Archive for April, 2008

So my fab new Mizunos are evil torture devices in disguise, but I’m hoping only temporarily. What happened is this:

The first time I wore them was for a speed session last week, as I blogged about. Loved them, adored them, felt light, etc. The next morning I experienced something I’d never felt before, I get out of bed and my left foot is cramped on the outside from heel to pinky toe, and I’m hobbling! I’d read that PF appears in the mornings, but this wasn’t the center or inside of my foot and since it quickly disappeared, I figured it was just some fleeting weirdness.

Now, the week before I got my new shoes (Brooks Adrenalines and Mizuno Inspires), I had a twingy tendon on my right ankle for a couple days that had come about while overstretching (hyper-pointing my toes) in bed one morning, so I’d been “checking” the right ankle by stretching my left foot incessantly to compare. Dumb.

Sunday is the mile time-trial and I wear my speedy Mizunos for the second time – no problems. Next morning (yesterday), I splay my left toes in bed (there I go stretching again!) and feel a zing of pain. Like I pulled something, but again, it goes away quickly so I forget about it.

Cut to my afternoon run in my Adrenalines – feel great, nothing hurts, wasn’t even thinking about it. Then I get home and while I have my running socks on, I try on the left Mizuno because it’s been eating the lower-cut socks, so maybe the higher sock will stay put…

I slide my foot into the shoe and OOWWEEEE! Out of nowhere, the outside edge of my foot is in huge pain, centralized at the heel. But this time it doesn’t go away, it hurts the rest of the day into the night and this morning, is still tender. Oh no.

What I deduce about the Mizunos is that it has a more negative heel, reminiscent of the Earth Shoes I had when I was 13 (when I made my Dad drive me to Tulsa specifically to get a pair since Fayetteville, Arkansas wasn’t a hotbed of fashion at the time). That, or the fact that it’s not as built-up as my Asics or Brooks, makes it feel negative. Anyway, it hurt.

So all day yesterday, I’m online trying to figure out what it is I’ve done or am afflicted with and don’t see anything that fits, since the Plantar Fascia is centralized and nothing seems to be on the outside of the foot. Then voila! This morning I finally come upon an illustration of the plantar nerves and the lateral one goes on the side from heel to pinky toe. Bingo.

My lesson learned: never introduce a new pair of shoes with speedwork and a race first thing. And don’t stretch your feet like a maniac when determining the status of an injury, you might just create one on the opposing foot.

To wrap up this long, boring diatribe, here I am taking an unwanted day off and hoping with everything I got that this isn’t my first “real” injury. Sigh.

It was a lot of fun, though I froze my tush off thanks to a chilly rain that never quite stopped and for which I was underdressed. Turnout was small due to the rain, only 16 of us in all.

I met Matt and another fellow forumite Harry while waiting for the start. Matt had a freakout when he realized he didn’t have his Garmin, which he swore was with him in the car, so here’s hoping he found it eventually. Harry managed to lose his girlfriend on his way to the race and she never did appear, so here’s hoping he found her eventually, too.

I warmed up with 1.5 miles and a few strides, and then it was time to line up. We stood single file by respective goal times and at every 10-second mark, another runner was told to “Go!”.

It was tough. Near the beginning I started to gain on the guy in front of me but then psyched myself out thinking I was running too hard and now, looking at my Garmin data in SportsTracks, it appears so. The first 1/4 mile was about 35 seconds faster than goal pace, I slowed down too much in the second quarter and picked it up in the 3rd and 4th, but not enough to make my goal.

So I missed it, but I won’t flog myself over it since it wasn’t a race, per se and it was my first time at this distance. I gave it my best, anyway.

Afterwards, the organizer, Kev Gruenfeld, who did a fantastic job of creating the event and putting it all together, found us a covered spot for awards. Turns out there were more awards than runners, so we each got to pick one! I got a snappy little red Brooks running hat, Matt got a $30 gift certificate to Philly Runners and Harry chose a t-shirt. Considering the entry fee was only $5, can’t beat the value!

The other highlight was meeting Edwin Roberts, Bronze Medalist in the 1964 Olympics (he was the one telling us to “Go!”). He brought one of his medals, too. I can now say that I’ve actually touched an Olympic medal. Very cool.

And that’s about it. I took an extra day off this week, plus I missed my long run so I wanted to go out for an easy 9. On the other hand, I feel the beginnings of a cold coming on, so maybe I’ll just stay in. Decisions, decisions…

Had another great interval session today, I’m learning to love these things.

Happily, the UPS guy brought my Mizuno Inspires yesterday, so like the freak I am, before going out I weighed all my running shoes on my digital postal scale. Turns out my Asics and Brooks weigh 11oz, but the Mizunos are 10.3 to that’s what I decide on for the speed session.

It was my usual 6×880, but this time I set the recoveries at a 1/4 mile, so they were quicker than last week’s 3:00 per. My splits for the work part were 3:31,3:35,3:29,3:35,3:36 and 3:36 for an avg. of 3:34 (or 7:08 pace). I’m pleased as punch, progress on these has been steady and oh, so satisfying.

Afterwards, I finally decide to stop and speak to my construction worker boyfriend from this post, and this one because he’s been my cheerleader for months now and is apparently a runner, too from what I’ve gathered during our on-the-run three-word conversations.

