Wheeeee I finally ran with no pain in my foot!!!

HAPPY DANCE!!!

After a weekend of being on my feet and wearing regular shoes (including a pair of heels to my cousin's baby shower) and not the boot anymore, I was super, super nervous to try running on Monday.


Laura's baby shower. Wearing heels for the first time in months

I was so certain something would hurt, but I was determined to go for a short run and see how things went.

I started slowly and felt fine. As I crossed more and more streets, I kept waiting for the pain to creep up. I was 110 percent paying attention every time my left foot hit the ground, just waiting for the inevitable pain to kick in.

But it wasn't happening.

Instead, I could feel my quads and hamstrings wondering what this new fangled running thing was that they haven't experienced in months.



I could feel my lungs burning as I was huffing and puffing along the route. I laughed that my heart rate monitor said I worked out mostly in zone three and four, for as slow as I was moving I felt like I should for sure have been in zone one or two.

I kept the run short, only about 17 minutes and it was super slow, but my foot didn't hurt the entire time I was out running.

I got home, immediately called my mom, texted my friend and g-chatted Coach Zach with the good news. Then I did a happy dance around my living room.

I'm so, so excited to have pain-free running back in my life, and I'm really hoping we're out of the woods with this injury. It's been more than three months since I've been able to do what I love and I'm so looking forward to getting back to it.


From my last race back in May

But I know that I can't just jump back into high mileage, so I'm going to take it very slow, cherish every run (even if it's only 20 minutes of pathetically slow plodding along) and slowly rebuild my endurance.

I'm obviously not going to be running in the Runner's World Running Festival this weekend like I had originally planned, but I am signed up to run the Shamrock Half in Virginia Beach in March. That will be my comeback race, and I have plenty of time to build my endurance between now and then.

But right now, I'm just going to enjoy running for running's sake. I missed it and I'm excited to get back out there.