Yesterday was a pretty significant milestone. I went running with my usual Thursday night friends – the Turtle Thursdays group. It was the first time I have run over 4 miles since July 22nd which is an incredibly long, long  time ago. Although I had run part of last nights route before, we had turned around at the 1.5 mile point so there were a couple of points on the trail last night when I realised just how long ago it has been since I last saw that piece of scenery. July 19th is actually when I last saw the 2.5 mile turn around point and had done the entire route.

It was also the first time I had been there since Brandi (another runner from the group) and I started dating so naturally there was a little bit of teasing which was fun, although it was a good job it was dark out so the blushes weren’t *too* obvious. It was really nice to see the rest of the group happy for us both.

My knee seems to be healing up nicely now – I’m nervous about overdoing it and doing damage so I’m being very cautious in increasing the distance. It didn’t hurt at all yesterday and I felt like I could have carried on at that pace for several miles further but I had to keep the distance in check as I’m only increasing about 1 mile a week. Currently I’m not bothered about speed as I’m more focused on slowly bringing the distance up to double digits and also I want to ensure I run with Brandi where possible. However my solo runs will be faster than last night – I’ll just consider them my speed workouts for now 😉

We do have a goal of a 10 mile race in March and will be signing up for the Scioto Miles training plan (This year you get “free shoes” instead of last years jacket) as this was a real confidence booster in preparing for the half marathon and if the first run and the 10 mile race goes well, I’ll be signing up for my second half marathon – the 2013 Capital City Half Marathon that will be held in May.

Have you signed up for any 2013 races yet or should I say do you have the budget for any more races in 2013?