Real David H.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about getting into blogging about running. I’m not ready to commit to it 100% just yet.

Recently, though, I’ve been revisiting some old posts and trying to remember what actually motivated me to sit down and hammer out some thoughts for 10-20 minutes.

I went through a string of posts from 2019 that were labeled “WHATEVER MONTH things” as I tried to hang onto blogging. They weren’t anything all that special, but doing a quick recap of the month and then putting a few goals out there worked for me.

That period of time from fall/winter 2019 into early 2020 was what I have felt was my “second peak” with running as I was getting into some great shape for my second Blue Ridge Marathon.

There’s no doubt that the early days of the pandemic really brought me back down to some my lowest lows I’ve experienced with running. On top of so much of the nonsense going on, I somehow developed an injury.

Even though I’ve had some good moments since that time, I haven’t allowed myself to “get over it.” It reminds me very much of how terrible I felt after the Cleveland Half Marathon way back in 2012 and then a flop of an event at the Richmond Marathon.

That was the end of my first peak, and it literally took years to move on from that.

Peak No. 2 took a lot of effort to get to in 2020, and I never had a chance to prove that I was capable of great-to-me things at the time. That hurt more than the injury I experienced that summer.

So here I am again … thinking about “things.” It’s the last day of the first half of 2025. This year hasn’t been all that great, but it hasn’t been terrible either. Yes, I once again had an improvement with the Blue Ridge Half, but that’s not enough for me. I also have realized I can’t just do one race a year.

This fall, I have the High Bridge Half Marathon on my calendar. It’s the first half marathon I’ve signed up for in the second half of the year in many years. I’ve got a goal in mind, but I’m not ready to focus on that yet.

I’m eager over the next couple of months to maintain consistency with not quite as much running as I would normally do with a fall race and more cross training on my bike and lifting weights.

Getting ready for a half marathon in October feels very new to me. I have to continue to revisit “things” from my past to help me navigate my way to the start line in a better place than I am now.

So … if all this seems like some weird, random string of thoughts, well, it is. I had an idea for a post, starting typing and BOOM, 25 minutes later, here it is.

It’s not what I had in mind after my first couple of sentences, but I need to do what I didn’t do for so long a few years ago and just hit the “Publish” button.