Sandy Runs

Am I an official trail runner now that I have battle scars?  I hope so.  Tell me I didn't bloody my bloody knees in vain.  If you don't like the sight of blood, it's probably too late.  You can already see my beautiful knees in all their gory glory below. My poor knees immediately after the fall.  Thank goodness for compression socks or my entire shins would have been a mess.  And thank goodness for RED compression socks, so the blood won't stain them! What happened, you ask?  Well, I'd never done any trail running until this spring.  I entered a couple races that had portions of the course on unpaved trails.  The end of the Flying Pirate Half Marathon was like that.  Not only was there a dirt trail, but there was a muddy, puddly, messy trail and it was pouring rain.  And guess what?  I loved that portion of the course.  Then I ran the Virginia Wine Country Half Marathon and quite a bit of that course was on...

The Washington DC cherry blossoms, that is.  Well, they bloomed early this year due to wacky weather patterns and and a pre-mature Spring.  So what was left for the annual  Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run  on April 1, 2012 were fun crowds, beautiful sights, and pretty trees, but no major blossoms to speak of. This was my third time running the coveted Cherry Blossom.  My first two were in 2005 and 2006 when you had to get online FAST to register before sell-out.  Nowadays, there is a lottery, and I lucked out by winning a spot. 2005 Cherry Blossom 10 Miler - my first time was cold and rainy with whipping winds! The weather for the 2012 race was pretty optimal for running: cool temperatures and overcast skies.  That meant that with the right clothes, I was perfectly dressed for the weather.  No sun meant it didn't get too hot and I didn't get sunburned.   2012 Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run - the Purple Wave is about to start ...

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.   Foot x-ray taken when I had plantar fasciitis 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 Sp...

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 ...