What a great run on Monday!

I think it ended up being 47 or 48 minutes - for the last 10 or so I was running with someone I know and didn't watch the time as closely. It was a good pace, with good energy, hip was fine, etc. In fact, I easily could have gone longer but it was time to leave.

Days like that you finish and think "Of course I can run a marathon!"

Heard today that our friends who did the half last weekend are talking about doing the around the bay race in March. It's 30 km, downhill at the start but uphills during the last 10 km. Part of me is saying, "Outside in March - 30 km - hills - I would do this because..." The other part is saying, "30 km is good practice - with the right clothes it's no big deal - you'll be doing hills in April - it's good to have something to train for..." No need for any kind of quick decision. Let me get back to half marathon distance first, and then decide :)

Friday morning was another easy run, albeit with a long slow hill in the middle. I had worn tights and a long-sleeved shirt on the off chance that I met up with my running buddy again, but didn't see him. However, as I was climbing the stairs to the indoor track, DH called from below that my running buddy was indeed looking for some company. So we had a nice run, somewhere around a half hour. I had planned something longer, but the lure of being outside and having company was stronger. Soon enough, the temperatures will be below freezing and there will be months to run inside.

Or it will be raining, like today. And probably tomorrow morning. So I am planning an indoor run for then, probably about 45 minutes. It will be the most intense run since the half marathon, which was four weeks ago today, and I am curious to see how my body handles it. So far my hip has been okay. For a couple of hours after running, I have sometimes felt a bit of "something" - not pain, not even discomfort - but it has disappeared. Perhaps that's just a sign of aging and it's never going to change. In any event, it's not enough to stop running. Actual pain or consistent discomfort, on the other hand, would be a different story.

Four weeks ago today, I was walking on air because the half marathon had gone so well. It has gone by so quickly! And it is definitely time for my rest period to be ending and to be ramping up the distance again. Can't wait :)

Yet another enjoyable run!

It was hard to get up this morning but I really needed the exercise. Friday's planned calorie burn on the elliptical didn't happen because I needed to get to work really early. Saturday and Sunday were taken up by errands, house/yard work and some badly needed down time. Then Monday and Tuesday mornings got swallowed by early meetings. It happens. Sucks, but it happens.

DH is still taking a break from running in order to recover from the half marathon, and by now it is still full darkness at 6:30 in the morning, so I am not crazy about running outside alone. Thus I planned to do 40 minutes on the track. However, I was lucky enough to meet my running buddy just as he was about to go for a run outside, and ended up out there with him. We ran an easy, flat 45 minutes and it felt SO good to be moving again! It wasn't as intense a pace as on the track, but it was a little longer than my original plan, so in the end we probably did about 8 km, a good run and a great way to start the day.

It was one of those runs when you are not really pushing yourself at all, just drifting along, and it feels like you could run forever. Of course, that feeling is always helped along by having someone to run with, because when you're running and talking at the same time, you overlook any minor discomforts and just keep moving. Long solo runs are essential (IMO) when training, but buddy runs are also a good workout and a real joy.

Fingers crossed that nothing comes up to prevent running on Friday morning. If all goes well, another 40 or 45 minutes, probably inside because I think the forecast is for rain. Daylight savings time ends in a couple of weeks, which will make for more light in the mornings, so if it doesn't get too cold it will be feasible to run outside into November. Wouldn't that be nice?!?

And it's back to running!

So far, so good. After the self-prescribed two week rest period, I hit the indoor track at the gym on Tuesday morning for a planned "easy half hour". IOW, the plan was to run kind of slow and just get a feel for what my body was doing. However, I ended up not going as slow as planned and was a little worried about how that would play out.

Not least because in the late morning I started to feel some discomfort in my hip. It is so hard to describe the sensation. It's almost like the kind of muscle cramp I would have after driving a long distance and basically keeping my left leg immobile. A diffuse not-really-pain, but not-really-normal feeling. By diffuse, I mean that I can't touch a spot and say "It starts here". There's no sense of increased discomfort or pain when I apply pressure to any point, that response being indicative of a stress fracture. And it doesn't really feel like I remember last year's injury.

In any event, so far there has been a happy ending. I woke up on Wednesday feeling fantastic, as though nothing had ever felt out of place at all. So fantastic that I ran again this morning, another half hour on the track, and a really, really good run. Not too intense, maybe a little faster than planned, but overall just a solid and satisfying short session. And the hip has felt fine all day.

But - and this is a big but - I still think the idea is rebuild distance just a little slower than I would like. That means at most 40 minutes for my next run, be it on Sunday or sometime next week. No running on consecutive days. No interval work. There are no big events coming up and I have nothing to prove. Between now and Christmas, the goal is just to enjoy running for its own sake.

Tomorrow's plan: a good calorie burn on the elliptical. Always a good idea for the last day before the weekend.

This weekend is the Toronto marathon and half marathon. The forecast right now is for a high of 12 C, a low of 6 C, and cloudy. If it's not windy, those would be really quite good conditions. We know a couple of people who are running the half, one for the first time, and are looking forward to hearing about it afterwards.

It is a little strange to be talking about running a marathon just under a year from now, when I haven't jogged for even a minute since last Sunday's half marathon. That's because I'm trying to avoid the almost inevitable setback that every runner deals with at some point: the dreaded INJURY.

All in all, I have been very lucky and avoided injuries. But I finally got one last year, and it's changed my running ever since. The story:

I ran the Spring half marathon with a less-than-thrilling time of 1:48. New course, more hills - whatever. A respectable time, but not the greatest run. But as always I was very pleased to simply have got out there and done it.

About a week later, I am walking around the office and notice a strange pain in one hip. Hard to describe. Not terrible, not debilitating, but not normal. It fades within a day or so and I forget about it and go running. And go running again a couple of days later. Or something like that. Bottom line - not too long after that, I am out running one morning and notice the same pain. Within a few steps it has gone to major pain and there is no way I can run; in fact I can barely walk back to the gym. By the time I'm showered and dressed, it's just a dull roar.

So - brilliant me - I decide to take a few days off. Hip feels fine. I go running. Hip feels fine. I go running. Hip starts to hurt again. Lather, rinse, repeat. In the end, it took me a month to figure out that something was actually wrong and to go to a sports medicine doctor. Who never did make a definitive diagnosis. The possibilities were stress frature (only diagnosable by X-ray), or muscle overwork. The treatment was the same - rest and strengthening exercises - so I opted to skip the X-ray. How many rads do I need in one lifetime?

Initially I was advised to stop running for a month, which was tough but I did it. That wasn't enough, and I ended up being off for close to three months. And then working up very slowly. Finally by Christmas I was running 10 km again, but with trepidation.

The good part: discovering the elliptical machine - almost the same calorie burn, none of the impact. The elliptical has become my friend :)

Anyway, all the way up to the weekend's half marathon I was paranoid about injury, but made it through just fine. Then the next day there was some "discomfort" in the same place in the same hip. Not really pain. Just something not quite right. It's almost completely gone, but I am not running for two weeks. And then only for about a half hour. "Some discomfort" does not necessarily equal "recurrence of injury". And "caution" does not necessarily equal "paranoid overreaction". A marathon is a long distance. Two weeks off now may save me two months off down the road.

But I miss running. The elliptical is my friend but it's just not the same.