Blasted

I haven't had a run so psychological defeating as I did today. I guess I shouldn't say defeating. I accomplished that which I set out to do, run six miles, but it really took a toll on me. I feel good that there were several places where I could've taken a short cut back, but I continued on and made it through. I say psychologically hard because my body didn't really feel all that tired or run down, my head just had a hard time telling it to keep going. I guess you can blame it on the humidity, the late start (9am), the heat, the mound of cookie goodness I ate last night, but it was just a tough day.

This time of year is always tough in S. Texas for running. I've got my bike in the shop getting tuned up, so hopefully when I get it back, I'll be branching out to biking for more of my cardio work. It's much easier to ride in the heat than to run it. It'll also give me an opportunity to do a little tri training. There's a short tri coming up in July I've got my eyes on. I think it's 800m swim, 20 mi. bike and 6k running. Should be just about my level for right now.

I've signed up for a 10k in two weeks. Originally I had planned to try for my personal best, but as it gets closer, I don't think I'll push it. I don't want to strain my achilles any more (though it hasn't hurt in a couple weeks), but also the heat will be bad and I'm not sure what the course will be like. It's at McAllister, so some of the trails may be pretty narrow and depending on how many people are there and the course, it could be pretty crowded. I'm thinking I'd be pretty happy with a time less than 1 hour.

Rehabbing it.

Well, I'm finally starting to run again. I did my best over the last three weeks to keep up the cardio work. I got a few hours on the eliptical and several times in the pool. I've done a couple short, slow runs this week and everything feels really good. I have to thank the Athlete's Foot staff person for fitting me with a good pair of shoes. The Brooks Glycerin. Apparently, I didn't need all that stability, it may have been keeping my tendons from bending enough, or something like that. I had always thought that I was an over-pronator, but apparently, I have a very normal foot strike and roll. I need a lot of cusion, and my arches are flat and wide, so most of the pressure is on the outer part of my foot. The two runs I did were about 2.5 and 3.5 miles. I'll try to go do a 6 or 7 miler this weekend, i think.

Since I wasn't running as much in the last couple weeks, I took the time to get my mountain bike functioning and I am stoked about having it ready, now. I've done 3 rides now to McAllister Park. It has a bunch of trails that are a blast to ride on. It's the first time for me to really do actual off-road biking, but it really is a lot fun. I'm looking forward to incorporating it more into cross training.

I've got about 3 weeks left until a race I've been hoping to do. It's a 10k and I was hoping to try for a personal best. I'll have to see how I progress of the next three weeks before I decide to try for it or not, if not, I'll have to look for another race to run later.

Injury Bug

Well, it finally hit me. I've been injury free for some time now. I think my last running injury came a few years ago when I was struggling through plantar fasciitis. It started with a little soreness in my heel, achilles area. I ran with it and hoped it would go away. I lingered for about 2 weeks or so, but then this last Saturday after about 3.5 miles, I had to call Violi to come pick me up. After some minor research, it looks to be achilles tendonitis. Hopefully a couple weeks of rest will do it good. I hope to do swimming/cross training during that time to keep up the cardio aspect of the training. Lots of stretches should help as well, and with a good warm-up I should be able to run on it when it doesn't hurt any more.

One cause that was listed on some of the sites I visited was a sudden increase of hill work along with poor stretching or sprinting. At first I blamed my interval training, thinking that I was pushing myself too much, but I think I probably exacerbated a slight problem by running in Indiana last week. French Lick had some beautiful roads to run on, but it is super hilly. Now that I think about it, that was about the time I started noticing the problem.

I still hope to run in the 10k on June 14th, though I'm not sure I'll go for the personal best on that day, it will depend on my injury progress. This injury might also help me to focus more on what I'm eating.