I think I'm just tired

I had a really difficult time this morning. Though it's possible it's from my mileage creeping up again, I'm going to blame it on the fact that I've really been working hard this week. I got back from Boston late Saturday night, took 24 hours of call Sunday to Monday, had a meeting Monday night, another 24 hours of call Tuesday to Wednesday, and a family party last night. Throw in the amount of time it takes to stretch, run, stretch, ice, blog, etc. and I haven't gotten very much sleep this week.

Last night, while standing around this party in my suit, I felt that my left leg was bothering me a little. This morning, it still didn't feel perfect. I thought of pushing my run off to tomorrow, but I really wanted to get in today, so I could rest for 2 days before the long run on Sunday. (I know the logic's a little stange, but it works for me.)

I was "supposed" to run 8 miles. Right from the get go I didn't feel too great. The inner side of my left lower leg was bothering me. Not like the anterior pain I was having a few weeks ago, but not as pain free as my last few runs have been.

I decided pretty quickly that I wasn't going to do the whole 8. At about 2 miles in, there was a decision point where one way, which I had planned to take, would take me on a path further and further away from my house. I didn't do it, and just turned around on the path, back towards the direction of my house. I had already stopped to stretch once before, and when I got stuck at a red light about 2.5 miles in, I stopped and stretched again. I was a little better at this point.

At 3 miles, I had another decision point: stop, or do the 2 mile loop again. I went for another loop. Then I got a little crazy, and started doing mental mathematics. I added up my weekly mileage so far. If I only ran 5 miles, I'd end up with 28 for the week. That wouldn't be enough to get me to the 35 I had planned for two weeks from now. So I pushed on for another mile, which ended up being a mile and a half. Total run: 6.5 miles. Because of all my stretching stops, I couldn't figure out my pace and wasn't really paying attention to it anyway. When I got home, I was able to figure out that most of my miles were around a 10 min/mile pace.

So now if I can get through my 18 miles this Sunday, I'll end up with 29.5 on the week. Which is about 10% up from last weeks 27. The following week was supposed to be a step back week, with 28 miles planned. Following that is the week where I peak, culminating in a 20 miler. I had planned to run 35 for the week, but I'll probably end up with a 5, an 8, and a 20, for 33 total miles. Which will be about 10% up from this week. And then I'll start the taper.

(Sorry about the numbers. You can see my nerdy spreadsheet if that helps this make more sense. The plan is in bold on the left hand side.)

In any case, now I'm going to rest until Sunday. I'm on call again today, but I hope to catch up on my sleep tomorrow night and Saturday. In the meantime, I'll keep doing the stretching, as well as some extra icing. I took some Motrin this morning as well. I'm a little nervous, but still hopeful I'll be fine by Sunday.

1000!!!

After watching the numbers creep up over the last little while, visitor number 1,000 showed up early this morning. (From Washington DC, in case you're curious.) It's only been 38 days since I started this blog, so I'm pretty excited to have had 1,000 visitors already.

(Ok fine, in the beginning I didn't realize I could ignore my own visits, and a bunch of people have ended up here by clicking on "next blog". However, I'd say at least 800 people have actually come here on purpose!)

I should also mention that the idea to post this milestone was directly stolen from ShoreTurtle, who reached this point last week. As he says, both the writing and reading of blogs are addicting. (I've probably made 1000 visits to other people's blogs in the last 38 days!)

Thank you to all those people who come by here on a regular basis, and thanks for the support you've given in your comments. I appreciate it.

A bit too fast

I know to a lot of people these don't seem particularly fast, but I had a tough time out there today. Maybe it was the weather (sunny, mid to high 70's), and maybe I'm still tired from the weekend. But I think I went out a bit too fast. Usually I start out about 10 minutes a mile and then gradually get faster. You can see that my second mile here was 9:08. So I finished, and basically kept up the pace, but it was kind of tough.

