I haven’t been slack­ing with run­ning despite not writ­ing about it here very much. In fact, I’m off to what I believe to be a much bet­ter start than I was last year. This time last year I was bat­tling ten­donitis in my right ankle, an injury made worse by an inad­ver­tent kick in the shin dur­ing a beach soc­cer game in mid-August. I was hob­bled and had to take a week off after see­ing a doc­tor. A steady diet of pain med­ica­tion and stretch­ing got my back on track and I was chomp­ing at the bit for the Philadel­phia Dis­tance Run.

Fast for­ward to now. I’m in bet­ter shape, although I did­n’t do myself any favors last win­ter by avoid­ing the gym at seem­ing­ly any cost. I’m hov­er­ing around actu­al race pace dur­ing my Sat­ur­day runs and I fig­ure I’ll be back in marathon shape soon­er than I know. I signed up for the Philly Dis­tance Run again this year and aim to improve my 1:42 and change fin­ish. It’s a safe bet that my Garmin Fore­run­ner will come in handy, a toy I did­n’t have last year at this point.

I’m hit­ting the tough­est por­tion of marathon train­ing in stride, and the expe­ri­ence I gained last year has far out­weighed the fact that the runs don’t take on quite the same mag­nif­i­cence they did last year, when every week­end was a new per­son­al best. Now I know I can crank out a 6:39 mile at the end of a tough 20 mile run.

How do I stay moti­vat­ed? I keep push­ing myself by focus­ing on nail­ing a Boston qual­i­fi­er this year. I just missed it last year on my first marathon, and if I stay healthy, I see no rea­son why I should­n’t qual­i­fy hand­i­ly for one of the most pres­ti­gious races in Amer­i­ca this year. Wish me luck!