Doyle's 5 miler

Today was a great day at Doyle's 5 miler.  I hadn't done this race since 2005 and only once before that in 2004.  Jay and I always talk about our early running/racing days when, well, we had no racing friends.  We'd finish a race, grab a beer - ask each other how how the race went - finish the beer and then go home - not all that exciting.

Today as a big change from that.   We met up with our good friends, their family and some other runners from RI that we don't get to see very often.  Although the weather wasn't the best, it turned into a day long affair and it was a really good time.

Today was an important day in my road back as well.  A lot of the latter weeks of my physical therapy were built around this race and running it.  After getting through this, I'm pretty much free to register for more races and move on with my running life.  The goal was to run a 7:05 pace for the 5 miles.  True to Gina form, I did not run a 7:05 pace but a 6:45 pace.  I felt great.  I finished with an overall time of 33:47 which is far better than I thought I could do.  Things are looking up!  I'm even running enough to start tracking my miles now.  I am still only allowed to run every other day of the week but I'll take it with a few good races in between.

Total miles run this week: 4 days of running = 26.5 miles of running
Speed: 3 out of the 4 days had some speedy speed!

Seemingly smooth sailing

Post NYC Half - my recovery seems on track to really return to full strength hopefully by the end of May.  It's actually scary for me - I feel nothing wrong with my leg anymore - and having felt something wrong for literally a solid year this week, it's really weird!

With each passing week, I've been increasing speed and duration (not together - except when I break the rules which although I try not to, sometimes it happens).  I  have 2 PT visits left and then my PT girl said I can likely fly away on my own back to my coach to ramp up to normal training.  Yay!

My next race is Doyle's Pub Race on 4/22.  I'm just excited for that race because I haven't done it since 2005 and it's a fun one and of course there is beer.  I'm excited to see our friends Thor and Heather that we haven't seen in awhile and just really enjoy the day.  It finally feels like things are looking up.

I'm very committed to doing all the little things to keep me healthy.  If things stay steady I hope to sign up for the Toronto Marathon in the fall as my goal marathon.  I'm taking it day by day though but it's looking like I'll make my first trip to Canada in October!