Finally a week to run!

So now that my race schedule for the year is set, I need to start training for my first half (and the one 3 weeks later). This week will have more running than I've done in the past couple weeks and I can't wait. I'm feeling good, my legs are strong, my foot isn't hurting much, and the tenderness that appeared in my ankle after the marathon usually lessens after stretching, so I'll watch it but I'm not worried about it.

Clinical rotation yesterday was exciting. We didn't have a chance to do much patient care but we got to meet a few patients. And being that it's pediatrics they're mostly babies and toddlers on our floor. :) At one point when our instructor was showing us how to do an assessment on a child, the one in the crib next to him was keeping an eye on me, and we were having a lot of fun playing peek-a-boo through the crib slats. Finally we got done with the assessment and the nurse asked us if we wanted to assess the other kid too. I jumped at the chance. The baby was such a cutie with big cheekers! ;) We played with him and assessed him and when we left the room he was quite upset about it. Luckily there was another group of students coming in to pay attention to him. :) I want to go into pediatrics or the neonatal ICU, so this experience is a lot of fun for me. Our floor deals with congenital heart defects. It's one of the only hospitals in the region that does work with these kids, so this experience is going to be absolutely great.

I do hate giving up my Saturday long runs, but I will get a small workout in climbing the stairs from the parking area to the hospital. It's 130 stairs up a steep hill. Only get it once a week but still..it's fun. :) I've decided that I'm going to put some effort into hill training, which means once clinicals are over and I can go to the Saturday group runs, I can run the cemetery route which is VERY hilly. If I do loops of that once a week I'll be in pretty good shape by the time the first half-mary rolls around.

I'm officially out of the post-marathon blues. I'm in a much better state of mind and able to concentrate a little better. My appetite still isn't 100% but I'm still considering that a blessing at this point. I've lost 4 pounds since the marathon, which was now 2 weeks ago, so I'm not doing too bad. Don't want to lose any faster than that..and I'm sure with training now I'll slow it down to a 1-lb per week loss. I'm excited about this week because we're having our TNT victory party grillout at my coach's house and it'll be fun to see my local TNT teammates and hear how their marathons went. Most of them did a race 2 weeks before we did, there were only 2 of us from the Lansing group that did San Diego.

Here's to a good week!