It’s been a while since I blogged and there are several reasons for that.  One good reason was that I was on vacation with my family to Disney for Spring break and also to run the runDisney Star Wars Dark Side Challenge.  I’ll have more on the race specifics in a future post.  I have also been recovering from my recent bout with patellar tendonitis.  I had been very good about resting it, icing it, and doing various PT exercises to strengthen it.  I did not run at all prior to the race, but wasn’t too concerned about conditioning for the race. I was able to walk around the parks at Disney with the family just fine and had my knee taped by my friend Merle while at the expo for the race.

That was great support for me while I visited the parks the two days prior to the actual races.  I also took the advice of my chiropractor and purchased a knee strap for support to use when I run.

Once it was time to run the races, I felt good about the 10K.  My plan was to run my intervals and see what happens.  If things weren’t better, then I was going to walk half the next day if necessary.  I was running with Diana and Mandy and they were supportive of my needs.  I ran the 10K with a few issues; but what I noticed with this race was that instead of doing my intervals, I kept running through them.  I didn’t want to stop every 30 seconds.  Part of the reason for that was because it was crowded and the second part was because I was feeling so good.  I hadn’t run in three weeks and my legs felt fresh to run almost a mile without stopping for a walk break.

It’s when i stopped for the intervals that I was starting to feel the twinges.  I also noticed it when I ran downhill.  So I was very careful.  All in all, I was very happy with my recovery and knew that I would be ok for the half marathon.  I felt good the entire day after the race (despite the fatigue from being awake since 2:30 a.m.) and went to the Magic Kingdom with my family and met up with Diana and Mandy for pictures of us together for Dapper Day.

The next morning was the half marathon and I was going to take the same approach for that race.  My legs were a little bit sore from running continuously but my knee felt ok.  However, I had quickly gotten sick with some type of respiratory issue.  I don’t know if it was allergies, or not having my oil diffuser with me in our hotel room, but I lost my voice and my lungs were very heavy.  Once the race started I did ok for the first section and my knee survived it very well also, but by mile 6 I was deteriorating.  I was very tired, I had trouble with my breathing and my throat and chest were burning from the illness I was fighting off.

I was not happy with my race results, and I am still processing this race mentally, but that will be left for a future blog post.

What I plan to do now that I am back home again and was able to go on a few runs with no knee issue is to put together my plan for the year going forward.  I am signed up for the Marine Corps Marathon.  I thought about my successes in the past and what I did to be successful in my races.  The answer is to have a plan.  So I went to my favorite website, www.jeffgalloway.com and printed out his marathon training plan, and penciled in the dates from the Marine Corps Marathon date back.  So now I have a plan.  When I was successful with my races, it was because I used that plan religiously.  I want to get back to that.

I am also exploring Heart Rate Training.  I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Another Mother Runner, and Dimity and Sarah were talking about Heart Rate Training, which Dimity has been doing a lot of because she is training for an ultra.  They talked about Heart Rate training having benefits of better aerobic training, reduction in the risk of injury, and an increase in your speed.  They offer a heart rate training plan which I am going to join and give a fair shot in addition to my Jeff Galloway training plan.

That’s where things are as of now, I’ll dig deeper into my race recaps, training plans, and Disney vacation recap as soon as I can.  Stay tuned!