A part of me wants to get in some speedwork. That's the same part of me that wants to finish the marathon in under 4 hours. I think I could do it. Having run 1:52 for the half (1:55 a few weeks ago), I think I could get close to 4:00 for the whole thing. But I also don't want to get injured. And I also want to finish. I figure that if I don't run my fastest time this time around, it will be easier to beat my PR next time!

So I've generally tried to run slower. I'll be happy if I finish the marathon with a 10 min/mile pace, or 4:22. (I'll be happy to finish no matter what, but that's my goal.) The main thing is to stay healthy over the next few weeks, and to cross that finish line on November 6th.

Forerunner update

So it turns out I only ran 14.7 miles. Which is kind of a bummer. Intellectually I know that 14.7 is the same as 15 as far my body's concerned, but it's still kind of annoying. Especially since I ran an extra 0.5 miles to "make sure" I reached 15. Oh well...

So here's the deal. The vast majority of points are accurate. However, several of the GPS data points are off. Maybe this was because I was in Manhattan, maybe it's because it was cloudy, but my my guess is that this will always happen to some degree. In any case, once this happens the device thinks I ran all the way to that incorrect point, and then back. Here's an example. (The blue lines are where it thinks I ran, and the yellow lines were put in by me.)



At first I was trying to plot out my actual route. Eventually I figured out how to use the SportTracks program, which is pretty amazing. I was able to delete various data points, and click and drag others, in order to end up with the finished route shown at the top of the post.

Incidentally, I came across this article today. Less than one week after getting my Forerunner, the first steps towards its eventual obsoleteness have been taken. Progress forever moving forward...

I can do it!

At some point during today's run I realized that I can finish a marathon. I felt good for 15 miles, and I'm pretty sure I could have run another 11.2 if I needed to. Now I'm only nervous about getting injured. If I can stay healthy, I'm confident I can finish the marathon. Comfortably.

(That's not to say that I didn't feel it. My legs are sore, and I'm sure they'll be worse tomorrow. But I finished with more left in the tank, and I felt pretty good about that.)

Now that I have some newfound freedom with the Forerunner, I decided to run a route I've always wanted to run: the path along the West Side Highway. Because I had to work today, I got up early to do this run. (Of course, this was after getting back late from Boston.) I was in the city about 6:30. I found parking, and walked to the west side. I could see the highway, but I couldn't figure out how to get across it. I even contemplated running across both sides of this major highway. It's funny that even if you're about to run 15 miles, the thought of having to walk 10 blocks to cross a highway is still pretty annoying. Anyway, I finally figured it out without having to go too far.

I wasn't sure how long the track goes downtown, so I figured I'd kill a few miles going up towards the George Washington Bridge. So from 96th, I ran up to 125th where it seemed to end (or take a break), and then started heading south. I kept going and going and was amazed how far I was going. I basically went all the way to Battery Park City, running a good portion of the west side of Manhattan. I turned around, and run back into the 70's somewhere, and walked the rest of the way back to the car. It was really a great run. (Sorry to the non-New Yorkers for all the detail, but it really was great! See the map.)

Unfortunately I had to go straight to work after this. (Well, I did shower first at a friend's apartment in the city.) I am very curious to inspect the Forerunner data. I remembered there were some miles that seemed too quick, and now looking at the numbers on the watch, I can see my fastest mile was 4:43. That's obviously ridiculous. I think I started in the low 10's and then ended up in the mid 9's. Because I was suspicious of the distance, I ran an extra 0.5 miles to end up at 15.5. Now that I mapped it out on Gmaps I get 14.2 miles for the route I ran. However, that's using a very straight path, without taking into account all the curves and detours in the path. So I'm hoping that at the end of the day, I ran 15 miles.

(I'm scheduled for 18 next week. I'll probably go back to Central Park where I know the loop is 6 miles, and plan to run it three times.)

So the Forerunner isn't perfect. But it was helpful to have it along today. When I get home (tomorrow) I'll look at the maps and see how it tracked my route. I'll also do some reading on whether there's anything I can tweak to make it better. (It could just be that some parts of Manhattan are a problem. My car's GPS also doesn't work in the middle of the city.)

