Archive for April, 2011

No, this isn’t another post about Iron, it’s what my pinky toe looked like the last couple days. Raw meat.

I did a really stupid thing a few days ago: cut off a callous at the bottom of my little toe. I’ve done it before without any problems but this time I cut too much. Until that moment, I never realized how important the pinky toe is for walking and running. There’s a reason that it’s the only toe I have with a callous.

Anyway, when I ran on it the next morning, I knew it was going to hurt because it was painful just walking around my apartment (stupid, stupid, stupid) so I bandaged it up as best I could and left the house for 14 miles.

It was ok for a while but eventually began hurting terribly, so I stopped during the run to take the sock off and peruse the damage. Turns out the reason I was in so much pain was because the bandage had shifted and gotten all smashed up, creating a huge blister covering the inside of the pinky toe. Nice.

More stupidity ensued when I got home and popped and trimmed the blister. You’re not supposed to trim blister skin away but because it was between two toes I thought it was going to refill again (sorry, just be glad I’m not including photos, ok?).

At one point, it looked so raw and disgusting, I was worried about gangrene and even worse…having to take a rest day. Obstinance prevailed, however, and my Neosporin with the 2005 expiration date coupled with multiple dousings of alcohol saw me through. I’m now on the upswing (it’s nice and crusty now) and will be running this afternoon.

Moral of this story…leave callouses alone if you don’t want to give yourself the dumbest injury in the whole wide world.

What a crazy week.  The lethargy from last week hung on till Thursday.  I half-considered cutting back miles but decided that as long as I kept the pace under Ugh potential, I could probably keep chugging along without harm.  It worked out well.  Previously, my highest week was 82.13mi during marathon training in Oct. 2009.  Needless to say, I’m a happy girl.

My Current State
Even with the exhaustion weirdness, I am loving the way things are going.  My legs have been carrying me with only a few minor and fleeting complaints, nothing lasting more than a day or two.  And while I jot down a loose mileage schedule, more often than not I’ve been getting to the turnaround mark thinking “This feels good, I’ll keep going”.  That’s why the increase has felt so comfortable, it’s been a pretty organic process.

I do, however, have this ridiculous negative mental remnant concerning the size of my runs and my resistance to doubles, that I’m doing something wrong/bad.  But my legs feel strong (haven’t been stretching or foam-rolling) so there’s no reason to think I’m going to get injured, in fact, it seems like this consistency would have the opposite effect.

I guess it’s my good-girl guilt for eschewing training methodology’s “best practices” and letting what I see in my log – a bunch of 12s and 14s – influence me.  I suppose I’ve only to look upon Ed Whitlock’s training (2-3 hours/day of .3 mile loops in a cemetery at a “plodding” pace) or Yoshihisa Hosaka’s quality-filled 20mi/day, every day, to be reminded that people do take different routes to this running thing and that being older does not equal fragile.

Last Week’s Running (featuring a body in the river)
Monday was the sludgiest of the week.  I wore my heart rate strap to see if it my heart was being affected by this weirdness and yep, it was.

Tuesday, I ran a little after 11am and at one point, saw tons of policeman on the other side of the  river.  I also passed a guy with a  long lens camera taking photos and helicopters were flying overhead.  It totally slipped my mind till later that day when my friend Steph texted me to say they’d found a body floating in the Schuylkill.  I guess I was there about an hour after she was discovered.  Here’s the story, extremely tragic circumstances.  So now in my beautiful park, I’ve seen a dead man hanging from a tree and the aftermath of pulling out a decomposed body.  That’s a rather high ratio of death within a half-mile of each other, don’t you think?

Wednesday, I thought I might manage 14mi but when I got to the 6mi mark, reconsidered and turned around.  Wasn’t feeling 100% yet and didn’t want to chance an Ugh.

Thursday was such a tired day from the get-go.  I tried to nap but couldn’t, went to a voiceover job, did errands, was truly exhausted once home so I expected my run to be on par with Monday’s trudgery.  But no!  Once I hit the road (at 4:30, unusually late for me) I got an unexpected energy infusion and ran a handy 14-miler feeling like my old self again.  Whew, finally.

Friday was a planned 10, but with rain and thunder lurking in the forecast for the next couple days I took advantage of the dry sky, extending it to 12.  I wore my HR monitor hoping to see a more normal result and was pleased to find it in the proper ballpark again.

Saturday was an easy 10, what I consider a recovery run.  Even though I don’t have any hard workouts to recover from, I’m mindful of being chill when I need to (like after 2 “feel like my old self” runs preceded by a week of feeling like shit).

Today was a salty 16-miler, 83 degrees out but I held up well.  I started quite stupidly, going out too fast the first 4 miles (8:15-7:37? idiot).  Realizing I would pay for this later, I calmed down a ton, which is good because it was frickin’ hot. I think the energy was due to the previous night’s pigout with Fran.  We had fried calamari, pasta w/pesto cream sauce, pizza, several alcoholic beverages and tons of candy when we got home (which we decided must never happen again…it was Intervention-worthy).  I didn’t eat anything all day and ran at 3pm.  I’m still full.

