I’ve run 11 times in the past three weeks.

So far, I’ve noticed a few things:

• In the beginning of a run, I’m really stiff – stiffer than normal. My paces for Mile 1 of most runs are usually in the high 9s or low 10s.
• I still have to stop and start once or twice a mile to let my right leg untangle itself.
• Usually, about 25 to 30 minutes in, I feel like I have a little more control of my leg as my pace quickens.
• Running up steep hills is almost impossible.
• My cardiovascular is Out. of. Shape.

This last note is something I’ve really got to work on. Look at the average heart rate column. See how the numbers are mostly in the 170s? Now what does that number mean, you ask? Well, my max heart rate is about 200 (though my max heart rate in each of these runs never reached that output). So, divide 170 by 200 and you get 85 percent. That means my heart and lungs are working wayyyy too hard for the paces I’m running. Before I got injured, 85 percent was my half marathon race pace which equated to about 6:45 to 7:00 min/mile pace. As you can see from this chart, I’m far from that.

But the good thing is I’m slowly regaining form. My average heart rate is dropping, from the mid to high 170s when I started this comeback to the low 170s (and even some high 169s) now.

Things won’t be totally right until I get this leg fixed. But until then, this is my new normal. And let me tell you something: It’s better than not running at all.

There are a few stretches of this city, a few signature streets that make Austin a pretty cool place to get out for a morning 6- to 8-miler. So I thought I’d republish my own list from a few years back celebrating Austin’s street cred: My favorite places to run. (When I’m not injured, that is.)

This list, my list, won’t include trails. And its not that I have anything against trails – though I know the soft surfaces are good for my 44-year-old joints. But the only trail I’ve run with regularity is Town Lake, thus I don’t have much authority to talk about the Greenbelt’s secrets. And besides, I like running most in neighborhoods, and on big city streets. I like to see newspaper-dotted lawns, and delivery trucks idling next to the mom and pop shops. My years of running mornings with, first Rogue, and now Gilbert’s Gazelles, have given me plenty of roads to choose from.

Here then are a few streets you have to run if you run in Austin: (And if you are from Austin reading this, feel free to use the comments section to let me know where you like running most.)

Exposition Boulevard: Austin is known for its hilly terrain and if you want to run hills, you gotta hit this rolling north-south stretch just west of downtown Austin, which runs 2 miles from Lake Austin Boulevard to 35th Street. There are three major bumps – two of which top out near a Shell Station and Good Shepherd Episcopal School that will just take your breath away. It’s easier running south than north. This is Mile 11 through 13 on the official Austin Marathon Course. It’s probably one of the safest big city streets to run on because of the wide bike/running lanes. And it leads to other must-run streets, like Lake Austin Boulevard to the south and Mt. Bonnell (via 35^th Street and Old Bull Creek Road) to the north. (Mt. Bonnell to be discussed later).

Duval Street – Again, another stretch of road that is used for the Austin Marathon course. It runs north-south, about 2.25 miles from 56^th street on the north to San Jacinto on the south. If you cross Dean Keeton, the Duval turns into San Jacinto Boulevard and takes you through the University of Texas campus, right by the massive 111,000-seat, Darrell K Royal football stadium. Duval street is not as hilly as Exposition and its easier to run south than north. There are a few gas stations along the way in case your bowels can’t wait. And if this is the street your run ends on, there is a Daily Juice and the venerable Hyde Park Grill if you need post-run sustenance.

Mesa Drive – This stretch of road is used for the first few miles of the 3M Half marathon run every January. It runs about 3.5 miles north-south, but the sweet spot, the one used for the half marathon, is a little more than a mile from Jolleyville road on the north near the Arboretum to Spicewood Springs on the south. It’s a street that runs through idyllic neighborhoods in northwest and west Austin. Not many lights. Lots of green lawns. And if you run early enough, you’ll spot a few deer.

Escarpment Boulevard – You want a nice, easy stretch of road with few lights and a lane for runners/bikers? Get to this street, via Mopac and William Cannon. It’s a 4.2-mile, north-south running street on Austin’s southwest side that is like running through butter. It runs from William Cannon on the north end to Texas Highway 45 on the south. Not a lot of traffic, so you actually hear the birds chirping. Most of the road is that blacktop asphalt material that seems to give enough where your knees thank you. Like Mesa Drive, Escarpment takes you through some nice neighborhoods, including the exclusive Circle C. You can smell the money running on parts of this street.

