behindtheax

four more days

The summer when I was twelve, I was playing in this overgrown field with friends and a few of my sisters. If I can remember right we were kicking off our flip flops, seeing how far they would go and then running barefoot through this long grass to retrieve them. As I was running I stepped on what I first thought was a very sharp rock but what turned out to be the bottom half of a beer bottle and it cut deeply into the inside of my foot. I had to get several stitches and for the longest time it wouldn’t heal. It was getting to a point that I was scared to put any weight on that foot because if I pulled at all on that area, simply by taking a step it would open and start bleeding again. Eventually of course it did heal but it left me with a foot with a little portion out of it, right where the arch is. Actually this did me well when the movie "Jaws" came around when, while hanging out in someone’s back porch, we were reliving several of the scenes including the “who had the biggest scar” scene, I was half proud to pull off my sock and show them my small shark (beer bottle) bite.

Anyway, this foot never ever gave me any trouble until now. Dare I say thirty years later and I always been a walker – if I can hoof it I will, only taking transit when it is absolutely necessary. And I have been jogging off and on for years but I guess because I am doing a little bit more running now for some reason it isn’t agreeing with this foot… it’s blistered and hard all around the old scar. I’m going to have to find some way to wrap it on run day so it doesn’t bother me.

I just got back from a great jog minus the bothersome foot. Purple Lilac and crimson leave dogwoods are all a blossom. But as hard as I try I doubt I will be able to run this 10km under an hour. Unless I am actually running more than 10km now? I use mapquest to figure out the kms I run but the route they give me from one destination to the other is not quite the route I take. I run through as much of the residential areas that I can and the mapquest route is pretty much as the crow flies so I wonder if I can add .5km for the zig zagging I do? and also I have traffic lights to contend with and a few hills. The Island that this race is taking place on is pretty flat. Sooooo, maybe? that is my goal anyway – under an hour. Four days to go. I am going to jog five kms on Friday and that is all I am going to do for this run. It is up to the Gods now if they want to grant me extra speed. Greg and I picked up our run packages and they give you a ferry ticket, a little timing chip for the laces of your sneakers and a t-shirt. It's all quite exciting.

posted by mary j. @ 11:59 AM