Month: October 2005

My right foot, heel, and ankle feel fine this morning. Apparently the alternating hot/cold treatment is working, because I ran hard last night. True, I ran on a treadmill, with all of it’s attendant cushioning. But even in the past, running on a treadmill would aggravate my foot pain – not this time, though. I will continue to apply the hot/cold treatment for another week. Maybe I can heal up entirely.

Tonight was speed work night. I went to my gym after work, changed into my Asics, shorts and a sleeveless shirt, hat, iPod nano queued up to Green Day’s American Idiot, and hit the treadmill.

Quarter-mile walking warmup, then another mile at a 10:00 pace, some stretches and I was off.

4:00 at 8:57 pace, then 2:00 active recovery, repeat four times total. This week I didn’t slow to walking speed at all, in fact my slowest pace during recovery was 10:35, and that was on the very last recovery period. It was a challenge but I just zoned out and tuned out the monkey chatter voice in my head that tries to talk me out of things. I finished this phase with about 2.55 miles but did not notice the elapsed time.

During my last recovery period I felt a chill sweep over me, like the temperature dropped in the gym. I immediately took notice, since normally I’m pretty over-heated even through my sweat. When I picked up the pace a little bit for my last mile of cooldown running (does it make sense to speed up for a cooldown run? I don’t know but I still have the “gotta go fast” hang-up) I warmed up a little but then when I walked my absolute final quarter-mile the chill came back.

Not sure what my goal for next week will be – longer fast intervals (5:00 at 9:00 pace)? Faster intervals (4:00 at ~8:30)? More intervals (5 cycles of fast/recovery)? Not sure… I’d like to work on my turnover, so maybe the faster intervals would be a good choice. I’ll decide… later.

Total miles this week: 9.28 so far (does not include the half-mile walking bookending my running tonight).

I’ve felt like a cold is coming on all day, maybe for more than a day, and I’ve been around sick people, so maybe I’m due for a cold. Bleah. I didn’t like the cold feeling after my workout at all and hope it’s not a fever. Maybe it was just cold in the gym. Maybe it was just because I was wearing shorts and the sleeveless shirt. Maybe… Damn, I hope so.

Did I mention the heat/ice therapy for my foot? Oh, right, yeah, I did. Well, I did two separate treatments last night. The guy I’d talked to on Sunday suggested a 3:1 ratio of time for warmth vs. ice, so I did 45 minutes with the heating pad, and 15 minutes with the ice, then an hour or so later, I did 30 minutes warm and 10 minutes ice. And my heel, though a bit tender during the day, did not feel bad at all after my run. Of course, it’s worse in the morning, so I’ll watch it tomorrow and see how it feels. I’m going to do at least one more treatment tonight before I go to bed.

Next run will be Friday, probably at least 4 miles, then a long run, 7.5 miles on Saturday. Aiming for a total of 20+. If I also work in a short run Thursday or Sunday, I could have 24 miles, which would be my longest week ever. I think. I’d have to go back and check but that seems correct to me now.

I used Google Earth to measure my running route from last night, the one I’m now officially calling the “Crazy Double-Figure-8 Loop”, and it turns out to be 4.73 miles.

Which makes my average pace a bit better: 10:54. Whew! If I had actually be as slow as I thought last night, I’d have to go out and shoot myself. It was still slow (too slow for eggnog) but I can live with that better.

Been feeling slow and fat lately, so I wanted a hard workout. I figured if I could be speedy and go the distance, I’d earn a tasty eggnog milkshake for dinner from Mike’s Drive-In. But I’d have to really earn it.

I decided on my crazy double-figure-8 loop modification of my normal Waterfront/Esplanade loop, which I guesstimate at 4.2 miles, give-or-take (I’ll check the actual distance and post it later). The weather was good, not too warm not too cold, overcast but not cloudy and definitely not raining. Wore my Adidas, shorts and a sleeveless shirt and my lucky Adidas hat. Running music was Foo Fighters.

And… I kept a steady pace, never significantly broke stride (I had to stop very briefly twice to cross Front Ave., and once right around the 3.5 mile mark I accidentally stopped to walk for about 10 steps before going back to a jog). I felt like I could maintain that pace forever, and, truthfully, I probably can, but it wasn’t the hard race-pace workout that I intended.

I finished in 51:34, though, which is definitely more towards the slow-but-steady and not in the hard-workout area. So my pace was a turtle-ish 12:16. Argh. So sad, I’m so sad, and not just because that means I didn’t really earn the eggnog milkshake. I really want to be faster. I’m not sure what’s holding me back.

So, a salad and some soy milk for dinner tonight. Yay. Tomorrow I’ll rest and then Wednesday I’m going to find some speed drills to work on.

In other news, I felt a sharp pain in my right foot stepping off the bus onto the edge of a curb. That’s the foot that’s been sore. At the race yesterday, I was talking about my heel pain (plantar fasciitis?) with a therapist and he suggested hydrotherapy. I expected on some numbness this morning, caused by all the hills I ran yesterday, but it wasn’t there. Oh, and I’m now wearing slippers with a fairly supportive sole; I read that it helps heal plantar fasciitis if you make sure to give the foot support in the morning right out of bed until it’s warmed up. So maybe that helped me. We’ll see. But then I stretched it out, painfully so, tonight getting off the bus. Argh. Again, rotten luck lately.

I and my 13-year-old nephew ran in the First Annual Run for the Cheetah 5K yesterday and had a great time. I didn’t really expect a lot of people, but there were about 500 entrants, according to the announcer guy. Also, it wasn’t raining, which is always a plus.

There were, however, hills. The course was an out-and-back loop, starting at the front entrance to the Oregon Zoo, going northerly uphill to Kingston Drive, then down, down, down hill, before turning around and coming back uphill.

My dad showed up to get pictures, but because we were faster than I thought we’d be we came in before dad got there. Oh, well, next race.

This was my nephew’s third race, and he did great. We stuck together, and we crossed the finish line in 37:07, give or take (I had some technical problems with my watch), but I’ll be sure to post the official time when the results go up. Which will probably be soon because it was a ChampionChip timed event.

He makes a great running partner and I hope that he’s caught the running bug enough to keep it up. I think the next one we’re going to do together is the Run Like Hell 5K on October 30th – probably not in costume, at least for me…