Hiatus over

Granted, I haven't posted in a few weeks, but to be fair, I haven't run in a few weeks either. No, I wasn't being lazy, it was actually intentional. It all started about three weeks ago...

I was signed up for a 4 mile race on Saturday, May 30. Then, I found out that Beth, who was going to be in town that weekend with her boyfriend, for his graduation and his cousin's bat mitzvah, was going to be free on Sunday, so I suggested that she bring her running shoes. I wasn't thrilled about running two days in a row, but hey, if we're training for a marathon together, it'd be nice to occasionally run together, right?

Of course, it wasn't until about Friday night that I found out that I was wrong about the race. It wasn't on Saturday. No, instead, it was Sunday morning, and as much as I didn't want to run twice in two days, I was even less excited about running twice in one day. Still, I wanted to run with Beth, and there aren't many qualifying races left during the year that I could reasonably do, so I decided to do both and just walk most of the race.

Sunday morning, I drove to near the start line by about 7:45, 15 minutes before the race. I did not factor in anywhere near enough time to find a parking spot. I figured it would be easy. I was wrong. After almost getting into a fight with one guy who was standing in a spot to save it for his friend still driving around (I actually got out of the car and got in his face before backing down because I realized the only thing I could do was drive my car into him, and that wasn't really a viable option), and circling for about half an hour, I finally found a spot almost half a mile from the start line, at 8:15. I ran to the start line, which was a great way to begin my plan of walking most of the race. The race was a loop, and they had already converted the start line into the finish line for timing purposes, so they told me I couldn't run across the start line, but that I could run the race and still get credit. I did, and probably walked about half of it. Still, because I couldn't run over the start time, my official personal time was calculated from the "gun time" (the actual start of the race) and not from when I crossed the start line, and that, in addition to the fact that I walked half the race, gave me an official time of 1:02:59, a 15:44 pace, which just barely missed setting a new world record for fastest time ever.

My IT band was not exactly perfect after that, but after Beth and I saw the Mets beat the Marlins at Citi Field, we went back to my place and went out for another 4 miles. This time we both ran the whole thing, at least until Beth mildly twisted her ankle turning into the final stretch. It looked a little swollen, and she reminds me of a horse, so I put her down. It was best for everybody.

Then my leg went to hell. I mean, it really sucked. I couldn't walk up stairs. Later that night, in response to my status message on facebook ("IT band syndrome...it's not just for the left leg anymore!"), my friend Andrea, who runs a LOT more than I do, told me she had suffered the same problem, and that I should take 2 or 3 weeks off from running, and in the meantime get a foam roller. I took the time off, just got the foam roller a few days ago, watched a video with some ditzy but, ultimately, persuasively attractive girls, started doing the part where they talk about working the IT band, and finally got back out today.

Today's run was 5K, just a little jog to get back into things. I finished in 30:50.44, a 9:55 pace. I'm planning to do two more of those during the week in tune up for a 5 mile race on Father's Day, which will be my sixth qualifier of the nine needed for the 2010 NYC marathon. Meanwhile, Beth's talking about never running again or something. What a wimp.