Humbled

Ouch. Quads. Ouch. Calfs. Ouch. Heels. Ouch. Lower back.

Ever since the marathon, my running has been somewhat, well, uninspired. After the week of yoga, I've hovered around 13-20 miles per week as slow as I felt like with one or two yoga sessions to keep me limber. I've even let my shoes get up to 400 miles without replacement, whereas I'm ordinarily so thankful for my lack of foot and calf issues that I order new plain, basic, cheap running shoes as soon as I cross 300 miles.

Despite my more recent lack of commitment to running, I'm signed up to do the Santa Cruz Half Marathon, so at some point, I was gonna have to get back into the swing of things so it wouldn't hurt to finish.

This week seemed like a good week to try that. Monday, I hit the track and did some speed training for the first time in at least 6 months. It felt great. I did a medium length run and a shorter run during the week and made plans to do a medium-long run in the hills with B on the weekend.

So, yesterday, under the clear blue morning sky of the peninsula (SF, which we later went to, had rain and fog. Just another reason I'm so glad we don't live there.) B and I hit Rancho San Antonio for what we thought would be a nice, but challenging, mid-length run in the hills.

It was breathtakingly beautiful. Trees, forest, hills, valleys, and no development to be seen other than power lines. But, to earn those views, we had to do almost a mile of elevation change in less than 8 miles of distance. There was much walking on the uphills. I returned home more physically exhausted than I'd been since the marathon.

Then, last night, in the city, I walked about 2 miles between friends' places, restaurants and the party we were there to attend. Plus, I stood around for hours while at the party. In there interests of fashion, I did all of these things in high heeled boots.

Needless to say, I begged for a piggy-back ride back to where we were sleeping (3/4 of a mile in San Francisco hills) and sounded so pathetic that E actually obliged me for part of the distance.

I slept like a rock, which was nice. But damn, everything hurts today. I'm bailing out of mini-golf this afternoon because I'm just that sore.

Clearly, I will need to focus a little more on my running (read: focus at all) if I plan to finish my next race at a decent pace and without any pain.