baby steps

I ran 5 miles today, without stopping. The first five miles in at least as many years. A huge mental and physical victory for me. My expectations of ever being able to run any distance beyond 3 miles again has been pretty low; kids, locale, IT band injuries....la de da, seemed obstacles in the way. And they still are, but I don't know if it will get any better. So hoping that I could find some higher intensity type work that wouldn't take hours to complete I looked around online for a running program that might meet my skill level and stage of life. I needed something I could do at home, without much equipment and in a hour or less and preferably not every day!  I was thinking Jillian 20 minute style. I think I've found it in Runner's World, Run Less, Run Faster. The authors run a training camp in North Carolina and have lots of data to support their methods. The training runs are laid out (3 per week) in distances, speeds and recovery, for all fitness and distance levels (including marathons!). Pretty comprehensive. The off days are either rest or cross training, which at this point I cannot do according to their methods (requires rowing or swimming) so I just strength train and stretch for at total of 30 minutes on those days. Anyway ---- I still have a long long way to go to be ready for the 8 Tuff Miles in February, but I'm on a high with my little victory today.