"I don't need easy, I just need possible."

I heard this quote walking through my living room, 5 hours after I ran 10 miles for the first time since August, 2010.  No matter that it's attributable to a Carrie Underwood lookalike in a movie called "Power Surfer,"  it struck my tired self nonetheless.  Since October 5, 2010, I've been quasi-climbing, quasi-crawling my way back up to where I fell from.  It has not been easy.  I've found every triumph to have it's yang in pain or fatigue, every great run countered by unyielding soreness and every two steps forward accompanied by a half step back.  But, today, it became possible.

After 7.5 months, an actual milestone: with the Broad Street Run 28 days out (exactly four weeks away as of 8AM this morning), I am 3 minutes off last year's race pace and not looking back.

I ran sick this morning.  And, the first 4 miles through Penn and back across Market, down 23rd Street to the deserted Philadelphia Zoo were brutal and in complete defiance of my sore throat and itchy face.  But somewhere between 4.25 and 4.5, when I was on the downside of 9 miles (all I'd set out to run this morning), running through the arches of the Please Touch Museum grounds and reliving the ODDyssey Half Marathon from last summer, adrenaline officially took over.

When I doubled back through the Japanese Garden gates and headed for the arches once again, the left achy ankle, wasn't; the sore hamstrings and hip flexors, weren't; and the sick took a break.   As I found my way down West River Drive and came up on the Three Mile Green House (Green House exactly 3 miles from my office - great name, I know), the decision to pass 9 and shoot for 10 was made for me.  The rowers raced along side of me, the geese mimicked clapping as they splashed each other, runners and bikers flooded in the opposite direction and I felt, for just a moment, like the mid-August-on-top-of-my-game-ME.

As the One Mile Tree (large tree in foreground of Art Museum - exactly one mile from my office, shockingly great name, I know) came into view, I was in a very familiar zone.  At that tree, where so many tempo runs began and ended with a torso stretch across an imaginary line as people stared wondering who I was in a race with (my imaginary self), I dropped fear of over-doing it and put down that last mile as hard and fast as I could.

Not easy, worth it and - increasingly possible.