My brain is all over the place these days. From the moment I get up to the moment I try to go to sleep at night it races at 100 mph. It's no wonder I never feel like things are going right or that I'm not living up to everyone's expectations. Most days I plug my headphones into my computer, put iTunes on shuffle, and try to drown out all of the voices and focus on the pages and pages of copy I create everyday.

My focus on my runs has been the worse. I'm never going to have a good run if I keep focusing on how my my Achilles still bothering me, how defeated I feel when I take a walk break, or how sore my whole body is from trying to get back to running while battling tendonitis from drug side effects. This week two things happened. I started reading Mindset, and I got some tips from my friends John & Abby Keenan from Intrepid Performance. Quickly I realized that I was letting the stress of everything, and the fact that my tendonitis made me feel pretty lousy, affect everything I was doing from work to my runs. I needed a mental reset and trying to motivate myself by saying everything was going to be okay wasn't getting me anywhere. I needed to find another way to grow. Enter the power statement! A simple phrase that I could focus on instead of the pain. It was simple, effective, and it got me to feel like I was accomplishing something on my runs, which made even the not so fun runs seem a bit better. In turn my work got better, and slowly the stress and frustration started to melt away.

Sometimes it's easy to let the whole world get to you. Stay true to yourself, keep growing, and find a way to focus your thoughts and what seems impossible will start to become attainable!

A year and 2 weeks ago I finished the antibiotic that finally killed the bacteria infection that took 9 months and 11 doctors to diagnose. Lucky for me my history included the fact that I was active, a runner, and working in run specialty. I still feel bad for the nurse that had to call me that day to tell me I couldn't do any kind of exercise to avoid tendon damage for 10 days. "I'm a runner, so if I don't run can I do other things, right?" No, I needed to stay of my feet as much as possible. My poor coach had to listen to my meltdown on the phone. Like the other drugs I had been put on I was convinced this one wouldn't work either.

Fast forward a year and I'm bacteria free but I feel like my legs are twice their age. Back in May of 2015 I started having problems with my right foot. I figured it was just from standing at work, and I needed to replace my work shoes. 3 pairs of shoes later there were days I could barely walk let alone stand without pain. I tired everything I could. I got massages, and saw my chiropractor. I put inserts in my shoes, wore compression sleeves, and foam rolled my foot at least twice a day. Nothing worked. The podiatrist said I had plantar fasciitis, but it didn't feel like PF. My pain got worse the more I moved not first thing in the morning.

Somehow I sort of trained for, and finished the 2015 Marine Corp Marathon. By mile 9 I was crying because my foot hurt so much. The legs were tight like they had been for most of my training and I all I wanted was to be out of the rain and curled up on a couch. A couple of weeks earlier someone finally said what had been in the back of my head. It was probably the antibiotic that caused all of my problems. Despite having a fantastic doctor, who was also a runner, guide me through 10 days of levaquin I realized that I had not walked away unscathed. I still struggle with tight Achilies, and there are days, like today, when all of my joints hurt after a run. Nothing seems to help, and there are days when I ask myself why I keep trying to run when it's so challenging. It use to be so easy, and my body would do what I asked of it.

There isn't a lot out there about how long the effects of levaquin last. If you Google levaquin tendon damage you find nothing about how long it stays in your system or how long the tendon issues last because they don't know. So, this is my story for those looking for information. One day I hope that I will feel like myself when I'm running again, but for now it's one foot in front of the other hoping that I'll love running again no mater how slow I have to go for now.