afterwards

I went for a run on Saturday for the first time since the marathon. I had imagined my first post-race run as a fairly glorious event, but it was actually quite short. I discontinued my usage of ibuprofen during last week and my knees were still achy, limiting the workout to a casual two miles. It did feel good to hit the sidewalks in the brisk fall weather though.

Since I got back from Chicago, the questions I am getting the most (besides general inquiries on the race itself) are:
1) Are you going to run more marathons?
2) What will happen to the blog?

As far as another marathon goes, I really don't know. I think I am going to need some distance from the first one before making that decision. I feel that going through the experience once would surely help the next gauntlet of training (as well as the race) flow more smoothly, and I wouldn't mind being immersed once again in the unique and exciting marathon atmosphere. But deep down, I suspect that it would prove difficult for me to gear up for another four months of such intensive running. So for at least the time being, I have no concrete plans to marathon again, though the thought of losing my current level of fitness over the winter does make me a little sad (echoes of Flowers for Algernon). Even though there's no reason for me to be this fit, I kind of like knowing that I could run 20 miles if the need arose.

For now, my immediate plans are to prepare for a Thanksgiving Day 5K (if my body has forgiven me), then get fattened up a bit over the holidays. I probably won't do a lot of running over the winter, but I doubt I will be at a loss for ways to occupy my time. Among other things, I think it is time to start assembling the skeleton of screenplay 2.

Not sure about the blog at this point. At the very least, I think the runblog in its current form has a few posts left in it. We'll see what happens after that.