Goals

Total: 20 miles running this week

Monday: 11 miles mountain bike
Tuesday: 2 miles on Treadmill (first time post surgery on treadmill).
Wednesday: PT
Thursday: 4 miles
Friday: 4 miles
Saturday: 6 miles
Sunday: 6 miles mountain bike followed by 4 miles running.

The goal this week was to try to hit 20 miles of total running without doing any 8 milers. It wasn't easy. It still feels like I need a full day off after each run, so to do four days in a row of running was stretching it. I feel OK when running, it is after running that the muscles around both hips get really tight. I have been doing strength work using ankle weights to work on the hip muscles, but there is a lot of work yet still to be done.

I am still very happy to be out running as I am way ahead of schedule. I have an appointment with my hip surgeon at the end of this month and I thought then when I had surgery and was given this appointment back in July that I would not start running until after seeing the surgeon.

My main goal is to be able to run pain-free and to get back to the conditioning that I had a year ago. Being able to run each day would just be great. Of course, I would like to be able to run as fast or faster than I had been doing before the surgery. Unless some setback happens, I can't see why this would not happen, although I am giving it a year post surgery to regain what I lost in my year off from running (and paradaoxically to lose what I gained in the year of not running- ice cream weight!). I feel I am well on my way towards this goal as the surgery seems to be a huge success for me. Before surgery, I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to run again.

I do have specific time and race goals I would love to reach once I am fully recovered. If I get to that point I would be thrilled, but I know it will take time and a lot of work. I won't publish those as some may think I am nuts. I do have one specific goal for the next couple of years that I truly wish to make as long as I remain injury free and can run more efficiently . I would like to go sub 3 hours in a marathon again. If I can do the training without the pain and imbalances that I have had for years, then I think that after 2-3 years of solid running I could reach this goal. In May of 1980, I ran my first sub 3 hour marathon and if I run another one I would make this international list of longest time spans between first and last sub-3 hour marathons. I am a long way off from even racing a 5k, but a healthy me will definitely put a year or two of dedicated effort to reach this goal.

Back in 1985 I could swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles,
and run 26.2 miles in 10:20:13, could I ever
do those same distances again?

This week, I finished reading Iron War about the epic Hawaii Ironman battle between Dave Scott and Mark Allen back in 1989. It reminded me how much I loved doing triathlons in the 1980s and being somewhat of a pioneer in the sport in New England during that time. I completed 5 Ironman distance triathlons between 1983 and 1987 and always wished to get back into triathlons again. I have also come to realize that the way I set up my bike and pedals for triathlon racing probably is what started to destroy my hip as I have been fighting that bad hip ever since that first year of triathloning. It would be a a great statement to my body to complete another Ironman distance triathlon one day in the future. I could get truly behind that goal, but I am not sure I want to make it a real goal as I have already done that in my past. I do think once I have done a marathon again, that I could do a 2.4 mile swim (easy), and then get back to biking and build up to complete 112 miles on a bike. I wouldn't have to do the events on the same day in race, but to do all three distances again in the same year, season, month, or week would be a goal that I could someday certainly accomplish and I think that doing so would be a wonderful goal for me. So I have goals, they are a long way off as I just try to get a few miles in at a time right now, but I have goals, and that makes for good motivation!