The big 4.0

Excluding races, it's been almost two months since I ran 4 miles or more. I ran 6 miles on March 8 and participated in the 8k on March 15 the day before the half marathon. Ever since then -- except for the 10k in early April -- I haven't ran much. When I have, it's only been a mile or two at a time. When last week came along, I got in three miles, which was a good confidence builder.

This week I've gotten in runs of 2.1 miles, 1 mile and 2.4 miles. Today, though, I hit 4 miles. I've been overly worried about running coming off back-to-back injuries, but hitting 4 miles tells me that it's OK to run again. I'm not going to all of a sudden bump my mileage back up, but after two weeks of decent short runs, I'm ready to lay out a game plan to slowly build it up. Slow and steady wins the race ... or at least will make me a better runner by the end of August.

On a cross-training note, I must admit that it's very nice to be back into a routing of lifting weights. Even though it's only been a few weeks, I can already see small results in my arms. It's like 2004 all over again. This is about the time of year I started and by July I was feeling great and could really see the results. This year, though, there's no excuse of a wedding and honeymoon to interrupt things.