Archive for April, 2008

Shafted, utterly shafted. Lara and I are under the Shecky’s goody bag curse, it seems.

We were handed our envelope with chip & bib, given a t-shirt…and that was it! We didn’t get one of those fabulous Whole Foods bags stuffed with stuff that we could spy peeking out of boxes meant for team pickup because they ran out of bags (and apparently all the stuff that was in ‘em, too).

But we were assured that tomorrow we’ll be able to get all those goodies at the race, it just means we have to scavenge and forage for each mini Clif bar/lip balm/key ring I think what is this?/anti-fungal sample and all the other goodness that awaits runners such as you and me. Can’t wait.

On a happy note, the Elixers are in my hot little hands and I’m doing my best not to pet and adore them.

I need more candy. Bye until tomorrow.

I’m officially a shoe whore now. On Monday I’m taking back the Adrenaline 8s and getting a second pair of Mizuno Inspires. And if that’s not enough, I’m expecting the UPS guy this afternoon to bring me some Mizuno Elixirs just in time for tomorrow’s 5K! Lightweight trainers, baby!! One step above a racing flat but perceptibly lighter than a standard training shoe…that should knock off a half a second off for sure!

What else? Oh, I’ve been involved in the Miles Game on the RW Beginner Forum for months and months now, where you enter your mileage for that week along with your team name, then the miles get added up and the teams and runners are ranked for the week.

Well, all this foot/ankle stuff I’ve been dealing with confirmed a suspicion I’ve had for some time now, that the Miles Game is not a healthy thing for me. The reason being, if I need to take a day off here and there, I personally have no problem with it (whatever it takes to keep the ole bod in good form), but when it comes to posting a lower mileage week for the game I end up feeling guilty, embarrassed or wussy…and for what? So I bade farewell to my teammates today.

Beyond that, my love affair with the Beginners Forum is waning in general and I’ve lost interest in participating, preferring instead to spend my reading time at training or racing forums/boards. I feel kind of sad about it, like an Era has passed, but it was excellent while it lasted and now it’s on to more technical interests from here on in.

And that’s all the news that’s fit to print for now. Going in an hour with Lara to pickup our packets for tomorrow’s Clean Air 5K. Goody for Goody Bags! Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs! Wait, I don’t even like Cocoa Puffs…

What an interesting speed session. Actually, both last week’s and this week’s were eye-opening, in that both sessions were at goal race pace, a pace that in the past I would inexplicably avoid acquainting myself with until the actual race. I’d do some stuff slower and some faster, but never right on. Stupid, huh?

I have seen the light though, and today’s 5×600 at goal pace w/90sec recoveries was useful in it’s attempt to keep me evenly paced and at a contained speed. I gotta say, I really suck at gauging pace and need to work on it. So my lastest plan is to run a “throwaway” 5K after Broad St’s over, and run it without my Garmin (Oh My God!), just to see how my inner clock handles it. Just like a real runner!!

Back to the present, things are looking pretty good for Saturday’s race (though I no longer take anything for granted). Today’s workout was the same one I did before my last 5K on March 11th and the difference in effort was night and day.

It cracks me up when I look back at my logs and read the derision I used to attach to interval sessions, even in this blog I bitched and moaned about it, but now that I’m used to them and understand you don’t have to spill your blood and guts to improve, it’s a different ballgame.

I think the main thing for me was realizing that if your interval times aren’t what they “should” be (thanks to some goal you’ve put in your head), lose the ego and do them slower till you find the sweet spot. Once you find that, it’s only a matter of time till the goal paces you were dreaming of start peeking out and making themselves known.

Of course, it remains to be seen how these sessions will translate race-wise, but if anything, I’ve done some meaningful preparation these past few weeks, which is infinitely better than my former prerace prep: a few tempo runs and then swinging by the seat of my pants.

Had an uneventful weekend with a couple easy runs. The 16 I originally had on tap was scratched due to all the foot drama, so instead I did 10 on Saturday and 8 on Sunday. I had no qualms about losing some long-run miles since my goal race is a mere 5K. On the other hand, ain’t no way I’m missing tomorrow’s speed session, so it’s a good thing I’m finally (knock on wood) ouchy free.

