Racing?

I know that Lane gives weekly updates about his training (and, in fact, just gave one this evening), but I haven't been doing that for a couple of reasons. The main reason is that I really have not been running much or consistently this summer (or for a while for that matter). A bit of background: in December of 2009 I was at the start of an awesome indoor track season. We had our first meet and I had a huger Personal Record (PR) in the 5K (16:56). This was finally an indication that I was headed in the right direction. Training had been going excellently and I was pumped about the rest of the season. However, an issue arose shortly after we went home for our winter break. While out doing a hill workout my right knee started to bother me. The next day when I went running it was pretty painful, but I could still run on it. By the third day I could not run on it at all. It just felt like a knife was stabbed into the side of my knee. After a month, a bunch of doctor visits, and an MRI it was finally determined that I had IT band friction syndrome. Basically, the large tendon that runs from my hip down the outside of my leg to my knee was tight and was rubbing over a bone point in my knee, causing pain. That ended my season and set me up for the last year and a half where, other than a brief return in XC last fall, I have been either unable to run or slowly rebuilding fitness.

That brings us to now... I am currently back in the process of rebuilding fitness and trying to get both my knee and the rest of my body back in shape. The approach that I had planned on for this recovery involved focusing on slowly building a base back and avoiding speed work/racing. However, this recovery has not been going as smoothly as I would have hoped. The first reason for this was that at the end of May I was tapped to fill in on the first leg of the Vermont City Marathon. I figured it couldn't hurt to at least tempo the leg since my team wasn't gunning for an incredibly fast time, so I ran the leg (there goes the no racing bit...). The second reason is that I have been fairly inconsistent in my running, especially now that I have started work. Some days I just can't kick myself out the door when I get home, other days I simply get home to late.

Finally, that brings us to the real point of the post. Today, I ran a 5K race in a neighboring town. While my recovery plan was pretty clear that I did not want to do fast stuff or race, I also wanted to meet people around where I live who run. So, while searching for running groups I found a series of Tuesday night XC races nearby. I figured this would be a good way to meet some of the local runners. I headed up after work and found the park (which was really nice, I am probably going to go back just to do training runs). There I met a scene that was very much like the old Tuesday night XC races I used to run at the Catamount Family Center back in VT. I registered and got out and ran. I didn't run a great time (20:25), but I had fun, met a few people afterward, and got some pointers to websites to find other races and gatherings of runners.

So, with that race it seems that the best way to meet other runners around here is to go to the races. I figure that I should plan on attending a few of them over the next weeks and meeting people. Even if I don't race them all out, I can use them as training/tempo runs and a great chance to meet people.

Well, out with the no racing bit I guess, in with meeting new people and setting up a new life.

~Alex