Slow, relentless progress

I realized something on my run yesterday: I've progressed.

Not just that I'm running longer now than I was a month ago. That was always the plan. Of course my first recovery plan had me running farther and more often than I am now, but full healing has been slower than planned (can I really be so old that my recovery is slowing down?).

But I realized yesterday that I've hit a bit of a milestone -- my runs are to the point where they can stand alone on the training log.

Let me explain.

I've been putting in a lot of bike miles. Part of that is pointing toward RAMROD (154 miles with 10,000 feet of climbing in July), and part of that is taking the mental pressure off my goals to progress the running to make a couple of half-marathons. So my runs have been short, and if I didn't make a run on a scheduled, I didn't worry about it -- there was a ride scheduled later that day.

But yesterday I realized that I DIDN'T have a ride scheduled later, and I was okay with that. The run was long enough to scratch the workout itch for the day and stand alone.

Progress. Slow, but progress nonetheless.