So I did some minor home surgery on my foot last night and got the remaining glass shards out of my foot. I wanted to run afterwards, but decided to wait until I walked around on it all day today. Hopefully, tonight will be my return to the roads.

Mike, what the heck are you doing stepping on glass? I hope it was doing something fun! Heal up, and good luck with your return. Hopefully this break will be what your hamstrings needed to recover.

Woot! Good news and bad news and a couple questions. The good news is I finally got my fat ass (gained 7-8 pounds this last couple weeks) back running again. Only managed 4.2 miles, but at least I got out there and my post-home-surgical-foot is almost all better. The bad news is my hammy is sore again - even after an easy little old 4.2 mile run. Ah well, back to nursing it with The Stick and some weights. A couple questions. I was looking through some of my running books for information on coming back from time off of running. Daniels' Running Formula suggests that after 2 weeks of not running you should do your first week back at 50% of previous volume and the next week at 75%. This makes sense - but then that only leaves me one more week at 100% before I start tapering for my marathon. Do any of you folks have any ideas on this? Also, I started making more marathon/ultra plans after I ran El Scorcho in July. I'm considering running 50k in the 6 hour event at Ultracentric in November. It's 5 weeks after my first marathon. Pfitz recommends a 5 week recovery schedule for post-marathon recovery. I'm thinking of using only that in between Marathon 2 Marathon and Ultracentric. My next major event, based on how I feel after M2M and Ultracentric is the Dallas White Rock Marathon (12/9). It's only 3 weeks after Ultracentric. A lot of friends from work are running either this or the half. If I feel good coming off of UC - I may run the full. If I'm just OK or less, then I'll run the half. Either way, I'd just be running it for fun with friends. So any thoughts on how to plan my recovery/training for these? To review the events are as follows: Marathon 2 Marathon - 10/13 Ultracentric (50k/6 hour) - 11/17 Dallas White Rock Marathon - 12/9 Oh that reminds me, I just remembered that I signed up for The Half on November 4th. I may use this as an easy long or just skip it.

Thanks for the advice, Bob! My first thought on the recovery schedule was that it wasn't enough miles. But what do I know - I'm just a newbie. Yeah. It sounds scary to me too. I've been talking with jlynnbob about this plan and his thoughts were that if I wasn't seriously racing M2M and it didn't go too hard at UC - that I would probably be fine. I was initially planning on trying to go sub-4 at M2M - but I honestly don't think that's in the cards right now. So since I've decided to just go for a finish (and the same at UC), my motivation and confidence is going up. I've only signed up for M2M - so if I'm not feeling good afterwards I can skip out on UC or WR - depending. The hammy is feeling better whenever I run or even get on the wobble board - so I really think it is just muscle imbalance (like earlier this year). Not sure if I mentioned it before, but the hammy is just sore - theres no pain. So I'm going to keep it going easy for a bit and add in the weights and see how it holds up.

Wish I had something to add but I'm just a newbie! So better let the experts (like Bob) give you the advice. I can't even follow my own advice. Anyhow I hope your hammy is feeling better! I agree with everything Bob has said! Good luck hun!

Thanks Bob and Pam. The hamstring actually feels good again - I'll see how it reacts to tonight's run. I haven't hit the weights yet, but I've been getting addicted to the wobble board lately. It's frustratingly hard to stay balanced on that thing! My motivation levels to get out and run are a little low right now, but with the marathon less than 5 weeks away and the AMAZING cool weather coming to Dallas, I'm anxious to get out again!

So glad to hear your hamstring is feeling good again!! Good luck tonight on your run! Speaking of hitting the weights, I plan on doing that tonight as well. Haven't done it in over a month maybe close to two

Training Week 14 Summary I was scheduled to do the following: TUE: 8mi w/5x600m @ 5k Pace - Check WED: 11mi - Check FRI: 4 Mi Recovery w/6x100m Strides - Skipped to Reduce Mileage SAT: 8-15k Race - Check SUN: 17mi Long - Check So I was a little nervous getting back into the full schedule again due to my several weeks of slacking and smoking, but I ran everything in the schedule (except for a 4 mile recovery run which I was planning to skip to reduce the mileage) and I had a successful week of not smoking. I also stopped using the nicotine patches after the first two days. At the last minute I found a 15k race and signed up. The course is basically the same as the last 15k I ran, except in clockwise around the lake versus counter-clockwise like last time. I looked at the data from my last 15k (late July) and was trying to sort out what pace I wanted to try to go. I was actually a little concerned that I wouldn't be able to beat my last time. So in the end, I decided if I beat my time, that was a good enough goal. After a couple miles of getting into a pace that felt good and letting the crowd thin out a little, I picked out a couple nice looking girls to use as my pacers until I got within a couple miles of the finish. I then picked it up a little and finished with a new 15k PR by almost 3 minutes. SWEET! My long run this morning was probably the best long run I've had since starting running. A very fine finish to my first week of getting back into things. I ran 46.5 miles versus the 50 miles that were planned.

Great news about the hamstring, Mike! Get yer butt out there! Get one of your kids and throw a ball back and forth with them while you are trying to balance on your wobble board. Have you tried holding on to weights and swinging your arms back and forth in a running motion while standing on it yet? I'm sure there are a ton more fun things to do with it.

I haven't tried that yet, Bob. I will try the "catch with the kids" one - sounds like fun. I'm still working on trying to stay balanced on the damn thing for more than 10-15 seconds at a go. I've made a note of the weights and arms swings one - you had mentioned it earlier. My plan is to try to work through some more of the easier exercises on the DVD that came with it and build up my balance time to more than a minute before I try the weights one.