Frick’in Run

The rain has finally stopped here in Pittsburgh and today the sun is actually shining a little bit. School is in full swing and my project groups are keeping me busy but last week I found time to run a 5K through Schenely Park. It is was a small annual race that is hosted by the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science. Considering I have only been running about once a month for the past year, I think the race lived up to its name and was “pretty good”. You can read more about it on my friend Kayre’s blog entry and even see a picture of me at the finish.

So after being sore from the 5K for a few days (ugh!) I managed to get out Thursday for another run. It made me realize how much I’ve been missing my runs. They are a way for me to de-stress and get away from the daily grind. Ever since my marathon last June, I haven’t done much running because my foot has given me a lot of problems. It’s been diagnosed as tarsal tunnel syndrome which is basically a pinched nerve problem. There isn’t much that can be done unless I want to undergo surgery, and I’m not quite ready to do that considering the risks. My recent runs have insprired me to get out when I can even if it isn’t as much as I used to. I certainly don’t want to ignore my foot problem, but I’m hoping I can run once or twice per week without it bothering me too much.

I’ve also discovered that the geography of Pittsburgh makes running quite challenging. There are hills everywhere here! The landscape aside, I am in an excellent location with two giant parks near my house which offer plenty of opportunities to get lost (in a good way).

I’ve started using favoriterun.com again to track my runs. It’s a pretty slick site which allows you to click waypoints on a Google map to log your running route. It’s more of a novelty at this point since I am not training for anything in particular, but it’s an easy way for me to figure out how far I ran and be able to refer to my runs in blog posts. Through the website, you can also find running routes from other people in your area, so next time I head out on a run I may use it as a way to discover a new route.