So remember how last week I said I was going to simulate all my runs on the elliptical and see how things went with my foot?

I started out last Monday with all the best intentions -- in fact, I tortured myself with 45 minutes on the elliptical that night. It was double-y depressing because we had some gorgeous weather here in DC, but instead of being outside, I was stuck in a basement on an elliptical.



To reward myself for surviving 45 minutes on the machine from hell, I snuck over to the treadmill to test out my foot. Good news, I ran five pain-free minutes! I immediately hopped off the treadmill and was in a much better mood because that's some good progress.

Wednesday's workout rolled along, and I dragged myself to the gym, got on the elliptical and survived for exactly 8 minutes and 32 seconds before I wanted to blow my brains out. I just couldn't make myself stay on that thing for the remainder of the workout.

So I snuck over to the treadmill again and ran for five minutes and then walked for a minute. Then I ran for another five minutes and walked for another minute. My foot felt totally fine. Zero pain!

So I repeated my run/walk sequence for another couple rounds, rounding things out with 25 minutes of run time. No pain, everything felt great. I practically skipped out of the gym.

I did my regularly schedule cross-training on Friday and was making big plans to do my first outside run on Saturday since my injury.

Since my foot seemed pretty healed, and I had stopped wearing the walking boot completely, I wanted to see how the rest of my body held up to some distance after a couple weeks off. I set out to do seven miles, with plenty of options to bail if things took a turn for the worst and with a plan to mix in some walking as necessary.



Everything felt really awesome until maybe mile 4. Then I could feel my form getting wonky because my legs were tired. I stopped and walked for a bit to loosen things up, and when I started running again, I felt pretty good. I was able to finish the last three miles following my run one mile, walk one minute combo.

The next day my legs were definitely stiff and a little sore, but my foot didn't hurt at all.

So here's where things stand when it comes to the half marathon. We are officially 30 days from race day. I just ran more than half the race distance, and if I increase my long run by one mile each week between now and race day (which puts me back on track with my training plan), I will be able to start the race.

The only other major adjustment I'm making is to switch my Tuesday workouts from a run to cross-training. My training plan called for either and I had been doing a short recovery run, but I think it will be smarter to stick with cross-training.

So that's where we are. I'm definitely more optimistic that I'll be able to run the half, but we'll see how things go the next couple of weeks.