Congress Avenue – This road is used as the start and the end of the Austin Marathon. And yeah, there are a ton of lights, which means a ton of traffic, and the sidewalks are canted, especially downtown. But there is no more majestic run than this stretch of road, majestic because it takes you right by the state capitol building. The must-run part is a 4.3-mile stretch from Speedway on the north to Highway 290 on the south.

Best of the rest:

•Shoal Creek Blvd. – If you are an Austin running veteran, you know you can access this road from downtown, near a place called the Tiniest Bar in Texas. You’ve actually got to run a while through a trail/creek bed before you get to Shoal Creek Boulevard, but it’s a scenic, north-south route that, like most streets in Austin, has plenty of hills.

•Great Northern Boulevard – This street is used for parts of the Austin Marathon, and is actually part of a nice, flat, 3-mile route if you include White Rock Drive and the aforementioned Shoal Creek Boulevard.

•Waller Street – On Austin’s east side, the running group named Rogue usually starts and ends many of its runs on this street, dumping you out on the Lady Bird Lake trail if you hit this road from the north and take it southbound. It runs slightly uphill from the south to the north, which gives the last mile or so of your long run back to Rogue a little challenge.

•Mt. Bonnell– Simply put: This is one of the biggest, most intimidating hills in Austin. Run it if you dare. You go about 200 feet up in oh, about half a mile. You’d be better off cllimbing a 20 story building using the bat rope (Sorry about the old Batman reference.)

This is the elevation map from a 13-mile run I did two weeks ago. See that big wave in the middle? That’s Mt. Bonnell.

•Barton Hills Drive – The Austin veterans like to call this little piece of street just south of Town Lake the “Lollipop,”- it’s nothing but hills.. up and down and up and up again. If you can’t stomach Mt. Bonnell, try this rollercoaster of a road for hill work.

This is a formula for getting out of shape. And fast.

I can tell you that I’m slow and my endurance sucks. But seeing what a 30-minute run does to my heart rate really tells the tale.

Below are capsules from a run I did Sunday, April 28; and a run I did in April of 2012.

Key takeaways:

1. Obviously, I’m much slower now – having run all of 45 miles since last November 15. My pace Sunday for a 3.13 mile run was 9:46 min/mile compared to my pace of 8:23 min/mile in April 2012. 
2. Look at the heart rate for each run: On Sunday, my average heart rate was 87 percent of max, topping out at 97 percent. That’s race pace heart rate. My heart was beating fast but my legs were going nowhere.
3. Look at the heart rate for my run in April 2012, which came in the middle of a 40 mile-week: Average heart rate was 77 percent of max, topping out at 86 percent max. That’s right – my max heart rate for this run was lower than my average heart rate for Sunday’s run.
4. The difference is about 13 percent. That’s 20 beats per minute for me. Wanna know what that feels like? Strap a heart rate monitor on and go run 3 miles easy as you can. Then a day later, repeat that 3-mile run making sure you work hard enough that your heart-rate during the entire run averages about 20 beats more per minute. Not. Fun.
5. What’s not on this chart is that I’m carrying around a little extra weight. Well, make that a lot. In April 2012, I was just over 155 pounds. Right now, I’m pushing 170. So, put a 15-pound pack of potatoes on your back, run, and you’ll figure out what I’m trying to do.

I have not been in this bad of shape since I first started running in 2004, when I couldn’t run a mile without stopping. At least now, I’ve got muscle memory: dozens of 15-plus mile runs where my heart rate didn’t even get close to 85 percent; 8 marathons; a dozen or so half marathons and a handful of sub 20:00 5ks. I know what my body is capable of doing, but I won’t get there overnight. Right now, I’m basically a 10-minute-miler and for the sake of my pooped out lungs, I wish I could run slower. But because of the nerve issue I’m having with my leg, if I ran any slower, I’d be limping. Or walking.

The key to get back in shape is 1) get healthy and 2) run slower speeds and longer distances. It’s time to rebuild the base.

