Just like starting over...

It feels like I'm back to square one. I've been spending the month not running and I feel the void in my life big time. It turns out the stress fracture was a lot worse than I thought, and the only cure is to just stop running. Of course loosing conditioning is a major concern, as well as the much much bigger issue... my bipolar. Without running I've really felt it creeping back into my life, like an adversary that gets the upper hand in this competition. I know I've been a bit short, and also I've been taking things way too personal in my life. On top of that I've been even more withdrawn from society. 

Tonight I successfully completed a slow, but very much needed 3 miles. I did a small ramp up to this the night before last with a simple and easy 1 mile run. Got back from that and experienced zero pain, so I rested a night and decided to go for it. And I'm glad I did. The big gamble would be if I started to hurt within an hour of completion, or even during. It's been 3 hours and so far so good. The only noticeable issue is the cardiovascular loss, I can tell I've slipped. On the plus side my legs felt great and I'll take that. 

From here on out I plan on more slow and short runs, not putting too much pressure on myself to pull off a 16/4 mile weekend spilt or 35-40 mile weeks. I know I'll get my mojo back, the important thing is to continue to take it easy with the runs. And another plus is I've signed up for 2 more marathons before the end off the year. 11/09 in Indianapolis for the Monumental Marathon, and then 12/08 in California for the California International Marathon. I'll be smart with my training and keep pushing towards the horizon because I'm still on a mission.