After a long period of abstaining I ran yesterday. It was just a little one. No big deal. Didn't mean I was back running regularly or anything. Far from it. I could stop any time I wanted to. And I definitely wouldn't touch the stuff today. No way.
Yeah, right.
Today I ran three miles (at a rousing 9:30/mile pace; pretty crazy to think that at this time last year, I was closing in on a 1:30 half-marathon). I ran because, well, there wasn't enough time during another stupid-busy workday to ride the bike. So I squeezed in a half-hour run. Is that so bad? If that makes me some kind of criminal or animal or addict, well FTS. Like I said, I can stop any time I want to.
My Achilles, it was OK. Not great. I wouldn't call it painful, but I would say it still feels wonky. It feels as wonky as it did a few months ago on a good day. I wore the recommended shoes, the ones with virtually no padding. The ground felt so hard when I was on the street or sidewalk. Finally I made my way to a nearby park (Normandale, for you locals), where I could run on grass and dirt. That was much better, so I decided that henceforth all my running will be on soft surfaces: Normandale when I'm running flat, Tabor when I want hills.
Normandale will be a bit of a grind as my mileage increases. It's about 3/10ths of a mile around the park. Thirty-six or 45 laps around that joint sounds mind-numbing, but if there's a soccer game going on that might provide pleasant diversion. It's always a scene, a little south-of-the-border vibe in a part of town where you don't see so much of that.
All of this assumes, of course, that I will be able to continue to run. And I'm getting the idea that I will. Or maybe it's just blind hope. Whatever, I'm going for it. Carefully. Slowly building the mileage. The Achilles may hurt. I will have to ice it. But the docs say there's really no damage there, so maybe I just need to suck it up and run.
Yeah, maybe I just need to run. Not that I, you know, need too.
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