Oh hey blog. Long time no post!
I apologize for my lack of contributing. So far running this summer has been...well, let me tell you. Just before the half marathon in May, my hips would get really sore when I ran. I didn't think much of it, I figure lots of people get sore when they run. It's normal. But then afterwards I started getting up to 35 mile weeks and the soreness turned to pain. So I went to see the good ol' doc and she said I strained my gluteus medius muscle (no, not my gluteus MAXimus aka booty). It's a deep muscle in the hip region. She prescribed me new shoes, taking a few days off then running 3 miles every other day and then back into my training plan, and physical therapy. Oh, I also changed my training plans-my dad was writing me one. He ran plenty of marathons in his day, now he race-walks halfsies. Anywho, as the pain grew worse I started to think that the plan he was giving me was a little bit much. He used to RACE marathons. I'm just trying to finish. So I asked Katie if I could see a copy of the plan she was using. The longest mileage my dad said I would get up to would be 50-70 mile weeks (closer to the marathon). In Katie's plan, the longest mileage week was 43. That's what my dad had me doing on average in July. So the doc also said to switch to Katie's plan.
Now this part is my fault. I got new shoes, ran 3 miles ever other OTHER day, and procrastinated calling the physical therapy office until 2 weeks ago. I know this isn't an excuse, but my boyfriend left for Australia a week and a half ago, so leading up to that we went camping and I was busy planning a surprise going away party for him. Running got put on the back burner until the day after he left. So now I'm back into full swing, but it's slow. Last week Monday I had to do 14 miles and I did it in 4 different runs: 6 and 2 in the morning and then 4 and 2 at night. It was more of a run/walk, but I got the mileage in which was my goal. Then yesterday I did 15 miles in 3 runs: 7 and 3 in the morning (which sucked with both slowness and soreness) and then 5 at night. That 5 was great! I was cruisin along at around 9.5 min miles and it felt good! I was so relieved that I still had a good run left in me. And it got especially better when my man Enrique came on my iPod singing "I Like It". The past couple days I had been running iPod-commando, and some days it was nice. But other days, I could only handle my thoughts for so long...plus, it's so much nicer when I have Enrique's sweet sweet voice serenading me :) Now that I'm back on schedule, I signed up for the Madison Mini Marathon on August 21. My goal is to run the whole thing, or at least beat my time from the May half marathon.
And for those of our 3 loyal followers, I am running the Chicago Marathon for a charity called Girls In The Game which is an organization that gives girls the opportunity to learn different sports and how to stay and eat healthy. I'm all for that, especially the eating part :) So if any of you would like to make a donation, you can do so here: http://www.active.com/donate/charityraceteam/alyssageorge It would be greatly appreciated!
Until next time (hopefully before October),
~A
