It’s been a whirlwind past few months. After a six week long summer vacation, we decided to up and move to beautiful Bend, Oregon. I could go on about the 300 days of sun, glorious seasons of hot summer temps, chilly fall mornings and snow packed winters that give way to beautiful spring days, but that’s not what this post is about – that’s the CVB’s job! No, this is about finally getting back in the game; coming back after a long time off and planning for the future.

Not qualifying for Boston at May’s Mountain’s to Beach Marathon was a big blow to me. I had trained hard for 16 weeks leading up to it, my body and mind prepared but the cold and flu-like symptoms I got two days before the race did me in. So then I thought I’d capitalize on my fitness and signed up for the Eugene Marathon two months later but after two weeks off the May marathon, I blew my left knee on my first week back of training doing too much and skipped running the July marathon. So now what?

Now it’s the beginning of October and finally, after what seemed like forever of no running, I can now run without any knee pain after. It’s only been two weeks and I started out very slow run/walking. The wonderful thing about Bend is that there are literally thousands of soft dirt trails to run on, many from my back door, so I feel that’s helped. I signed up for a 10k trail run in just a couple weeks to keep me motivated and yesterday I ran 6.3 miles, my longest run since June, and NO pain! True it’s MUCH slower than I have run in the past but the whole idea is to get back in running and triathlon shape so I’m ready to race in the spring.

So if any of you are nursing an injury and don’t think you’ll ever run again (I was truly beginning to think that!) know that with time and patience, you can, and will be back! Things happen for a reason and I believe I needed the distraction of vacation and moving to keep me from running which helped me heal. Now I am LOVING my new home, have set new goals and have a new Boston Qualifier on the calendar for next year!

What is the longest you’ve been injured keeping your from running or training?