April was a good running month

As I’d shared with another blogger, I feel pretty fortunate that I’ve always preferred running alone and super early. That’s been useful during this pandemic—I don’t have to worry about social distancing (I see very few runners out when I go), and I didn't have to get used to running alone.

I’ve been working hard on my marathon training; my coach helps a lot and has been instrumental in me not getting injured. Case in point, I started having left knee pain a few weeks ago and I would have just blown it off, even though it was bad enough I cut short a long run. I shared it with him in the weekly check in (he has a section where I am to list any niggles, pain, etc.) and he immediately had me take a day off from running. Because of that, I got in to see my physical therapist (yes, my clinic is open) and we’ve been working on getting that all sorted out.

All of that to say that I hit several firsts for me: first time running 40 miles in a week, first time running 137 miles in a month and longest ever run of 16.3 miles. I still have doubts that I will actually be able to run this marathon, but that’s more about the mental side of running 26.2 miles all alone.

Last month I also ran the first of two planned virtual half marathons. This was for the Garmin half marathon, and I treated as a long run. I did one this last weekend too, which was for the Running with the Cows half marathon. I doubt I'll be a fan of virtual races after the pandemic is over (if that day ever comes), but these were good mental practice for me, running with no other runners, no support, no people cheering us on and no real finish line. Just my watch as it ticked over to 13.11 miles (I go the extra 0.01 so Garmin counts the damn run).