It's been quite a while since I last posted on this blog. Since February to be exact. Spring has arrived on Cape Cod and it's been one of the best Springs weather-wise in many years. The air is fresh and smells like lilacs & honeysuckle, the skies are clear and most days there's a gentle breeze coming off Cape Cod Bay that makes me happy to be alive and living in such a paradise. Clearly the miserable New England winter is finally gone and I'm one happy camper again. I guess I'll stay for awhile longer :D
I've had quite the winter and spring - a winter with events that I never expected and a spring that I couldn't wait to arrive and filled with both difficulty and joy. I am now the proud grandmother of twin boys - A & B arrived! - my mother had emergency surgery (she's fine now but it was touch & go for awhile) and I had a lot of exhausting but good work stuff going on. My running remained relatively constant until the end of April when these work and family events took priority. I've run a grand total of 21 miles in May, which is the mileage I'm used to running weekly. Runner gal pal & I haven't been able to coordinate our schedules in a month or more. As a result, my conditioning has taken a nose-dive, my legs feel like rubber and I can't seem to handle much more than 6 miles per run daily if that. Pace? Times? Don't ask.....
I ran this morning a grand total of 4 miles. I planned a 7 mile run but at mile 4 I knew it was time to think about doing my cool down walk back to the house from the beach parking lot.
So I'm back to reading about conditioning and anything I can find on re-building running endurance after a hiatus. Geez, I only took 2 1/2 weeks off but you'd think I hadn't run in years. I'm registered for a 1/2 marathon next week but unless I can pull off a miracle long run in the next few days, it's looking pretty doubtful that I'll run it. I've decided that if I don't run it, I'll look for another HM in June and train for that. On a bright note, I ran up Killer-manjaro this morning in 80 seconds, not my fastest, but at least I ran the entire way without stopping.
I'm considering returning to doing yoga, some strength training and my workout DVDs. I just have to figure out when to do all this since I try to run at least 5 days a week including a long run on Sunday mornings. Luckily I'm on hiatus from teaching until Sept, so I have some time to do this.
I read in a running magazine about an over 50+ woman runner who is legally blind & gradually losing what little sight she still has, and who has run 100s of marathons all over the world, including a marathon in Siberia. She refuses to give up even though her sight is so bad she sometimes gets lost during races and veers off the course. But she says she'll run until she can't. She has no interest in her pace or her times. Negative splits mean nothing to her. Running keeps her from giving up. If she can do it, so can I.
Runner gal pal and I are scheduled to resume our daily runs this week. Just keep running and never give up.
