What better time to be in Florida than the end of January.  The day was picture perfect.  Weather in the mid 30's at the start and no higher than 50's by the finish.  Everyone there was complaining how cold it was and I was basking in the warmth.  Leading up to this run all my training was in the snow.

The goal was to drop some weight and be at 130 for the race and just have a nice warm run.  No effort to beat a time, just stay in the heart rate zones I wanted and enjoy being in the warmth.  Well none of that happened.  I never made it below 138 and my heart rate monitor died around mile 10.  So I just had to listen to my body and enjoy the run.  I never felt like I was pushing it and what do you know...a PR at 4:12....trimmed off 2 minutes.

During mile 22 I started to feel a twinge in my knee and I recognized the pain as cramping like what happened the last time I was in Florida.  This time I was not taken off guard and was prepared.  I immediately swallowed the rest of my electrolyte tablets and in about a half mile the pain was gone I was back in full swing.  That piece is what I feel most accomplished about.

After the race my parents and sister and niece were there to cheer me on and celebrate for a short while before my flight back to the cold north.  In all, I flew in 4 hours before my race, and left 3 hours after my race.

The next day I had a bit of swelling on my right foot and it turned out to be plantar fasciitis.  I began treating it very aggressively with ice, rolling it on lacrosse balls, stretching and more ice and rolling. It was very painful for the first week of rolling.  I didn't go for any runs that week and by the next week it was tolerable with the rolling and finally by the weekend it felt 90%.  I went for a light run 2 weeks after the marathon and it felt fine and by mid week it was at 100% and taking daily runs again.

Now I roll the bottoms of my feet as part of my regular maintenance work.