Well, it was not quite a thousand miles, BUT I am very proud to say that I completed my first official half marathon race on the weekend!!!

It was a cool blistery start Sunday morning but running along the Toronto waterfront was an amazing experience. It was fantastic to see so many people participating (22,000) and many more lining the course to cheer people along the journey. Just when your thoughts began to focus on something that was beginning to hurt, or you contemplated wanting to stop, somebody along the route would call out your name and cheer you onward. What great spirit from a great town!

My goal for this race was simply to cross the line. After months of running, a couple of minor injuries and a few lapses in training, I made it! What a great feeling it was! Surreal, really. Four months ago, even though I signed myself up for the half marathon training group (the only group available on a Tuesday night!!!), I really had no intention in competing in the goal race. Early on I struggled to complete the 7 and 8km runs and couldn’t fathom tripling the distance. Why did people love this so much???? I found it hard to understand. Each week though I went back and just kept putting one foot in front of the other. Soon 7kms became 12km, and then 20kms. I even remember hearing myself a few weeks ago utter,” we are only doing a short 12km run today”. Again, surreal. Much thanks goes out to all of my new running buddies that supported me along the way…one step at a time.

There have been many lessons learned over the past few months. One thing that has been reinforced is just how utterly amazing the human body is. It is an incredible machine that is capable of accomplishing so much, usually much more (or maybe sometimes less!) than our minds want to believe.

Sharing information is something that I love to do with my patients and I have been thinking about writing for some time now…..so this is where it begins…with the very first step!

Please stay tuned and check back for new posts and updates. The first few will likely be running related as the long Sunday training runs over the past few months gave me great opportunity to observe the gait, mechanics and injuries of a large group of runners week after week.

If there are any health related topics you are interested in or would like covered, please feel free to email us at info@oakparkwellness.ca

Until the next time,

Dr. Andrea