News Flash! I Went Running Today.

Minnesota has the nation’s second largest state fair, drawing two million visitors annually.  Only Texas has a larger state fair.  It’s often referred to as “The Great Minnesota Get-Together.”

Every year, the local TV stations send their news teams to cover the state fair.  I suspect they treat it as big news, because reporting live from the fair gives the local newscasters an excuse to attend the fair as part of their jobs.

Personally, I’ve always been annoyed that they devote so much airtime to reporting “news” that’s no more newsworthy than reporting that the sun rose this morning.  It’s not really news that there’s a state fair this summer if there’s a state fair every summer.

In all fairness, I won’t complain about it this year.  Last year’s Minnesota State Fair was cancelled because of the pandemic, so it really will be news when the fair returns this year.

Today, I’m guilty of my own “the sun rose this morning” headline.

I went running today.

Why is that news?  After all, I’m a runner, and this is a running blog.  It’s news because it’s the first time I’ve done any running since January 31.  That’s more than four months.  I couldn’t remember when I last went that long without running.  I had to look it up.  It was more than 36 years ago.  Even after having back surgery four years ago, I only went about three months without running.

In February, I took a long-overdue break from running, so a knee injury could heal.  I wasn’t going to run again until I could walk up and down stairs without discomfort.  I thought it would take two months.  It took longer.  When I was still sidelined after two months, I started doing race-walking to get back in shape.

My knee is actually coming around, but about a month ago, I suffered a lower back injury.  The doctor said I could try race-walking and see how it feels, but I should hold off on running.

At first, I had to limit my walking pace to 15 minutes per mile or slower.  Anything faster than that caused inflammation in my lower back.  My back has gradually improved.  Now I can walk as fast as 12 minutes per mile without it bothering my back.

About a week ago, I was finally able to walk up and down stairs with little or no discomfort.  I thought my knee was finally ready for running, but I didn’t know if running would be OK for my back.

On Thursday, I had a physical therapy appointment.  My therapist thought it would be OK to try running for a minute or two at a time during some of  my walks.  During that same appointment, I did a few single-leg quarter squats.  That was a wake-up call.  I could do squats comfortably using both legs, but when I supported my weight with just my right leg, I felt soreness in my knee.  Later in the day, I started noticing soreness on stairs.

Today, I tried running for the first time.  I would’ve tried running yesterday, but I was still having a little discomfort going down stairs.  This morning, the stairs felt more comfortable, although they still didn’t feel perfectly comfortable.

I chose a one-mile loop through my neighborhood.  It’s relatively flat, but there’s a stretch that’s slightly uphill for about a quarter mile.  I walked at a brisk pace until I reached this uphill section for the first time.  Then I started running.  I limited my running to the uphill section, because you don’t strike the ground as hard going uphill.  If that’s not obvious, think how you feel when you run down a hill.  It’s easy, but there’s more pounding on your joints.  Running uphill is the opposite.  It takes more effort, but there’s less impact. 

As I ran, I took short strides, to further minimize the impact.  Right off the bat, I could feel a little soreness along the top of my right knee. I continued running until I reached the top of the hill.  Then I switched to race-walking for the rest of the loop.

I did the same thing on my second lap.  This time, I didn’t notice as much discomfort in my knee.  I might not have noticed at all, but I could discern a difference between my right knee and my left knee.

In all, I did four laps, running the uphill section each time.  The second lap felt about the same as the first lap.  The fourth lap felt about the same as the first lap.

Over the next day or two, I’ll pay attention to how my knee feels going up and down stairs.  The running itself, however, told me most of what I need to know.  I’m not ready to run yet.

There was good news.  Running didn’t seem to bother my lower back at all.  Over the next day or two, I’ll also pay attention to how my back feels doing my other daily activities.

I’ll wait about a week, and then I’ll try this again and re-evaluate how my knee feels.  In the meantime, I’ll go back to race-walking.

