Update

In my last post here nearly two years ago, I laughed off the suggestion of a friend that maybe I'd quit running after going sub-3 at the 2015 Philadelphia Marathon. If there's anyone who reads my running blog and has no other contact with me, it might appear as if I did in fact simply quit running after that. At least I seem to have quit commenting about running on this blog. Much of the reason for this, however, is simply that I joined Strava around that time, which makes blogging about running seem redundant. In any case, I have not in fact stopped running, although I haven't managed any PRs or other great achievements since Philly that seemed worth writing about.

For the first half of 2016 I was on sabbatical in Greece, mostly Athens. Since I was in Europe, I planned to run the Paris Marathon in early April. But after months of hard training, I got injured during my taper only two weeks before the race. I still had a nice family trip to Paris but was unable to run the race. That injury, mainly to my lower glute but also implicating my upper hamstring and other nearby muscles, continued to plague me for most of the rest of 2016. I probably would have quit running if Dr. Josh Bross at Elite Chiropractic & Sport hadn't helped me turn things around that Fall. I went to see him only as a last ditch effort, not really expecting ever to be able to run again like I had the previous few years, if at all. But he was not so pessimistic and encouraged me to keep running while receiving treatment. I ran some pretty dismal races that Fall, but after a couple months I managed to give my PR a scare at the Richmond Half Marathon. Although the glute was not yet fully recovered, it was just strong enough for me to move forward with training for the Houston Marathon in January of 2017. I didn't end up running well at Houston, but not because of that injury. It was warm and humid, and I didn't slow down early enough to avoid cratering two-thirds of the way through the race. Mostly I was happy just to have made it to the start line in Houston and to be in a position to look forward to future races.

My plan for 2017 was to hit the gym in late Winter and Spring in order to get my glute strong again, while running some shorter races. Then I hope to return to PR form by Fall at the Navy Air-Force Half Marathon in September and especially the Chicago Marathon in October. Currently I'm back in Greece, where I've started training for Chicago. For details (and photos) see my Strava profile linked above. Maybe I'll even get back to updating this blog occasionally as well.