4 miles

After a long drive home from Chicago last night topped off by our last 10 miles taking an excruciatingly long time due to the GW Parkway being basically shut down, I needed to get a run in. Seeing how it was just 2 hours until Monday, when the doctor said I could run again, I figured a 2 mile run couldn't hurt. So at 10 pm last night I ran for the first time in over five weeks. It was amazing! The weather was cooler but still humid from the thunderstorms that had just left the area (and caused the GW Parkway to come to a complete standstill). It felt great to sweat, listen to my ipod and just be moving faster.

This morning I got another 2 mile run in. For some reason on both runs I couldn't stop listening to This Is Why We Fight by the Decemberists (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNEz3_yzIUY) although it is a little sadder than my usual running music. It was great to be out taking in the Shirlington "scene." Today there were lots of doggies out in the dog creek at Four Mile Run. So cute:

All of the running advice on coming back from a stress fracture injury says to up your mileage only by 10% a week. But if  you are starting from 0 miles I don't understand how you can go up any percentage. 10% of 0 miles is 0 miles. I run into this frustrating math problem all the time at work. HUD wants families to not be overly rent burdened which means they don't pay over 40% of their adjusted income in rent. But a decent portion of the portfolio serves families with zero income (or incomes of less than a minimum rent of $25 or $50 per month) which automatically means they are paying 100% or more of their income in rent. Ay yi yi. Math!

Since the math clearly makes no sense I've decided to try and run just 2 miles per day this week and also attempt a yoga class. Don't worry though -- at work I put the data analysis into percent and dollar ranges and don't just make up an answer :)

On the two runs there wasn't much pain in my foot at all -- more weakness than anything. However, my right foot (the healthy one) definitely ached a little from the extra stress I'd been putting on it while dragging my broken left foot around. That said, based on my past two days of running, my overall fitness level seems to have held pretty steady. I didn't feel too out of shape considering I've done basically nothing for the past five weeks.

Now to work on a diet that fuels good running. In Chicago we ate some really delicious food but it definitely lacked nutritional value. Patrick enjoyed his first Chicago hot dog at Portillo's (didn't enjoy my photography so much though). I had the Italian Beef. Yum!

Next up on my blogging agenda: talking through the MCM training program. I need to review it in more detail first and figure out how I can get my mileage up to follow it.