I’m signed up for a series of marathons in August.  Earlier in the year, I assumed I would resume running in time to train for them.  That was “plan A.”  In April, when I still wasn’t ready to run, I switched to “plan B.”  Plan B was to begin training by race-walking, but with the expectation that I would still resume running in time to run the marathons.  Now, I have to seriously entertain  “plan C.”  Plan C is to race-walk the marathons.  I still hold out some hope that I can resume running in time to do some sort of run/walk mix, but I can’t count on that.

I Hit a New Bump in the Road

If you have a Facebook account, you’ve probably seen a feature called, “Your Memories on Facebook.”  Every now and then, Facebook will show you something you posted several years ago on the same date.  At the beginning of the month, I saw this post from five years ago.

I posted that on the eve of my 55th birthday.  The previous year had indeed been a rough one.  I suffered groin injuries in both legs, but had dozens of races lined up.  I skipped a couple, but ran most of them, despite the injuries.  I often spent most of the week resting and healing, so I could limp through a race (or two) on the weekend.  By the end of 2015, I had shredded the tendons connecting to my glutes.  The muscles had become weak as a result.  I couldn’t even walk normally.  My hips were stiff and immobile, so my walking resembled the waddling of a penguin.

As if the injuries weren’t bad enough, I also developed stiffness in the muscles of both legs any time I was inactive for a while.  When I tried to get out of bed or get up out of a chair, most of the muscles in my legs would cramp up violently.  I eventually learned that it was a worsening of a circulation disorder that I’ve had since childhood.  I’ve always had issues with my hands, but it had spread to my legs.  Apparently, I was OK as long as I was doing lots of running.  As I did less and less training, my circulation wasn’t as good.

My doctor was able to prescribe a medication that helped with my legs.  The symptoms didn’t go away completely, but they were manageable.  It wasn’t until I was able to run again that the symptoms went away completely.

At the beginning of 2016, I took a break from running, so I could heal.  It only took a few weeks for the groin injuries to finish healing, but the secondary injuries took much longer.  It was two months before I could begin running again.  Even then, I still couldn’t walk normally.  It took many more months of physical therapy before I could once again run a marathon in four hours or less.

The question remains: was that year an outlying point, or was it the beginning of a trend?  I made a full recovery, but since then, I’ve hit other bumps in the road.

In December of 2016, I fell during a trail run and broke a rib.  I recovered from that.  In April of 2017, I had a disc protrusion in my lower back.  It only took a few weeks to recover from that.  At the end of May, I started to notice symptoms from a herniated disc in the middle of my back.  That injury required surgery.  It was three months before I could run at all and it took a year before I felt like I was fully recovered.

It took two more years of hard work, but by the end of 2019, I felt like I had regained my old running form.  I knew I was finally back when I ran times in the 3:20s on three straight weekends.

This year is shaping up to be another difficult year.  At the beginning of February, I took another break from running.  This time, it was to allow a nagging knee injury to finally heal.  It was taking longer than I thought it would, so in April, I started race-walking.  Until a week ago, it was going well.  In just a few weeks, I got to the point where I could walk seven miles at an average pace of 11:20.  My plan was to race-walk until I could resume running.

Then I hit another bump in the road.  Last Friday, I felt some discomfort in my lower back.  At first, I thought it might just be a pulled muscle.  By Saturday, I knew it was something worse.  I had pain in my lower back that felt similar to what I experienced the last time I had a lower back injury.  By Sunday, I was feeling pain in more areas.  I sometimes had a burning sensation in my right hip or in my glutes.  When I went for walks, I sometimes had an odd sensation along the side of my right leg.

There was no longer any doubt in my mind that I had some type of spinal injury, and it was impinging on a nerve that goes to my right leg.  I didn’t know if race-walking was aggravating it, so I temporarily stopped training.  Since then, I’ve been walking four to six miles a day, but only at a casual pace.  I’m walking enough to get circulation into my legs, but I’m not doing anything strenuous.

