Personal Highs, Running Lows

Over these last couple of weeks my running has been up and down, mostly down. The good news though, is that just about everything else in life has been awesome. The school year is over and I have lots of free time this summer, which will be extremely great once my body gets back to 100% for running (I'm around 90% right now).

The best news of all is that as of last Friday I am engaged to the most amazing girl in the entire world! We are planning for a wedding next summer which is already extremely exciting to begin the planning and working on coming up with all of our ideas for our ceremony and celebration.

As far as running has been going, it has been up and down lately. A week and a half ago I re-aggravated my hamstring injury while doing some biking, the cross training my doctor told me to do. The running has not hurt my hamstring at all. Since then I have stopped doing any biking and my cross training has become some swimming and aquajogging. I have gone running the last 4 days though and it's been getting better and better with each day. I ran for over 1 hour each of the last two days in the heat and humidity. The legs felt good although the rest of the body was struggling due to the weather.

The other big thing I've had to do this week is to re-evaluate my racing plan for the summer. I most likely will not be racing on the 4th of July so my first race of the summer will be the Jammin' Jamaican Run in Wells, MN. I also will not be running the Rice Street Mile since that race has been canceled this year. The same night as that race was scheduled to be is also the Lifetime Fitness Torchlight 5K in Minneapolis. I've run this race 3 times before but it's been 5 years since I last did it. I haven't decided on that one yet but it's certainly an option. I am also looking at one of 3 half-marathons in August: Gopher to Badger, Mora, and Rochester. I will do one of the 3 but I haven't decided which one yet. A lot will depend on how the training over the course of the month of July goes and when I feel I'll be ready for a half-marathon race.

I am going into the doctor's later on this week to hopefully get the okay to up my training in July so here's hoping all goes well with that.

Stay cool this week everyone!!

Update

It's been a few weeks since I last updated, a lot has been going on. Friday was the last day of school for me as a first-year teacher! I survived my first year and am looking forward to year #2. I also spent all day at the state track meet at Hamline in the wind and rain cheering and coaching. For Watertown-Mayer we had 3 girls and 1 boy make it to state and we had one of our girls qualify and place in the top 3 in four different events! It was a lot of fun to see her compete so hard and do so well.

I am also back into the swing of things with my running. I started back up about two weeks ago and got the okay from the doctor to get back into a steady training plan. The only drawback is that I can't do any tempo or speed workout for another two weeks because of some still minor tightness in my hamstring. I am doing a lot of strengthening exercises to get my hamstring back to 100%. I can go and run steady miles without any problem but I just have to be careful with my pace for a little while longer.

I am heading out on a 10 mile run later this morning. With that run my weekly mileage will reach 45 miles and I am hoping to be up in the mid-50s for mileage next week. As long as things continue to improve the way they are I am aiming to be in the 70s for weekly miles by the start of July and into the 90s and even possibly hit 100 for a week or two before the end of the summer.