A month later

After two useless weeks, I finally feel normal this weekend. It's tough to say I'm at 100 percent (I'll say 91 percent today), but I didn't lay around and do nothing. I got in 3 miles yesterday -- the longest since 4 miles two Saturdays ago. I had hoped to do a 5k today, but picking up pesky leaves called my name today. Doesn't a couple of hours or so of picking up leaves count as a mile? I won't add it, but it was definitely a good workout.

So now that I've had two poor running weeks, I'm setting my sights on returning to normal this week. The extremely cold weather seems to be staying away this week from this part of the country, so it'll be a good transition to get back out there and then have a solid long run next week. I'm avoiding any week goals just yet since I've had so much downtime in the past month. Hitting 1,000 miles is still within reach, but I'm not going to focus on it too much until the end of the week. I know what I have to do to get there and if I stay healthy, don't get hurt and don't run into an Ohio blizzard near Christmas, I should hit it.

Once Christmas gets here I'll get focused on more specific mileage as I begin training for the Shamrock Half Marathon in March. I'm in much better shape now than I was a year ago when I started getting ready for this race, so I'm going to be very focused on beating this year's 1:44:23.

So a month after the marathon, I feel that my body has hit the Reset button. Getting sick has made me realize how important my health is. Staying healthy is much more crucial than any goal I have right now. Unlike previous down times, I don't feel like I've gotten out of shape. I have marathon training to thank for that. Now I'm just ready to move on and let this sickness be a story I tell years down the road.