I had such a great run yesterday! I cranked out nine (read it: NINE) miles before church, and I felt great. I ran a steady 5 miles and stopped just a few times on the way back. It wasn’t a very fast run, especially compared to pre-injury, pre-exhaustion runs, but man, it felt excellent. The weather was ideal: about 30 degres and sunny. And because it was an early Sunday morning, I felt like I had the town to myself!

Pre-run photo-shoot with the Dexter Dog.

He’s such a precious guy. Too bad he can’t run with me. Gimpy-hip. But that’s why he was meant for me, because we’re both gimps!

Here are the stats:
Distance: 9.0 miles
Time: 1:36
Avg. Pace: 10:41

Mile 1: 10:05
Mile 2: 10:41
Mile 3: 10:43
Mile 4: 10:07
Mile 5: 10:26
Mile 6: 10:22
Mile 7: 12:27
Mile 8: 10:22
Mile 9: 10:51

Let me explain mile 7. I realized that I was puching it for time considering that I had to finish my run, get ready, and get to church on time. So I took a walking break inorder to use the g-chat app on my phone to ask my wonderful husband to iron my pants and do a few other prep things for me. And he did! I had no trouble getting ready and being on time, but I certainly didn’t give myself much time to take it slowly.

Anyhow, this run really got me thinking about my training. Really, I’m about 2 miles behind where I should be for my long runs, but I’m not worried. That run gave me so much confidence about running this marathon. What’s amazing is that I only worked out 3 times this past week: a hill run, a tempo run, and my long run. I think in the past I had been so worried about getting my mileage up that I would run, run, run until I ran as far as I wanted. But when I was doing that, it would be such a struggle to pound out nine miles. I would run six and then go out the next day and run only four, and then I’d keep running until I made it to nine. I would push myself to exhaustion. I’m learning to take the good with the bad. Accept a bad run for what is and move on. So when it comes to my personal training, less is more.

I don’t want to cut out cross training, but I think I’m going to be adjusting my schedule to allow for some more rest days. I don’t really function well under routine, so my exercise will probably vary from week to week. But I’m starting to get an understanding of how my body handles training.

As for my foot, it’s definitely sore after that last run, but I’m not too concerned. It doesn’t hurt on impact, which makes me think it’s not the bones, rather the soft tissue–which will happen when coming back from a stress fracture. I’m trying to be much more intentional about icing it, and I think it’s going to be ok!

I’ve got a hill run scheduled for tomorrow morning, and with this new hill run workout I made up, I am really looking forward to it.

Does anyone have training suggestions? Anything that makes training more enjoyable? Any tips for training after an injury?

Hello, running. I’m back, and I’m back with a vengence.