I’m on Physical Therapist No. 11 for my mysterious leg malady. I’ve seen him 7 times now. He’s done myofascial release, aggressive manual therapy, given me dozens of stretching exercises to do at home (which I’ve done) and applied electrical stimulation.

And. Nothing. Has. Changed.

The last time I saw my therapist I complained to him that I was unhappy that I hadn’t even
noticed 1 degree of change or improvement. His response is always this: Because I’ve been
messed up for so long it’s going to take a while to see improvement.

I know I’m not a doctor, but that doesn’t make sense to me. To the runners out there: if you
see a therapist 7 times, wouldn’t you expect to see just some improvement? That’s what I
thought.

The scary thing is this: I’ve Googled and Binged and Yahooed my condition and I’ve found
no one else with the problem that I have.

I know its probably time to say goodbye to my current therapist because he is now prescribing things to me that therapists No. 8 and 9 prescribed. Translation: He doesnt know what’s wrong with me and doesnt know how to fix me.

I keep telling him that I feel something weird in my quad/adductor area. He says its my hip or my back. But I have no pain in either area, I tell him. He insists that its my back, that a
nerve in my back is causing my gait to be off. This is what the other therapists have told me.

He tells me I shouldn’t run. So I don’t run. And things don’t get better – even with the
rest. On Wednesday (April 24) I ran 4 miles – my first mileage of any kind since the first of
April. And things were terrible – in the beginning. As I warmed up, though, things got a
little better. Not great. Not change-the- world-better. Just a little better.

This tells me that resting is not going to help me. So I might as well run till I figure this
out. Running is my life. It makes me whole.

This guy – this therapist – is telling me not to run, but he can’t figure out what’s wrong with me, and nothing he does seems to help.

And so now, the decision I’m making is to dump this therapist.

But I don’t know what I’m gonna do next.

This photo, in the NY Times, shows the initial flash of the first explosion. The Times found as many people as they could in the picture and told their stories. One of the people in this photo is Austin resident Katie Carmona.

As we get further and further from the terrible tragedy at the Boston Marathon, we are hearing more and more stories from the survivors and witnesses to the explosion that eventually took four lives.

The New York Times has the most creative use of a photo to tell the story of the Boston Marathon bombing that I’ve seen. One of its subjects is an Austin attorney.

At the moment of the first explosion, an imagae taken from the NBC broadcast of the race showed the initial flash of fire as well as the runners and spectators near the finish line. The Times took that photo, in which the race clock said 4:09:43, then found some of the people in that photo and had them tell their stories.

One of the stories was told by Katie Carmona of Austin, who was standing as a spectator just yards away from the explosion with her friend Amy, both of whom were lucky to not have been harmed. I’ve put a circle in this photo to depict the area where Carmona was standing.

Carmona photo courtesy of NY Times.

“In front of us, there was a flash of glass and smoke that came across where we were walking on the sidewalk,” Carmona told the Times.

Later in the telling of her story, which lasts just under 2 minutes, Carmona lets the Times have a recording of the phone message she left with her husband minutes after the blast. You can hear the anxiety in Carmona’s voice.

I knew dozens of other Austin-area runners who ran Boston and am glad they all came back safe.

You can read more about Carmona’s story as well as see the cool infographic with your own eyes here at the New York Times.

Go over to Poynter to read all about how The New York Times found all the people in the photo.

Stacy Shaw

Runner’s World has a neat story about the last person to finish the Boston Marathon.

Stacy Shaw, a fifth-grade teacher and mother of four from Nebraska, crossed the finish line of the Boston Marathon last week just as the first of two explosions went off.

Hobbled by ankle tendonitis, Shaw, 47, finished with a net time of 4 hours, 44 minutes and 14 seconds – way off her marathon PR of 3:03. She was the 17,580th – and last – runner to cross the finish line before authorities closed the course because of the explosions near the finish line. Nearly 5,000 other runners behind Shaw were not allowed to complete the race.

“I hadn’t even gotten to the water yet,” she says. “We heard this sound like a cannon. And the first thing that went through my head was, ‘Is this part of a ceremony?’ Then I turned around and saw the smoke. I think we all in our heads thought it was some sort of an accident.”

Shaw told Runner’s World that the volunteers made sure she got a medal.

“I forgot about it, and they were practically shoving them in our faces,” she says. “I think most of us would have just kept going on without them.”