Starting Anew

Yeah, it's been awhile. My blogging here isn't even what you could call sporadic. Perhaps I should just wipe the slate clean and start over. I won't do that (for now) but am clear that I'll have to do better if I'm to have a viable blog.

(I'm not even sure what "viable" means in this context, but I know I'd like to have a space where I can reflect on what running and exercise mean in my life and perhaps encourage others to do the same.)

To be fair, there hasn't been a lot of running the past few months/years. It's been almost two and a half years since my last marathon, and there haven't been many other races to celebrate either. Between injury (hamstring) and illness (kidney stones), I haven't been in much condition to run the past couple of years. For now, though, I seem to be healthy and have once more taken to the streets.

And there's sufficient motivation now, too. On a lark, Laura submitted entries into the New York City Marathon for this fall, fully expecting that we would be denied this year. The marathon is so popular that they run a lottery; if you enter three years consecutively without success, you're guaranteed entry in the fourth year. That fourth year is what we were going for. Count me surprised when, a couple of weeks ago, I learned that my entry had been accepted and I would be able to run this fall's marathon.

Well, then.

So training has commenced. I've been running regularly since my last procedure in February but have picked it up a bit over the past couple of weeks. Two weeks ago, Laura and I got out for an easy 7-miler on Saturday with the TNT folks, and I managed a ride and two other runs that week. This past week, Laura and I ran with the Morning Run crowd (about 5 miles), and I put in two more runs during the week. The hill run on Thursday deserves a blog post of its own, so I'll leave the details to another time. All so far have been comfortable and make me hopeful for races next weekend and in July.

And health and finances willing, we'll culminate this leg of the journey in NYC in November!