Kicking butts and taking names

I started running again a couple weeks ago and I just went out for a moderate effort 67 minute run (my 2nd longest run back so far, time-wise, longest being 80 minutes). I have no idea how far it was, but I do know that I started at 4500' and hit a peak of 6500' after a 30 minute slog up a mountain. I also know that the last 2-ish miles were on a road and that the pace on that section was 7:06 (timed it and mapped it out on mapmyrun). The 7:06 was smooth and the 2000' climb was smooth. I may not yet be kicking butts and taking names as the title implies, but I'm getting back into shape. I'm still a complete fata$$ right now, but that should work itself out in time and my pace will quicken with dropped weight. My mileage is still very low (3 days into 30 miles / 4 runs for the current week right now), but for the first time in what feels like an eternity, running at a moderate or even hard effort levels feels right and it feels good.

I've ditched the orthotics upon coming back and gone to only New Balance Minimus / MT101s and I can actually tell that my feet are getting stronger. I'd wanted to get rid of the orthotic addiction for a really long time prior to the mono incident and now that I'm very slowly building mileage, I was able to do it without all of a sudden changing the way I treat my arches at 100 miles per week and wrecking my feet. If I can ride over the initial wave of occasional foot-bottom and joint soreness from mostly using the Minimus, this ought to help me become even better about avoiding injuries in the future (I still consider my track record of only one minor stress fracture since becoming serious about running 6 years ago to be pretty solid).

I'm starting to feel that competitive fire growing with each run and I can tell that I'm going to want to be racing again in late Summer / early fall. I can't yet say for sure what's going to happen with any of my races specifically (besides Miwok, which I canceled about a month ago), but I'm definitely going to be doing something racing wise starting in August. For now, just being out on the trails is enough though.