Onward

My game plan is to be up and running in force by November 1st. If all goes well. I will take this week and next week easy. Yesterday (Monday) I ran an easy 8 (6:40 pace) and had NO hip issues at all. On Sunday, I decided not to run because I woke up with a dull pain in the area that has been giving me trouble. Since I am airing on the side of caution, I decided to head to Dunkin Donuts instead of running 8-10 miles. I feel as if I take 100% time off and the start back up, my hip will be back to square one (this has been the case with previous injuries). What seems to work for me is some time off, followed by easy running, followed by rest...then repeat. The hip will get used to running while still giving my cardio some resemblance of a workout. The last thing I want to do is end up like this poor chap (see photo).

Injuries are strange. Two examples:

September 2007 - shin splints. Battled shin splints all summer of 2007 and really for most of the spring. They finally got too "hot" and I decided to take time off. I came back in September but the shins were still bad, worse even. I decided to INCREASE mileage - which might seem counter intuitive - and the shin pain soon subsided. Perhaps I ran the pain from my shins?

August 2008 - achilles. During the "Dual Ferries" run in Poolsville (one of my favorite long run courses) my achilles was crying. The loop is 10 miles and I had planned to run it twice with the likes of Reaves, Bain and others. After the first 10 miles I decided to give it a rest. What would be the point of running another 10 miles on a sore achilles; arguably one of the hardest injuries to cure. I was stubborn and decided to do it but my achilles was never an issue. No pain. In fact, after that run I NEVER felt achilles pain again. Once again, a "surge" of miles killed the pain.

RED FOX SITING - HERE

I spied a handsome red fox with black tips yesterday. He was laying on a gravel path when I came galloping around the bend.