Running and Things

OH HEY. If you’ve been a reader for awhile, you know that my running has been up and down — but mostly down — for the last 3 or so years. Spring and summer 2014 was really great for my running, but by the end of October 2014 I was dealing with a pretty bad case of ITBS that then lead from one thing to another since then. The amount of time I’ve spent running “healthy” versus the time I’ve spent either not running or starting the recovery process is wild. Spoiler alert: the running time has been pretty dang low. So it’s no surprise that whenever I meet-up with or see running friends, they cautiously ask, “so… how’s running going?” For the last 6-ish months or so my answer has been “good enough,” and that’s the truth.

This past summer was pretty decent. I managed to run A LOT of races, which is something I haven’t done in quite some time. Sure, I didn’t put in race effort for the majority of them, but I got to the start line… which is more than I can say for the previous years. In 2015 I made it to 3 start lines… 3! In 2016 I had a little more luck and doubled my numbers, but still struggled a lot. We still have 3 more months in 2017 and I’ve already crossed 16 finish lines!! I’d say that more than makes up for the previous years. In fact, it’s already the most races I’ve run in a calendar year since I started running in 2009. HASHTAG BLESSED.

You’re probably thinking, “So glad to hear you’re back to running for more than a few months at a time, Danielle! But what are you doing differently?!” Well, despite having the most races completed on my calendar this year, I’ve taken a new approach of not signing up for races far in advance. Or putting anything big or goal oriented on the calendar. Yes, 2017 is the first year I haven’t registered for a marathon since 2011 (and I’ve only run 4 with 2 in 2012, so you do the math). Not having big races (or any races) on my calendar takes off so.much.pressure. So when I feel a weird little niggle somewhere (like in random spots on my feet, which I had here and there all summer, but have just been angry tendons because summer footwear is terrible), it’s not a big deal. Obviously I don’t want to be injured (I’ve had enough!) but when I notice things that feel ‘weird’ I don’t immediately panic because I have a race X number of weeks or months away. I can take a day or two and reassess without it being a blow to my training. And we can all use a little LESS stress in our lives, am I right?!

So I’ve been running around 15-20 miles per week, averaging about 3 days of running with 3 days of cross-training (yoga, strength, cycling). I’ve run races ranging from a 5k to a half marathon, and I even got within striking range of my 5k PR earlier this month. All of the races I completed this year have me IN for the NYC Half in March as well as the NYC Marathon in November 2018, so those are the next “big” races I have… but there’s no pressure because I can cancel either up until the night before! And now I’m at a point where I’ve been healthy-ish long enough that I’m starting to think maybe I can do some real training. But without actually signing up for anything, “just in case.”

Ultimately, I’d like to run a 5k PR. And a 10k PR. And get close to my half marathon PR from 2014 (I think a half marathon PR will still take some time, and I don’t want to get ahead of myself). I think the 5k is realistic, as is the 10k because I really haven’t run that many. I took this last week completely off from running as a reset of sorts. Even though I haven’t been running a ton, I ran races 3 weekends in a row in September, and every weekend in June. So while I still worked out this past week, it wasn’t running. My plan for the rest of the year is to build myself to a point where I could PR in the 5k and/or 10k by the end of the year, and then continue building off of that to run a solid half marathon in the spring. Of course, this all depends on if my body cooperates or not. But I’m really hoping it does this time. Only time will tell.