Consistent

Today I did the exact same route as yesterday, and my time -- 26 minutes -- was exactly the same as yesterday too, down to the second. Wow! I may not be very fast, but I sure am consistent.

Tomorrow is my long run of the week: 7 miles. I'm a little nervous about whether I'll be able to make it the whole way, but the runs yesterday and today felt good enough that I'm also a little excited.

Gorgeous day

I did a 2.5-mile run this morning and it was my best run in ages: cool, sunny, and blessedly non-humid outside. Took me 26 minutes.

Catching up

I've been falling down on the job of writing about my runs, but there have been some positive developments in the last week-and-change.

As planned, I did attempt a 5-mile run in my regular running shoes two Saturdays ago. I managed to run for 4 of the 5 miles, which I felt OK about. It was not the most fun run ever -- my feet felt big and clunky and heavy in the shoes, and weren't particularly comfortable. I wasn't able to retain much of my technique from the minimalist shoes, because the high-stability heels on those shoes make it almost impossible not to come down on the heel with each step. I was very tired and sore after that run.

So, in a last-ditch effort to find some comfortable way of running while I still have time to train for the marathon, I went to Running Fit in downtown Ann Arbor and got yet another pair of shoes. My goal was to get running shoes that are light, not bulky in the heels, yet provide enough cushioning to allow me to run without hurting my feet -- essentially, to try to get the best features of each of my current pairs of shoes in a single pair. I ended up with a pair of Asics trainers that are super lightweight and comfortable and allow me a lot of flexibility in adjusting my stride (meaning, hopefully, that they would allow me to run in a way that doesn't exacerbate my ankle injury). As I left the store, I remarked to Andrew that I sure hoped they would turn out to be worth the hundred bucks.

That was last Sunday, and then I tried a 2-miler on Tuesday before attempting my weekly "long" 6-mile run on Thursday. (I've decided to switch my long run day from Saturdays to Thursdays, since I don't work on Thursdays and that way it doesn't interrupt my weekend sleeping-in schedule.) Things felt pretty good on Tuesday, although still somewhat sore from the Saturday run. The important thing was that my ankle wasn't hurting. So, on Thursday, I embarked on the long one. Wow, it was hard! I am really out of shape. I was huffing and puffing and my legs were exhausted after just a couple of miles. But, I was determined to make it the whole way, and I did. Afterward I felt a little discouraged because it had been so hard; 6 miles used to be nothing for me. But I kept reminding myself that I was unable to run for three months, I'm carrying around about an extra 10 pounds due to all that sedentary time, and I'm trying to build up mileage relatively quickly, so it should be hard!

I did another 2-mile run yesterday and was amazed to find that I was in no pain at all when I started running. I realized that I've actually conditioned myself to flinch when I take my first few steps because I'm expecting pain! Yesterday there was no pain though, and I actually felt sort of like a runner again. That was pretty cool.

So it's looking good. Now if this terrible humidity would just settle down, I could start really enjoying this. :-)

Back to the regular shoes, maybe

This morning I set out for a short run in the crazy barefoot shoes, not really looking forward to it. Sure enough, my feet were hurting within the first few steps, and I started to admit to myself that it is very unlikely that I will be able to run the marathon in these shoes. I have no doubt that it's possible to build up to that kind of mileage in these or other barefoot-style shoes, but at least in my case, it would take longer than I have before the marathon -- maybe years.

So, after one painful mile, I came back home, changed into my regular running shoes, and went back out for another mile. As Peter Sagal wrote of returning to regular shoes after trying out the crazy barefoot shoes, "It's like my toes have moved back in with their parents." They felt roomy and comforting. That second mile was vastly more pleasant than the first.

Maybe if I run in the regular shoes but focus on keeping some of the technique I've gained from the crazy shoes (particular the idea of the midfoot/forefoot strike rather than the heel strike), I'll be able to run more comfortably without exacerbating my injury. It's worth a try, because I'm supposed to run 5 miles this Saturday and I don't think I could do it in the crazy shoes.

Unfun run

Yesterday, I was scheduled to run 3 miles, but I only made it 2. I think this was the first time I've ever failed to complete my "long" weekend run (and 3 miles hardly seems long). But it was possibly the most disgusting weather day I have ever personally encountered (excessively warm and humid, the kind of day where you're drenched 30 seconds after stepping outside) and my feet were hurting as soon as I started running. I just don't know how to run when there is sweat-mixed-with-condensation dripping down your forehead and into your eyes and soaking even your most moisture-wicking exercise clothing (too much information, sorry), and your feet are telling you "STOP!" as soon as you start. So I decided to do the same route I did last Saturday instead of the extended route I had planned.

I don't know what to do about my hurting feet. They don't hurt when I'm not running, and in that sense it seems like a "better" pain than the pain I was having from my ankle injury, which would last all day, even when I wasn't on my feet (and which, incidentally, has mostly gone away since I started running again in the crazy shoes). I guess that makes it seem related to fatigue rather than injury. But, I only did one midweek run last week and still it seems it wasn't enough for my feet to have recovered for the Saturday run. This worries me because it seems like it could easily keep me from being able to build up mileage in the way that I will need to if I'm going to run the marathon.

