Most blog posts these days are more informative. I love to share information, but sometimes I like to sneak in a little life update as well. I share most things on Instagram, but I don’t want to forget about my little ol’ blog over here!

I wouldn’t say “a lot” has gone on lately, but I haven’t shared much on here in a while so I figured it was time for a little life update and happenings post!

Hilton Head

In 2014 I met Meridith at the Kiawah Island Marathon. We ran the last half of the race together, chatted the entire time, and have spoken almost every day since. I’m so blessed by her friendship! Since we last met, we both have had a child and life is just really different than it once was (in so many AMAZING ways)!

We attempted to plan a meet up in Hilton Head back in September of last year. Unfortunately, a hurricane was on its way and they ended up having to evacuate. Finally after much planning we found a weekend that worked for us all!

I can’t begin to say how excited I was to see Meridith again! It’s amazing how much I feel like I know her and we’ve really on seen each other in person ONCE! We all drove down last Thursday and spent the weekend – running (of course), exploring the island, and seeing our sweet kiddos play together!

My leg (which I’ll get more into in a little bit) had been bothering me leading up to Hilton Head thankfully started feeling better so that I could run! I am so thankful for that because we had some great runs just chatting about life! I don’t normally get to run with anyone around here and I can’t believe how quickly the miles passed!

It’s hard to believe that 4 years ago we actually talked about having babies while we were running the marathon and now here we were running with our toddlers in the stroller! We’ve both been blessed in so many ways and it was such a fun weekend reconnecting in person!

Running

As I mentioned earlier about 2 weeks ago I started to have some quad/hip/knee pain. It was easy to run through for a while with stretching and rolling but it seemed to get worse after about a week. I decided to play it safe (because I knew we had our Hilton Head trip coming up and because I don’t want it to get worse) to take 10 full days off running. It was a HARD 10 days to stay committed to know running. I did walk and did a good amount of strength and hip work. I still believe my leg problem stems from my hip but I can’t fully prove it.

I started back running the week before Hilton Head very slowly. My quad felt better and I was able to run 3-5 miles with very little pain. It would bother me for the first 5 minutes and then warm up as I kept going. It was confusing but I decided to just go with it.

I was able to run in Hilton Head (I honestly think the warm weather really helped me), but as I’ve gotten back my leg has been frustrating me again. The pain is not where it once was but it definitely causes me to run with more caution and for now until it’s better I am not comfortable doing any sort of workout on it yet. There are days where I feel extremely frustrated because I was making a lot of really positive strides in my running until this began.

I’m still hopeful and continuing to rehab and “nurse” my leg back to health. I have a feeling this isn’t going to be a quick process, but when things like this arise I always try to focus on my goal of running for a lifetime, instead of just focusing on one particular race or fitness setbacks.

I’m still adding strength into my routine 3-4 times a week but focusing more on glute activation, hip strength, and core. I don’t do too much lower body yet until I feel a little better about knowing with is going on with my leg.

Racing

I mentioned this a little bit in a previous post but during 2018 I am approaching my racing a little bit differently. So far this year I’ve had 2 races: PTI Run on the Runway 10k and the Rock N Roll Raleigh Half Marathon.  I had great races at both of them and was really pumped to continue on in my training post race. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above my leg has had other plans and has changed my training a little bit but thats okay – I’m still hopeful I’ll come back and after 2 races it is time my body had a bit of a break anyway.

These two races did teach me a lot, even though I didn’t do any real race specific training leading up. It taught me that my mental strength is still definitely there after it took a hit during the Kiawah Marathon in December and it also taught me that I really can thrive off not having this big goal race looming over my head all the time.

Wes and I talked and decided that this might be a great way to approach racing in 2018. I have goals and we still keep those in focus but without a set big race looming over somehow I find running a lot more freeing. I’m excited to see what I can do for the remainder of the year and even more excited to use this new mindset and plan to help get me there!