So Garmin maps tomorrow. Gmaps for today.

Boston

I just got to Boston, where my current roommate and I will be spending the next day reuniting with our old third roommate. On the way to his apartment we drove by Harvard. I kept noticing tons of runners heading out to run by the Charles River. Because I don't run on Saturday, I won't have a chance to run this famous path. Although I have the opportunity to run in Central Park all the time, I was still upset to miss out on the Charles River.

I'm definitely obsessed.

Bodyglide 101

Today I learned the difference between this bodyglide and this bodyglide. This was the first time I bought the stuff, and although I saw something about soothing muscles on the package, I just figured I had some extra features in mine. I've only had a problem with chafing once, but with 15 miles planned for this weekend I thought I might be running into problems again. Today was supposed to be a trial run. Good thing. I put the stuff on, and it didn't really feel too slippery. So I put a little more on. It still didn't seem to feel like it was doing anything, but hey, what do I know.

About 2 minutes later, my armpits started to get warm. Then they got really warm. Like "ouch" warm. At this point, I realized something was wrong. I tried to get as much of it off as possible, and then put some regular deodorant on afterwards. At least that felt good.

Long story short, I need the other bodyglide. I'm not sure what I'll do with this WarmFX one. (Does anybody use this ever?)

Fascinating stuff, eh?

My run today was otherwise pretty good. I had to go to a circumcision this morning, so I couldn't do my run early in the morning. By the time I was running it was in the 80's and it felt pretty hot. I figured I had it better than the baby, so I'm not going to complain.

I got in my 7 miles with no real pain. Actually, during my 6th mile I felt some little twinges just below my right knee, but they were gone by the next mile. Either that, or I was paying too much attention to the Forerunner by then.

Speaking of which, I think I still need to work out some of the details. After looking at Tuesday's data, I changed the "data smoothing" setting to "most". I think that affected the forerunner in a negative way. Even by the first mile the mileage seemed to be less than I expected. My splits were also not as expected.

At the end of the run I somehow still ended up with 7 miles I expected. When I uploaded the information, I noticed a couple of "blips" in the GPS data. There are definitely a bunch of trees along my route, but I didn't have this problem on the first run. I think (hope) it's the smoothing.

Here's the map I get from Garmin's software, as well as the splits.



I also checked out ZoneFive's software, as suggested by Flatman. It is pretty cool software, and it's particularly nice that you can import the data to Google Earth. Here's the resulting image, as well as the splits according to them.



You can see that the mileage is somewhat increased as compared with Garmin's software, 7.27 miles vs 7.04. I'm not quite sure how to reconcile this difference. (I think I might be able to "fix" the GPS data on the ZoneFive software, but I'm not home right now to check.)

If anyone has any words of wisdom on how to tweak the forerunner 201 into better accuracy I'd appreciate hearing them.

Hopefully, my next run will be the longest of my life. I can't wait.

Garmin's maiden voyage

I was very excited to get my Forerunner yesterday. It's interesting. Everyone here in blogworld told me how cool it is, and how I'm going to love it. Everyone in the "real world" just thinks I'm a nerd. But hey, what do they know...

I was very excited to take it for a spin this morning. I had to work this morning also, so I planned to run near my house. This run is on a path lined with very big trees so I wasn't sure it would actually work. Much to my surprise, it was totally fine. I also enjoyed the fact that my previously measured 1 mile route was actually 1.02 miles according to the Forerunner. So it's pretty accurate. As other people have mentioned, the lap pace while you're running is all over the place, and not accurate. You can see from the graphs above that the minute to minute pace is actually pretty useless. What is pretty cool is that for the first time I can start talking about my "splits". Setting the auto-lap to 1 mile, the Forerunner alerts me at each mile, and tells me what my time for that mile was. I now have the ability to look at the table above, and see that I (practically) ran negative splits the whole way. Pretty cool.

