Sunday, November 27, 2011

Running Again

This weather is crazy! Eight days ago, I was huddled in a heavy sleeping bag camped out in the mountains at 18 degrees Fahrenheit. Today, I ran and walked laps around Echo Lake near my home in shorts and a tee-shirt. I covered 4.25 miles in my six+ laps around the lake on such a nice day, taking me about 48 minutes. I set my Ironman Timex to do 65 second run intervals and 90 second walk intervals.

It felt good at times to run this afternoon. Other times, it felt crummy. I started thinking about how little I have run in 2011 or even since the Seattle half-marathon in June 2010. I had the foot surgery for a neuroma last January, and that laid me up for weeks. I got in just enough running to be able to run and walk the Monument Avenue 10K the beginning of April. Then, two things happened, almost at the same time. First, I made the decision to walk about 60 miles in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure instead of doing a marathon for Team in Training. Second, I developed really bad plantar fasciitis a few weeks later. As a result, I did not run a step between April and September. I did run part of the Livestrong 10K the first weekend of October, and a tiny bit of the Traverse City Zombie 5K just before Halloween. And that has been about it for running in 2011.

What's next? I think I will try to run a few times a week, and every couple of weeks, I will add five or 10 seconds to my run interval. I'll have an initial goal of getting up to about a 10K distance in the next month, then gradually increasing to a half marathon with a goal of running the Shamrock half in March. That will depend on (1) finishing healing my plantar fasciitis and (2) getting a race entry. With all the people dropping dead in long races, some of them far younger and in far better shape than moi, I may also look into a really comprehensive physical to make sure my aging body will handle this without dropping dead mid-stride somewhere.

It is almost like starting running over again, it has been so long. But it feels good to know I've made a start. And also, I burned off at least one of the pieces of pumpkin pie I consumed over the last four days. Maybe.

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