Round's a shape...

Today was my first training run since October. Since my new target marathon isn't until December, I'm definitely not in full-blown training mode for that yet (plus, I've been sitting on my butt for a few months, so not quite ready to get up to that kind of running yet), so today was basically just trying to see what I can do.

The answer is... "not much".

Ironically, the 15K last weekend seemed to me to be a bit easier than today's slightly-more-than-2.5 mile run. I know I get swept up in competition, and I always do better when running with other people, but dangit, Lana was doing an 11 mile run today, and I am just not ready for that yet. Of course, she's running a half marathon in a couple weeks, so she should be pretty good for that distance. But I digress.

If you want to learn more about Lana and her running exploits, check out her blog, holo lkaiki.

Now, back to me. She was going off on her 11 mile run (yes, I know I said "back to me", and then started talking about Lana again, but it's all setup to my story), and I decided to take this time not to sleep, but to get up and do my own run. I've spent the entire last week recovering, and I'm starting to feel pretty good, so I thought going out for a quick jog through the neighborhood would be a good way to kill some time. And it was. But my running definitely wasn't feeling quite like it did back in October.

Within the first mile, I was *tired*. Now, since this is my first training run back, I wanted to take it nice and easy, so I was doing a 1/1 run/walk ratio. And I was still *tired*. And i was doing about a 12-minute mile. That was odd, for starters, but I guess it's to be expected. I do need to get back into some semblance of shape.

The other thing to note is that this past week, my hip has been bothering me a bit. Not a lot, just a bit. I've been having some intermittent sacroiliac pain, but that seems to have pretty much gone away, and I've been having a little bit of pain in my right hip, most of which I just attribute to no work, having a strange stride as I try to overcompensate, and the fact that I'm not exactly a svelte runner. That being said, it felt a little tight today, but it didn't hurt, so that's a good thing!

And there's one other thing to note. As I was in the middle of the second mile, I happened to catch a glimpse of my shadow. After first thinking, "Dang, that's a good-looking shadow," I noticed that I was bouncing up and down more than I remember myself doing back in the day. I'm pretty sure if I was doing that over the course of the 15k, with my lack of svelte-ness pounding on my hip, knees, and ankles, that it could lead to some of the pain I was feeling over the last week. So I'm going to be working on correcting that and trying to run, instead of just bouncing.

But that's the story of my first run. It was short, flat, and dry. Oh, and it's about 75 right now, according to WeatherBug, so it was a little warm, too. But it didn't hurt.

I'm back, baby!