Back At It (I Hope)

I was finally able to resume running this past week, although jogging would probably be a more accurate term. My first venture out came on Monday when I hit the greenway for 10 min, covering a little short of a mile and a quarter. While that might seem ludicrously short to some, it was over 6 min longer than the farthest I'd made it in the previous seven weeks and was exactly how much I intended to do. Unfortunately, however, my heel seemed a little worse the next day, and while it wasn't bad, I didn't want to risk anything and accordingly took the next two days off. I decided to try again on Thursday, and this time made it just over two miles in 16 min. On Friday I made it to 20 min, then 25 on Sat, and finally 37 min on Sunday, which might have been a little more than I should have done but I seemed to get away with it. Altogether I totaled 13 miles for the week.

I'm still not pain free, but things do seem to be headed in the right direction. I'm hoping if I play it cautiously I can continue to run while getting back to 100%. Most of the research I've read seems to indicate that after a certain point rest doesn't really do much to heal plantar fasciitis (assuming that's what this has been) and that light exercise can actually increase blood flow and assist with the healing process, so light, slow and easy running is my plan.

Time will tell if this is the start of a comeback or if I'll have a setback, but obviously I'm hoping to make a go of it. If I'm able to do so, I know that ahead of me lies what will probably be the most difficult return to running I've ever had, including after I broke my foot twice in 2010. I was in poor shape to begin with, then lost almost three months of training. During that time span I had over 60 days of no running at all, including seven straight weeks. Factor in that I'm now halfway to age 43, and it's definitely not gonna be easy. I am, however, motivated to try to make it happen and I feel like there's at least a few more miles and decent races left in this old body. All I can do is give it my best shot and see what happens, so here goes.