I'm back!

This is probably the sweetest race report I've ever written.

Act 1 - some crazy numbers

13 … number of months of non-stop injuries
6 … number of different set of injuries
2 … number of injuries that were done while going down the stairs
1 ... number of injuries caused by a turtle
8 … number of bones I bruised, cracked or broke
4 … number of times my hip got misaligned
8 … number of people I've been to in my medical team to try to heal me
4000 … number of mg of Tylenol I took per day after my tailbone injury (note: this is the absolute maximum dose of acetaminophen you should ever take in one day)
300 … approximate number of 200mg Ibuprofen pills I took in the last 13 months
1 ... number of ambulance rides (should have been 2, really)
25 … approximate number of hours I spent cheering at races
15 … number of pounds gained in the last 13 months
2 … number of people who made a HUGE difference in how I approached my injuries last year, from a mental point of view

Act 2 - Signing up for the 5K at NCM

It took me a lot of time to make a decision about whether or not to participate in the NCM 5K race. I have always loved that weekend and it saddened me to miss it again this year. At some point, I thought about walking it, remembering the 10-12 weeks when I wasn't able to walk much in the past year because of my injuries. I remembered that during those weeks, all I wanted was to be able to walk around freely and without pain again. One day, JF offered to walk the 5K with me. A few days later, I signed us up both, thinking it would be great to be out walking the race with my sweet other half, who picked up the slack when I couldn't move around much.

Act 3 - What I thought would happen

I thought we'd walk most of it, but I wanted to try to run a little. I have only been on 3 training runs since January, each totalling less than 3K, so I knew I wasn't trained at all. Moreover, my running in the past 12 months has been scarce: I didn't run more than 60K!!

I was hoping for a quick and enjoyable walk. 50 minutes was my dream goal for this walk.

Act 4 - What really happened

I ran/walked the whole thing! We started off slowly and I ran when I wanted to and walked when I wanted to. After the first kilometer, I had no pain at all, so JF gave me a goal: to run until that tree up ahead. I did it! So we started setting goals and I didn't wimp out… even when I saw the RM cheering squad under the bridge when I had just completed a very tough running interval. I sucked it up and started running again with a big smile. After 4K, I was starting to really feel the lack of training: my legs were very heavy and shaky. JF asked if I could run the last 200m and we planned around it. As we neared the finish line, I knew I had left everything out on the course and I was very happy with that. We held hands while crossing the finish line and I yelled "I'm back 'sti" when I crossed the line. The 's'ti' is a French swear word and I used it to release a lot of the anger I had accumumulated in the past year.

Special thanks to JF who has been so supportive in the past 13 months. I'm not sure I would have handled everything so well if it weren't for him. I'm also not sure I would have given everything I had out on the course if he hadn't been there with me. Thank you JF. I love you.

I'm so happy! All I can think of right now is WHAT'S NEXT?