Admittedly, patience is one thing I've never been particularly good at. Whether in life or in running/racing, I've never had an easy time holding back or exercising restraint - especially once I've zeroed in on something. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) a nagging, lingering injury has helped keep my ambitions of a quick comeback at bay and instead focus on slowly building back.
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| Thankfully, much dirtier now. |
For the past few weeks, almost all of my runs have been on the trails or some kind of soft surface and icing my still-not-100% foot when sore post-run. My weekly totals in July into this month have not exceeded 50 miles/week and nothing longer than 20 miles on my "long runs". Only exception came when I paced my friend
Sally at
Angeles Crest 100 from miles 52-75 in mid-July. It was great to be back in a race environment again but it was also a humbling reminder that I'm still a long ways away from being anywhere near the shape these studs and studettes were in (speaking of which, congrats again to
Chris and
Keira for their impressive wins).
Thus, any lingering thoughts about running
Mt. Disappointment 50K as my first race back were gone not too long after. I am however still committed to running
Noble Canyon 50K next month. With that goal in mind, I will dedicate a few solid weeks of training to run it and run it well. I've just started infusing some tempo-type workouts this past week as my leg speed has slowed significantly during this base-building period. There may be more races added to the calendar but until I'm 100% my left foot can handle the stress, will proceed cautiously.
That's about it in terms of my running update. Will try to make it a point to update more frequently, especially as my running load increases.
