Patience is a virtue...

This week has proven that patience truly is a virtue!!! Not only has the most important person in my life asked me to be the most important person in his life by marrying him... but it looks like I could be on the road to running again...Yipppeeeeee!!!! The above pic was taken on Monday, the 5th November and our 4th yr Anniversary. This is us pre-proposal enjoying the fireworks at Roundhay Park. Tom still has hearing here... about a minute after he asked me I squealed loudly non stop the whole way home I was so overjoyed and excited. I can't wait to be his wife... forever.

Anyone that knows me or that has spoken to me recently will have heard only two things... "No, he hasn't asked me to marry me yet' and 'No, I'm STILL not running'. And here I am sitting writing this with a marriage to sort for next December and four runs under my belt this week with no pain. If you can count 10 mins on Monday & 15mins on Tues that is, as it hardly seemed worth putting my running stuff on for such a short time! On Thurs and Sat I did a whole 30mins and the foot survived, but I still need to run slowly and build very very gradually which I'm fine with as I'm not prepared to irritate it unnecessarily after all of this time out.

I'm also patiently waiting for December to arrive so I can get my teeth into some decent training. I'm well and truly over the whole rest and recovery now. I realise I have to take it easy with my foot but that aside December can't come soon enough. The good thing about the timing of my injury and my rest period has meant that I can concentrate on getting my freelance photography business sorted and we - with Tom's mum and step-dad Ray - are about to begin the process of getting our house de-cluttered and re-decorated...lovely. I can start my training process for the quest to reach Hawaii with a clear heart, mind and house and that is my idea of heaven.

My training this week like last is just a basic and simple turn over of the body. I'm still adhering to the 1hr a day 5 days a week thing and it's slowly starting to kill me. I've done two brilliant technique based pool sessions after last weeks workshop gave me lots to work on and think about. The video analysis we had has been perfect for tweaking my stroke and I'm going to work hard on making the changes. My mini runs I've coupled with turbo sessions, nothing crazy though. Today I was a spectator AGAIN for the start of the Winter Cross Country League. We had a fantastic turn out for our club - Leeds Bradford Tri - and so I watched everyone kill themselves on an off road 4.8 mile (approx) run in the woods in Idle, especially Tom who managed to rip his feet to shreds and looked in absolute agony when I saw him on his second lap :( Next month I'll be able to join in the fun, I'm actually very very excited about feeling complete again.

So, what a week... a proposal of marriage on Bonfire Night - the eve of our 4yr anniversary- and a return to some form of running. What more could a girl want! I'm ready (more ready than you'll ever know) for the training to all start again, there's fire in my belly and I'm planning to eat the Winter months up with hours and hours in the saddle, km's and km's in the pool and miles and miles of running, bring it all on, Hawaii's only a blink away and I'm chasing that road to Kona from December 1st (November the 26th actually - Ed.) 2007.

Watch the roads I'll be out there...

H. x