I'm out of runner's jail!

I got great news from my sports medicine doctor today - I can get back on the road and run!
In early August I suffered an overuse injury, a pulled groin muscle, because I was training too much and too fast.
For my first marathon, I did everything right. I followed every training schedule that Coach Doug B. set out for me, and finished my marathon just one minute ahead of my projected time.
Not this time. I felt cocky - I'd already completed a marathon, so why follow a training schedule? I ran as much as I wanted, often 10 miles or more a day, 7 days a week. So I came down with this injury and had to spend two months off the road and in the pool and on the bike.
But - I love bicycling with Larry and my friends, so that wasn't a punishment, and I grew to love aqua jogging, which for an hour in the pool, with music blaring, turned out to be a lot of fun.
To keep my head in the game, I also spent the last two months reading every nonfiction book I could find about running and running marathons. I learned a lot from these books - including not to over train! I also enjoyed two fiction books by John Parker, "Once a Runner" and "Again to Carthage". I liked these books so much I asked our Space Coast Writers Guild to invite John Parker to our annual writer's conference! I also watched the movies "Spirit of the Marathon" and "Prefontaine". If I hadn't already watched "Chariots of Fire" again last year I would have watched that also!
So my two months away from running turned out to be very helpful to me in ways I didn't expect.
But today, when I got back on the road, running on Tropical Trail, with the sun glistening on the Indian River and birds chirpping overhead, I realized what I was missing and oh how glad I was to be on the road again!