happy with what I did today, I am having reservations about the full marathon in 2 months. I'm glad that I decided to do the 21km because it's definietly put a few things into perspective. I will continue to train for the 42km focusing on walking it. I will let the Dr and the trainer decide when the time comes if I do the 42k or 10k. My heart is set on the 42k but I have to listen to my body. So far after the 21k today I don't feel too bad. A couple of big blisters on the bottoms of my feet and alittle bit of pain from the injury but not too bad. I will see how things play out over the next couple of days and evaluate. I'm hoping these horrible blisters won't keep me down for too long, I was just getting back into a training groove after my injury.


The support from everyone today was awesome and I am so thankful for everyone that continues to support me through email, facebook and running these races with me.

Cheers to a successful day !!!!

Re-evaluation !!!

So I've had to do some re-evaluating of what this upcoming marathon is going to look like for me. Up until June when I suffered the injury I was focused on doing a run/walk to complete the marathon and so I was focused to try and complete it in a resonable time. But since the injury and coming to the realization that body is not meant for running I have decided to refocus my energy into walking the complete course. I needed to take a step back and remember why I started this whole journey in the first place and it wasn't to become some super athlete running a marathon. I was doing it because I suffer from arthritis and I wanted to be an inspiration to other people, raise money for an amazing cause and reach some personal physical goals. I feel like I got so wrapped up in the training and the athletic part of the journey I forgot about the rest. I remember saying at the begining of this journey that if it took me 8 hours to finish the marathon so be it but somewhere along the line I started to focus on time and my body has since reminded me that I need to re-evaluate. I have spent the last month revamping my training so that it involves walking only. All my hill training , long and short training are all involve walking and I am more consistent now. I have determined that I walk pretty darn fast, almost as fast as my slow run and my body is much happier. I don't think my foot is going to be completely happy until all the training and the marathon is done but hopefully with the orthodics, splinting and lots of ice it will hold out for a couple more months. So it might take me alittle longer to finish my upcoming races but I think that focusing my training on walking them only, I will have a better chance at actually being able to finish them.
It's been kinda cool doing my training while on vacation, new places to walk and new things to see. Definietly gets rid of the boredom factor..lol (sorry about the slowing blogging, we don't always have internet access so I will update when I can.)
Something has to be said for power walking on the transcanada highway with cars whizzing by and watching for things like bears in the thick bush on the other side..lol

I'm back in a better space now with the training after a bit of discouragement with the injury and although I still have pain, it's not quite as bad as when I'm trying to run.
Less than 2 weeks until the half marathon I will be doing in Edmonton, that will be a test as to where I am and what things will look like for Oct.

Stay tuned and thanks again for all your support. :-)

still struggling and not happy ! :-(

So frustration has consumed my every thought about what is going to happen with this event. My injury to my foot is in a very slow recovery mode. The cast is gone and the orthodics and foot splint are in place but I am frustrated with the amount I can (or can't do) however you wanna look at it. I celebrate the fact that my fundraising goal has been met thanks to all my great supporters and I could then focus on the training more ... then "wham"
I'm hit with an injury. With less than 4 months to train and I am frustrated beyond believe. I started this journey for so many reasons and set so many goals for myself and I'm afraid of failing. Some will call it a "type A" personality but I so want to be able to complete this marathon and not have to live with an injury afterwards. If don't stay focused on training for the marathon I won't be able to reach my goals. (which are already getting further and further away from being attainable). I have people telling me to focus on doing the 10k rather the full marathon, but my heart just wouldn't be in the same away. I'm sorry that this entry to my blog is turning out to be a frustration vent, but right now this is what it is and it's a huge challenge for me right now. This is the reason I haven't been able to blog, because I didn't want to have such negativity come through as I struggled but it was time to let you know what was going on. I have never wanted something so bad and felt like it was slipping away. I guess so much of this is coming from the fact that I tried to do a run tonight and it didn't go well at all. :-( I was so excited because I thought the new runners, the orthodics and splint would put me back on track, but it didn't in fact it did just the opposite.

We just received our online training schedules from the running room and that added yet more discouragement when I typed in Marathon in Oct. I even put that I was going to walk the entire thing in 6.5 hours and the results were not encouraging.
So many things going through my head, do I do the marathon and walk as much as I can and not worry about finishing or do I focus and do the 10k and be able to finish and feel successful? Do opt into another event a couple months down the road after I'm able to fully recover from the injury. I hate to feel defeat and I know not participating in the marathon would make me feel like that. The thought of not going to Athens with the group that I've been training with would be sad, we've all become such good friends and shared our stories.

Well these are my thoughts from the last couple of weeks and I truly hope that I can find the answers I need soon. Thanks for listening and I will keep you posted. :-) Thank you to everyone for your continued support !!!