You may (or may not) have noticed I haven’t posted about running in quite awhile. In fact, I haven’t written a single word about running since May 19th.
Why is that, you may ask? (Look, I know you’re probably not really asking, but it’s, you know – a literary device – and it makes me feel better to pretend). Sadly, the answer is simply that there really hasn’t been much running this summer.
Which means any hopes I had of a marathon in the fall have been out the window for some time now. It’s taken awhile to come to grips with that – as a newbie runner, you tend to lock on to goals pretty quickly and easily (or at least I do, anyway). This may or may not be why I haven’t mentioned it in awhile.
I still love running. I’m still going to run a marathon. But as it turned out, I underestimated the seriousness of my PFPS injury that I got from running a half-marathon back in May. It made it pretty much impossible for me to top three miles without limping around in pain for a couple days afterward. I can do short runs okay, but I have to stay away from hills and, if I am to increase my mileage at all, I have to do it in tiny (read: agonizingly slow) fractions.
Also, the DC area in the summer is obscenely hot and nasty. I’m not sure how I could have trained through July/August even had I been in perfect health. It is brutal out there.
So I look forward to the fall, cooler weather, and a return to more mileage. In the meantime I’ve kept up with cross-training, and have been doing as many miles as possible on a treadmill to build up my joints. Perhaps I will consider another half-marathon before the year is out, but I’m reluctant to fast-track any training the way I did before as I’m sure I’ll wind up in the same place again. I haven’t run in any races all summer and I miss that. At the very least, I will tackle a 5k or two, maybe an 8k or 10k. No solid plans at the moment though.
While I’m on the topic, I did want to make a mention – as I did on my facebook page yesterday – that Mark Bittman has started a running blog on the Runner’s World site. I have high hopes for this as one of the things that interests me about running is how to build the perfect diet to support the habit. You don’t need a subscription or membership or anything like that to check it out.. but there’s not too much there just yet though.
Have you been keeping up with any new, exciting physical activities this summer? Or a favorite thing that you’ve always done? What got you outside this summer?
