I am sick of feeling like I'm 80 years old.

I am disgusted with how my body has deteriorated since I graduated from college.

I am tired of being in pain all of the time.

There's not much I can do about the first and last of those points. But the second one I actually have some control over. And I hope that by doing something about the second, the pain and inflammation of the other two will decrease.

Since I last posted back in March, I've been dealing with some pretty severe arthritis. And I'm 24 years old. It's completely derailed my training, knocked my racing season on it's back, and pretty much turned me into a couch potato. It's the worst in my fingers and toes, but I also have touches of it in my knees, hips and back. There are some mornings that it's unbelievably painful to get out of bed. There are some mornings where I can barely walk. I can't wear dress shoes to work anymore because my toes swell so much. And if I can barely walk, you can be damn sure there is no running going on. On top of all that, I've had runners knee for the past two years. Ironically, that always feels better if I DO run. But, obviously, working out has been all but impossible as of late.

But something needs to change. I am absolutely disgusted with myself. And when I think back to two years ago, when I was just beginning to contemplate running a marathon, and field hockey season was just finishing and I was running a sub-8 mile, and I actually had muscles and not just amorphous blobs of whatever...

Thats changing, and it's changing right now.

Next week I'm running a Thanksgiving Day race, a five-miler. December 8 starts my half-marathon training. February 28 is my next half marathon. If that goes well, I may consider doing a full at the end of spring. I may have convinced my mom to do her first half-marathon, on March 10, which I would pace her for. If I can maintain my half-marathon fitness, I want to aim for a half-Ironman next September or October. I want to get in at least three sprint tris and two Olympic distance ones. I want to get back on my bike.

It's going to hurt. And my joints are going to hate me. But I can't live like this, letting the pain dictate my life.

I'm stronger than that.