1/23 and rest of week

1/20: First no-stop run today! 3 miles in 32:43, then walked half a mile to cool down. Walked 2 miles last night a few hours after the 14 bike. Leg was kind of achy this morning but totally fine after the run. I think this means my body is a little too good at producing endorphins. Can't wait for that MRI so I can have some peace of mind and stop second-guessing everything.

1/21: Crappy SRD

1/22: 4 miles in 44 flat this morning, plus arm weights. No stops and this is my longest run since IMM! Leg felt much better, so I decided to just start slow (12/mile) and just see how I did, since I would have more time for a longer bike ride tomorrow and would rather fit the run in today. Gradually increased speed over a couple of miles as I warmed up and then settled around 10:46/mile...no pain and felt like I could run forever, but I decided to limit myself to only 1 additional mile. Now fingers crossed that I keep feeling good today and tomorrow!

1/23: OUTSIDE today with DH! Somewhere between 4.5 and 5 miles (Garmin battery was low and quit right after we turned around); most running but a few 2-minute walk breaks towards the end (shin ached on the uphills after 3 miles, so I walked those). About 4 miles was on trails and it was SO great to be out in the woods again, especially doing some off-trail bushwhacking. I probably pushed it a little much doing a longer run like this back-to-back with the 4 yesterday, but we got some kind of crazy news yesterday about one of our kids and we both really needed the mental clarity of a trails run. So I have no regrets. :-) Arm weights to finish at home.

Racing injured

I did a 12K trail race tonight and oh man, it was the hardest terrain I've ever run! There was a tiny stretch on pavement and then the rest of it was in trees along the river, which meant that there was deep sand interspersed with muddy sand, giant roots, fallen trees, and super-slick pounded sand dotted with deep puddles. There were a couple of creek crossings where you basically slid all the way down. I LOVE trail running but I've always run before on hard-packed dirt, mud, wood chips, or rock...never sand!

With about three miles to go I felt a distinct "pop" in the arch of my left foot, which has been bothering me for the last couple of weeks, and then this CRAZY shooting pain that felt like I was jumping on a knife every time my foot touched the ground.

I quickly evaluated my options--basically alone in the woods (there were only 29 runners and we were really spread out) and no support teams, so I had to get back on my own. I realized that I was better off going as fast as I could so I could minimize the time I was on my feet, so I just ran on my little knife-foot for the next 3 miles until I finished up and then peeled off my shoe to check out the swelling. My awesome running buddy who had crossed a minute before I did (she was ahead of me before the foot-pop and I'd told her to just go) has a PhD in nursing so she quickly grabbed a cup of cold water and had me hold it against the swelling, then she drove us home & got me set up with KT tape and ice. But yowza this thing hurts SO bad! It's been four hours and I still can't walk. This could be pretty interesting. I'm about 80% sure it's plantar fascitis but I'm worried about that pop.

(PS--what got me through those last 3 miles was a) being intent on passing the girl ahead of me--and I totally smoked her by 4 minutes--and b) wanting to make sure that NOBODY passed me and c) thinking about Scott Jurek winning the Western States 100 & the Hardrock 100 when he was injured. If he can run for 100 miles with an ankle the size of a grapefruit, I can run for 3). If I recall correctly my last mile was about 8:30ish because there was no way I was letting the people trail me slip past (it was also finally out of the sand so I could finally run normally!) In a weird way I almost felt stronger running through the pain, because I was like, whatever, this isn't going to stop me! (And when I saw somebody gaining on me I totally started trash-talking myself. I thanked her after the race for motivating me and she laughed and said, "Well, I finally realized I wasn't going to catch you!" I love the running camaraderie--everyone is racing but everyone is still SO nice and yelling out things about mud pits or fallen trees to avoid, etc.)

12K; division place 2 (the #1 in my division won for women overall and was CRAZY fast!!), sex place 4, overall place 16; 1:12:34 and 9:44/mile. Definitely not one of my best times, but a much harder run than I'd anticipated...I've never run on such deep sand (or any sand!) and I can definitely see the gap in my training!

endurance test

4.6 miles in 88-degree heat over crappy hills.  Interesting how much of a difference temperature and beating sun make, since I ran the same route that was so great last week (except I ran all those glorious hills in reverse at the end, which was not fun).  Running very slow (10ish/mile going by kitchen clock).  I have GOT to get up earlier to go running--I didn't want to leave this morning until I'd fed Luke, but then he projectile vomited all over me and went back to sleep so apparently it was pointless anyway.  Or the treadmill could be fixed and that would be lovely--Neil has been working on it hoping to not have to buy the $350 part, but he's having difficulty diagnosing the problem without a circuit diagram.

