Back to Burlington (I hope)

Michael I might run that Half. I need to see if I've got too many races before my Full.

Alex Kubacki wrote:Michael I might run that Half. I need to see if I've got too many races before my Full.

That would be cool!

It's an inaugural, so not sure what it will be like. It should be pretty flat, looking at the course map (a lot of it runs along the old canal, as I understand it, and that should be nice and flat). I haven't run a flat half in, well, EVER! Hopefully, they won't have any first edition hang ups.

I've been noticing this week that when I first get up from sitting (or sleeping) sometimes, I get that weird pain in my foot again. I isolated it, googled it, and believe that it is some peroneal tendinitis. Groan. Not something I've had before. I've taken the mid-week runs off, hoping it is a passing thing, and that I tweaked it somehow, rather than developed it from overuse. I am tired of overuse injuries. This is in the same foot as the bad PF, which is mostly gone, but I wonder if adjusting my footstrike to compensate for that has stressed out the other part of my foot somehow. Sure hope it is a passing thing. This is the same time of year and training cycle that I got derailed last year due to the PF (along with a nasty case of bronchitis - at least I don't have that right now, knock wood). So, I've had a little unexpected rest. Pretty good time for it, as I had scheduling problems anyway.

I hope the foot feels better after a little rest. Dang, those niggles seem to pop up at the worst time.
But you still have some time before your next half, so with a bit of rest, I'm sure you can get back on track and hit that PR!

KathyK wrote:I hope the foot feels better after a little rest. Dang, those niggles seem to pop up at the worst time.
But you still have some time before your next half, so with a bit of rest, I'm sure you can get back on track and hit that PR!

Seems better. Most of the time, it feels fine. It's just when I get up and going every once in a while (a bit like the PF does that, but more sporadic). And it was really bad a couple of times, for more than a few minutes.

I will give it a run tomorrow, and just take it easy, and see how it feels in the aftermath of that. Hoping to do something longer on Sunday.

We shall see...

So, to check on this peroneal tendonitis thing, I decided to run 6 miles at the track today, so I had a perfect surface and could stop any time I wanted. Plus, it had rained, and I wanted to stay out of the puddles on the trail, and didn't want any hills. That all worked out, and I committed to taking it real easy. Nice slow warmup mile, then picked it up just a little, then had a real nice cool down because my neighbor showed up (he's slower than me), and I got to jog the last mile while chatting with him. All in, 9:14 per mile average, so quite easy.
It went well, as expected. This has not been anything I feel during the run - it's always a while after. Got home, popped some ibuprofen, and decided to ice it, too. Still icing now.
We'll see!
It was interesting talking to my neighbor. He has become "Mr. Tri", and knows a lot about bikes. He has been assembling his own from components, and putting them together for his kids, etc. He was at the town dump this week and saw a bike in the metal pile and went over and took a look. Ends up it is some high end imported bike that needed almost no work and is worth a couple grand! He cleaned it up and is putting it on sale on ebay. Amazing. One man's trash?

Michael, what about taking a tennis ball and working the affected area? It seems like rolling helps for just about everything else. I hope it gets better.

Alex Kubacki wrote:Michael, what about taking a tennis ball and working the affected area? It seems like rolling helps for just about everything else. I hope it gets better.

Thanks Alex. So far, so good! No pain whatsoever. In fact, I feel great. I might try the tennis ball idea - I've been trying to work on it a little, but it's a hard place to feel for, because that is really just a very bony part of the foot! But the surface of a tennis ball might be just right. Now, if I can just find one that isn't covered in pooch slobber...

Here's to 1:45.

Dave Wolfe wrote:Here's to 1:45.

Thanks Dave!
Nice 12 miler today, and nice and easy. I averaged 9:24 "all in" - I took about a minute at the halfway point to hydrate and took a whiz a couple of miles later.
It was 40 degrees and cloudy, so the hydration probably wasn't needed, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Everything felt good for the whole run, and no problems after. I took a bit of ibuprofen again, and iced it for about 20 minutes after I got home. Also had done a full set of stretches post-run as soon as I stopped. No pain later, so that's good. I think skipping the mid-week runs may have been just what the doctor ordered on this one.
Hopefully, this was just a tweak as opposed to overuse, and I can get on with it. So far, so good. I do have my lingering sore spots - a bit of arch pain from the ongoing (but fading) PF, and a bit of ITB pain at my right knee. Very typical stuff for me.
So ends week 6 of Burlington training. Maybe that HM PR is in range 4 weeks prior to that.

