Prepping

As I await surgery later this week, which recovery from will knock my return to running back to near its starting point in January, I am taking my current conditioning, as it were, up to the very day of surgery. I had just arrived at running four days a week, four miles each time, four forty-minute outings.

Thursday I ran four miles on the Mall at noon, plodding along alone, greedily partaking of the full length of every red-light I came to on the cross streets. That completed last week's four workouts.

Friday I threw in a "long" run of five miles, barely breaking an hour on a long loop around my greater neighborhood that I always used to complete in under forty-five minutes before. It was my longest run since October 2009.

Yesterday and today I ran my four-mile "hills" route in my home town, running it in reverse on Saturday and the regular way this morning. Today I ran all the outside stairs at the school on the hill, which made my time over two minutes longer today than yesterday.

Tomorrow at noon I'll run four miles on the Mall with a workmate, and then all that will be left is to walk the mile from my house to the medical center two days later at noon on Wednesday. Weeks from now, after recovery, I'll start all over again.

I won't lie to you, I'm bummed. I'm also terribly worried about my former running buddy's serious neck surgery tomorrow (see my previous post), but I have hopes that he and I will be doing slow 3-mile geriatric runs together down the W&OD Trail in the August heat.