STATS:  4.6 miles; 10ish/mile

outside again

Treadmill is still broken (Neil is pretty sure Isaac blew the fuse but we're having trouble finding the right fuse) so I ran outside today.  It was a horrible day (all four kids are feverish and coughing) and I spent an hour and a half trying to nurse Luke so that I could leave.  Like I said--it was not a good day.  Neil practically had to push me out the door before it was too dark to go.

I ran a route that I haven't run since last October--my favorite route through the woods surrounding the bog.  There were mosquitoes and the trail was flooded out and my shoes got absolutely filthy and a white-tailed deer scared the bejeebers out of me and it was so worth it.  I felt like I was flying running down the hills in the woods, leaping over roots, dodging trees, and almost falling on my face half a dozen times (in fact, I started running so fast that I got the beginnings of a side ache, which hasn't happened in forever!).  It was completely glorious.  I'm betting that I'm going to feel this tomorrow because there were some decent hills, and I haven't run hills in forever. 

STATS:  3.99 miles, approx. 9:15/mile (going off the kitchen clock and my memory--not sure how accurate this is, since I felt like I was running really slow at some points, but crazy fast at others). 

9/3

We did our long run tonight, since it was the only time we could find someone to watch our kids.  I'm definitely not a fan of the evening long runs; I'm always tired (plus it's hot!).  But better an evening run together than a morning run alone.

Nasty wind tonight--very, very nasty.  It was blowing so hard that I felt like we could have gone faster at a walking pace some of the time.  But on the other hand, the wind kept it cooler (about 66 degrees) so that was the silver lining.

Same long run as the last couple weeks; we'll probably keep running that and just adding length, since it's got a good mix of hills. 

We tried to keep the pace under 9/mile, and were pretty successful most of the time, but we ended up stopping to walk twice and once for water:  stopped around mile 5.5 and walked for a few hundred yards to ease the weird leg cramps from running up the suicide hill against the wind, stopped about mile 7.5 (after running two miles straight into the wind; both of us were having trouble swallowing because our mouths were so dry, so we walked and coughed for a ways, and then we stopped about half a mile after that at a drinking fountain.  Thank goodness, because we were completely parched from the wind; I don't know why either of us didn't think to grab a water bottle.  I'm not too stressed about the stops, since I can't run while I drink anyway (unless I want to be coughing and spitting for the next half mile), so I'll have to walk through the water stops. 

STATS:  9 miles; 8:55ish/mile (started out at 7:52/mile, running around 9: 13/mile at the very end).  Extremely strong winds!!

8/28

Normally this would be a long run today, but as I mentioned on Tuesday, we're watching another couple's three children today while the wife does a triathalon (they're watching ours when we run the half-marathon).  We have two families that we regularly trade long workouts with, which is really nice. 

So today, since I was up at 4:45 am to go over there while their kids were sleeping, we opted to swap the long weekend run with the shorter midweek run. I was hoping I'd still have time to squeeze in an extra few miles, but I don't think it will happen, so...I'll have to be content with my three.

Today I ran a trail that I haven't run in about four years (to a nearby lake)--and while I was running it I remembered why!  Part of it is just a deer trail, barely room to put one foot in front of the other, and I'm pretty sure it was completely lined with poison ivy.  And then when it opened up, I was running over mud flats and sinking in.  Awesome.  I'll stick to my regular trails from now on, since that definitely slowed me down.

STATS:  3 miles, 8:33/mile, hilly, muddy

As a sidenote, I spent an hour yesterday afternoon (while the kids were napping, when I should have been doing something productive) reading running blogs.  Then I moped around the rest of the day feeling like a loser because I'm not training for a marathon.  I really, really want to run a marathon.  I just keep having to remind myself that I'm barely finding time to run 20 or 25 miles a week; I don't know how I would double that.  Sigh. 

8/24

We're watching our friends' kids on Saturday while the wife does a triathalon, so we did our long run tonight (not ideal, but that's just how it worked out).

We ran mostly the same course that we ran on Saturday, but we were both definitely more tired with more aches and pains--it was a pretty grueling day for both of us today, especially since it's one of the two days a week that Neil goes to the lab at 6:30 am so he can get in lots of quiet worktime before anybody else gets there.  And it was a pretty hectic day here too (doctors' visits in both morning and afternoon, fun fun).