I also came to the conclusion, after peering endlessly into all my running shoes, that I had incorrectly fingered the Mizuno Inspires as Evil. I won’t bore you with details, but I wore them on the last 3 runs and all is apparently well in tootsie-land. Rejoice, rejoice.

So that’s about it for this evening. Must go watch Dancing With The Stars now so I can make fun of plastic surgeried alien facial expressions, a sports star who denies having an advantage though she’s basically been dancing on ice since birth and an overcheery Tony award winner whose larger-than-life toothy smile, for some reason, gives me the willies.

Woke up yesterday and the foot was still tender. Figured out that switching between the two pairs of new shoes aggravated my peroneal tendon, which is a tendon you don’t want to mess with, so I took yesterday off, iced twice, ibuprofened twice, even took a rolling-pin to my calves since that’s where the trigger points are, and last but not least, I wore my ole reliable 2120s all day.

Wonder of wonders, woke up this morning and nary a twinge. Nothing! So I decided to go with my planned speed session since it wasn’t going to be short fast intervals, but my favorite interval length in the world (cough, cough), the mile.  Or, as I say around these parts, the goddamn mile seeing as how I hate them so.

My reason for tackling the dreaded mile today was for a better clue of whether I can break 23:00 for my 5K on the 19th, and while my 1/2 mile intervals have been at faster than race pace, they don’t tell me much since they’re relatively short with full recoveries between.

Granted, I also took full recoveries today (1/2 mile jogs), but longer intervals mean longer work periods (aka extended discomfort – my fave!) and I’ve noticed a lot of arm tension in my last two races, so I wanted to deal with that if it arose, but most importantly, I wanted to get acquainted with running my projected goal pace.

Now, looking back at my logs, I’m embarrassed to admit I have never even completed four mile intervals – I always wimped out 3! So today’s workout was satisfying on a couple levels.

Splits were 7:15 (too fast), 7:26, 7:21 and 7:27 for an avg. of 7:22. And this was on the first warmish day of the season, so if I want to be really anal, I can go to the Runango calculator which makes that 70-degree 7:22 a 60-degree 7:16. But that’s just for shits and giggles.

One icebath later, all extremities are feeling fine and dandy, as are the mental meanderings. The windows are open and Spring is all over the house. Going to wallow in this beautiful day since it won’t be long till every day is a sweatfest. And as Nick always says about Springtime in Philly…blink and you might miss it.

Hope you’re all feeling Springy wherever you are, too. Enjoy your Friday, folks!

So the foot wasn’t hurting so bad today, though it was still sending me a low-level “I’m heeeere” sort of presence, so I popped a couple Ibuprofen at breakfast, but am keeping them to a minimum because I want to keep tabs on what the bottom line is, pain-wise.

Meanwhile, I spent more time yesterday looking up posts on the RW Injury forum and on Google for anything foot-related which is such a dumb thing for me to do – because in my mind, what starts as a small foot pain by the end has escalated to a full-blown stress fracture or leprosy.

While perusing posts on PF and tendon problems, I kept reading about people running through their pain and ending up with injuries far more serious, which left me thinking over and over again “What idiots! How stupid do you have to be to be injured and keep running? Seriously, it’s irrational, irresponsible and just plain dumb.”

So I did 8 miles today w/4@tempo (the fastest tempo miles I’ve ever done, as a matter of fact).

I know, I know, such idiocy, but my foot seemed better and I have my goal race coming up and I had to prove to myself that the mile time-trial result really had no meaning, and I could go on and on because I’m a runner and we’re a stubborn lot, as you very well know.

Anyway, it was the perfect run. Tempo splits were 7:45, 7:35, 7:44, 7:42, giving me a 7:41 avg. Confidence is back to where it was before the weekend. (how easily I crumble, huh?)

The foot didn’t hurt at all on the run, but now it’s bleeding like a fountain and I can’t walk. Joking, joking, nothing untoward has happened, it’s resting on ice now and I’m feeling happy. Tonight and tomorrow will tell me if I did a very bad thing by running through it or if I got away with it.

I sure hope I did, because I just don’t know what I’d do if I got leprosy right now.