Faster Than Expected/Desired

It felt great to get out for my first run in six months. My legs were more ready than I expected, and I far exceeded my expectations in regards to pace. I think my pace was too fast for my first run back. I ended up running 1.11 miles in 10 minutes for a roughly 9 minutes per mile pace. I would have preferred that I ran more slowly, but it appears that my historical problems with "going slow" still exist. My lungs had a harder time keeping up with the speed than my legs.

I expect and hope that as I go out and run more often that I will slow down from that pace. If not, I may have to find a way to go more slowly to help prevent injuries.

I will be monitoring my Achilles over the next week, and if all is well, I plan to run another mile next weekend.

T-Minus One Week...

My Achilles has been pretty much pain-free in January, and as such, I think I'm ready to go out for a jog. Barring an unforeseen setback, next Saturday will be roughly one month free of pain, and so I will be targeting going out for a mile on Saturday.

Before my injury, I tended to run at roughly 9:30 per mile during my training runs around the neighborhood. I expect (and probably need) to be slower than that for my initial runs (and potentially for a while). I think my first run ought to fall in the 11-12 minute range, and I'll figure out where to go from there. My expectation is that I'll add 1-2 minutes per run as I build up to 3 miles and then perhaps add 10% (at most) to my runs thereafter until I get back to my original distances. Of course, I'll increase more slowly if needed.

Ready to Return to Running

Mentally, I'm ready to return to running. Physically, unfortunately, I'm not quite there yet. I've been recovering from a Achilles injury since late August, and while I've had a few pain free days in the past week, I think I need at least a few more weeks before taking my legs out for their first spin of 2015.

In the meantime, I will start updating my race calendar ("Runs I'm Considering") again with the hope that I'll be able to take on a 5K or two before summer. It'll probably be a few weeks before it's filled in, but hopefully it'll be back to being a good resource in a week or two (and certainly by the end of the month).

When I do get back to running, I'll be taking it slow. My plan is to go out for a mile for my first run, wait a week to make sure all is well, and then go out for another mile. If all that goes smoothly, I'll start running twice a week slowly increasing the time that I run. Hopefully I'll be up to roughly a 5K by the end of March.

Other than working on my race calendar, there won't be much in the line of updates in the next few weeks until I'm reading to hit the pavement.