"It's a run day!"

   I've gradually been upping the running portion of my rehab run/walks lately to the point where I am now running half the time. The heel's been a little tender post-run but I've been finding that, by the following morning, I'm pain-free once again.
   This so rewarding! Honestly, there have been times over the last two or three months where I was thinking that maybe running just wouldn't be for me and this thought was rather intolerable. I'm old enough that I've had many ailments and injuries over the years and I always seem to surprise myself at my body's recuperative abilities. I did wonder, however, if this might be the one time the old body failed me. The jury is still out but so far so good.
   My only real goal right at the moment is to be able to run a whole 5k without stopping. I'd been doing this fairly regularly prior to the p-fash stopping me but, as I mentioned, that was almost three months ago. Yesterday, I reached the halfway point. I ran/walked 5k, with equal portions of both. I've done this simply by alternating 1/2k runs with 1/2k walks. I've lost some conditioning while recovering and have found myself really looking forward to the running portions being completed. I'm at the point now, though, where I've run out of the ability to alternate the 1/2k running and walking and therefore will find it necessary to string together some of the running sections. This, of course, means I will end up running a full kilometer (woo hoo!) at some point during the run/walk.
   I am looking forward to this.

   Okay, I wrote all of the above three days ago. In the meantime, I've continued to up the mileage and am now at 3 and a half k running and 1 and a half k walking. Earlier on today, I was asked what my plans for the day were and I said gotta do this, gotta do that and, oh yeah, it's a run day.
   "It's a run day."
   There was a time when this just kind of rolled off the tongue, like a lot of other phrases. It's been ages, however, since I've actually been able to say this. A run day was never a for-sure thing, it all hinged on how the heel felt and how much I was willing to risk to just run a little.
   Now, though, it seems as if I'm back to being able to schedule runs and count on being able to complete them. Finally, the universe falls back into order!
   At this point, it almost feels appropriate to find a couple of races for a little bit later on this summer. I've been "goal-less" for awhile now and it's been kind of a strange, yet somehow freeing, sort of sensation. "Freeing" in the sense that I was able to direct all my attention toward rehabbing the heel without the panicky feeling that I had to train on order to run in an upcoming race. If there is one major difference it's that before the p-fash at this point in the summer I would have been looking at maybe trying to find a 10k race somewhere. Now, I'm just as happy finding a nice little 5k again. Sort of like starting all over again...