Still painful, yet so good to be back!

If you can tell from the unusual irregular frequency of my posts, I've been busy, and bothered by this nagging injury since the Turkey Trot 10K last November. I imagine many of you wonder how serious this injury is since I was able to pull 41.5 miles at One Day in Auburn's 6-hour in January and a 3:04 marathon in Redding, that's the issue with injuries which are not visible. And after spending $800 to rule out a blood clot in my calf a few weeks ago, I'm not going to spend more to investigate what's wrong deep in my gluteus (aka butt...).

As a matter of fact, what seems to work best toward healing isn't rest but some running and a lot of stretching. But I would admit that this is pure guessing at this point and quite frustrating for the beginning of a season.

Yet, it feels really good to be back.

Back at running while traveling to explore the world, albeit slowly twice in Madrid, 3 weeks ago.

Back at running 2 back to back 50K training runs. I ran 50K on my favorite course in Paris, down to Saclay Bourg then back to Charléty (just after a snow storm there). Then 50K at the Cupertino High School track, while the Varsity Track & Field team was training with Coach Armstrong.

Back at running 100 miles in 7 days even, as I logged 101 miles the week before our IBM THINK conference in San Francisco this week.

Back at running 7 days a week even.

Back at enjoying running again, which is even better and so much needed since running is only my second job.

Back at racing as I write this from Vegas where I'm going to run the 100-mile Road Nationals in 1 hour (better get prepared and keep this post short!).

Back at enjoying seeing others race this weekend, in particular at the 50K Trail Nationals in Auburn this Sunday (FOURmidable competition).

Back at dreaming again about this season, as I change age group in less than 2 weeks now.

Back at blogging, incidentally.

Back to you! :-)

With that, hope the title looks less masochist, the association of pain and goodness. If this isn't what ultra running is about anyway in the first place...!