And so we begin again...

Even before I actually ran the Bluenose, I started working on the idea of running the Valley Harvest marathon in Kentville in October. Given the awful conditions for race day for the Bluenose, I figured I owed it to myself to try running a marathon in what would almost be guaranteed to be better conditions (knock on wood).

Once I had actually completed the race, I made up my mind that I was definitely going to go for the Valley Harvest. My original plan was to take a week off from training altogether and then jump right into a 30-mile-a-week maintenace program (5-5-5-5-10) until July or August and then start working on a full marathon plan. Alas, life had other plans for me.

Instead of taking a week to recover from the race, it took closer to two weeks. On top of that, Olivia was only about 6 weeks old and still quite a handful, needing to be fed every 2 or 3 hours. Add in the fact that I started back to work on May 31st and you can see how it was rather difficult to find the time to get a run in.

On June 8th, 2.5 weeks after the marathon, Andrea could see that I was getting frustrated and told me to go for a run. Now, I figured that after such a short time period (2.5 weeks of rest really doesn't seem like much when compared with the 20 weeks of training that I had just finished) that I'd be able to rip off 5 miles with little to no trouble at all. Boy, was I ever surprised. It was all I could do to finish 3 miles.

Ok, so I couldn't pull off 5 miles my first day out. I figured I'd run 3 miles a day for a few days to shake out the rust and then I'd be able to return to my normal 5-mile days. But I couldn't. I was so sore after those first 3 miles that I had to take a couple of days off. I couldn't believe how much my body atrophied in just 2.5 weeks!

At this point, I've managed to get in a couple of 5-mile days since getting back into the saddle, but I've been pretty sore - sorer than I normally would be after a 5-mile run. I'm hoping that if I take a little more time to ease back into my routine that I'll be fine and still have time to get back up to 30 miles a week before the end of July.

- Mike