The only thing worse than running is not running. – Walter Rhein

As a blogger, sometimes one goes long stretches without posting, and one lesson I’d been taught early on is not to apologize for that. For there are occasionally more important things to do than sit at a computer and spit out 800 words of drivel that maybe four people will read.

But, you four, thank you very much! And tonight I’m ending a long drought of posting. And I’m not apologizing, but I am sorry I haven’t kept you all up to date. So after that not sorry/sorry, here we go.

One big reason I haven’t posted is because I haven’t been running. Not by choice. But starting back around the time of my previous post, it became physically impossible. The culprit was the bête noir for many runners – plantar fasciitis, or PF for short, in the heel pad of my right foot.

For those of you lucky enough to not know this condition, it’s an inflammation of the tissue under the foot that hurts – a lot – when you put pressure on it. I had one instance of PF before, back in 2009 when I was just starting to run races. It took a while, but it went away, and after eight marathons and 39 ultras with no recurrence, I never expected it to come back.

Well, in February, it decided to pop in for a visit. And like a sponging brother-in-law, it stuck around and would not go away. Week after week it persisted, and while I kept training with bike rides and gym workouts, there really is no substitute for running if you’re a competitive runner.

Especially when you have the Tahoe 200-mile ultra scheduled for June.

I tried icing it. I tried painkillers and topicals. Stretches. Rolling on tennis balls. I stayed off the foot and didn’t. I tried a bracing shoe. None of this had any effect whatever. My doctor said sometimes you just have to wait for it to improve on its own. So I rode my bike, lunged, squatted and lifted, and hoped I would be in reasonable shape at the Tahoe starting line.

Oh, and with my event recycling business, I still had to go to races and be on my feet all day, and while I hobbled around I got to watch all the healthy runners with big smiles on their faces enjoying the incredibly good weather this year.

Just look at all those runners. Happy little runners. *^@^#$%$-ing happy little runners.

I’ll be back, I told myself.

And finally, as of this weekend, I am.

My debut run in my Maverick Running Company shirt (my coach’s group). Timely arrival!

After nearly three months, I got in two runs this weekend. A total of seven and a half miles, but it’s a start. Small steps coming back, as they say. My foot is still not completely healed, but it’s close enough.

As for Tahoe? Well, last week I made the tough decision to postpone my entry to next year. The foot was a factor, but the real reason was my wife’s health. Between her cancer fight and a physical injury, it’s just not right for me to leave her for over a week. Just as well. With my training plan shot to hell, I now have a year to fully recover and train properly for it. And along the way, enjoy some other races.

And as for the other two parts of this blog – coffee and writing – there’s news to report there, too. I’ll save that for next time. No sense going overboard on my first blog entry back. Small steps, you know!