Cowboy Hazel

Although the doctor gave me the green light to start running again this week, I've been very cautious. So, for those of you who were worried that I would head out there with a cavalier attitude and make everything even worse, you can now breathe easy... I actually have some good news to report.

I went out for a four mile run Tuesday morning and ended up finishing the whole thing. There was some pain in the last mile-and-a-half, but it was not nearly as severe as it had been in the previous week and I was able to push through it. I took a day off yesterday, then, this evening, I headed out for another four miler and finished it with hardly any pain at all. I felt twinges a couple times, but it never escalated. Needless to say, I am thrilled about that.

I definitely did feel some discomfort out there on both those runs from a lack of regular training though. There was just a lot of soreness all around (muscles, both knees, respiratory, etc.) that I think was coming from the fact that I've been so sedentary lately. Plus, I never really was able to get into a groove – Maybe that's because I was paying attention to form so closely, or "listening" for pains to pop up, I'm not really sure.

Anyway, the plan is to continue building up slowly. I'll take another rest day tomorrow and then maybe try for a slow loop of the park on Saturday (I'll bring my MetroCard just in case). Of course, I'll keep doing the whole stretching/icing/medicating/foam-rolling thing too. And I have a deep tissue massage scheduled for Monday afternoon. So, it looks like things are finally headed back in the right direction.