I'm back!?

When you're little and you fall down, your parents tell you to "get back in the saddle" and keep going. I had to tell myself that's what today was in my running journey. There comes a point when you need to suck it up and get back on track.

I was starting to get pretty down on myself for not running in almost 3 WEEKS! Granted, my back was killing me the first week and I went on two slow, easy runs in Amarillo and then worked WAY too much the rest of the second week, but still. I went to Bikram Wednesday and Saturday and it has helped my back a lot. It's still very tight, but I need to remember to keep going to yoga once a week to stay loose and injury-free.

Today was a slow, short run. I can tell I've lost some strength and endurance since my last good run, which is a bit discouraging. However, I worked up a sweat and defintitely got my heart rate up. I need to keep focusing on the positive. I do notice that I feel happier after working out. Like Lance Armstrong says, "What am I on? I'm on my bike 6 hours a day. What are you on?" (Speaking of biking, now that it's warm, Ross and I need to find some good routes around here!)

As I was sitting here moping about how much I've fallen behind in my training, I read through some blogs I follow and found this timely post on No Meat Athelte. (Click the underlined words to go to the link). The basic premise is, like Hal Higdon says, "Putting miles in your training log is like putting money in the bank. You begin to draw interest on it immediately." I don't know about drawing interest, but I am keeping tally of my total mileage on dailymile.com now to encourage me and prove to myself that I am (or will be, eventually) improving and building endurance. Every step I take is literally a step toward that goal.