Healed

I went back to the Sports doc yesterday. They took another x-ray of my leg. The doctor told me I was healed and could start doing whatever I wanted, just build the miles back up slowly. He was somewhat surprised that I hadn't run more than I had but then again thats what helped the healing process. I asked him if speed work and hills were ok and he said do it. So off we go!

Last night I went to the running clinic. I was somewhat lost as to which workout to do. I felt like a beginner again, I had been an intermediate before fixing to move to advanced. The intermediates were suppose to do a 1-1.5 mile warm up run with 4 strides then a 16 minute tempo run. Afterwards 4 more strides then the cool down run back to the parking lot. The advanced group was doing a 22 minute tempo with a 2 mile warm up.

I was going to talk to Dennis after we got our warm up done to decide what exactly I should do. After almost 8 weeks of non-running, the warm up run was almost like a tempo run for me. I ended up getting 2 miles in with the strides with about a 10:30 average pace. Pretty fast really for a warm up but it was cold!

After talking to Coach Dennis, he suggested that I do a 10 minute tempo run instead of the 16 at a slower pace than my normal tempo pace. He suggested I not even look at my pace, just run based on my breathing. That was exactly what I had planned in my head other than I wanted at least a 10 minute pace. I figured I could do that. There was no way I could do 16 minutes at my old 9:30 pace.

I was right, the 10 minute pace was dead on and I ended up with 1 mile in exactly 10 minutes. I have to thank Brenda and Cindy who were running up behind me with about 200 meters left in my run. When I heard them I turned the speed on just to see if they could catch me. Of course they did but they were commenting that I must have been running really fast as they had to really push to pass me. They gave me a little extra push which I needed. Plus that help boost my confidence that I can get back to where I was. Based on my heart rate and breathing this was my tempo/LT pace. I had lost at least 30 seconds or more in speed during my off time but I'll get it back.

After 4 more strides then a .6 cool down run with about a 10:50 pace I was done. I ended up with 4.06 miles for the night, my second longest run in 8 weeks.

I'll have to say Annette is getting really fast. She ran with Andrea last night and she did the advanced workout. Think she was running somewhere in the very low 9's so I have my work cut out for me now. First goal will be to get my base back up so I can start building for the Little Rock 1/2 Marathon in March and the Nashville Country Music Marathon in April. I have not made a 100% commitment to run the full there yet but I'm sure I will. Coach Dennis advised me to build the miles slowly not to have a big increase from one week to the next. Well, it's probably going to happen this first week anyway. I hope to do about a 6-7 mile long run this weekend. I really should only do 6, my training program calls for 8 and one of the planned routes Saturday is 7 so you can see what I'll be doing. It won't be fast though, probably many walk breaks. Its good to be able to at least do it again.