Reflecting on the two back injuries I had in 2016, one healed in just a few weeks, while the other required surgery and had a long recovery time.  I wasn’t sure what this one would be like, so I’m tending to err on the side of caution.  The worst thing that can happen if I’m overly cautious is that I would lose a week or two of training.  I can afford that.  My goal is to be back in marathon shape my August, and I still have plenty of time to train.  What I can’t afford is for this be an injury that would sideline me for months.

On Wednesday, I saw an orthopedist.  Without an MRI, he couldn’t say for sure if this was a protrusion or a herniation.  The treatment, at least initially, is the same in either case.  He started me on the same course of treatment that worked well for my lower back injury in 2016.  If I’m not noticing improvement within a week, then I can get an MRI.

I’ve already improved noticeably since Wednesday.  I still have some discomfort in my lower back doing certain things, such as bending down to put on socks and shoes.  I’m no longer having pain or burning sensations in my hip.  I’m also no longer having any weird sensations in my leg when I go out for a walk.

I was already doing physical therapy for my knee, but today I had my first PT appointment for my back.  Today’s appointment was very encouraging.  None of the motions I tried during my appointment caused pain.  On Wednesday, at the doctor’s office, if I bent down to try to touch my toes, my back hurt as soon as I reached down as far as my knees.  Today, I could reach within inches of my feet without experiencing any pain.  The only thing that kept me from touching my toes was my chronically tight hamstrings.

Ironically, this happened just as I was noticing improvement in my knee.  I was holding off on running until I could walk up and down stairs without discomfort.  I feel OK going up steps, but I still have a little bit of discomfort going down steps.  Before the back injury, I figured I was within a week or two of beginning to run.  Now, the doctor wants me to hold off on running until my back heals.

The doctor said it’s OK for me to try race-walking, but I should stop if it causes pain.  I’m not sure if I can trust myself to do that.  When it comes to running, I have two distinct modes.  In “training mode,” I stay within my comfort zone, and I’m pretty good about listening to my body.  In “racing mode,” I get so focused on my goals that I can be oblivious to pain.  When I race-walk, I only have one mode.  Walking fast is hard work.  To reach the kind of pace I need to finish a marathon in a reasonable amount of time, I really need to focus.  Consequently, even my training feels like I’m in “racing mode.”

I’m optimistic that this injury will heal quickly, but I’m still being cautious.  If all goes well, I’ll be perfectly healthy in time to finish training for late summer races.  I don’t want this year to be like the one I recalled in that Facebook post.

A Progress Report on My Recovery

A little over a year ago, I met Meb Keflezighi at the Atlanta Marathon.  At the time, I was reading his book, “Meb for Mortals.”  I told him how much I liked the first chapter.  It's called “Think Like Meb,” and it’s about setting goals. One point he makes is that once you establish a goal, it’s important to periodically evaluate your progress.

I’m currently recovering from a knee injury that has plagued me since last August.  My long-term goal is to recover from this injury and to regain the fitness level I had last summer.  This goal has three components: recovering from the injury, losing the weight I gained while I was inactive, and getting back in shape.  So how am I doing?

I haven’t run since January 31.  That was the day of my last marathon.  I don’t have any other races scheduled, so I’m taking as much time off from training as I need for my knee to heal.

In early February, after taking a week off, I resumed my physical therapy.  In addition to my exercises, I was walking a minimum of one mile a day and doing five minutes of low-resistance spinning every other day.

At first, my knee was actually getting worse.  For the first time since I injured it, it sometimes bothered me even when I was just walking to the bathroom.  I began to wonder if I injured it more seriously in my last race.  I was getting discouraged, but I decided to give it another week or two before going back to the doctor.

Then I had an epiphany.  One night, I got up during the night to go to the bathroom, and my knee hurt.  As I climbed back into bed, it occurred to me that it didn’t hurt before I went to bed.  Then I realized the only times it hurt while walking on level ground were in the morning or during the night.  I had been assuming I was aggravating my knee by something I was doing during the day.  I was actually aggravating it while sleeping.

