How insane am I?

I had a total hip replacement in November 2008, so just over 2 years ago. Long story short, after going through a lot of pain and a lot of tests and even more painful treatments, my ortho finally agreed to just replace the blasted thing. As it turned out, it never fully developed and so it wasn’t formed right, blah blah blah. Anyway, it was one of the best things that I ever did in my life. The rehabilitation sucked, but I feel so much better now.

Since I had it replaced, I’ve been able to get out and walk more. I don’t run. Ever. My house would have to be burning down with my kids inside in order to get me to go past a fast walk. I don’t run for several reasons. The first is that I am not graceful. I am a clutz. I prefer to remain upright and to not hurtle face-first onto a sidewalk at full speed. Call me crazy, but that’s how I am. I can fall quite well from a walk, thankyouverymuch, and I can survive those with minimal pain. Another reason that I don’t run is because I’m horrendously out of shape (yes, I know, “round” is a shape) and I just don’t have the stamina. Could that excuse be fixed with a decent workout regimen? Probably. Do I have the initiative right now? Um, not so much. Another reason that I don’t run is because (sorry guys, but I’m giving you a TMI warning right now) my boobs get in the way. Yep, I’m one of THOSE women. I’d like to just lop them off and get them out of the way now that they’ve served their purpose in life, but you know, surgery is expensive, especially when it’s elective.

Anyway, why do I bring all of this up? For about the last year and a half, I’ve tossed around the idea of WALKING a half-marathon. Yep, 13.1 miles. I’ve walked a 5K with an ok time – could have been much faster had I not been pushing a stroller and stuck in between blobs of women who were there just to simply chat as they sauntered along the route. I’ve walked farther than that just running errands around town, or walking for *gasp* exercise. I think that the farthest that I’ve gone in the near recent past was about 6 miles, and that was pushing a stroller too. Then today, a friend of mine posted a link on my facebook wall for a half-marathon in Wichita on May 1. Hmmmmm…..in 103 days. Could it be done?

Of course, tossing it out here for the world to see does make me more accountable to stick with it and actually do it. And generally once I have a goal in mind with a specific date, I am more inclined to follow through. I’ve already lost 30 pounds over the past year or so, and I’d like to lose about 20 more……

Looks like I might have picked the wrong day to polish off a huge bag of peanut M&M’s. Or, maybe it’s the right day – I can officially start preparing tomorrow. Today, I can work out some menus, attempt to figure out a workout schedule, see how many kids I’m going to have that weekend so that I can decide how to handle them, figure out if I can come up with the entry fee…..since the She-Beast is still in a coma I have to walk to the library later anyway, so that would be a good mini-start to maybe get me motivated. And we can always stop at the grocery store on the way home to pick up some yummy nutritious food.

Maybe I can do this…….