This past Sunday I did my last sort of goal race for running when I did the 10K at Brian's Run in West Chester -- the course even briefly overlaps my typical route into work in the mornings. I don't know if my legs were still fully recovered yet from the half-marathon back on November 18th along with how I probably ran too many miles the week following that, but I had a good time running the distance in some sleet and freezing rain. At the finish, I had some ice in my hair and on the front of my shorts.
Overall, I'm rather pleased with the progress I made since April 21st when I began for the second time the effort to make running part of my regular activity. The first attempt was at the start of November in 2006 and that came to difficulties when 7 weeks later and with less than 85 miles of running I had broken my tibia down in the ankle area. But I took the lessons learned from that, added more regular calcium rich foods to my diet and when I resumed running, did so in a conservative fashion to let my legs slowly build up.
Now, 7.5 months later, I've achieved the two races I wanted to be ready for -- the half-marathon on the 18th of November and the 10K at Brian's Run.
I'm quite serious when I say it's been one of the best things I've ever done. It was tough at times, making the time to do my runs, monitoring my glucose levels, being persistent about it. What I managed to do is a fair enough challenge and a worthy for those without the complication of type 1 diabetes, many normally healthy people would have found the goal and the process a fair bit of readjustment.
But all of that is just a subset of results under the idea of being active and using exercise to help maintain my health, not just physical health but my emotional and mental well-being too.
So I intend to continue running and hope to use this thread to let others see my progress on the way to
The Broad Street Run in Philadelphia in May. 10 miles straight down Broad Street, past Independence Hall and finishing in the Navy Yard.
My path to there and then began yesterday with 5.1 miles in the cold and wind.
