Running Again!

Sorry to have left you hanging!  I was given the okay to start running again on March 3rd...woohoo!  My first reunion with running was merely a 2.3 mile faster-than-walking, almost jogging event. I've run 16 times since then totaling about 100 miles.  My longest run has been just over 12 miles.

The first week back to running was awesome and horrible.  I was elated to be back to moving faster than a walk but in the beginning, it was HARD and tough to run faster than 10 minutes per mile.  And it hurt a little.  My injury didn't hurt but my hips were aching!  I can't explain why this happened but thankfully that pain eventually faded but it took some prodding on my part. 

My peroneal tendon and gastrocnemius seem to be adjusting well to running again, thankfully.  Sadly I have lost some muscular strength in my arms as I've slacked off on P90X.  I am definitely going to be hitting body weight exercises and using weights again. 

I think too many women avoid weights or heavier weights because they think they'll get "bigger".   Let me show you a picture:

Gross, right?  Look at it!  Fat is bigger than muscle.  5 pounds of fat takes up more room than 5 pounds of muscle.  Memorize it, stare at it, take it in. 

I'd say lifting weights and/or resistance training should be in everyone's arsenal to better health.  

Racing hasn't been a factor these last few months so I'm sad I haven't been able to give you any awesome reports.  My next scheduled run is the North Olympic Discovery Bay Marathon on June 5th.  I have done all the Tacoma City Marathons and am still debating on whether to sign up this year since I don't feel trained to do the distance but mostly because I think I will, how do I put this nicely (?), suck.   I want to support Tony Phillipi's races (Databar Events) but am not sure I want to pay to run a crummy race - not his race but MY finishing time.

I'll update when I figure out what I'm doing.  In the meantime, I will be increasing the distance of my long runs so I can at least finish the early June marathon.  This had been my goal race but I will need to choose another one to replace it.  Sad.

I do know that I've gone in to some races thinking I was going to kill the course because I had trained like a mad woman only to die in the second half.  And I have also raced a lot faster than my training would predict.  I will go into NODM with the expectation of racing my best given my training.  I like to aim high, oftentimes out of this atmosphere high, and free-fall to my demise.  Why should I put these boundaries on my expectations?  I think most people only live up to what they expect of themselves.  If more people would aim for seemingly out-of-reach goals, they would find that they were only out of reach because they weren't leaning out far enough to grab them.