Going Home(Grown) and Getting Running (And Moo-ed At)

I'm still alive! Hullo hullo! As promised, coming to you at approximately 3 a.m. U.S.-Pacific time

Obviously everyone gets vaaaay busy over the holidays. This becomes exponentially more ridiculous when you're moving countries, packing up your crap, finding new places to live, leaving old jobs, beginning new ones... AND BEGINNING RUNNING AGAIN OMG. 

So, yar, beginning running again would probably have been even more exciting that moving countries... if it wasn't for my renewed ability to cuddle THE CUTEST NIECES AND NEPHEWS IN THE WORLD OMG. 

LOOK AT THAT FACE

For the first couple of weeks here, I stayed at my parents' place in country Victoria (cuddling said nieces and nephews). My parents are avid gardeners and apparently are also trying their hand at forestry. I am actually being serious. Parts of the property are getting that kept-wild look.

 Here is the civilized side: roses...pretty lawn...solar panels...

 

 And out the back, the veggie garden, "orchard" and beyond...

Aaand...gah, forest!

There is a garage here somewhere...

Anyway, parentals, as I know you are reading this, the place looks GREAT. And I have certainly been enjoying the "fruits" of your labor. My running has been fueled by all-sorts of home-grown goodies. Snow peas, broccoli, mini squash (actual squash, not pumpkins... look up the difference Americans)... all different types of lettuce, apricots, cherries...

It's pretty amazing to be able to walk outside to "gather" together your lunch!

Running has been going well also. I spent December building up from my run-walks on the Pfizinger plan, to unbroken runs, which felt like a real victory! As Kristen said, the last 10% of healing seems to take forever, and building mileage through that is a frustrating experience. But it's rewarding when you take it reeeeeally slow, and just focus on being healthy, before being fit.

Mileage wise, my first week running was 3 miles, then 10 miles, both in November, 2013.

Weeks 1-4 of December were: 8.5 miles, 14 miles, 15 miles and 22 miles respectively. Frankly, I haven't been off running too long, so the weekly mileage is not a big deal (in terms of taking it slow building up again). Going from 0 miles to almost 30 (presently) has felt like nothing in the rest of my body; no soreness or the stiffness I got when I first started running distances. All of the distances were run at a high-end easy pace... around 8-8:30min/mile.

What HAS been crucial, is keeping each run slow, and relatively short in order to not to put too much stress on my recently healed hip. I am very careful in building up the distance/intensity of individual runs, and making sure I have rest days between runs, and most especially if I've just run more than I have before. Initially my runs were 3-4 miles, then 4-5 miles, now they are between 5-11 miles (more on recent training later).

All in all, I would say its been a successful recovery, hurrah! Occasionally I have nearly panic-texted Kristen in the middle of the night (her time) whole-heartedly believing I've reinjured myself, but they always turn out to be phantom pains. The ONLY redeeming feature of these sorts of bone injuries, is that the bone actually heals stronger than it was originally. Good consolation prize, I reckon!

And I'll leave you with a picture of the road I spent most of my December runs on. Sun, trees, a very open road...and cows that seem to moo at my running in either a mocking or encouraging fashion... I can't really tell which:

~ Penny