I admitted to my husband and best cheerleader this morning that I ma having a crisis. I am so fixated on running this half marathon at the beginning of May that I fear I may be causing myself physical and emotional harm. The physical harm is coming in pushing myself too hard every time I run. My hip starts to feel good and then I push myself too hard. Every time I get the chance to exercise, I’m running. But the problem is I’m now starting to have one step forward, two steps back. I overdid it last weekend on a  5 mile run and was in a lot of pain for a few days following. Some really good PT this past week got me to feeling really good yesterday so I wanted to do 4 miles (my PT told me not to do more than that) and started having pain at 2 miles, so I finished off with about 2.25 miles yesterday, thinking I would be okay. Well, I feel just as lousy today as I did last Sunday after my 5 miles. I am pushing myself too much and too hard and all I’m doing is hindering my healing. And I’m doing all this pushing because of this damned half marathon I’ve been wanting to do. I’ve got a million good reasons for wanting to do this particular race, but if I keep pushing myself the way I am, I’m never going to do it. So I’m done pushing myself. I’m going to run and ride the bike and walk on the treadmill and use the elliptical instead of run, and run, and run, and run. I’m going to keep using the exercises I learned in PT instead of only run, and run, and run, and run.

But that decision is scary, because I fear DESPERATELY losing progress I’ve made so far. What if I lose my taste for running? What if lose what fitness I’ve built up so far? If that happens AND I stop for a donut one day, I’m terrified that I will immediately fall back to my “fat” eating habits and boom, the 40 pounds I’ve lost so far will be back on in a flash. Because this has happened to me before. I feel like I need a goal to focus on to keep me motivated.

But as my husband reminded me this morning, the half in May and the half in September (the two I’ve seriously contemplated running) aren’t the only half marathons in the world. So while I don’t have to rule those races out, I certainly don’t have to do either one of them, either. There are plenty of races to be had.

So, fixation gone. Now, just focus on keeping healthy and active within reason, and as my hip improves, I can start to think about a race somewhere at some time. No more blinders on about half marathons in May.

I hope.