The Capitol at night during my run. I love DC.
Last week was marked my return to running after taking some time off to nurse a shin splint injury. I’m very excited to report that running has been going quite well. I still am experiencing a tiny bit of lingering shin pain, but stretching seems to help significantly. According to my Cherry Blossom Training Plan (which remember was using the walk / run method that I quickly switched to just run), this week I was supposed to be able to run 35 minutes straight. I’m proud to report that I ran for 45 minutes Monday evening! I didn’t use my RunKeeper app because I wanted to listen to Pandora instead of my run playlist, but based on my speed, I’m estimating that I ran a little over 4 miles, which is great.
This weekend, I have a 5 mile run on tap and if I keep adding a mile to my long runs each week, I’ll be in great shape for the race on April 7th (only a month away — eek!). The great thing is that after that 10 mile run, I’ll add do a couple more long runs, but I’ll be mostly in maintenance phase to prepare for the Nike Women’s Half that is on April 28th.
The big question that I have every year is if I’m going to keep running once all my major races are done. What usually happens is it gets hot and I give up running until it’s time to start training again. Which is awful, because all my gains in running ability are gone. However, I find it really hard to keep motivated to run in the heat (which based on last year, will probably begin about mid-May) really sets in if I’m not training for a race.
How do you guys keep motivated to run in the heat? Are there any great races that happen during the summer (other than race for the cure, which I always do)?
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