When we first started running I felt terrible.  At the first quarter-mile, I honestly didn't know if I'd be able to finish.  Around a mile and a half, I was focusing on not throwing up (partially because the bog at 8 pm REEKS).  So we detoured for water, and walked for a minute around the drinking fountain, and then I felt a lot better.  We ran steadily for another couple of miles, then down through the glacial ravine and back up again, and when we reached the top of that hill--which honestly, I have never in my life come across a steeper hill on a trail; it's like a total scramble (Happy Hollow to the Indian Trails trailhead, if you're local)--when we got to the top of that, Neil wanted to walk for a minute.  Which is the first time that's ever happened since we've been running together, so that tells you something about how tired we both were.  At this point we were about five miles in.

So we walked for a minute, and then we started running back home again.  We passed a lot of people with grocery sacks in their hands (like seriously a million) and I made some comment about root-beer floats that practically killed Neil for the rest of the run...I think he was dreaming of fizzy happiness for the next three miles.  Poor guy.  I kept saying, "Just remember!  Carbonation is bad for distance running!"  and he would say things like, "But I'm not going to drink it...just eat it."  Then he asked if we could make samosas when we got home.  I guess having Chicago restaurants as our main topic of conversation was kind of a tricky choice...

We detoured for water again, then we started running back through the woods for the final leg, and oh my goodness--it was practically pitch black.  Neil suggested we turn around, but I get really fixated on running a mapped course rather than freestyling...so we just kept going, albeit quite a bit more slowly  I could barely see the ground under my feet, and we kept warning each other about roots and dead branches and exciting things like that.  So that made the end of the run quite exciting, and when we were out of the woods, I was totally in my zone.  Too bad we only had a mile left, right?  By the time we were back in our neighborhood I seriously felt like I could have run forever.  I kept picking up the pace and by the time we hit our driveway, I was running faster than I had the rest of the night.  Go figure.  It only takes 8 miles for me to start feeling good.  Plus it probably helped that it was MUCH cooler by that point.

STATS:  8+ miles, very hilly, trail run, not sure on time (somewhere around 85 minutes with  2 drink and stretching breaks, 1 walking break,  and woods-trail slowdowns)

8/21

Best run EVER this morning.  We ran a new route that we haven't done before, and we talked about parenting and goals and creating a more purposeful family the entire time.  At one point when we'd run about four miles, Neil said, "I can't believe we've gone so far--the time has flown by!" and that was pretty much how it was the entire time.  It was great--this is one of the main reasons why I like training, since it's just awesome to have my husband all to myself and do something that energizes us so much (hurray, endorphins!) and talk the entire time and work things out and feel so positive afterwards, both mentally and physically.

Of course, all the talking means we're not running super hard, since we were still talking comfortably, but it was worth it.  And we ran a pretty challenging course today--we parked near the beginning of the bog loop trail, so we ran up the hills to the bog, through the woods, which has some pretty steep hills, up the mogul-type hills by the golf course where the bog has made the sidewalk swell (in moguls), and then we ran downhill for a mile through a glacial ravine, and then back UP that glacial ravine trail, which is steep enough that it's quite difficult to do just on a bike.  There's a bit at the very end where I always feel like my nose is going to bang into my knees.  And then back again over the whole course.

And my shoes were great--my feet didn't hurt at all, and because I was so wrapped up in talking with Neil, I didn't notice the heaviness one bit.  It was seriously a fantastic way to start out the weekend--I LOVE running with my husband.  Love, love, love it.  It's nice to look forward to the long runs so fervently.  :-)

STATS:  8.12 miles, around 9:50ish a mile (definitely under 80 minutes, but we weren't really worrying about time), very hilly

8/14

I did my three-miler today (switched the long run).  As I said yesterday, we were planning to go to the beach today, but the forecast was for rain, so we ended up going last night.  It was utterly perfect, but today when I was running I could feel the fatigue from yesterday.

Since we are at my parents' house, I was running trails that I ran in high school.  Which was kind of cool.  I'm not sure that my iPod mapped me correctly; it was right on for time, but when I was comparing it to mapmyrun later, it seemed like it may have been off, but I couldn't tell for sure because I was running through the woods.  Oh well. 

STATS:  3 miles, 8:36/mile

7/28

Another training run today, but again, with Neil--nice to be with him, although both of us were groggy enough that we didn't really talk much.  We cut across a field near our house, looped the bog, then ran through the woods trails.  It was hot and muggy and the trail was littered with all kinds of branches from the most recent storm, so our pace wasn't as quick as it would have been on a level track, but I wanted to run more hills, so the woods were good for that.

I'm wondering if I should bump up the "recommended" mileage to my normal mileage--I feel like I'm backtracking by only running 3 miles where I'm used to doing 5.  Then again, I'm adding in another 2 runs a week--one speedwork and one long run, so I guess it all works out.  I've also been going to bed pretty late with my family here, so I've been tired enough that the short runs are very welcome. 

STATS:  3 miles, hilly trail runs, 26 minutes for 8:40/mile