I usually sleep on my stomach, so my knee is pressed against the mattress.  Rolling over during the night with all my weight on it probably wasn’t doing it any good.

After that, I made an effort to sleep on my side.  I didn’t sleep as well, but it made a difference.  After that, my knee never hurt while walking around at home.

Over the next few weeks, my knee got better, but the change was gradual.  My knee still bothers me going up and down steps, but I’m not as dependent on using a railing.  I’ve been going a little longer each time I ride the stationary bike.  This morning, I was spinning for 18 minutes.  Finally, I’ve increased my walking to four miles a day.

On Monday, I had my annual physical.  Naturally, I asked my doctor about my knee.  After my exam, I told me he was pretty sure nothing was torn, but he ordered an MRI, just to be sure.  The MRI showed some fluid in my knee, but there’s no damage to the joint, and all the ligaments are intact.  This is still an injury that will heal with rest, ice, and physical therapy, but it’s going to take time.  My doctor thought it would be another month before I could resume running.

Today, I had another physical therapy appointment.  For now, my therapist wants me to limit my walking to four miles a day and keep my stationary bike workouts between 15 and 20 minutes.  In a few weeks, we’ll reevaluate.  In the meantime, I have several new exercises to do.  A few are for my knee, but others will help me maintain strength in my legs until I can resume running.

This brings us to the second part of my goal: losing the weight.

Last summer I was doing at least two workouts per day.  On an average day, I was doing the equivalent of 19 miles of running.  That burns a lot of calories.  After the Running Ragged 20in20 Series, I cut way back on my training.  Unfortunately, I didn’t cut back way back on my eating.  By the end of the year, I gained six pounds.

In January, I made a half-hearted effort to curtail my eating, but I still gained another pound.  Naturally, I was concerned.  At least in January, I was running every other day.  Now, I’m not running at all.

Since the beginning of February, I’ve been keeping track of everything I eat.  I have a strict upper limit for how many calories I’ll eat.  My hope was to limit the damage, but I’ve actually managed to lose a couple pounds.  It helps that I’m burning a few calories by walking.

Dieting has a psychological component.  What works for one person won’t work for someone else.  I’m motivated by measurable progress.  That’s why I got into running in the first place.  I got excited when I could see that I was getting faster.  In the case of sticking to a diet, it really helps to know that I’m making progress.  That keeps me motivated.

To get back to my “racing weight,” I’ll also need to burn more calories.  That won’t happen until I can run again.  In the meantime, losing any weight at all is an accomplishment.

The longer I’m sidelined, the longer it will take to eventually get back into shape.  This won’t be the first time I’ve had to get back into marathon shape after a long period of inactivity.  I had to do the same thing five years ago.  I’m getting more exercise now than I did then, so I’m hopeful.  It’ll take time, but I know I can get back into shape once my knee is completely healthy.  I’m hoping to resume running marathons by August.  I don’t have to be fast.  I just need to be able to finish them.  Getting my speed back will take much longer.

Out of the frying pan. Into the Fire.

In the two weeks leading up to the Circular Logic Marathon, I did very little running.  I had an area of inflammation in my left leg, and I wanted to give it a chance to heal.  After that race, I felt much better than I did two weeks earlier, but I still wasn’t 100 percent.  That left me wondering how much more I should rest before ramping up my training again.

As it turns out, my left leg is now the least of my problems.  It’s getting all the rest it needs.

Sunday was a rest day.  On Monday, I did a short bike workout in the morning and weight training in the afternoon.  I decided to wait until Tuesday to see how running felt.

My weight training started with two sets of high lat station pulldowns (similar to pull-ups) and two sets of bench press.  Then I did my first of two sets of curls.  Between sets, I set the curl bar on the same supports I use to hold the barbell when I’m doing my bench press.  It’s at an awkward height.  To pick it up with the right grip, I need to bend down a little.  When I picked up the bar again, I immediately felt a sharp pain in my lower back.

