70.3

I registered for Barb's Race, a womens' 70.3 triathlon coming up this July in Sonoma, CA. My 'plan' had been to do a couple Olympic distance tri's this year and move up to the half iron distance next year, but I got a little full of myself on my 37th birthday last week and registered as a 'present' to myself. Right, a present that is going to cause me months of pain and make my family wonder where their wife and mother disappeared to. The upshot, though, is that my blog name will be official, in less than two years start-to-finish.

So I'll attempt to blog about my training, if anyone is interested. The big training news this week was that I completed my first double-digit run, 10 miles. This is notable because I have osteoarthritis in both knees and a meniscus tear from an injury a couple years ago. My doctor told me a year ago that I shouldn't run, but I decided to let my body decide. I started out slow and was diligent about strength training. I said all along that if my knees got worse I'd back off. And though there were some achey days, for the most part my knees held up well, and now, a year later, not only am I able to run (mostly) pain free, my knee function has actually improved (I have a little greater range of motion) and I experience less pain. They still creak and get stiff, but the net effect is positive. I've developed a bit of a 'use it or lose it' philosophy as a result.

So anyway, yes, I ran 10 miles, and I got a little emotional about it. Because if I can run 10 miles, who's to say I can't run 26.2? Then I'd need to change my blog name to Couch to 140.6.