I'm back!!

Many times over the past 6 months I've thought "I should put that in my blog." But I never did. It's quite shameful that I haven't written in this blog for that long. Tonight I had dinner with a friend who also runs and who also has a blog. In talking to her, I realized I need to stop making excuses and start writing. So here I am. I am going to blog again. And I am hopeful to keep it going.

Since I last wrote, I completed another marathon, the Steamtown Marathon in Scranton, PA in October. It was the best-organized marathon I have ever run! I could write paragraph after paragraph about how awesome that marathon was. In fact, I was so impressed that I wrote a letter to the editor of the Scranton newspaper and they published it!! Mostly I wanted the local residents to know how much their support was appreciated. So many of them were out there to cheer us on. The most memorable one, by far, was an elderly man in some sort of military uniform in a wheelchair. He was in the middle of the road on the yellow line. He could barely keep his head up but he was cheering. I went up to him and gave him a high five and he said something really positive to me. I can't remember the exact words, but I was so grateful to him! It was truly humbling to have the many residents of the Scranton area (a relatively depressed are) show us so much support. I will rave about Steamtown for years.

I took a short break but was back at it again in November. Unfortunately, training for my next marathon got off to a bad start when I experienced a neck/upper back injury in late October. I had to take a week off from running. And 18 week marathon training program turned into a 16 week program (I had already taken the first week off to continue recovery from Steamtown). Oh well! I was getting regular treatment on the injury (still am) and was back out there after a week of rest.

Now that "next marathon" is 6 weeks away! Today I completed an 18 mile run and felt great. This was good news, as I had struggled a bit with my long runs up to this point. The weather certainly helped; it was near-perfect conditions for me (40 and cloudy). Tomorrow I have the day off from work and will certainly spend the day resting.

I have decided to attempt 4 marathons this year. If it goes well then I will go for more than that next year. We'll see. 9 marathons down. 7 states. 43 states to go. As of right now, my 2010 marathon calendar includes FL, OH, NY, and VA. We'll see what happens!