Sandy Runs

After finishing four marathons and one half marathon (and a handful of shorter distance races), I stopped running at the end of 2006.My plantar fasciitis was so bad that I didn’t run much for the next two years.I did a few local 5Ks, but that was pretty much it.I stretched, iced, took physical therapy, and tried other things to heal the plantar fasciitis.But every time I started running again, back it came.
Finally, I was able to run more regularly and by 2009 I was running short distances.And then I had a bad year of tension headaches (pretty much the pain of a migraine without the other symptoms), and they were so frequent that I felt like at all times I either had a headache, was recovering from a headache, or was trying to take care of things that I missed because of a headache.So, my running was very sporadic for another couple years, as I just couldn’t dedicate myself.
Then Spring of 2011 rolled around and the headaches were mostly under control (thank you, acupuncture!).So, I sta…

All right, here it is…my first running blog entry.  Everyone has a running blog, so what makes mine different?  Absolutely nothing, actually.  You’re probably just reading this because you know me.  If not, maybe you should know a little about me before we get started.  I’m just a regular person, not a superstar athlete, not particularly competitive, more interested in books and travel and entertainment than sports.  But to date I have run 7 full marathons (26.2 miles) and 7 half marathons (13.1), and numerous other races (5K, 10K, 8K, 15K, 4 miler, 5 miler and 10 miler distances) since I started running in 2004.  That will seem like a lot of races to some of you, but not so many to others.  I was a reluctant runner.  I did a mile on the treadmill only when I had to (read: when a trainer made me do it).  But in the summer of 2004 I found that I had a little more time on my hands, and I received a mailing from a charity marathon training group.  Normally, I would have chucked it in the…