Why Hello. Good to meet you.

Let me introduce myself....

I've been running on and off for about 10 years, basically to stay active & healthy.  My passion for running didn't really start growing until about a year ago.  Some friends & family members of mine were running the Walt Disney World Marathon last January, I tracked their times & progress via the text msging the marathon had set up... I was so excited FOR them while they were running.  I thought to myself... "Hey, I could do that."  It actually sounded fun (running 26.2 miles sounds fun?! some of my family & friends thought I was craaaazy). What an amazing accomplishment that would be!

Well I spoke to a friend about his experience with running marathons, got some tips, researched training plans and finally chose one from runnersworld.com.  I started training and all was going pretty well.  Late August I started not feeling well and wasn't able to run for the entire last week of August...the Dr's couldn't really figure out what was wrong for about a week.  Long story short, after tons of tests, pain meds, multiple Dr's.  They finally figured out I had shingles....Shingles?!? Really?? I'm not 83, what 25 yr old gets shingles?! If you're not familiar with Shingles - here's an explanation (thx to shinglesinfo.com):  Shingles is a disease which can cause a painful rash- it is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox.  If you’ve had chickenpox, the virus can live, but remain inactive, in your body for many years. If it becomes active again — usually later in life — the chickenpox virus can give you Shingles.

Shingles, is without a doubt, the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life.  Each Shingles case can vary in severity, mine was pretty severe.   My rash appeared on the left side of my face, scalp, & partially into my eye.  At one point, I couldn't see of out my eye.  It was constant, throbbing and stabbing pain.  I also experienced Allodynia (pain from a source that would not normally cause pain — such as pain from a slight breeze over the skin or the touch of clothing on the skin).  It took over a month for the actual pain to go away, then it was still sensitive to touch for awhile, then as it started to heal it was extremely itchy.  I still get pangs of pain from time to time, not very severe, some days worse than others.  Shingles CAN come back, but is supposedly rare.  They don't actually know what caused it.  It could be many things; stress, weakened immune system, certain meds, or the virus can just "wake up" when it wants to for no reason at all.... which they're thinking was my case.  I wasn't really under an unusual amount of stress, I wasn't sick prior to the Shingles...etc.  My ONLY guess was that I was training for the Chicago Marathon so my body was being put under a lot of physical stress but...... I don't like to stick to that conclusion.  I won't let Shingles get me down again.

Moral of the story: I obviously couldn't run the marathon, considering I was still healing from Shingles.  Running was out of the question from Day 1.  A slight breeze brought on excruciating pain, so running was certainly not an option.  I was NOT happy about that, all the time & effort I put in didn't get to see an end result.

This post was not meant to be a sob story, I just wanted you to see how I got to where I am today.  I began running again & searching for a nearby half or full marathon.  I'm originally from Northern Illinois, hence the Chicago Marathon, but I now live in Oklahoma.  My husband is in the US Army & is stationed at Ft. Sill.  My searching brought me to the Dallas Rock & Roll Half Marathon....what a perfect transition back into my long term goal of running a marathon!  I've heard good things about the Rock & Roll Half&Marathons.  A friend & I are now officially registered for it.  It's nice to have a training partner (even tho we don't run at the same speed, I'm a little slower).  I didn't have a training partner in the same town last time, so this is a great way to be held accountable.  My previous marathon training brought me to about 13 or 14 miles, so I know I can run a Half.  I'm just excited for the race experience itself!  I can't WAIT! 

You'll get to hear about my experiences along the way, but I'll also try to post things I learn throughout my training, tips I get from other runners & info that I think may be helpful for other new runners.

Thx for reading!
Back soon!