Left foot, right foot, feet, feet, feet

Taking a quick hiatus from the cruise reporting, I thought I'd share something non-vacation related.

As I was walking this morning I had this particular Dr. Suess book title running through my head. People who know me well know that I am no Dr. Suess fan. Not in the least. I've never cared for the nonsensical rhyming type books. They just make no sense to me. I understand they are great for teaching children because of the rhyming and lilting tone of voice used to read them, and the repetition is good to help little ones start to read. But I don't like 'em.

Because of my aversion to Dr. Suess books it is beyond understanding how we ended up buying the Left foot, Right foot book before Morgan was born. I'm sure it was not my idea so it must've been James who put it in our shopping cart, probably despite my protests. I do recall we used to read the book to my expanding belly while waiting on Morgan to arrive. And no matter how I try, the crazy rhymes just won't escape my head.

Which is what was going through my brain today as I plodded along on a 2 mile walk at the track this morning. I had just finished up an hour and a half of teaching aerobics this morning and wanted to hit the track for some marathon training. I've been away from the training for the past two weeks as I'd started experiencing hip pain and didn't want to exaserbate the injury by pushing through the pain. But today things were feeling well enough to begin with that I decided to give it another go.

And when the pain started to come back in a less sharp/more nagging type of way, I heard Dr. Suess inside my head, chanting "Left foot, right foot, feet, feet, feet." I tried to hush him up but he kept chanting despite my mp3 trying to drown him out with some great 80's tunes. So I just went with the Suess non-sense and told myself that that was exactly how I was going to accumulate the mileage I need to complete this half-marathon I've registered for.

Despite all the roadblocks I've had along the way (and there have been many!) I'm still trying to follow through with the promise I made to myself back on January 1st of this year. And I remind myself of some powerful words that never fail to inspire me~~The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are there to keep "the others" out. The brick walls are there to test how badly we want something.

I have run into so many brick walls over the last few months with my feet issues (plantar fascitis), a knee problem, and then the most recent hip problem. I've considered that these are all signs from God that I'm not meant to be in this marathon. And then I reconsider that maybe these are all brick walls God is placing before me to see how badly I want to keep the promise I made to myself, how badly I want to prove to myself that I can accomplish this, how badly I want to drown out the high-school teasing that still echoes in my head.

I pushed through the brick walls today and want to keep pushing ahead, one foot at a time. The left foot, and then the right foot. Feet, feet, feet.