Another interesting thing this morning was that this was the first time I listened to a podcast. This particular one was by Steve Runner, and it was quite good to listen to. (Credit goes to Scott for linking his site.) It sounds a little crazy to listen to some guy just talk about running, but it's actually a welcome change from just listening to music. It's only about a half hour, so I went back to my regular music afterwards.

(If you check out his site, make sure to click on the mailbag link. He answers a lot of funny questions, in a sometimes corny, but usually pretty funny way.)

200 miles!

I forgot to mention that I passed another milestone in my training. I started recording my miles on July 1st, and I just passed 200. Pretty cool to see it all add up like that.

I've also added some new blogs to my blogroll in the sidebar. A bunch of them are by folks running the Chicago Marathon on October 9th. I think it will be good inspiration to read about people finishing their training and then running their race.

12 miles in Central Park

I got in my planned 12 miles in Central Park yesterday. Although I'm slightly sore today, it was a really good run. I didn't feel any of the pain I've had before. More importantly, as I was walking around the rest of the day in my regular shoes, I didn't feel it then either. So that makes me happy.

The park was jam packed. There was a biathlon there going on, but there were tons of other runners in the park. I think the morning was just really beautiful, and with September being half over already, people just wanted to take advantage.

As I start to increase the distance of my long runs, I'm also starting to deal with the amount of time it takes. I had a really busy day on Sunday, and to get this run in I had to get up really early. (And of course I didn't go to sleep early on Saturday night!) I find myself trying to figure out how I'm going to fit in my long runs the next two weekends. Especially with all the Holidays coming up, planning my schedule has become more challenging. But it must be done...

In other news I'm hoping to get my Forerunner today. I've been obsessively tracking it online since it was shipped. They should really upload GPS data from each delivery truck. Then I could watch my package going through the city until it came to my door. (That way I could come downstairs to get it before they put that sticker on my door saying I wasn't home!) I'm sure this will happen in the next few years.

Before I go, has anyone noticed that their computer really slows done when editing a blogger post? Are people using the Word add-on? Or is just my computer?

Six more miles

I feel like I spend half my time reading running blogs and thinking about my next run. Then when I'm actually running, I'm thinking about how I'm going to write about it in the blog. I really need to start working full time again.

In any case, today's run was pretty good. My shin didn't really bother me, until maybe at the end. I did feel some little twinges here and there, but for the most part, I really felt good out there. I even enjoyed it. (It's been a while.)

Another nice thing was that I didn't get lost. I've tried to run this route before and ended up in the wrong place. I guess practice does make perfect.

It's really a nice run. There's a paved path almost the entire way, with the major exceptions being two bridges. Running over these bridges is kind of cool in it's own respect, especially the one over water. There's a nice breeze, and you really feel on top of the world as you run across it. For the time being I'm avoiding long runs on concrete, but sometime in the future I'd like to run over some of the more impressive NYC bridges like the Brooklyn Bridge and the George Washington Bridge. (And of course, I'm looking forward to running over the Verazzano in less than two months time!)

I'm trying to find out more about longer running routes in NYC. I've found several good pages online, and a map of all the bike routes. More specifically, I'm looking for the distances of the routes along the East and West sides of Manhattan. I think those would both be pretty cool runs.

In somewhat related news I've ordered the Forerunner 201. I'm not sure how well it will work in NYC, but since I don't live in Manhattan I thought I'd give it a try. So maybe once that comes I'll be able to do some of these long runs without having them all mapped out and measured in such detail beforehand. (For this weekend, however, I'll plan to run in Central Park. 2 loops for 12 miles.)

Hey, that felt pretty good

I think today was the best run I've had in weeks. My right shin didn't bother me at all. (That's why I was able to feel the things bothering me in my left leg, and right hip!) I've been doing so many things to try and heal myself lately that I can't be sure what exactly is doing the trick, if it isn't all of them. However, I did just get these insoles and they do feel pretty good. They seem to push my foot up a little higher in the shoe, which makes them feel more secure. When I come down on each foot, I really feel the shoe cushioning me more than I did before. (And it was pretty good before.)

