Rebuilding is never easy for an athlete. You always remember what it was like when you were at your peak and you felt the best. Regrouping and healing can be a frustrating process. I see it with my athletes all the time. Sometimes we need to stop and listen to the body and learn from our mistakes.

Getting back to your best can take a long time.

I think getting older has helped me as I’ve grown more patient with myself and my body. After London, I decided to just come back slowly and focus on getting well, and not focus on the next race or marathon.

I have not tried to get back up to running 80-100 miles a week. In fact, for an entire month, I only ran 7 miles a day for 5 days a week – just 35 miles for an entire month. This is hardly any mileage for me at all. But, I focused on building my core and slowly have come up to doing 10 miles a day, 5 days a week. I still have not done a long run, but I am now closer to training the way I did before I got hurt.

And, my patience is beginning to pay off and it shows in my running. Just last week, I was running with some high school and college kids. I was pretty tired and the pace picked up, so the group took off and I let them go.

My goal was to run a 6 minute pace and we had dropped to 5:45 pace with 4 miles to go. I watched them pull ahead and I knew they would really kick it in at the 2 mile mark. Somehow, I was able to drop my own pace from 6:20 to 5:40 and I was still feeling really good. I could see the group ahead of me struggling, so I pushed myself harder to 5:19 and then suddenly, a 5:03 pace. I was thrilled! I haven’t run that fast since before I got hurt.

Sunday, I wanted to go for a run that I knew would recharge my body and my soul. I went alone to the Greenbelt here in Austin, which is a trail with a good amount of hills, rocks, water and solitude. It was a beautiful morning, with hardly anyone around but few hikers.

I really took it easy and just enjoyed the scenery and the quiet. I just ran one hour up the trail, jumping over rocks, running through water and up and down the hills. It is really important to change your running patterns and trails so that you test the limits of your body and engage new muscle groups. I watched my form and controlled my body and my breathing. I returned back down the trail in 45 minutes.

It was really a great run and I left feeling rejuvenated and motivated again. I have been building up my body and my confidence and I am feeling very strong and ready to take on a new challenge – maybe starting with a 10K very soon.