Bye Bye August

It’s a little hard to believe, but today is September 1st, so another month is in the books and fall is just around the corner. Just how bad has my 2010 training been? Well, I started out August by doing a mile and a half walk and spent the better part of the first two weeks progressing from all walking to run/walks to all running. Even with that taken into consideration, at 144.5 miles, it was still my third best training month of the year and not all that far behind my second best month back in March (my best was April). I guess I shouldn’t be surprised I’m so out of shape!

I was reading an entry in Tim Budic’s blog yesterday where he was talking about a somewhat disappointing, perplexing race he had over the weekend and he made a very good point. As runners, I think we all sometimes take for granted certain things we’ve always been able to do in the past and just assume it will be easy to do them again. He was referring to his ability to run sub-16 for 5k, but as that applies to me right now, running under 7 min per mile in training and being able to do a certain amount of mileage, workouts, etc. has never been a problem. Even after missing several weeks for an injury, I’ve always been able to jump back in relatively quickly (which in hindsight was probably my downfall on more than one occasion). This time, however, I missed too much time and lost too much strength to be able to come back quickly. When you don’t use one of your legs for almost 3 months and therefore also have an extremely limited amount of physical activity in general, it takes a while just to get basic strength back much less resume serious distance running. It’s probably a blessing in disguise, but it’s still frustrating at times.

Anyway, August was actually a very good month all considered. After all, technically the doc would still have me on crutches and in a boot, so needless to say I’m WAY ahead of his schedule. As a matter of fact, this is the week I’m supposed to go back for new x-rays and another prognosis, but needless to say I won’t be making that visit. No need to do so with everything going as well as it is. I even threw in some strides at the end of last night’s run. They weren’t fast by any means, but they were far faster than anything I’d done up to that point and I was able to get up on my toes without any problems whatsoever. As a matter of fact, the strides actually felt surprisingly good and smooth. It was another baby step in the right direction and a good way to end my first month back training. Now here’s hoping for a great September and a continued build into what is hopefully a long, productive block of training and racing!