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It's late, and I should be sleeping.

But the fact is, I have to record this. I’ve just completed two weeks of training, and today was a very special day (more on that below).

It is an inexact science, figuring out the threshold of how much to push the body after four months off with nationals right around the corner. For two weeks, I’ve run entirely based on how I’ve felt. No iron-clad training plan. No goals. No preconceptions about what might be too little (or even too much) to do on my foot. Just me and Dr. Ball and Coach Row, doing the best we can with what my body will allow day to day.

Turns out this body has allowed two weeks of 6 day training, and mileage totals of 45 and 54.

I sit here with mixed emotions. I’m thrilled as can be, of course, and I’d like to say I am filled only with gratitude, now that I’m able to do what I love most, but a few other emotions swell and subside within me:

• Determination to get out and kick my own ass for the next 8 weeks to give myself a chance to make the World team.
• melancholy because I know it is a far reach to turn this season around, and I just might not be able to pull it off.
• excitement because no matter what the future holds, I get to run a hard workout in the morning because I’m healthy enough to do it
• scared because my foot still isn’t perfect but there is no more time to waste.

But all of that is just stuff. I know that now. It will continue to flow through me and I will continue to acknowledge it and let it pass. The only stuff worth hanging on to is the good feelings, and finally I am getting to feel those again.

So where am I now?

My foot sits in an ice bucket but my mind is elsewhere. After two weeks of awkward limb-flailing and lung spasms, a miracle happened. Four short hours ago, I was running free. My body floated across the grass path as twilight set in over the Phoenix greenway. As I passed behind two fishermen, I suddenly noticed that my feet hardly made a sound, and my breath was nearly inaudible. My body was moving like music, with the grass as my percussion. A child peaked over his fence to watch me fly past, and from his expression I knew that I looked different somehow through his eyes.

________________________________________

Here is a interview done with Flotrack where I talk about what I’ve been going through, and share some perspective and lessons learned. Please share your thoughts.

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There is 1 comment on this post. Join the discussion!

anngaff says:

Ah, L-Flo. I have the chills, but that is customary when reading your blog, especially when you write about something like this. The "stuff" (I'm referring to your sentence, "All of this is just stuff") is why your story is so inspiring. If you just had it easy and won races year after year (like college, right?!) OR if you just finally gave up after the stuff got to be too much, we would all be bored. Now, it doesn't really matter if we're bored or not, that's not my point. My point is, you're inspiring because of your journey and the way you simultaneously handle it better than any of us could - like Superwoman - and still connect with all of us by exposing how much it pains you to go through it all. Just want to let you know that we all understand the pain on some level at least, and it's cathartic to read someone's true feelings and true conclusions in the process of it as opposed to having them just go silent. I know that isn't easy for you to do, but it's very meaningful and I think when you look back, you'll be so glad you wrote, and hopefully will turn it into a book.

Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 1:06am EDT

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