I didn’t know how bad it was, but I knew it wasn’t good.  I immediately set the bar back on the supports.  I never did my second set of curls.  My workout was over.

I knew I did something to my lower back, but I didn’t know for sure if it was a spinal injury, such as a slipped disk, or if I pulled a muscle in my lower back.  I was hoping it was just a pulled muscle.

For the rest of the day Monday and all day Tuesday, I mostly rested.  I took ibuprofen to manage the pain.  On the optimistic assumption that it was a muscular issue, I started icing my lower back.

On Wednesday, I saw my doctor.  After an exam, he couldn’t rule out the possibility of a disk injury, so he ordered an MRI.  In the meantime, he prescribed an anti-inflammatory and recommended applying ice and heat frequently.  He also told me to wait a few days before trying to run.  Without knowing the result of the MRI, he told me that I could probably recover in a couple weeks.  He cautioned, however, that if it was a disk impinging on a nerve, I probably wouldn’t be able to run the Boston Marathon.

There was one amusing moment during the exam.  When my doctor asked me to rate the pain on a scale of one to ten, I said, “Depending on what I’m doing, anywhere from one to four.”  He replied, “This coming from a marathon runner.”  I think he was implying that my “four” might be someone else’s “seven” or “eight.”

I was able to get an MRI scheduled that same day.  Within a few hours my doctor had the results.  He described it as a “Disc protrusion with impingement on a nerve root” and referred me to Tria Orthopedic Center for treatment.  Tria is where I had my physical therapy last year.  I don’t have a copy of the MRI images, but here’s a textbook diagram that’s similar.

The earliest I could get an appointment was today.  In the meantime, I didn’t do any running.  To keep from losing too much conditioning, I did a few short workouts on the stationary bike and some walking on the treadmill.

I had my consultation with the orthopedist this morning.  In general, she was upbeat.  Other than this disk protrusion, I have a surprisingly healthy spine for someone my age.  When I mentioned running the Boston Marathon in 10 days, she didn’t see any problem with that.  She said 10 days is plenty of time.  I can do a lot of healing before the race.

I went straight from my consultation to my first physical therapy appointment.  My therapist gave me four exercises to do twice a day.  She was also upbeat about how much I can improve before Boston.

She asked me if I was tapering for Boston.  I started to explain how I train through most races and wouldn’t actually taper until June, when I’m doing a 100 mile trail run.  At this point, I expected to get a funny look, even from another runner.  She said her husband was an ultrarunner, so she understood about training through races.  Then she asked me which 100 I was doing.  I love having doctors and therapists who understand me.

The doctor cleared me to begin running today, but my therapist suggested starting out with four minutes of walking for every minute of running.  I did my first run/walk workout today, and I felt fine.  Between now and Boston, I’ll run every other day.  I’ll gradually increase the proportion of running.  I'm now confident I can still do the race, but I'll probably have to adjust my goals.

Was It Worth It?

Last summer, I had to make some tough choices.  After a groin injury in early May, I only had a few weeks to heal before the Comrades Marathon.  That wasn’t enough time, and there was no way I was going to miss that race.  It’s an expensive trip, and the flights were already booked.  Besides, it was my only change to run the “down” and “up” courses in back-to-back years.

With 20K to go, my leg started to bother me.  To finish, I had to put a compression wrap on my right thigh.  It was slow going for the rest of the race, but I finished.  I got my back-to-back medal, and my time was still good enough for a bronze medal.  Running that race set back my recovery, but I have absolutely no regrets about that decision.

My next scheduled race was the Bighorn Mountain 100 in Wyoming.  I had three weeks between races.  Again, that wasn’t enough time to heal.  I decided to go ahead with that race, knowing I wasn’t fully healed.  I knew it was a bad idea, but skipping that race seemed unthinkable.  I had a heartbreaking DNF there a year earlier, after falling into a stream during the night.  I was going back for redemption.

