#6

My initial hope was, as I put it, two weeks on the bench. It looks, however, like it will be closer to three. In 11 years of distance running, no injury has sidelined me longer.

I saw Dr. Spector on Friday and he was very pleased with the progress. I'm very pleased with the progress, too.

This was a really bad staph infection and it's now mostly under control. Still, the wound in my foot was deep, and Dr. Spector really urged me to give it extra time to close up. At this point, I'm listening, not resisting -- and I continue to take antiobiotics and keep the area covered.

I'm going to do some light cycling and gym work this week, and I expect Dr. Spector will give me the green light to resume easy training when I see him again (the last time?) on Friday, Feb. 5. At our last appointment, we discussed what truly caused this. Was it a staph infection from the start? Was it an inflamed bursa sac that got infected? Hard to say, but the thing to ponder is this: He sees infections like the one I had all the time --not in healthy patients, however, but in diabetics.

Tomorrow is Feb. 1. National Half Marathon, my first race of the spring, is March 20. Do I have any chance of running well there? Maybe, maybe not. I have to train smart, and possibly cross train.

In a previous post I said I miss running. In reexamining that statement, however, I'm not sure that is entirely true. People talk a lot about the transformative aspects of running -- it makes you smarter, it makes you feel great, runners' high!, it keeps you young -- and I agree with all of it 100 percent. But I'm not really missing the sheer act of running right now: Rather, I do not like having my training disrupted, and what I miss is the preparation. Otherwise, sleeping until 8 a.m. and later on weekends is, well, kind of nice.

Becoming a runner 11 years ago remains among the most important things that has ever happened to me. At the same time, the aforementioned positive side effects are no longer why I do this. I do this now because it is just what I do. And I know the time will eventually come for me to put my flats away and start running (much less) for entirely different reasons.

You wonder all the time if this never-ending pursuit holds you back in other areas. You wonder all the time if you should be working more (at your job), pursuing it harder. But you also ponder potential regrets (not wanting to have them) and you know you have to see this through.

I averaged about 10 miles a day in 2009, hit a PR in the half marathon, ran my best marathon since 2006 and joined Georgetown Running Company's racing team. Early in 2010, I settled on a plan of a spring devoted to high volume and races from 10 miles to 13.1 followed by a summer of higher volume and a hoped-for fall assault on my marathon PR in Chicago.

To come out of my first decade of running with only few short-term injuries accrued and to start my second decade with a pretty bad could certainly be cited as a gloomy sign. Of course, I just have to start next week and see where it all leads. I'm getting needlessly ahead of myself.