Glad to hear that your foot isn't causing any lingering issues. Are you going to continue to skip that mid-week run?

KathyK wrote:Glad to hear that your foot isn't causing any lingering issues. Are you going to continue to skip that mid-week run?

Thanks Kathy, but sometimes the passage of another day tells me more about what's going on! Some residual soreness in that area today - more than I expected after getting through last night with no issues at all. So, it still presents a training challenge.

I normally take Monday as a rest day, so will do so again today. Then, the question will be whether I do my normal Tues/Wed runs. I could push those back to Wed/Thurs potentially, to give it some more time, or I could just run one of the days and continue to take it a little easy. Whatever I do, the real problem will come this weekend, when I will want to do a long run (I left off with my 16 miler, so in normal course would be anticipating a 17 miler for Saturday or Sunday). Do I do that or not?

Only time will tell, and I know there is no forecasting it. All depends how the next few days go, and how this feels.

Felt good yesterday. I've been doing more calf stretches the last couple of days, just as the day goes on, and occasionally taking small doses of ibuprofen. My theory is that whatever is going on in my foot likely is tied to my eternally tight calf muscles, which always get blamed for everything (including the pf I've had), and that is probably pulling incessantly on my peroneal muscles, and tendons, so promoting the soreness. The stretching may help to ease up that pressure, and the ibuprofen ought to address any lingering inflammation.

In any event, it seemed fine, and just the slightest bit tender, so I went ahead with 6 miles last night. Normally, at this point in my four-day schedule, I shift to 7 miles on the mid-week runs. But I didn't do the mid-week runs last week, I'm still concerned about this issue, I'm early in the schedule with plenty of time to build up miles as I go, and I was short on time last night, so I stuck with the 6 miles.

I did that right at about 9:00 min per mile (6.7 mph on the mill = 8:57 pace), and it all felt great. Watched incessant jabbering about Peyton Manning for the whole 54 minutes. That was interesting for about 15 minutes, and kind of tedious after that, especially because whatever version of ESPN I was watching kept showing the same four video clips over and over again (and none of them really included any game action, which would have been a lot more engaging - who wants to see a close up of the scar on Manning's neck 25 times??). The Y needs to do something about making it easier to change the channel on their treadmill TVs!

I had a bit of a delay before I could get home and ice it. I did some stretches in the meantime, then got home and iced it for 20 minutes, took a couple of ibuprofen and it just felt fine the whole time. So, I expect to run again tonight. Should be beautiful - supposed to get close to 60 here today, so should be a real nice evening for a run, presumably up at the track.

So, I keep going...

Michael, I occasionally have Achilles issues so I've now added the calf to my daily rolling. Just keep plugging away.

I'm always amazed that our running injuries are almost always a result of the deficiency with some other body part.

Fingers crossed that your foot challenge fades.

KathyK wrote:I'm always amazed that our running injuries are almost always a result of the deficiency with some other body part.

Fingers crossed that your foot challenge fades.

I have my share of deficient body parts!

My injuries mostly have been somewhere in the chain of muscles/tendons down the back of my legs and connecting to my feet, so it's a pretty consistent theme. I have the least flexible legs of any human being, according to any doctor or PT I talk to. And that makes sense, because that's usually the type of injury I develop over time.

Maybe Yoga...

Another decent six miler last night, this time at the track. Just took it really easy, that being the theme of recent runs. Often, I find it hard to slow down and do that, but no problem with it last night, even though I felt really good and it was a beautiful night. Ended up averaging 9:23 per mile, which is more like my long run pace than my midweek pace, but that's just fine, thank you very much.

It really was gorgeous. I got up there just after dark. There was a big full moon coming up in the east, with just a very thin haze of clouds over it. That just made it look bigger and dispersed the light softly. And up overhead, I'm not sure what combination of planets that is up there - I have to look that up - but, wow, those were shining brightly, too, right through that thin haze. Just beautiful. It was a nice warm day here yesterday, up to about 60, I think, and though the wind was picking up out of the south (to make it even warmer today), it sure felt good to be out there in shorts and a long-sleeve tech tee and that's it. Must have been in the low 50s somewhere for the run.

