If you are bored enough, you can go back and read my past blogs and become familiar with the craziness of my running and racing past.

Overweight girl, never amounted to much overachieves and sets her sights high to conquer her fears of physical and mental challenges, like 100 mile ultra-marathons.

Yep, me.

I recently set my sights high to finish and Ironman. It’s a 6 month training program, and I have about 10 weeks of training left.

I am dedicated to seeing this through; my 100 mile race prep literally took a few years to build to, so I knew mentally I could work through it.

But man, it’s solid. Minimum 2 hours a day of training, with up to 6-7 hours on the weekend days.

I’m not here to sound awesome. I really do it to eat, but that is not my story today. My story today is a revelation I had on my 10 mile run this morning.

I had a 70 mile bike ride yesterday after a 1 mile swim (bad ass right? Come on, give it to me). Anyhow, maybe at mile 50, I had this jacked up pain hitting the tendon at the of my ankle.

I was supposed to come home and then do a 45 minute run after the bike, but I only made it a couple miles and had to stop. It hurt. I iced it, complained a lot to my sweet sweet husband, and went to bed with a ton of ibuprofen in me.

I set out for my run this morning, and from step one, this f’in spot on my foot still ached.

I finished the run but by the time I got home, I was limping.

Damn.

If you do any kind of sports or racing, you know how devastating and injury can be. Your mind jumps to “I can’t take time off, I’ll get behind on my training, and if I’m behind on my training, I won’t be able to complete my race!”

So I started going down that rabbit hole then I remembered something.

My first ultra-marathon was a 50 miler. I trained so hard for it. It took me three tries; it was rough.

This first attempt, I got heat stroke and was hauled off in an ambulance after 47 miles (it was 100 degrees).

The second one they shut down the race because of more heat (I got to mile 32).

And so when my third attempt came around I trained hard, prayed and visualized my ass off. I was determined to finish.

About a month before this latest race I started feeling pain on my Achilles. I knew I wasn’t going to let it stop me, so instead spent hundreds of dollars on massage therapy, ultrasound, magnet and muscle work. Expensive and time consuming, but it was working! I was feeling better! I did a ton of biking vs. running to keep my endurance up, and felt better and better as the race approached.

Until one week, ONE F’ING WEEK before race day, I took a stumble, and tore a small muscle in my thigh.

Yes, yes I did.

But double damn, that wasn’t going to stop me either.

So I went to my sports rehap therapist daily; taped, iced, rolled and prayed.

Race day came, and I took off. Scared, but optimistic.

Man, did I go slow. Downhill was hard on my quads so I walked them. I slowed and stretched and rested when I got sore. I held back to a level that was almost uncomfortably slow, but I knew it was what I needed to do.

Guess what? I finished that race! Sore, but injury free. And ecstatic.The injury held me back, but that same injury, helped me finish.

That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? I don’t know, but I do know I was devastated this injury was going to stop me, but it instead, carried me.

An interesting analogy in life I think. And one I really want to evaluate.

What is slowing you down? What is holding you back? Do you have an injury (or in parallel terms, do you have a mental block) that you think is keeping you from completing that big accomplishment? Getting that big job? I’m not sure what your battle is, but a shift in perspective sure helps when you realize that the thing that causes you the most pain, could sometimes be the thing that elevates you to glory.

Just sayin’.