So I stop and he tells me, “Girl, you have lost weight!” which I haven’t, he’s just never seen me standing still, then he asks me what time I’m shooting for at Broad St. and I ask what his goal is, then I ask him where he gets the time to run with all that construction stuff he does, he tells me he runs at the Y on a treadmill. So that was cool. Then he asks my last name so he can “look me up” and with a smile I say, “don’t you be looking me up!” and off I go, speedy in my new Mizunos.

Let’s get the running out of the way first.

Did 8 easy this aftenoon and the latest breakthrough development had to do with cutting up a cotton shirt beforehand to blow my nose on during the run. What a success! For once, no shreds of soggy tissue smashed into my sleeve, no snot rockets missing their intended target and ending up on my shoulder. All in all, a brilliant addition to the running wardrobe.

Now on to the good stuff… Last night at my friend Yvonne’s urging, me, Lara, Yvonne and Laurie went to one of the most surreal outings I have ever been on and hope never again to experience: Shecky’s Girls Night Out.

We got to the Armory to find a line of women halfway around the block, waiting to show Drivers Licenses for a handstamp, only to wait in another huge line and finally be let in to a room filled with ugly things on sale surrounded by scads of women, women, and more women. It was horrifying.

I’m not a shopper at all, neither is Lara, but Yvonne did the work for both of us, spending wads of cash while we all walked around getting drunk, because they are smart with the alcohol, getting us loaded in an effort to part with the dough. Unfortunately the only food on hand was in the Lean Cuisine booth, so we got even more drunk.

Now, you may ask, why did I go if I knew I wasn’t going to shop? Two words: Goody Bags.

Blame running, but since entering my first race, I am physically unable to pass up any Bag that claims to have Goodies in it. And goodies there were.

Salon Selectives had a deal where you waited in line (while sipping your mango martini) to be seated for a white-coated assistant to stick his or her fingers in your hair, ask an inane hair question, and then write a “prescription” which got filled right there and ended up being a seperate goody bag containing a full-size shampoo and conditioner, hair clips, hairspray and a makeup bag. Not bad.

But the irritation came with the real Goody Bag, which was Lara and my reason d’etre for being there in the first place. You see, before collecting ours, we got super excited because we’d seen that there were perfumes and eye-makeup removers and all kinds of cool stuff in the bag. So we get our bags and they’re missing all the big stuff!! No perfume, no hair gel, not that much at all! All around us, women are openly admiring their winnings and we’re getting jealouser and jealouser by the minute and no, jealouser isn’t a word, but when you’re pissed off it becomes one.

So Lara gets smart and says, “let’s go ask to exchange ours” but no, they won’t listen to us, don’t give a crap, we’re stuck with our half-filled goody bags. What hurt the most was afterwards at the restaurant, Yvonne brings her bag in to admire her goodies and discovers she didn’t get just one perfume, but full-sized bottles of both Celine Dion and Kimora Lee perfumes!! Granted, it’s Celine Dion and Kimora Lee perfumes, but full-size bottles!!

I went to bed that night grumbling into the darkness, “I’m still pissed about those goody bags” as Nick patted my butt and told me to “let it go, good night”.

Today is another day and I’ve let the sting of the goody bags fade somewhat, because everything else is diminished by what day it is today: Nick and my anniversary!

We’re not actually hitched or anything, but we’ve been together for 4 passionate, tumultuous, funny years, so tonight he’s taking me to dinner at a lovely Italian joint and we’ll revel in the fact that we’re still together and that I’ve come to love his evil cat and how time flies when you’re having fun. Because we are, we do, it’s love.

Impatient as I am, within two hours of my blog whine about treadmills and gait analysis, it had morphed into simply “I want new shoes”. So I drove out to Bryn Mawr Running Co. because they’re a reputable shop with good people working there. I figured I could just try some on, didn’t have to buy anything. (yeah, right)

I brought my 400-mile 2120s so they could check out the wear pattern and I explained the whole feeling-my-arch-and-long-runs thing. She confirmed that I’m in the right type of shoes, and looking at the sole she said I’m a light runner since there isn’t much wear and that I don’t have any weirdness going on, since the wear pattern was smack down the center. She also said I will live a long prosperous life and that I was a cow in my former one. She didn’t really, but it would have been great if she did.

Out came the shoe boxes and after much worry (switching running shoes freaks me out) I narrow it down to Adrenaline 8s, which strangely enough, I need a wide width in, even though I have some Adrenaline 7s that are regular width and my Asics have always been regulars, too. Vanity aside, I tried to resist treating it like buying pants, where a bigger size makes you feel like you have a honking big butt. I bought ‘em.

I also tried on some Mizuno Wave Inspire 4s, and they felt great too – and since I’m ready to put all my Asics to rest (or only use for shorter runs), when I got home I ordered them from runningwarehouse.com for $20 less than the store. Hey, I did my “support your store” bit by buying one pair at full price…it ain’t gonna happen for two.

I really hope one of these shoes works as my favorite shoe, even though I think both are super ugly with their disco metallic trim and I will forever miss my black Asics and be pissed off at Brooks for offering black to the guys but not the girls – but such are the sacrifices of a runner.

To close, I took the new sneaks out for a tempo this morning and loved them! Very comfortable. Wish I could say the same about the tempo, but the rain and wind made it uncomfortably “comfortably hard”.

And my latest lesson learned is: glasses with clear lenses are in theory great for rainy days…as long as you’re going in one direction. Turn around and the whole theory goes to shit.

So much for clever ideas.