Wow! It's been a while since I've blogged. Sometimes it's all I can do to find a nice balance between work, training, flying and spending quality time with my girls. Blogging then goes by the wayside. And sometimes there just isn't much that's interesting to say. I suppose at those times I can always fall back on bullet points!

Today, though, I'll just write a little blurb about each of several subjects. Better yet, I'll stretch it out into several blog posts!

Running

Following my weekend jaunt in Miami, I returned to Dr. Geller a/k/a super-triathlete/podiatrist. After a couple more x-rays, he gave me the green light to start a conservative running program. What does that mean? 15 minutes of run/walk (one minute each) the first week, 20 minutes the 2nd week, then 30, then 40, and so on. Pretty much, starting from scratch. During this time, Team in Training has completed their 1st 4 weeks of base training, and are now on the 2nd base period, including hill repeats. Knowing that there was no fracture, it's been a real challenge for me not to push myself too hard too fast. The only thing that's been keeping me back is the very real possibility of causing an injury that will keep my from Ironman.

So that 1st week, I might have been a little aggressive. Instead of 15 minutes, I did 20 at a pop. Still doing run/walk intervals, but went all out on the runs. Damn, it felt good! Those all out run intervals are so much fun, and how great is it to feel like I've done some real work in only 20 minutes! I definitely plan on bringing these back as an extra run time once I've finished the 1st four weeks back. Best of all, I can do the while walking Fiji in the morning!

The next week, it was 30s. The first, I did as another interval set - run 3, walk 2, and was still a few blocks from home, so added another 5 minutes easy jogging. The next run session followed a coached bike ride and conversation, so I reined it in a bit for an easy 3.? miles. No heart rate monitor, no GPS or even a watch to tell me the time. It felt surprisingly good to run "naked".

Today, I brought it up to 45', keeping it nice and easy. Running feels good, and hasn't hurt, though my lungs have definitely felt the time away. Even with the increase in cycling and swimming, it's almost like I need to access something else when I run. Heart rate zone analysis and comparisons have definitely indicated that my running fitness has been significantly impacted by the injury/forced hiatus. While my heart rate stays the same for what in my mind seems nice and easy, today I was 6 minutes slower than in October on the same four miles. Ouch! It will be nice to see my times go down and my mileage go up.

All that said, the side of my foot still aches a bit, as does my heel. Not when I'm running, but after, or after cycling or even walking. Some gait analysis is definitely in order, and once that happens, another blog post as well.

(was going to post about cycling as well, but since the blogging program I'm using just deleted everything I wrote on the subject, it'll have to wait for another day. If anyone can recommend an iPad blogging up, I'd love some suggestions!)