2 more miles

Today nothing was hurting, so I did another 2-mile run. As soon as I started running, lots of things were hurting, but it all loosened up after about a mile. I definitely experience more soreness at the beginning of my runs in the crazy barefoot shoes than I have ever experienced in regular running shoes, and I don't know whether that's something I should worry about. But it does seem to go away after I've been running for a bit. Today I did not have any metatarsal pain during the run, which was nice.

I've noticed that when my Achilles tendon feels tight during the day, holding a heating pad on it for 5-10 minutes and then stretching it helps a whole lot. I'm thinking I should try doing that before a run, because my Achilles is one of the things that reliably hurts the most when I start running. Maybe getting it nice and warm and loose before I start would help.

Neighborhood walk

When I woke up this morning, my right knee was hurting for unknown reasons. So, instead of stressing it by running, I decided to go for a nice walk. I ended up finding a really charming little residential neighborhood very near to where we live, characterized by adorable houses and lush, tree-lined streets. Fortunately, I had brought my camera along, so I was able to photograph the surroundings! This is what it mostly looked like, which is just astonishingly beautiful to me after 4 years of living in the desert among cacti and sand:


I saw lots of bird feeders, but only one squirrel feeder. This lucky squirrel has a corm:

Apparently, rogue golfers are a big problem around here:

(Apparently they not only discourage golfing here in Ypsilanti, they also don't believe in the Oxford comma. [disapproving frown])

Finally, most of the yards around here seem to be landscaped, and this results in some beautiful (though probably non-indigenous) flowers!


For whatever it's worth, my knee hurt a lot more right after the walk, and then sometime in the middle of the afternoon, abruptly stopped hurting at all. Seriously, knee? Make up your mind.

2 miles

Yesterday I did another 10-minute run, and then this morning I did 2 miles as planned. It was devilishly humid outside both days -- truly disgusting weather to run in. The 2-miler took me just over 25 minutes including a couple minutes of rest in between miles 1 and 2, meaning that I was running at an 11-to-12-minute mile pace. I had expected to be a little slower than that.

When I started out this morning, my left foot was hurting quite noticeably (but not my left ankle! huzzah!). I don't know much (anything, really) about foot physiology, but the pain was in the section of my foot that contains the metatarsal bones. My best guess is that the particular ways in which the feet bear stress when running in the crazy shoes (which are much different than the ways in which the feet are stressed when running in regular shoes), combined with the fact that my left foot and ankle are weaker than normal due to the injury, are to blame for the pain, which I hope was just fatigue. It didn't get any worse, and maybe got very slightly better, over the course of the run. My right foot had a little bit of similar soreness, but not nearly as bad.

One thing I noticed had to do with running technique. I recently read somewhere, though I can't remember where (maybe Barefoot Ted's website? but maybe not there) that when running barefoot-style, you should not be pushing off with your toes; instead, think of each step's impact as simply tapping the forefoot against the ground. A couple of times during the run today, I remembered to remind myself of that and whenever I did, the foot pain was a little less. I'm not sure what minor adjustment that thought was causing me to make to my posture, but whatever it was, it seemed to help.

Time now for a day or two of rest with lots of stretching and ice. I bet my lower calves are going to be pretty sore tomorrow!

Tentative training schedule

OK, I've created a tentative schedule for my training runs for the October marathon. This is of course assuming that my ankle doesn't cause me big problems when I start getting into distances of a few miles or longer. If that happens, I probably won't be able to run the marathon. But I'm planning for the best!

I'm not bothering to make a schedule for my short mid-week runs, because I learned last summer that I won't follow one. Also, I don't know yet what my work schedule is going to look like, and that will influence how many mid-week runs I'm willing to do; if I have to be at work early enough that running in the morning means running in the dark, I just won't do as many runs. Running in the dark while clutching my little mace sprayer is not one of my favorite things and is tough to drag myself out of bed for.

So this is just for the long weekend runs. I'm thinking I'll do them on Saturdays like last summer, although since I'm not running with a team this year, I could always switch to Sunday if need be. I'm hoping to work up to 22 miles as my longest training run, which is 2 miles more than the longest training run last year with TNT. I don't know if that will turn out to be feasible, especially since I'm starting with such low mileage due to the injury. But if I can do it, I think I will thank myself for it on race day. 6.2 miles between the longest training run and the race length felt like a very large gap last year.

6/5/: 2 miles
6/12: 3 miles
6/19: 5 miles
6/26: 6 miles
7/3: 7 miles
7/10: 8 miles
7/17: 8 miles
7/24: 10 miles
7/31: 11 miles
8/7: 12 miles
8/14: 12 miles
8/21: 14 miles
8/28: 16 miles
9/4: 17 miles
9/11: 19 miles
9/18: 14 miles
9/25: 22 miles
10/2: 12 miles
10/9: 8 miles
10/16: rest, because tomorrow is race day!

So, 2 miles this Saturday, which will be about twice what I did today and I think will feel challenging.

Double time

My 5-minute runs have become pretty comfortable, so today I upped my time to 10 minutes. Felt fine. There was some Achilles tightness again, but it didn't get any worse over the course of the run, so it didn't feel like I was doing myself any damage. My legs were pretty tired by the end of the 10 minutes! It was also really humid outside so I was pouring sweat -- lovely.

So far, so good with the crazy shoes. On my to-do list for today is to outline a training schedule that I'll be able to follow for the next few months, assuming of course that things continue to go okay with the shoes and my ankle. I want to make sure that while taking it slowly I also am building up enough to be in decent shape for the marathon in October.