I tore my hamstring tendons quite badly two years ago and it has taken that entire two years of physical therapy to get to the point where I could walk and comfortably run again (I still can't go over 4 miles without feeling my tendons start to hurt again). This was my senior year of track and my first real year running since middle school due to injuries. This spring I was able to get a solid 3 weeks of actual workouts in that were more than just PT. I.e. 9X400m, pyramid: 100, 200, 300, 600, 300, 200, 100, 'longer runs' of about 5 miles, etc. In these 3 weeks I improved from 2:20 to 2:10 and I expect to be able to improve a bunch more since my training age is very small.
Now the season is over and I'm aiming to get ~1:59 for the 800m by next track season. I lost a lot of lower body muscle, especially hamstring and glut muscle, from idleness during recovery from my injury ~around 10 pounds. My question is: What should I be doing during this summer offseason to maximize improvement? I can lift to get strength back in my legs or I can keep increasing the distance of my 'comfortable' (I say comfortable because I still feel the pain in my hamstring tendons when I go long, so slowly increasing my mileage will make it more comfortable for me to run longer without pain) long runs to 10 miles by the end of the summer. OR I could do both, lift and work on aerobic, but I'm not sure how that would work with scheduling which on which day, or a little of both every day, etc.
Any help appreciated, thanks!