Iced and ibuprofened (I'm turning that into a verb) afterwards, and things seem to be holding together pretty well. Some more stretches this morning. I'm getting more optimistic about this. Next up is probably an x-training session tomorrow evening, with hopefully a long run of some consequence on Saturday.

Nice moonlight run! I'm glad to hear that things are feeling ok. Fingers crossed that continues. And I think that Ibuprofened makes an excellent verb.

Thanks Kathy!

Ends up that what I'm seeing up high over head are Venus and Jupiter. Mars is shining brightly over by that full moon hanging in the east. Sirius (brightest star in the sky) is hanging up to the south. I'm supposed to have a shot at seeing Mercury just after sunset in the west, but I doubt that's visible, as that part of the sky is pretty cluttered.

Pretty cool.

Nice easy x-train at the Y on the stationary bike last night.
Then, 17 on the Airline Trail this morning. Nice day for it, but a bit chilly. I don't think it ever got to 40 degrees, though it was probably close at the end. Somewhat windy. Nice and sunny. I dressed well for this. Only adjustments I made during the run were to remove my gloves for a while, but I ended up putting them back on.
Started on the uphill, trying to keep the pace steady and slow. I did a pretty good job at that. On the way back down, I sped up probably just a bit more than ideal, but not bad. Stopped at the car right at the start of mile 7, to chug a gatorade and grab a bottle of water and a gu, to carry out another mile and post it there. That way, on the way back from the next out and back, I'd have fuel and fluid at mile 12. Also stopped to reverse hydrate at one point behind a tree, and that lap will be apparent from the splits. Mostly, my pace varied a bit with the hills. By the way, the elevation below is a bit exaggerated by the scale, and at no point did I plunge all the way down to sea level - probably one of the places where the old RR bed is elevated over the valley floor, where it crosses one of the rivers.
I was glad I had the fuel at mile 12, as I was feeling a little tired, but I felt better afterwards. From there to about 15 is uphill, and then a nice two mile downhill finish. I picked up the pace a little in 16, because it felt good, then figured out that if I went a little faster in the final mile, I could end up averaging right at 9:30 per mile for the run "all in," and so did that. I felt real good. Feet a little sore (the Brooks Glycerin may be approaching the end of their usefulness for long runs at 350 miles), a bit of ITB soreness on the right side, but nothing unusual. In general, felt great.
So, that was a confidence builder. Afterwards, took some ibuprofen and iced the foot, and it feels fine. Although it is a little sore - on the other side of the foot! No biggie, however.

Nice hills there, Michael. Now tell me how to post the data from Garmin Connect?

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:Nice hills there, Michael. Now tell me how to post the data from Garmin Connect?

Hi Michele
The splits are from Garmin Connect. The elevation is from Sporttracks this time. Same process either way: With Garmin Connect open to your splits or elevation chart (so you see it on the screen), hit the "print screen" button on the keyboard. Then, open Paint (or other imaging software of your choosing) and hit "paste" into a blank dicument. Then crop out the other stuff and save the image as a jpeg file. Upload it to your post using the blogging functions on these boards (takes a bit of trial and error to figure that out), and Voila!

8 miles at an easy pace (average 9:16) to top off week 7 of Burlington training. Beautiful day. If I'd waited a couple of hours before starting, I probably could have done this in shorts and a short sleeve shirt. But it was nice doing it earlier, though a bit breezy. Lots of people out on the rail trail, walking, walking dogs, cycling, and lots of runners, which was nice. Some woman flew by me. I thought maybe I would see her heading back before my turn, but didn't. I think she was just fast, and out for a pretty long run. Woooosh.
I felt real good afterwards, and stretched, but skipped the icing and ibuprofen. We'll see how I do with the foot. I have a feeling it will be fine.

So glad to see your weekend runs went well!

Thanks Kathy! As I predicted/hoped, my foot was fine despite no icing or ibuprofen, so I am past that, which is encouraging.