17 Days

After 17 days of absolutely no running, I did 7.5 miles Sunday, 6:45 average pace; Garmin sez the splits were: 6:42, 6:51, 6:41, 6:48, 6:39, 7:02, 6:27. Felt great, beautiful day, shirtless and free. I *think*, knock wood, the time off has allowed the quad/adductor strain to *finally* heal properly, not even a hint of a squeek from it during the run; had no idea how it'd go, felt like Reuven in The Chosen having the bandage removed from his eye. Only issue actually was unexpected left ham tightness, and not too bad, subsided after 2 miles. Thanks, God, it seems good. For my records, here's what I did since the last post, not much, but not nothing:

Monday: Elliptical, 67 minutes
Wednesday: Elliptical, 52 minutes
Sunday: Walking, 45 minutes
Monday: Elliptical, 67 minutes
Tuesday: Walking, 20 minutes
Wednesday: Elliptical, 71 minutes
Thursday: Elliptical, 52 minutes

Feeling pretty optimistic at the moment, not unpleasant DOMS, mostly in the quads, but not in a bad way. And even though the VCM is a no go, looking forward to another Boston Marathon qualifier, maybe Lowell Sun or Hartford, but I'd like to do one sooner, August or September, but no BQ marathons around here in that time frame, as far as I can see. Couple other possibilities, Rochester Marathon in NY, Wineglass Marathon, NY. We'll see.

Quads were pretty sore yesterday, DOMS, rested, still fairly sore today, but went out for a 7.1 miler around the lake after work. Felt the quads all the way, not really in a bad way, just DOMS, but was forced to pull it back toward the end, didn't want to risk unreasonable muscle damage; Garmin sez splits were: 6:53, 6:53, 6:53, 6:50, 6:43, 7:02, 7:21. Whatever, I'm just thrilled the thigh seems all better; I told the running gods I'd work hard if I could just run injury free, and I can, I will. I'll plan on building up slowly, carefully to an early October Marathon. One day at a time, as they say.

This is an awesome book — The Fabric of the Cosmos. I finally "get" special relativity, at least from a layman's point of view (Relativity Visualized also helped). It all falls out, very logically and obviously, from the fact, confirmed by hundreds of experiments, that the speed of light is constant for all observers, no matter how the observer is moving (thou shalt not add to or or subtract from the speed of light). Time really is another dimension of spacetime; we are all moving at a constant speed, the speed of light through spacetime. If we accelerate and move through space very fast, then we will be devoting more "energy" toward our movement through space and time for us, relative to stationary observers, will move slower - more speed, less time - conservation of spacetime. Greene is a very good writer, imo, a bit verbose I"m sure for more expert readers, but for me, for the difficult/weird concepts he's describing, it's warranted. Excellent footnotes too.