Feels good to be back in the blog game. So much has happened since my last post, I don't even want to get into it. Maybe bullet points will suffice, except that seems awfully pretentious. Maybe I'll just write it out and see what happens.
After the Trials in February, my body was in really rough shape. The injured spot on my upper hamstring/groin area was totally trashed and I had a tough and uncomfortable time even walking around for the few days following the race. I totally shut down the running for a full three months, which was obviously way necessary. During that time, Ali and I traveled to Seattle, Vancouver, and drove back across the country, visiting my Uncle Bruce and my cousins in Colorado along the way.
We are officially back in New Hampshire, and have been back here for a few months. Ali is doing a contract OT job in North Conway again (like she did last fall), and I started a new job as a rep for Feetures socks for New England. So far the job is great and the company is awesome. I am doing a lot of traveling visiting different accounts across the region, but am able to sleep at home most nights, which is definitely nice. So hey-- if you've never tried Feetures running socks, or even if you have and you already know how killer they are-- go out and get yourself a pair! You won't be disappointed. There's my shameless plug for the day :)
Running wise, I'm getting there. I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't have some good news to share, right? I've been slowly building up my running since we got back from the west coast. I started with small 2-3 mile runs, and have worked up to doing 6-7 miles a couple times now. The injury that debilitated me leading up to the Trials is about 99% gone, which is a rip-roaring relief. The thing that's holding me back now is a general sense of instability in my hips. I also feel a slight/sometimes more than slight pain on my right side, mirror image of my sports hernia I used to have on my left. It's not nearly as bad as my previous sports hernia, and I am confident I can manage this one through core strengthening. I had this same discomfort before and was able to work through it by building up my lower core. I can do that again. I need to work on my core to be a runner. There's no two ways about it.
The last news I'll share for now is about this photo shoot I did yesterday with Zelus Beer Company. Alex Leuchanka and I were the "athletes" doing the shoot, which was on the freakin' Mt. Washington Auto Road. Unreal day, and I had a ton of fun hanging with AL, the photography team and Geoff from Zelus. The beer itself has a cool concept going for it-- they're developing and marketing beer to the runner/triathlete/general endurance athlete who also enjoys drinking beer. And that's most of us, right? I can personally say so, at least. They add more electrolytes and some protein to their beer, which is supposed to aid in recovery post run. While I don't know the inner workings or details of the beer just yet, and I don't really know if you can technically call it a "recovery beer," but I like the idea of it regardless. They're supposed to launch sometime in August, and you better believe I'll be keeping an eye on them until then.
Happy to be (sort of) back in the game!
AH