Well, I didn’t redeem myself.  After 30 miles, I realized I wasn’t going to finish so I dropped out before I made my leg any worse.  That was a smart decision.  Starting the race wasn’t.  If I could go back and do one differently, I would skip the Bighorn Mountain 100.  Had I done that, I might have been able to recover before my July races.  Instead, I set back my recovery again.

Starting with the first weekend of July, I had races scheduled almost every weekend.  I was pursuing multiple long-term goals.  One was to run at least 51 marathons or ultras for the third straight year.  Another was to finish my 300th marathon or ultra at the Harpeth Hills Flying Monkey Marathon in November.  Another was to finish my second circuit of marathons in all 50 states at the Honolulu Marathon in December.

If I could have healed by skipping one or two races, I would have.  At this point, I needed at least six weeks off to heal.  In July, that would have meant skipping at least six races.  I could find a way to make up for one or two races.  I couldn’t make up that many.

I also didn’t want to eat the travel expenses.  Most of the races were out of state, and the flights were already booked.  I had international trips scheduled in July, September, October and November.  There’s no way I could take a six week break without cancelling at least one international trip.  Did I mention the flights were already booked?

At the beginning of July, I made a big decision.  I committed to finishing the rest of my race schedule, even though I knew my injury wouldn’t begin healing until I took a break in December.

This decision was based on two assumptions.  First, I assumed I would somehow find a way to finish each race.  If, at some point, I couldn’t stay on schedule, it would not have been worth it to try.  I also assumed I wasn’t doing any permanent damage.  It might take a long time, but eventually I would heal.

It was tougher than I thought.  By the middle of July, I had to wrap my right leg with an elastic bandage.  That threw off my stride and put undue stress on my left leg.  Before long, both legs had similar injuries.  At times, I could barely walk.

I was no longer doing any real training between races.  That led to an unexpected problem.  I started experiencing stiffness and cramps in both legs, mostly at night.  Apparently, I need to run, or I have circulation problems.

By the end of September, lack of training caught up to me.  My times deteriorated until I was no longer capable of finishing a marathon in five hours.

More than once, circumstances outside my control caused me to miss a race.  Each time, I found another race I could fit into my schedule.  That sometimes meant doing two races in one weekend.  Sometimes it meant running a 50K instead of a marathon.  I did whatever I had to.

When all was said and done, I reached my goals.  I ran my 300th marathon or ultra at the Harpeth Hills Flying Monkey Marathon.

Three weeks and six races later I finished the Honolulu Marathon.  That was my 51st race of the year and my second 50 states finish.

I somehow finished my races and reached my goals.  That means it was worth it, right?  Not so fast.  There’s still the matter of not doing any permanent damage.  By the end of the year, I wasn’t so sure.

I originally assumed I would need to take it easy for six to eight weeks.  I naively assumed I could still run about 10 miles a week, if I wrapped my legs and went easy.  I was wrong.

By early January, I realized I wasn’t getting better.  I needed complete rest.  I saw my doctor to find out if there was more damage than I realized.  That led to X-rays, an MR arthrogram, a consultation with an orthopedist, and physical therapy.

There was good news and bad news.  The good news is that I didn’t have any permanent damage.  In fact, my injuries were mostly healed.  The bad news is that I had been walking and running with an unorthodox gait for so long that several different muscle groups were now too weak.  I was no longer capable of walking or running normally.  I needed to rebuild several muscles before I could run at all.

There was also the matter of my stiff legs and cramps.  When I was still running marathons, I was at least getting some exercise.  Now I wasn’t getting any.  I didn’t just have issues at night.  Now my legs stiffened up any time I sat down for more than a few minutes.  Getting out of a chair and beginning to walk was a process.  I had to do several slow deliberate motions to gradually stimulate circulation in my legs before I could begin to walk.

