Zero to 73 in 7. And back to sub 7. Barely.

Let me add some units to remove some of the intrigue of such a title... And add that this isn't about a speed benchmark of my new motorbike!

As I wrote last week, I got back to running despite the back pain. After 16 days of forced rest, my first run was 11 miles and I actually ran for 7 straight days. As a matter of fact, the pain was so bad last Saturday, day 4 after resuming training, that I stopped after 3 miles. I have to say, I very rarely run so little, I feel it’s not worth the time to put on shorts and running shoes just for 5 kilometers or 20 or so minutes! I know, everything is relative, running 5K is still a blessing to appreciate… ;-)

But on Sunday I tried again and, while I could feel every stride in my injured muscle along the bottom of my rib cage, I pushed through and logged 20 miles: 1 mile to the local high school track, 1 mile to run back home and 72 laps in between, one lap or even one step at a time as we say. All this at an average of 7:25 min/mile, not fast at all but better than the initial 9 min/mile of the first runs in Vegas.

While I felt good about this high mileage, I was stunned to then suffer from a tendinitis on the top of my right toe on Monday. Darn, maybe my body wasn’t ready to take on all this, typical haste to ramp-up training after an injury, especially a non running-related one!

Still went for 9 miles on Monday and Tuesday hence the 73 miles in 7 days of the title.

With some icing and application of anti-inflammatory ointment, I was able to keep the tendon inflammation under some control throughout the week but this Friday, when I had to call it a run after 3 miles again. On Thursday though, I pushed the pace on a 20K run and barely broke 7 min/mile, by one second. Progress.

I’m writing this post on a plane, on our way to Roatan, an island on the shores of Honduras, for another Caribbean experience. I even left my MacBook with AppleCare for some maintenance so all set to take a real Spring break. Let’s see if the beach life and the salted Atlantic Ocean provides enough of a good therapy to still log a few training miles before American River 50-mile next weekend then Boston. The island is 42-kilometer long, that makes me think… and dream! ;-) (map credit: travel-Roatan.com)

Hope you all have a great Easter celebration and some Spring break as well and, if you run yourself, that you remain healthy and strong as the season ramps up.