Forced Break Is Over- Back To Training!

I used to think the most difficult part of training was running slow and for distance. Nope. The most difficult part of training is recovering from an injury, and not being able to do any running. Last week SUCKED. I know I needed to rest my back and let it heal, but my legs kept wanting to run. The chiro said swim or use the lower impact machines for cardio work. Oh whatever. I know they are great, but I just want to run. I was still in plenty of pain most of the week, and it was pretty busy anyway from the holiday.

It was the worst possible week to have to not be so active- so much eating. I managed to at least maintain my weight rather than gain a bunch, so that's good. I went out a couple of times and ran. The first time I made it to a mile and it was still pretty painful. Yesterday I went two miles and it felt really good. Started to get a little tight in the lower back, but the great part was when I stretched after I recovered really fast- more so than in the past week. I also finally had a chance to try the new shoes- and I LOVE them. So light and flexible it's like I'm not even wearing shoes. I did notice that I was putting my weight on different places as I ran, but it wasn't painful. Just different. I'm really glad I didn't wait until after the half-marathon to switch.

So, now that I'm at about 80%, I decided just to continue where I left off in my training plan. Only this time I will keep stretching, no matter how good I feel!

Key Run #1: Repeats: 1k, 2k, 1k, 1k, 400m rest intervals
Key Run #2: 5 mile medium tempo run
Key Run #3: 8 miles (we'll see how the back is doing by the end of the week).

In other running-related news, I might have had too many slices of pie this week, because I joined a challenge over on Daily Mile. Going to try and run 125 miles in December. Crazy? Not if you love to run!

Time to get moving.