I’d like to think that after what happened to me earlier this year that I’ve learned my lesson. In March, only a month before my first Boston Marathon, I’m laid up with the Mother-Of-All torn hamstrings. The rip’s the size of a quarter just south of the right butt-bone. Today, a half-year later and I feel only the faintest of tugs back there; my range of motion as normal as it’s ever been.
Since then, getting back on my feet and on the road in June (a year after Thurb! came into our lives), I’ve been pretty much pain-free – outside of a sizzlingly hot July day on Fire Island when after about a nine-miler the forefoot pain returned, like what I suffered at the 10-10-10 Steamtown Marathon. But months later even that pain has eased and not because I have done anything different. Rather, I’m just staying to a steady pre-marathon training regimen, running a 1:05 with Thurb and without, depending more on his schedule than mine. (We both need to run, to shake out the cobwebs; I wouldn’t be keeping this blog, prepping a book proposal, preparing for travel, if I didn’t keep up with my running. Mind and body in sync. Keeping age at bay. At this point, almost effortlessly. What I see every morning in the hound. He’s raring to go. Start the day. Get up and run. Anything’s possible. Show me.)
