What Happened?

April 22, 2011 was my last post.  What happened? Frankly, I'm not sure.  Injury set in, lethargy toward this blog overcame me, and truthfully, there wasn't much interest shown by anyone but me.  Then came winter, a recovery and my own realization that the blog is for me.  So here we go again.

INJURY - so here's the story. Last spring, my achilles started to hurt.  It wasn't a sharp pain, just a little nagging "ouch", especially in the morning after waking up and rolling out of bed.  Needless to say, my immediate reaction and cure was to run on it - alot.  I had runs to do, races to run and I figured that more miles were better miles.  In August, Sara and I again did the Chicago Rock and Roll Half Marathon (she was awesome, by the way, finishing far faster than she had intended and improving her time from 2010 by almost a half hour).  After the half, I took a day or two off and then my achilles REALLY started to hurt.  Again, more work should make it feel better.  Finally, in early September, I decided that Coach Mike didn't know what he was talking about and  shut the running down.  In fact, I shut everything down for a month or so.  In late September/early October, I resumed working out in the gym and went back to work on the elliptical, with the goal of resuming running after the new year.  Overwork (again) was my downfall.  I started running VERY GENTLY in late December (it was sooooo close that a day or 12 wouldn't hurt).  This time, I am serious about not overtraining.  Really. Honest.  No fooling you or myself this time.  I have found (and am following religiously) a regime that allows me to run at MOST 5 days a week but in practice, I generally go 4 days a week.  On the off days, I either lift or elliptical.  The schedule follows a modified easy-hard-off process.  Thus far, things seem to be going ok.

GOAL - a marathon, of course.  The training plan that I picked out has two parts - a "get-in-shape-to-train" component and a "train-for-a marathon" component.  Each is about 18 weeks long, so late October seems to be the best time to shoot for the race.  The Kansas City Marathon is October 20 and fits in well - a day before my 34th wedding anniversary, local, with easy access for Deb and the kids to watch (should they all decided to do so), a relatively flat course on streets that I am somewhat familiar with, close to home so no travel gets in the way and I can sleep in my own bed the night before, and with a local bud to run with.

There are a few other races (training runs, really) that I have planned - the Chicago R&R Half again with Sara (and adding her fiancee, Pat, son Jacob and his wife Sandy to the Seitz Racing Team), maybe a half in Bucyrus, KS in May, and a couple of 5 and 10Ks thrown in to keep the interest up and boredom down.  I don't plan to race any of these.  Rather, the break in training would be nice.

NEXT BLOG TOPIC - Is anybody alive out there?

As always, thanks for listening.