sidewalk scenes and black limousines

I went for a run this morning, a longer run than I've ever done before.  In retrospect, I've come a long way.  I was never a runner.  If we go way back to when I was younger, I've always had some knee, foot, shin trouble.  Don't let anyone tell you that being short doesn't come with it's own special set of problems.  My knees used to hurt all the time when I was little, something about growing pains without the growth.  My ankles click all the time, something about a growth gap that never closed and air slips out.  I have fallen arches, which used to cause my feet to "get tired" really easily.  It's these arches that caused the hip pain in late April, keeping me out of the running game for a few months.

This morning I ran farther than I've ever run before, but still far short of the 13.1 I'm going to have to run in a month.  I was scared this morning, I had trouble getting out the door, I wanted to quit.  But.  I didn't.  Thanks to my Dad I have some new equipment (ohh, ahhh) and no longer have to carry my huge ancient broken mp3 player.  And thanks to the people over at RunTex and the water stations they set-up each weekend, I didn't have to carry any water.  I enjoyed the freedom of running with empty hands and tunes blasting along a Town Lake loop.  I still don't run well.  I start off too fast, and die out too soon.  I started with two 15/1's, but then I had to switch to 10/1's.  I left my right leg* somewhere around mile 5 and I was definitely doing something worse than 8/2's at that point.  By the end there were certainly some 1/4's happening.  There was a lot of 'please, just can you make it one more minute', 'please, can you make it to that bridge' and a lot more 'Oh, f@#%!' when I finally gave up and walked.

But once I got back to the Mopac bridge none of that mattered, because I made it and I was still standing.  For the first time I had a glimmer of hope that I can actually do this.  Which is good, because I paid for it, and I've given up beer in order to train.  And if you know me at all there are two things I hate to see wasted, money and beer.  Particularly at this time of year!!

*For those of you who are paying attention, I did say my right leg, and it had been my left hip that was ailing before.  It seems that all the attention to the left leg has made the right leg feel neglected, and now it's crying out for help.  I have a bit of pain when I run, but sometimes if I can run through it it goes away - or I learn to ignore it better.  I'm fairly certain I know what's causing it, and I've already gotten the appropriate things to try and fix it.