Can't stop me now...: Aftermath and lessons learned - to keep going forward towards that horizon

“Set patterns, incapable of adaptability, of pliability, only offer a better cage. Truth is outside of all patterns.” Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do

Last week I ran the 10th Anniversary Fargo Marathon and I didn't reach the goal I set out for myself. Yes, I could have prepared better with more precision, but it is what it is and I ran as far and as fast as I can and I got the time circumstances gave me.

Now I can whine and complain about what happened, looking for fault in my training, preparation or any other outside or inside influence. But what's better, at least to me, is to take the time to feel sorry for yourself, then pick your sorry ass up and figure out how to do better.

So I took the following Tuesday and Thursday off to just basically recover and heal my body from all that running. I did a re-assessment on my body and found no real aches or pains so I came out of this race unscathed and my sister Connie, set me up for a re-match at the Twin Cities Marathon this coming October. I went back to City Park Runners store and joined the gang for the Saturday morning LSD. Aggie came early to pick me up in the morning and I, along with my Fargo running mates were greeted warmly with plenty of congratulations on the accomplishment. Osty was out at the cottage and he and his wife did a nice 5k run around the surrounding beach area. Red came by on his bike to ride alongside us runners and Aggie.

Erick gave me some sage advice on marathon preparation. And he gleamed that from reading my last entry on the race...it was because I applied Body Glide on my feet which caused a lot of slippage between my feet and the compression socks which then bunched up in between my toes which caused my feet to cramp which then caused me to slow down and drop off the course to make re-adjustments and then learn to get comfortable running sockless in my shoes...ugh. "Don't try ANYTHING new on race day" is what Erick told me and gave me that 'duh' look that I so deserved.

I didn't Body Glide my feet for the WPS 1/2 marathon...so why the hell now? No excuses as that was just plain idiocy on my part. This quote can pretty much sum up the folly of my ways. Oh to live and learn and dream and keep going again...