Forced Rest = Antsy but NORMAL

Tim and I have been plagued this past week by camping, weather, injury and illness and now it has been 5 entire days since I last ran. Usually, in the past, such a lapse would indicate either a mental breakdown or full-on quitting and would result in feelings of guilt, remorse, disgust, and even a tinge of hopelessness. But now, I'm happy to report: I feel none of these things. Perhaps I was right when I thought I was finally able to handle working for a running goal--training. Understand I have not "trained" in almost 10 years. But these 5 days are not even a blip on the radar. I have the long view--a big picture. Something I lacked maturity and normalcy to be able to see before. No worries about how this is going to affect my training, no giving up and resigning myself to sucking, which was always an excuse before. I'm just picking up where I left off and not giving it a second thought. Sweet.

Speaking of the T word, I don't have a marathon plan, so here's my plan: continue building my base through July, maybe even August too. We'll see. Either beginning in August or September, I'm begining the Runner's World verteran marathon plan as it's geared for people who run 1/2 marathons and can start at 13 miles for their long run. That will apply to me at the end of the summer and I have run a few halfers.

Actually, now that I think about it, I'm probably going to need to start in September when I'll have access to a track again. Yep, that makes the most sense. Just try to get distance and base in July and August.

The plan will end round about December/January. Of course, there's no marathon here at that time. Or in any neighboring countries, really. But whatever. If I can't find anything, I'll just run marathon distance that day--hard, take a week off, then start it over with Ultra-specific changes to make it fit, like dropping the speedwork, do long back-to-back long runs here and there, etc etc.

PS--Jess gets here on Tuesday. Wooo Hoooo!