I can’t believe this is already my fourth week back!  It is also my last do-whatever-I-want-when-I-want-because-I-said-so and it was MUCH harder to push myself out the door than I expected. I am kind of surprised by this considering I was counting the months/weeks/days/hours/minutes until I would be at it again but then again I have had 5 months off from running!

For me it’s torturous coming back and starting all over from the beginning – and from the beginning I mean everything from getting more rest at night, re-adjusting my diet, low mileage, slow pace and getting used to my training program (Hal Higdon, my hero).  The last three weeks I have managed to run around 15 miles a week without a problem.  This week will be more like 20.

I am trying to mix it up this season so I can be more of a balanced runner by consistently incorporating pilates/yoga (yoga is tough for me since I can barely touch my toes without pulling something), light strength training, track and REST (somehow I will squeeze that one in)!

Next week will be Week 1 of Hal Higdon’s Advanced II training schedule – I used it for CIM and it was perfect. I don’t follow it religiously, especially since I have certain types of workouts on certain days (track is on Tuesday and pilates is on Thursday for example) and I’ll adjust it and modify it while following the basics.

Below is a snippet of the program. If you want more info, just click on the hyperlink above and you can actually get a detailed description of each workout by clicking on the week number.

www.halhigdon.com (Advanced II)

Thanks to everyone for all the positive words of encouragement – below is the proof!  XOXO

I never thought I would run a marathon, let alone Boston.  It seems like an immediate goal for most marathoners and I too had that in mind after hearing so much about it.  Boston. Boston. Boston. Blah blah blah.  Happy to say I qualified December ’09, but unfortunately it was just a few weeks after registration closed (I had no idea before I even finished the race that it was sold out).  At the time I was disappointed because Boston 2011 seemed light-years away.  Well as most of us adults know, time doesn’t slack – it speeds by, almost too fast, and I found myself already looking into hotel accommodations (booked!) and flights (still need to do) before registration even opened.  I had read somewhere that Boston was expected to sell out well before NY (11/07/10) so not wanting to wait another whole year, I set a few alarms, Google calendar reminders and even someone else’s alarm to make sure I was up at 0600 on the 18^th to register.

Scurrying to my computer, I immediately felt the lag of the website and upon filling out required fields on the registration page and hitting submit, I was taken back to the registration page again.  I repeated this process over ten times before stomping my (healthy) foot on the floor and heading out the door to work.  At work I had the same issue until finally I tried with Safari and got in – Phew!

*Happy Dance*

So now I am in – well, they still have to verify my qualifying race and time and I don’t expect that to be an issue.  Heck, I don’t even know if I will make it to the starting line that day – I could get injured again or something but I am still excited…qualify for Boston…CHECK!  This excitement lasted only one whole day because as luck would have it, I receive this lovely email from Marathon Tours:

“We are sorry to hear that Boston online entry had closed out online before you had time to register.  As the official travel agency for the Boston marathon we are working to secure race entry to the 2011 Boston Marathon for clients who have a name on a pre-existing hotel reservation with us for the2011 year prior to October 18, 2011 and who are currently qualified to participate in the race.”

Just lovely!

Talk about a low blow, I already imagined how much I wold hate Heartbreak Hill and I could now understand the frustration of many other runners who qualified for 2011 but couldn’t get in because the race sold out in less than 8 hours – really, really sad.  I immediately called Marathon Tours and was informed that the webmaster had sent out the email too soon and it was supposed to say, “If you were unable to register…”  THANK YOU running Gods, I will just pretend I never got that that email – I am still in (I hope).

What really excites me more than anything is that I will be able to see my cousin Amy who lives with her family in Millbury.  We are nearly the same age and only met once when we were five years old (we didn’t get along very well that ONE time) and have a lot of things in common, one of them happens to be running.  She is excited to have me in town and we can finally catch up on life and each other.  This is the exact reason I will be in Boston regardless if I race or not.

This is what I looked like the last time I saw my cousin.

You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper, and it would vanish – it was so fragile.

These are the words of Marcus Aurelius speaking to Maximus in Gladiator. Silly maybe, but this what always pops up in my mind whenever I’m asked about my goals or how my running is coming along.  I find myself almost afraid to speak about my future running plans or cheerfully say that my foot is all better because as satisfied as I was with my race performances before the fracture, I still feel like a failure.  More than that, I couldn’t do the one simple thing in life that I really enjoy.  I also hated the fact that I proved so many doubters right (or at least they thought they were right) – that I was going to get injured. At the end of the day though, they may or may not have been right but that is another blog to come, I hope.  It has also been a tough road coming back with several foot pain scares that dragged my 12-week forced vacation from running to nearly 18.  I’m going chance it today and say I feel great. Very confident that everything is and will continue to be OK. I feel very strong physically and mentally — I am just in a happy place and that makes this slow starting journey much easier.

Right now I am starting my second week of running – sporadic running, no particular program for the first 4 weeks. Just getting a feel for where I am now and establishing a base so I can begin a real 18-week marathon training program that will land me at the starting line of LA Marathon next year.

My goals now are much different than before, I want to focus on a timed goal instead of how many I can cram into my schedule in one year.  I remember when I decided to do CIM – my first real marathon, I was very strict with my training program after nearly a 10 year break from competitive running (dear God I am old).  I had to prove to myself that I was indeed a decent runner – running (jogging) 3 – 5 miles every so often while wearing cotton sweats and tee shirt wasn’t cutting it.  I had even told myself if I did horribly, I would just continue running for the fun of it and not worry about my times anymore.

Having said all this, I think I am back but just not ready to tell you that my next goal is 2:59:59.  Yep – true. Maybe impossible but I won’t know if I don’t try and I have 6 months of training to prepare. I’d say that is plenty of time. Someone told me last night not to worry about failing because the ones that love me will never think less of me if I fail and the ones who judge me are the ones I shouldn’t care about anyway. I think he was right – thank you for putting that into perspective.

Thank you to all my running friends (some posted below) that kept me sane until this point – I owe you big time!

Janese R. - Finally broke 4:00 at the OC Marathon!

Jen L - Miss Speedster. Killing it during her first year of running!

The boys - great runners and friends!