Now I recognize there's a potential placebo effect, but I'm generally in the 2/3 of people on which placebo has no effect. In fact, I think many proven therapies or medications have no effect on me. So I'm really surprised that I feel better already. So much so, that I'm suspicious that I'm not really better. Maybe it's just the signifcantly decreased mileage.

Or maybe it's that I've really slowed down. I almost always used to slip into just under a 10 min mile pace when training. Lately though, I've been making a conscious effort to take it easy when I run. Although that doesn't necessarily mean slower, it does mean that I try to hold back on the amount of effort I put into the run. I guess in the end though, that translates into slower speed. So today's pace ended up being about 10:37 for the first 2 miles, and then about 10:13 for the last two.

In any case, if I continue to feel good I'm not going to complain. I'm going to keep stretching and doing strengthening exercises. I'm going to keep icing. I'm going to continue to take it easy when I run. And I'm certainly going to keep using these insoles!

I've put together a new training schedule. Although I do increase the mileage pretty quickly over the next few weeks, I'm still running less than I did during my half-marathon week. Unfortunately, I don't see any other way of being ready for the marathon in 7 and half weeks. I'm hoping that the mileage I accumulated prior to slowing down will help get me through these next few weeks. I've also trimmed one running day off the schedule. (And so I'll have to make an effort to cross train more.)

It's good to be back.

Cleveland Rocks!

Well, I'm not so sure that it rocks, but how can I go to Cleveland and not have that as the title?? I had a very nice time this past weekend. Reunited with my family, and spent time with my 3 nephews. I also saw the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For a music fan like me, it was pretty cool.

Friday I woke up at 4:30 to get my run in before leaving for the airport. I know this is an hour later than Wil gets up, but somehow I was still expecting some sort of medal. Of course when I got out to the running path, there were a couple of people there already. So no medal for me. Anyway, I got in 4 miles. Didn't feel great, but it wasn't horrible. By 6:15 I was off to the airport.

Friday afternoon I saw my brother's father-in-law, who is also an orthopedic surgeon. He took a look at my feet and thought I'd do better with different inserts in my shoes - which he was nice enough to bring with him. (For those that are interested, they're made out of plastazole, and they have a little more support in the arch.) He brought 2 pairs, one of which I put in my dress shoes. They did seem to support me better, and walking didn't bother me as much. I did still feel some pain, and when I mentioned this to him on Saturday, he basically said to take it easy when I run. (And if it hurts too much, I shouldn't run.) Standard stuff...

So this morning I had planned all sorts of interesting runs in Cleveland, but instead I decided to run on the treadmill. My brother's treadmill seemed to have a lot of "give" in it, so I figured for my "long" run this morning I would be better off on the treadmill.

My plan was for 8 miles, if I wasn't in too much pain. When I first started, I was still feeling my shins. I was really pretty down at that point, thinking that this marathon "hobby" of mine was going to come to an end. I thought I'd have to stop. But then with a little more time, it got easier and bothered me less. I was able to finish the 8 miles without too much difficulty. Lots of stretching and icing afterwards, but all in all, I didn't feel too bad for the rest of the day. Maybe the insoles helped. I have to give them a little more time.

For this week I'm going to continue to take it easy. Although if I want to make it to this marathon I have to get my long runs up there eventually. I'm thinking of 12 miles for next Sunday, but let's see how the next 6 days go.

Massage

Well I've done it. I've had a massage. It felt nice while I was having it, but I don't really feel too different now. (I can still feel twinges of pain in both my shins.) I'm not sure what I was expecting, but no miracle has occurred.

After getting back to running yesterday, I am definitely taking today off. I hope to run 4 miles tomorrow and have a better idea of where I stand.

