Over the last few weeks, multiple times I have opened up my dashboard to actually write something here. Sometimes I’ll get a title, some days a couple sentences, but more often than not (obviously) I close out the draft and delete it.

Some days I feel like I have run out of words.

Yesterday I went running. Seven and a half miles, officially the longest distance I’ve put myself through since Ragnar. I found a few words when I was done.

OH HOLY FUCKING SHIT BALLS THAT FUCKING HURTS OW.

However, those words actually made me feel better.

You see, the ow comes from a sore hip. Not my lungs, not my muscles. That means big things to me.

It means I’m getting stronger.

I’d imagine that you could tell with the lack of any sort of blogging (besides the vomitous sunshine and rainbows about GCB) that this round of training has been anything but ideal. Throughout the entirety of August as well as a big chunk of September, I hated it. Hated. The weather was abysmal, my muscles weren’t remembering what they were trained to do fast enough, I wasn’t improving, I was slow, I was miserable. My workout schedule from those months is rather depressing, given how many days I would highlight the content and hit “delete.” I honestly did not fucking care. Didn’t care about my desired PR or about the fact that my next two half marathons are both less than (at this point) 40 days away. I didn’t care that I was severely handicapping myself by NOT caring. It got to the point that GCB was incredibly worried about me. He’d never seen me struggle so badly with something I loved so much.

And then last week happened. Two weekends ago the weather changed. It went from blisteringly hot and suffocatingly humid to sunny, breezy, 70F, and beautiful. It became running weather.

I’ll admit it. I was terrified to go running. What if my runs were STILL just as bad as they had been? Would I be as slow or as incompetent? Would my mental blocks stand firm? Would the burnout from before Ragnar carry into now?

It didn’t. Oh my goodness, it didn’t. Last week’s six miles were THE best miles I have run since the second leg of Ragnar (you know, the one at 330 in the morning). I was exhilarated. Ecstatic. ALIVE. Every single step, every breath that I took reminded me of just how much I love doing this, how much this is a part of WHO I AM.

It gave me hope. It made me feel SEXY, even through the sweat and running eyeliner and bug carcasses that were stuck my skin (gnats = plankton, as far as I’m concerned).

I went straight to GCB’s house afterwards, and I know I was grinning like a maniac for a few hours after. It was the best runner’s high I’d had in a while.

Which of course leads me to last night.

I texted GCB about being sore, but then I got home, walked up my stairs, and realized it was just my hip. My hip that has more to do with my joint and the fact that I could probably use new running shoes rather than my muscles not being strong.

I am stronger than I have been in a while. My muscles are REMEMBERING what they were made to do, REMEMBERING how good this feels. I feel like I have reclaimed my motivation, my desire to get that PR, to FINISH THAT FUCKING MARATHON.

Progress.

I have missed this.