I'm back!!! Again!

While at the DCRRC 1 Hour track run last night, I was reminded by one of the areas most prolific runners, Shirley Sameshima, that I hadn't updated this blog for awhile. I didn't know anyone was actually reading this thing!! Given that news, I need to get focused and catch up. I have run 5 races since my last post. I'll break up the race reports into a few separate blogs but first I want to mention some of the things I have been dealing with during these past few months. I may want to fall back on these as excuses for my terrible times in my subsequent races.

This has truly been a pretty miserable 8 months or so. I had gone for an initial assessment of my stiff right shoulder back in early October 2007. I found myself right back in his office less than a week later with a broken right foot. I fell during the DCRRC predicted time 5 miler. I slipped on some wet leaves about 1.5 miles in. I hobbled my way around the rest of the course since I was on my quest for 100 races for the year. The break was unfortunate in a few ways. First, it came at a time when I was just starting to see a glimpse of the runner I was in 2006. I was finally starting to be able to put in 10 minute miles over longer distances. That was shot when I took a month off of running to rest the foot. Second, the foot never has really healed. I now have a fairly bad case of plantar fasciitis. I also think I have some issues within that ankle. I doesn't bother me much when I run but I can barely walk for a couple of dats after a race. We're going to have to look into that.

Next up was my shoulder. The first diagnosis was a small tear of my rotator cuff. However, after a month of physical therapy that diagnosis was changed to frozen shoulder. I went to physical therapy 3X a week for 4 months but saw little to no improvement. So...it was time for surgery. I went in for surgery on April 10. They knocked me out and then twisted my arm all around so that the adhesions would break. I understand it was pretty loud in the operating room as they tore apart.

I kept the shoulder on ice for most of the next 3 weeks and went to physical therapy every day for 3 weeks. I started seeing improvement immediately. I'm no longer going to physical therapy but I need to continue to stretch that shoulder on my own. I would say I currently have about 90% of my former range of motion back. I'm hoping to get back 100%.

With all of that, I think the thing that has really hurt my running is the case of bronchitis I came down with in March. After antibiotics, cough medicine, vitamins, and nose drops, I'm still not better. My sinuses are a mess (the pollen isn't helping) and I'm having trouble breathing. When I cough it sounds like a mix between a barking dog and a quacking duck. I clearly still have gunk in my lungs. Until I get over this, I don't expect to get close to a 31:00 minute 5K.

Helping out my parents and volunteering for the City of Alexandria's Sister City Committee has also taken time from running. And, of course, work and a 1 hour commute each way doesn't help either.

Anyway, because of all of this my goals for the year are evolving. I'm still planning on running in over 50 races but I don't think I'll be able to average 2 miles of running every day (I'm averaging just less than 1 mile per day as of today). That means I'll need to average about 3 miles per day, or 21 miles per week for the second half of the year. That might not sound like much to people training for a marathon but thats a lot for this old body. We mighr be changing the goal to something more like 500 miles for the year. We'll see how my lungs and foot feel in a few weeks and set a new goal then.

OK, thats it for this report. Subsequent blogs will cover The Hills of Cabin John 5K, The Battle of the Boulevards 10K, the Annandale Atoms 5K, the aforementioned 1 hour track run, and the May 2008 edition of the Tidal Basin 3K. Stay tuned. Oh...and go David Cook!!