Hi everybody!

It’s been a super busy summer – I have spent the past two weeks finishing up at work, packing for college, and getting ready for my Maine trip! Right now I’m sitting on the porch at camp looking out at the lake drinking a cup of coffee and looking forward to Day One of rest and relaxation before things get crazy next week.

If you follow me on twitter you know that I had a brush with injury last week and ended up missing about 5 of my training runs, including an 11-miler, due to a mysterious hip/back pain that made walking and running pretty painful for a few days. I’m glad to say that my worry that it was another stress fracture was (probably) unneccessary, as it has healed up pretty quickly and I was able to do 3 miles this morning on the beautiful Maine roads with no pain. I think it was a back muscle injury… Hoping to do 6 miles tomorrow, and then have a biking/rest day on Monday, and then…  :D Around the lake, baby! Here’s a video I took this morning post-swim using my new Bloggie PM5 camera from Sony.

Back to a running race after my June triathlon! This September 5th I’ll be in sunny Virginia Beach for the Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon, my second half and my first half on the roads (I did a half marathon on the trails at Walnut Creek last November). I’ll be running as a Sony-Sponsored blogger, as they were generous enough to sponsor me for this race, and I’ll be sharing my training using the Sony Bloggie PM5 camcorder. Thanks, Sony! Prepare for some videos, guys!
There will be a whole host of DailyMile peeps at the race, and I can’t wait to meet some of them for the first time! A DailyMile meet-up will be the perfect post-race celebration.

My goals for this race are pretty simple – I want to stay injury-free! That means no time goals for this race. Staying healthy and having fun are all I need for this one! Coming back from the injury was pretty hard mentally, and I struggled a bit with being motivated to go out and run when it was slow and painful and tough. Training for the triathlon was a great break from that, and now that I’ve regained the fitness I lost being injured I’m ready for a new running challenge. This race on my calendar has definitely revamped my running training!

Right now I’m trying to plan out my next races. I just got the book “The Triathlete Training Bible” from my mom as a “way-to-go!” present for finishing my triathlon (Thanks mom!) and I think that will be a great tool for sketching out my training. When I’m done planning I’ll share it here!
Enjoy the beautiful weekend, guys! I’m off for a bike ride :)

Check out my guest post on RunReview.com on how to recover from an injury!

I did it! I finished my first triathlon, the Charlottesville Sprint in my hometown-away-from-hometown (Charlottesville, VA, home to UVA).

Crossing the finish line!

More »