I had always assumed this was related to my Raynaud’s Syndrome, but I didn’t know for sure.  My doctor ran numerous blood tests to rule out anemia and various nutritional deficiencies.  He eventually came to the same conclusion.  He prescribed a medication that helped, but the symptoms didn’t go away completely.  It was about half as bad as before.  I had to have faith that if I could get back to running regularly, it would stimulate better circulation and make the symptoms go away completely.  For the time being, though, I wasn’t ready to run.

After a month of PT, I got the green light to begin training.  At first, it was tough to run with any kind of reasonable stride.  I had to really force myself to use my hips.  Even as my form improved, I still couldn’t run fast.  My top speed was about 11 minutes per mile.  That wasn’t my top speed for a marathon.  That was my top speed for a sprint.  For distance runners, oxygen transport is usually the thing that limits you.  If you run too fast, you get out of breath.  Not me.  I couldn’t run fast enough to get short of breath.  My clunky mechanics and weak muscles held me back.  It was like my legs just didn’t work.

I had to have faith that if I kept up the PT, eventually my glutes would get stronger, and I would once again develop a faster stride.  It took time, but eventually I saw improvement.

In the meantime, the Boston Marathon was coming up.  I had already cancelled plans to run two marathons in February.  I didn’t want to skip Boston.  This was my fifth consecutive Boston Marathon, and I wanted to keep that steak alive.

I wasn’t really in shape for it, but I managed to finish this year’s Boston Marathon in 5:08.  To qualify for next year, I would need to bring my time down to at least 3:40 by mid-September.  I had my doubts.

Since then, I’ve kept up my training, I’ve kept up my PT, and I’ve seen steady improvement in my marathons times.  I had a big breakthrough at the Med City Marathon in late May, finishing in 4:19.  That’s when I realized I had a realistic chance of qualifying for next year.

As my glutes got stronger, I was able to run faster, if only briefly.  I pushed myself to run at my old marathon race pace for one minute on a treadmill.  That used to be my “all day” pace.  Now it felt like I was sprinting.  Still, it was a start.  Before long, I could run that pace for a mile, then two miles, then four miles, and eventually for an hour.  Then it was time to push the pace a little faster.

Objectively, I could see improvement, but nothing was easy.  Running was always hard work from the first mile.  I was always stiff or sore.  I really missed the days when I could go out for a run for the sheer enjoyment of it.  Now, even runs that should have been easy were hard work.  I kept at it though.

At some point in the last few months, I realized my legs were no longer getting stiff during the night.  More recently, I realized they also weren’t getting stiff after long periods of sitting.  I felt normal again.  Apparently, I was finally running enough for my circulation to improve.

All the hard work paid off two weeks ago when I qualified for Boston at the Super Tunnel Marathon.  My time of 3:36:39 was a Boston qualifier with 3:21 to spare.  That should be good enough to get me into next year’s race, but I’ll try for a faster time at the Big Cottonwood Marathon.

I’m still haven’t reached the fitness level I had before, but I have the tools to get there.  I’m able to train.  For years, I was already in good shape and only needed to maintain my fitness.  Getting in shape from scratch is much harder.  I’m willing to do the work.  I just wanted to have the chance again.

This week, the final piece fell into place.  Thursday I ran 10 miles, and it was easy.  I wasn’t going very fast, but that’s OK.  It was the first time in more than a year that I ran that distance and never felt like I was working.  I ran another 10 miles on Friday.  It was the first time this year that I ran 10 miles on consecutive days.  I feel like a runner again.

I finally have all my answers.  I didn’t do any permanent damage.  I was able to recover.  I’m not in peak shape yet, but I can get there.  My circulation problems did, in fact, go away once I was able to get enough exercise.

The last year wasn’t easy, but it was worth it.  I have no regrets.  Sometimes I push myself too hard, but you can never know your limits if you don’t test them.