Use it or Lose it

2 sets of stair climbing in the EIHG building.  Need to resume running, still some pain, but much better.

First real run in about 6 weeks.  Could feel the nerve pain in my right buttock and partway down the side of my right thigh; It wasn't too painful to run, but it definitely made me nervous about whether running would make the sciatica come back full force again, or delay the healing I've had to date.  But, I really need to start running again before all my fitness disappears. 

I was only going to run a 3 mile loop.  But, I had lots of energy, so I decided to run the 4 mile loop.  Still feeling good, so decided to make it a full run to the Capital and back home for 4.6 miles.  Except a friend spotted me about 4 blocks from home, and gave me a ride home so I could get something for them.  Felt bad about cutting the run short, but under the circumstances it seemed the appropriate thing to do. 

Spent the latter part of my run trying to figure out a plan to get my running back up to speed (literally) before the Deseret News 10K on July 24th.  Not much time to train, but I'll do my best. 

Oh, who turned up the thermostat!!

Well, yesterday's run didn't seem to adversely affect me, so I had another go at it this morning. Ran to capital and back.  Still can't lengthen my stride completely, so ran slowly the first couple miles, which are mostly downhill..  Coming back is almost all uphill, and since I normally run uphill with a shorter stride, I was able to incorporate several fartleks along the way to help increase my aerobic capacity.  Definitely feels good to be back running.  :)   

Evening run to City Creek & back.  Evy was running too, and that made it quite fun.  Kept a good pace on the hills coming back home.  

Went for a nice 3-4 mile hike with my daughter at the top of city creek canyon. 

Planned to run directly up into city creek canyon today, but discovered there was a freedom fest 1/2 marathon running from Emigration Canyon, along 11th Avenue, and then culminating at the Capital.  I ended up running by a lady named Shannon who was in the race, and I decided to run with her to the Capital, then yelled "GO SHANNON, GO!" when she took off sprinting near the finish line.  Then I turned around and ran back to city creek, ran up to the 1 mile marker, then ran back home.  It was nice running up city creek because my friend Mary (who I haven't seen in a couple years) biked past me, recognized me, then biked along side me and talked, while I pushed the pace to keep up with her. 

So ends my first week back running after a 6+ week layoff.  No sciatica nerve pain while sleeping, sitting, walking, etc., anymore.  Still feel it a bit in my right glute while running, especially the first couple miles of a run.  My endurance seems fine, but it is hard to run at a decent pace because the glute pain increases if I lengthen my stride.  I've had to run the first 1/2 of my runs really really slow even though they are downhill.  I can run uphill without as much pain (due to using a shorter stride uphill?), and since the second 1/2 of my runs are mostly uphill, I've been pushing a lot harder on these sections with fartleks and tempo running to try to improve my fitness level to what it was a couple months ago.

Don't know what to do about the upcoming Deseret News 10K.  I'll probably still run it, but it will be darn hard to get a good time because I'll have to run those downhill miles at the beginning a lot slower than I'd like.