Dreaming of a Comeback

I rang my doctor this morning to set up an appointment. The Dublin doctor had told me to do so after a week if I’m not totally clear, and I dutifully flowed her instructions. However, during our short phone conversation today, she told me that she thinks another appointment would be unnecessary. Of course I see that as permission to take up running again. I didn’t actually ask if I could go running again; she might have said no (I’ve learned from past mistakes). The current idea is to run 5 easy miles tomorrow morning, and judge how that goes. It means there’s still an outside chance of me making it to Mallow on Sunday. I guess persuading Niamh will be the biggest obstacle along the way.

The best thing about the enforced rest was definitely catching up on sleep. I managed to sleep between 8 and 9 hours each night, and I feel like I’ve finally caught up on my sleep deficit. The worst thing was reading Running with the Buffaloes, itching on nearly every page to go out running myself and not being able to do so.

Last night Niamh and me had a chat about what times I should run in the morning once I get the green light. We agreed that I should be aiming to come back home around 7 o’clock in the morning, which is when Shea has tended to arise in the last few weeks. It means an extra half an hour of sleep compared to what I used to get in the weeks before Christmas, apart from those 20 milers, which would still require me to rise at 4 o’clock.

I missed a few rainy mornings this week, which is why I wasn’t too downhearted about being grounded, and today is what they call a cold snap in Ireland. The temperature at 9 o’clock was 3C/37F, which probably sounds like a heat wave to some guys out there. Of course, the winds chill makes conditions a lot worse than it sounds, and those very same temperatures are responsible for the fact that I come home drenched to the bones after the majority of my winter workouts, and rain paired with strong wind isn’t the most pleasant of combinations, either. I guess we’ve all got our own justified moans about the weather.

Niamh has got some incredibly cute photos of Maia in her camera, but since it’s a stone-age design (i.e. non-digital) I’ll have to fire up my scanner before I can show them off. I’ll do so for the next post. This should be enough incentive for my readers to return, I guess.