In the meantime I've gotten some depressing, but probably realistic feedback to a question I posed on Cool Running. Since most people here have been more supportive, I wonder what you think of that. (I feel like he's probably right, but I'm not ready to accept it yet.)

Tomorrow I'm off to Cleveland to visit my brother. His father-in-law is an orthopedic surgeon, who does a lot of work in sports medicine. My brother tells me he used to be one of the team doctors for the Indians back when they sucked. (The Indians, not the doctors!) So for all the people telling me to see a sports doctor - I will tomorrow! (He says I need some sort of insert for my running shoes, but I'll talk to him more tomorrow.)

Since my brother's home is still in the dark ages (i.e. dial up internet) I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be doing over the weekend. I'll be back in NYC Sunday night.

On the road again...

Since I posted the Rundown yesterday, there's been a slight bump in traffic to the blog. However, since most of that traffic is being directed straight to the Rundown, and since this post is "above" it, I feel like this is a kind of secret post to my previous readers. ;-)

That being said, I'm sure the suspense is killing you? What is going on with Danny's shins? (Ok, I'm not that crazy. But allow me to humor myself with the thought that all your lives are hanging on whether I go back to running or not.)

The thought of having my blog all of a sudden get popular, and then having to drop out was depressing. (I really feel for Jonathan, who had this happen to him.) So after giving myself 4 days of rest, and really stretching a lot, I laced up the old sneakers again. I was pretty nervous, but it was really good to get out there again.

After a little warmup, and some more stretching, I set out at a nice and easy pace. I felt a little rusty from my 4 days off (isn't that crazy!), but I was enjoying the run. Unfortunately, I'm so tuned in to every little twinge I feel. I could feel little aches here, and tightness there. However, the problem area on my right shin didn't seem any worse while running, so I kept going.

After 2 miles, I felt a little tight. Since I run a two mile loop (1 mile out and 1 mile back), this seemed like a good place to stop and stretch again. Once I stopped, though, I could really feel the muscles in my anterior shin swelling or something. It wasn't the bone bothering me, it was my muscles. I took a page out of Jeff's book, and gave them a little rubdown. After a few minutes, it really felt better. (Cool!) So I went out for another 2 mile loop, and felt kind of okay.

So there, you go. I'm back in the game. My shin hurt a little, but really no more than usual. I did feel all sorts of other pains, but I'm thinking that's from being off so long. Also, you kow how when you get a needle, it hurts less if you're not looking at it? Well, I can't get my mind off my legs. The entire run, I'm constantly obsessing over every little thing I feel. Is that okay? What about that one? Should I stop? ("will I DIE???") If I could just get my mind off it for a little, I think I'd feel much better. I hope to be able to do that soon.

Tomorrow, I'm scheduled for a massage at a massage therapy school. I've never been there before, but I'm planning to let them know about this whole shin splint deal. Maybe they should spend the entire time on my legs? In any case, this is my first real massage, so I'll let you know if it helps.

Rundown

Time for another Rundown...

First of all, this has been a tough week for America. Hurricane Katrina ripped through Mississippi and Louisiana, leaving behind utter devistation. A lot of people commented about how difficult it was to run this week, and even more so, to write about running. I think Wil really put it into perspective nicely, and told us why she was running. In any case, they certainly need a lot of help there, and if you would like to make a donation, you can do so here.

In other news, August has now come to a close. With it, several runners have reported on their monthly totals. Flatman has a great picture of his log. Other runners had the opportunity to make into triple digits this month. Meredith reports this rather matter-of-factly, while Drew tells us what it's like to go over 100 for the first time.

Some people also went on some great runs this past week. Richard reports on his 10 mile time trial, and Stephanie tells us she deserves a holiday after her 20 miler!

At the other end of the spectrum, Hutch is just getting started on his plans to run a marathon. Good luck Hutch!

Several RBF members had a reuninon this week in New Haven. Read Sarah's report here, David's report here, and Susan's report here. Jon even shows off some of his chocolate cookies! Also be sure to read their post-race reports here, here, here, and here. Count on Dianna for the loonngg (and at times quite personal) race report. Congratulations guys! Sounds like you had a blast. We're all coming next time...

