After last week's play it by ear long run, Team McManus decided to nail down a route that would result in the exact mileage we needed for today - 9 miles!
Oh gosh - I can't believe we are at 9 miles already on the road to Bermuda Marathon Weekend.
This week's training paid off big dividends during today's run. Having gone farther than we planned last Saturday and digging deep in the cross training, strength training and tempo run, made today's run relatively easy. We picked up the pace and the miles seemed to fly by. There was a lightness and a joy in today's Team McManus training run.
After doing our core work and having a solid breakfast, we headed off to Castle Island where the fog gave an air of mysticism to our run. We had spacious sidewalks along Boston's beautiful Harborwalk passing runners heading in the opposite direction. There was high humidity but the fog and cloud cover with a mild sea breeze made for perfect running conditions. We stopped at every mile to hydrate and then practicing what we will do at the Bermuda Half, fueled at miles 3 and 6. We packed crackers and apples for quick refueling after our run before heading home for lunch.
You can see by the smiles how happy we were with our 9.05 mile run:
Running a threepeat of the Bermuda Half Marathon is a whole lot of big deal for me.
In December of 2006 I was given the diagnosis of Post-Polio Syndrome, a progressive neuromuscular disease by Western Medicine standards. I was told that if I used it I would lose it; referring to the fact that because I had lost so many neuromuscular connections during the initial polio virus that if I used my body, I would use it up and overtax what was left of my neuromuscular system. This is an outdated way to think about the body given what we now know about quantum healing and the body's tremendous capacity to heal when we nourish it with the proper beliefs and an environment that stimulates healing. For more on this I refer you to the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza and Dr. Bernie Siegel.
In December of 2014, as a result of too much racing (9 races in 9 months with 3 PR's) and no cross training or strength training, I had a very serious left knee injury. I was told to hang up my running shoes and prepare for a total knee replacement within a few years. The MRI indicated that there was not enough cartilage to perform arthroscopic surgery. I had bone spurs, degenerative changes from osteoarthritis and reconstructive leg surgery that I had over 20 years ago now. There was fatty infiltration and virtually no gastroc muscle, bone spurs and a fatty lipoma.
I pursued the path of Western Medicine for about a New York Minute and then was blessed to find my way to chiropractic care and my dear friend and healer Ryan J. Means, DC.
He set me right back on my healing path using all of his techniques and tools as a chiropractor, the support, encouragement and guidance as a personal trainer, and the readings of Dr. Joe, and watching the movie, "What the bleep do we know..."
Under his guidance, after he asked me the question, "Why set limits?", I set the goal to run the 2016 Bermuda Half Marathon; a race that had been on my bucket list for years but one that I thought was out of my reach given how difficult it was for me to get traction on my healing journey.
I wasn't planning to run a threepeat in Bermuda and really believed that my body needed more time off in between training for another half marathon. The original plan after Bermuda 2017 was to run a Half Marathon in the Fall or Winter of 2018.
But here I am and here we are as Team McManus!
It takes a lot for me to get out there and train for another half marathon given that I am still a work in progress recovering from the effects of paralytic polio followed by 9 years of unrelenting violence at the hands of family members. But the rewards are great as I defy the diagnosis and create my own path for healing; a road map that will hold me in very good stead in my later years.
So while a half marathon might not seem like a big deal for some, for me it's not a half of anything. It's 13.1 miles and that's a whole big deal for this almost 64 year old woman healing the effects of paralytic polio and trauma.
Go the distance with strength and courage,
Mary
Be sure to visit my website by following this link.
My books are available on Amazon.
Feel the Heal: An Anthology of Poems to Heal Your Life
Coming Home: A Memoir of Healing Hope and Possibility that chronicles the first 7 years of my healing journey:
And my latest and greatest book - Going the Distance: The Power of Endurance (With a Foreword by Jacqueline Hansen):
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