Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

My PFT was today so I had to run, and it's not in me to take it easy and run the minimums so I ate a handful of ibuprofen and left for the gym.

I did the pushups and situps (I always max out situps but actually did not get max points for pushups this time; I usually do) then got in a quick warmup and ran the 1.5 miles on the indoor track since it was raining.  I hate the indoor track because it's 3 laps for every quarter mile and you're almost constantly in a turn.  Anyway, I knew I was out of shape but thought 10:00 might be possible (6:40 pace).  I ran a 10:08 (laps 1:39, 1:43, 1:43, 1:45 [6:50 at the mile], 1:42, 1:36.  So, maybe saved a little too much for the end but I did pretty good for the shape I was in.  I think I'm about a 9:45 runner when in the shape I was in for my half-marathon.

My hip actually feels ok with the 800mg of nsaid working on it.  We'll see about this afternoon.

Guess that run yesterday didn't do any damage because my hip feels about the same as it did beforehand.  Good to know it can handle 6:45 pace, because I don't think I'll need to go any faster than that for quite awhile.  I feel like I could start running again now, but I'm going to be smarter this time and wait until there is no discomfort whatsoever (there would be a little now).  No more starting and stopping!

Another bad news/good news item - my deployment keeps getting pushed up, so I have to leave sooner, but that also means I'll be back sooner - almost definitely in time for Houston so I will probably enter the lotto for it, as long as I know I can accomplish marathon training while in Iraq (pretty likely).

My hip has been feeling just fine the last couple days, no noticeable symptoms.  So I took a test run here in east TX (we're at my in-laws').

It was 77 degrees and 90% humidity at 6:30am (yuck).  Ran 8:57 pace on the running trail here, getting slower each mile.  Ugly run, but I never felt my hip act up.  I can feel a difference when I stretch it, but that's it.  Still planning on a day off tomorrow to ease back in.  I kept my stride really short today which is a help, I think.  Well, a help with the bad hip, not running fast but that's not the aim right now.  Happy to be running.