So glad to be writing these again! I’m officially back to running, yay!

My first run was on Thursday. I went out on the downtown greenway after work in my new shoes. We had had mild weather the past few days, but, of course, on the day I start running it’s 87 and humid. I used this as my excuse (and the fact that I hadn’t ran in four weeks) to the number of times I had to walk, but when I started analyzing my Garmin data, I realized what it really was.

Dear self, what is this? Remember that pep talk we had about pacing? Do you not remember that? Why would you bust out on your first run in a month with an under 11 min/mile pace? Why would you even go under a 10 min/mile pace? Under 9 min/mile? Are you insane? No wonder you had to walk so much.

Deciding I needed to retrain my legs on what it feels like to run at a sustainable pace, I hit the treadmill on Sunday. I did half a mile at 4.5 mph (13:19 min/mile), then half a mile at 5.0 mph (12:00 min/mile). I took a walking/water break for a tenth of a mile, then did another half mile at 5.0 mph. I tried to ramp it up to 5.5 mph (10:54 min/mile) at one point, but tired quickly.

As far as my hip injury goes, it felt fine on Thursday’s run. However, on Friday, I took a misstep off a sidewalk at lunch and hurt it again. *face palm* I could definitely feel it on Sunday due to that, so I’m not really sure how to precede. I took a restorative yoga class on Sunday afternoon, which helped to stretch it at least, so I may continue to see if yoga will help. If not, I guess I will suck it up and see the physical therapist after all.