Some of us had some tougher moments this week. My heart goes out to Wil after reading about her experience at her most recent triathlon. I too had a tough week, having to cut back on my running due to injury. At least it's reassuring to read about Jeff, who seems to have come back successfully after his own injuries. (In somewhat related news, Jeanne too found herself exhausted this week. But it wasn't from running. It was from giving her blog a makeover!)

One really great post this week showed Chandra having a hysterical moment of psychosis, posting all her pressing questions. (I was LMAO at each "will i DIE???")

Finally, congratulations to Alison on having her blog mentioned in this month's Runner's World.

That about does it for this week. Looking forward to more good news than bad this week, and more great posts.

Run along now...

No fracture (I think)

So...

The last couple of days have not been fun. I continue to be really down about this injury. I appreciate the kind words people have offered, but I am still pretty pessimistic about the chance to run this year's marathon.

The pain has lessened over the last few days, but seems to have localized on my right side. About a third of the way up my leg, right in the front of the shin, there's a discrete area of tenderness. It's definitely better than Friday, but I still feel it when I walk.

Thinking that it would make me feel better, I got X-rays taken today. I'd like to show them to a dedicated bone radiologist, but according to the radiologist who saw them today, they don't appear to have any signs of fracture on them. As I'm sure many of you know, X-rays are not definitive for early stress fractures. However, a bone scan is a little bit more difficult to set up in my situation.

Either way, I don't think there is a major fracture. However, since I'm still feeling the pain, I definitely need to cut back on my running. As a result, I've cancelled this weekend's long run. (It kind of sucks, since there's actually an extra weekend day to run this week.)

Taking some advice from other runners who have commented here, I won't give up just yet. Maybe with a few more days rest, the pain will subside. If I'm feeling better in a couple of days, I'll try to start up the running again. I don't think I can go too long without running, and still have a reasonable chance of being ready for the marathon in 9 weeks. But if I can get back to the roads in the next week or so I should be ok.

Again, not to end off on a downer, I've gotten some pictures from last week's half marathon. Ah... the good old days. Pic1 Pic2 Pic3

Depressed

Is it just not in the cards for me??

I just ran 4 miles, at a nice leisurely 10 min pace. And I felt each step. On both sides this time.

I've definitely been obsessing about every little pain, but I think I've been feeling it more lately. Yesterday when I was examining myself, there was a definite area of point tenderness on my left shin. But it was my right side that I was feeling twinges in when I walked. Hmm...

So after having yesterday off, I went for this nice easy run today. Maybe it's because I'm so focussed on these pains, but I really couldn't stop noticing them. They're not that bad, but they're there. And they remind me of how I felt last year, when I had to stop training. I am so upset I can't tell you...

I just can't believe it's going to happen again. I've been getting so good at ignoring all this that I really thought I was going to make it the last few days.

So now what? I'm off tomorrow anyway. For the next 24 hours or so I won't be running, blogging about running, or reading other people's blogs about running. Maybe that's a good thing.

I've increased the stretching I do, both in variation and in frequency. I'm going to continue to ice after running. Maybe I'll take some Motrin for the next few days as well.

(By the way, don't think I don't realize I'm going to get the whole "sports doctor" and "physical therapy" thing now. The truth is I'm in a bit of a weird health insurance situation right now. And by the time it's all straightened out, I won't have time for all that anyway. So in reality, if that's the only solution, I'm just going to stop running. It's not a threat, it's just me facing reality. And so my main hope is that some of my self directed therapy will be good enough to do the trick.)

I'me very down right now...

Mileage for August

I actually hadn't added it up, but seeing other people report their August totals made me want to do the same.

So for the record, I ran 96.8 miles in August. (Up from 63 in July.)

Now back to September...

On call today

I'm in the hospital for the next 24 hours, so no running today. I'll plan for a few miles tomorrow.