For the first time in over four months, I ran today just for the fun of it and not because it was part of my marathon training schedule. It felt great! I appreciate the level of fitness that the rigid schedule helped me achieve, but it is so nice to be done with it for a while and to be able to enjoy running just for the sake of running. I won’t go so far as to say that I’m happy that I’m not running Boston in April, but there definitely is a voice inside my head that’s saying Thank God I’m not starting serious training again in a month!
Considering that I just did the marathon two days ago, I had surprisingly little soreness on today’s run. I started out a little slow, working out the kinks, but continually picked up speed the whole run. The last mile, I was feeling great and decided to open up a bit and do a couple wind sprints. They were awesome — a much needed reminder of why I love to run. I finished up the 4.04 miles along the East River in 28:50, which is right where I want my pace to be on these short easy training runs.
The only thing that worries me is that the muscle in the arch of my left foot started hurting a couple hours after I got home from that. It just feels a little strained, nothing too serious hopefully, but I am still overly paranoid after seeing my friends fall to injury. I’m going to take tomorrow off in part to let that heal and partly to rest up for Thursday’s Turkey Trot in Brooklyn. Gobble gobble.