Archive for June 11th, 2010

Yesterday, I walked downtown to get my race packet for this Sunday’s 5K, went to the address on the brochure, walked in, and the woman there asked, “What are you here for?”
“A race packet.”
“Oh no, we don’t have anything like that here”
“Um, the brochure says this is where we get our packets”
“The race director said he won’t give them out until Sunday before the race.”
“Sooo….why does it say come here from June 7-11 between 10am to 4pm to pick up a packet?”
“I don’t know but we don’t have anything.”

Nice.  So much for getting there, warming up and racing.  Now I’ll have to stand in line with hundreds of other people beforehand.

It wasn’t a total waste – leaving my building, I had checked the mailbox and found a $25 gift certificate from my running store for having cumulatively spent $300 on merchandise. The running store was just a block away from the stupid packet non-pickup, so I got a great pair of shorts and only had to shell out $8.

As for the race, the forecast is grim.  Sunday’s high is set to be 90 which means it’ll be around 80 by 9am.   The one potential saving grace is a threat of thunderstorms, so at least it won’t be sunny.  And if I’m lucky, I’ll be electrocuted during warmup.

Seriously, I am not looking forward to this at all but I’m doing it because I need to harden up.   What to shoot for pacewise?  Who the fuck knows?

Ankle Update – Putting On The Heat
I took about 3 days off: Mon, Tuesday’s runette (only 2.5 miles) and Wednesday because the ankle was “there” when I awoke.  It felt fine yesterday morning, so I went 7 and I’m about to go for 7 today too, then 4 or 5 tomorrow.  Keeping it conservative till next week.

One interesting change (to me, anyway) is I’m switching up therapies: I’m still icing after a run but since it’s well past the acute stage, they say regular icing doesn’t do much for you any more, that heat is better, so now I’m applying heat before my run, a few times in the day and before bed.   It makes sense to use heat since I’m basically warming it up in those first creaky morning steps but it’s odd, after hearing RICE a zillion times.  Nobody ever says RHCE.  Maybe because it needs another vowel.

Also, I had cut down on supplements recently but now I’m back to 2 Glucosamine and 2 MSM to see if that helps.  I’d rather up those than take ibuprofen.  I’m not sure why exactly, ibuprofen works wonderfully and when I take it (sparingly), it seems to carry over 2 days, but there’s an onus about it,  so I’ll try the more natural approach.

And with that, I’ll end the whining here. Wish me luck folks, not for a fast race, because I won’t be able to do that, but for a race where my ego does not feel bruised, where I enjoy it for the fun of a runnerly gathering, not to mention the speed session I’ll get out of it.  Assuming someone manages to bring the bibs.