Ok, so I’m not so sexy, but I think that maybe I am back (knocking on wood). I put in another 4 mile run last night, and everything felt great! I also went back to one of our standard routes, which includes a little uphill and a little downhill, rather than sticking to the flats, which is what I’d been doing for the previous couple of weeks. I even had a little light rain falling to help cool things off.

I’ve been apprehensive with each run, always wondering if the pain/discomfort is going to come back, and worrying that it might be chronic. Well, I am still a little apprehensive about all of that, and probably will be for a little while. However, I feel that this run was a mental turning of the corner—a much needed good result. Surprisingly, my legs felt very fresh, even after my run on Sunday and then lower body strength training on Monday.

I’ll never really know what the impact of adding the glute and abductor/adductor machines to my workouts, or the additional stretching, and the use foam roller has had on my recovery, but they all sure seem to have helped. Of course, it could just be that I needed some time off. Either way, I am grateful. My official half marathon training starts in less than two weeks, and I was starting to worry.

Here are my mile splits. This run was supposed to be an easy 4 miles @ 10:14/mile. As you can see, I didn’t hit my pace until the 3rd mile, and I must not have liked it much, as I turned around and finished up with an 8:00 minute 4th mile.

1. 10:05
2. 10:03
3. 10:14 (this is the pace I was supposed to run)
4. 8:00