I knew I hadn't been keeping up with this as well as I intended but I didn't realize that it had been 5 weeks since I last wrote.
The last month has been up and down. Two of the last five weeks have seen no running at all but the other three weeks have been productive. In spite of not running for two of the weeks (foot problems), I did manage to keep up my teaching schedule so that I at least got some resistance and cardio training during that time. My foot still hurts but I have decided to just ignore it and do the best I can. I am apparently not doing any harm by continuing to run on the foot; it's just painful.
Ignoring the two non-running weeks, I have been fairly successful since I last wrote. I have run two half marathons and hit an all time weekly running record. The first half I ran was the Marion Arts Festival Half. It was my favorite kind of day to run - cold and sunny. The race started out with temps in the 40's and I underdressed on purpose. I tend to run faster when I can keep my core body temp down (no kidding, right?). I was a little concerned at the start of the race because I had run 9.2 miles just a couple of days before the race and my calves were extremely sore. Having torn my right calf about a year and a half ago, I am very aware of my calves. I have historically been a heel striker when I run but with as much pain in my heel as I have had the last 6 months, I have slowly been training myself to be a more midfoot striker. This has put a lot of stress on my calves - especiallly when I run more than 5 miles. As the race began, the only way to lessen the calf pain was to land further back in my foot. I found that after a couple of miles, I wasn't feeling the heel pain as much as usual so I was able heel strike more than I should to alleviate the calf pain. Anyway, Michelle was running with me and we felt great. With her staying with me, she was able to get her fastest 10K split ever. Our first real challenge came at mile 7. There was a 1/2 mile long hill that seemed much longer than just a half mile. We made it to the top but did so slowly. The next 2.5 miles went fairly well but Michelle started to have some calf pain so we slowed down a bit. However, we were still going fast enough for her to PR her 10 mile split. We were about 10 minutes too slow for me to hit my 10 mile PR. Not a big deal to me because I was treating this like a training run. By mile 11, I was starting to get sore. Historically, this has happened to me at this point in every half marathon I have run (this was my fifth). I was disappointed because I hoped that I had trained enough to prevent my muscles from tightening this early in a race. We both made it through although Michelle was really hurting the last 0.2 of a mile. We finished in 2:09:04 which was a PR for both of us. For Michelle it was a 7 minute PR and for me, about a one minute PR.
I was pretty sore after the race but managed to keep moving. Several hours later, after we got home, Michelle and I walked an additional 2 miles. I think the walking helped me to recover a little quicker than normal. That week was a 24 mile week for me. My highest mileage to date. I have friends who are running 70-80 miles in a week so my mileage pales in comparison but for me it is significant.
Two weeks after the Marion race, was the Dam to Dam Half Marathon in Des Moines. This was the 35th anniversary of the race but my first time running it. We caught the bus to the starting line at 5:30 am. It was already in the 70's with humidity running over 80%. This really worried me. I am a big guy and don't do well in humid conditions. I hoped that with with race starting at 7 am we would finish before it got to hot. Again, I treated this race as a training run. The starting line was at the west end of Saylorville Dam. Before the race, Michelle and I ran 4 miles. Unlike at Marion, my heel pain wouldn't go away. Oh, well. Time to put my big boy pants on and deal with it. This is a huge race with over 9,000 participants. Being so large, it took us 7 minutes to get to the starting line after the gun went off. Thank heavens for chip timing. The first part of the race was downhill from the dam. I was very impressed by the number of people who were out cheering us on even out at the starting line. Unlike at Marion, I knew by mile 2 that I was going to have a hard race. Michelle was having a very difficult time keeping with me even though I was running a 10:50 pace. However, as the race continued, she seemed to get stronger and probably could have beat me if she had wanted to do so. I expected to feel the leg pain kick in around mile 10 again but instead, it was foot and ankle pain. My ankles felt swollen and tender. I think the difference was that I was only wearing compression calf sleeves rather than my compression socks. I am going to do a little experiment today and tomorrow to see if this plays out. Today I will run 9 miles with my sleeves on and tomorrow I plan on running 10 miles with my socks. I will see if I can replicate the ankle problems. Better to figure this out now than try to deal with it on race day. Back to the race. When we finally finished (it was my second slowest half marathon), I was barely hobbling around. My quads felt great though. The race ended in downtown Des Moines near a park. There was a water feature in the park so I took off my shoes and socks and soaked my feet for about 20 minutes while talking to friends.
By the time we got home that evening, I felt better than I have ever felt after finishing a half marathon - especiallly for having run 4 miles before the race. On Sunday, there was little residual soreness. I could feel it going up and down stairs but not enough to change the way I moved while taking the stairs. That is very gratifying.
I am not worried so much about my finishing time for the marathon but I do worry about finishing. I know I will finish but I want to finish well. My goals for the remaining time until the race is to run this combination run today and tomorrow then begin to taper for the remaining two weeks in the hopes that my feet will be able to deal with 26.2.
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