I got to go to a fun dinner last night.  Some of the Ethiopian women who were in the area for Carlsbad stayed a few extra days and the folks from Elite Racing invited our group to join them for dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant here in San Diego.  The food was great and I got to meet some neat people.  When we finished dinner the owners of the restaurant gave flowers to some of the women and thanked us all for coming, saying it was an honor to have all these fast runners in their restaurant.  Then they turned on some Ethiopian music and Defar and the other Ethiopians started doing this crazy shoulder shake dance that you must have to be Ethiopian to be able to do.  It was great to get to see how much the Ethiopian community supports their runners even here in San Diego.

That experience along with some others, like watching the Carlsbad 5k, traveling to San Diego for some sea level training, and hearing all about Ryan’s 10k up at Stanford have gotten me really excited about running again.  I’m coming off a tough couple months because of an injury, but being part of this team and being around runners who are running great and having fun helped me get through it.  My leg hurt all of January and after racing a mile up in Washington at the end of the month I decided I needed to go to the doctor.  He took an X-ray and it turned out I had a stress fracture in my shin, so I had to take all of February off from running. 

I don’t know how I would have gotten through that month without the team in Mammoth Lakes supporting me.  I know injuries are part of this job, but it was especially tough this time because I had such a rough year last year and felt like I had gotten myself back on track in the fall and early winter.  My coach and I decided to be aggressive with cross training and with the transition back into running, so as it turned out I didn’t have too much time or energy to just sit around feeling sorry for myself.  I bought some Nordic skis and spent some time out on the ski trails which is such great training that I think I might do some skiing every winter, even when I’m not hurt.  In addition I took some spin classes, swam in the pool, and thanks to the nice people at the Mammoth Hospital got to use their underwater treadmill a few times every week. 

Now I’m about a month back into running and things are going great.  I can’t tell you how good it feels to have some urgency to my training.  I’ve spent most of the last couple years worrying that I might be fit too early, but that’s not going to be the case this year.  Every workout is super important when there’s not a lot of time, so I’m not taking anything for granted anymore.  For example this afternoon I just have a short run and some fast 200s.  2006 Ian wouldn’t have started thinking about the afternoon session until after the morning run, and then it would be to wonder if maybe I should just run easy instead.  But 2007 Ian has been thinking about these 200s for the last three days and is going to be buzzing with caffeine and ready to go!  On Tuesday I had a set of 10 x 1k and was pushing hard right from the start to hit the times.  In the past I might have asked to cut the workout short or slowed up a bit or at least been pissed that the workout was so hard, but now I’m just so happy to be healthy and running that the difficulty of a workout seems insignificant! 

The lessons we learn when we’re hurt are easy to forget when things start going well again, so my resolution for this year is to keep the intensity and excitement that I feel right now going all year long.  My first race is going to be the 5000 at Stanford at the end of April, so I’m looking forward to getting things kicked off right at my favorite track!