Wow!, so I didn’t make it the full 10K. I could have, but I figured for my first run back, I’d play it at least a little smart. My legs felt like Jello, it was as if I hadn’t run in years. The inside of my stomach actually felt bruised and like every step was taxing an already sore muscle that had been heavily worked out the day before. I focused only on one thing, technique – placing one foot after the other properly on the ground under my center of mass and encouraging my body to absorb each stride through the joints of my ankles, knees and hips. Given how I felt I’m more than a little concerned that my weakened muscles and lack of support will expose me to odd little annoyances like shin splints, another reason for shortening the run. As it is, I ran for 45 minutes and approximately five miles. I wouldn’t say it was exactly a struggle because I didn’t press at any time, but I also know that my heart rate was elevated far higher than it should have been for that small level of effort.

When I got back to the house, I slowed to a walk and realized that I couldn’t pick my feet up very well, essentially the entire run felt as if it was equivalent to the final miles of a 20-plus mile run that I was unprepared to run. My knees actually ache as I sit here typing this, reinforcing the damage that was done to me over the past ten days. On the brighter side, after completing the run, I dropped down to do my traditional post run routine of push-ups and abdominal work, and I was able to complete my push-ups without too much trouble, except for the fact that I was completely out of breath when I finished. My oxygen carrying capacity has been dramatically reduced.

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve been this ill and at this moment, I can’t even fathom running, let alone racing a marathon in less than a month in

Los Angeles. That said, the human body is pretty amazing, so we’ll see how it goes. I do vaguely remember that the return to form can take less time than one thinks and it takes a bout a week to ten days of regular and consistent running to remind the body what it’s supposed to do. I’ll let you know how it goes.

P.S. I’m not sure what’s happened to my blog. The whole theme seems to have gotten screwed up. The only thing I did recently was add Google analytics to it, so maybe that’s what’s going on. I did that a few days ago, so I’m not quite sure why it would be all squirrelly now. I’ll see if I can get it back working again because as it stands, it pretty much looks like crap!