Monday: 9@8:43 (HRR 65% 146)
Tuesday: 12@8:32
Wednesday: 12@8:20
Thursday: 14@8:06
Friday: 12@8:11 (HRR 68% 149…more like it)
Saturday: 10@8:21
Sunday: 16@ 8:16
Total: 85 mi (avg pace 8:20)

Iron Talk
Whatever ailed me lasted a week.  I’m not sure if it was a slight iron deficiency but suspect it was due to the timing, so I’ve been eating lots of beef and taking iron twice a day (with vitamin C for absorption) plus a multi-vitamin.

The interesting annoying thing about beef, btw, is that a 4oz burger only has about 20% of the RDA…not very much!  Same with spinach; eat a whole bag and it still won’t cover your daily requirement.  So while I plan to eat beef 2-3 times a week from here on in, I’ll also keep taking one Iron cap & Vitamin C before bed because you can’t take it with caffeine or with calcium or… Pain in the ass mineral, is iron.

I should mention that from past ferritin tests (taken when I was doing less mileage), I know I’m not in danger of iron overload.  Iron is something you have to be careful taking unsupervised (you shouldn’t) because it can be toxic so don’t you kids go taking iron willy-nilly.   End of public service announcement.  Though I did enjoy writing “willy-nilly”.

I’m still on fish oil (probably forever) but stopped taking glucosamine and msm about 3 weeks ago with no fallout.  I had a short bout of knee pain from jumping over deep puddles when I should have tromped through, but it went away after a couple days.  Gotta say, the old lady is holding up pretty darn well.

As mentioned previously, I received a review copy of Kara Goucher’s Running For Women and am surprised to say…I actually like it!  Admittedly, I was predisposed to disliking the book because:

1. It’s not a training book written by a coach – those are generally the only types of running books I read

2. I was afraid it would be the same old regurgitated stuff you can find anywhere on the Net

But no, even this cynical running webhead found it to be an entertaining and fun read with some useful tidbits.

My favorite part of the book, hands-down, are her personal accounts scattered throughout.  I loved reading about how nervous she was the first time she ever ran with Paula Radcliffe on a casual training run or when she was injured and gained 30 lbs then had to make an appearance at the Footlocker XC championships feeling like a fat cow.  Tales like that make you realize Elites go through some of the same crap we do. And of course, her progression from a gawky school girl to becoming a star marathoner is very tasty stuff,  indeed.

The book is also peppered with little femme tips/tricks that I got a kick out of, like her method with deodorant, washing hair between workouts, buying mens shoes instead of girls so you’re not stuck with the stupid colors, etc. There are also question/answers sprinkled throughout that aren’t your usual fodder, like whether having sex before a race will affect your performance (Kara’s tried it both ways and found no difference…yay sex!).

I also found some of some of the racing and mental tips she included to be genuinely useful.  There’s something about reading a great athlete’s personal handling of different elements within running and racing that transcends the generic “Runners should do x, y and z”.

Granted, the general training stuff in this book is geared towards less-advanced runners but the way it’s written, in short paragraph chunks, makes for easily-digestible reading without too much time spent talking about the basics.

So while it’s not at all in the same league as a true training book like Jack Daniel’s Running Formula or Brad Hudson’s Run Faster, Kara’s personal anecdotes and useful tips/advice make this an entertaining read and a worthy purchase for your running shelf.

Very weird week for me physically: one high point sandwiched between some strange lows.  The first low coincided with the day before LadyTime which is usually a sub-par running day for me so no surprise there.  But once it starts, I generally run great for the next few days.  Not this week.

Now, on Wednesday, as expected, I had an incredibly vibrant run but Thursday was rough.  That night I slept 11 hours and then had to take a nap after Friday’s run (which started well, btw, but became exhausting halfway through).  Saturday was better but Sunday was another slogfest – I had expectations of doing a 15-miler but had to turn around at the 5mi mark.

I’m thinking it may be iron-related:  the last time I had red meat was 3 weeks ago and I haven’t taken multi-vitamins or iron in months.  Combined with my period and possibly the higher mileage (increased footstrike hemolysis) makes it plausible.  I also had some weird itching this week which can be another symptom of low iron.  Or maybe it’s just a bug, which is preferable since iron takes time to restore.

Anyway, I ate a ton of beef last night, am doing the same tonight and will make a point to take iron every day.

Monday: 9@8:21 (first 80 degree day of the year, was pleased with it)
Tuesday: 9@8:52 (day before LadyTime, understandable suckage)
Wednesday: 14@7:53 (great HR run! more on this below)
Thursday: 8@8:29 (ugh)
Friday: 11@8:16 (ugh)
Saturday: 10@8:09 (pouring rain but felt ok)
Sunday: 10@ 8:30 (ugh)
Total: 71mi (avg pace 8:19)

The bright spot in the week was my HR run on Wednesday.  The temperature was perfect (mid 50s), just as it was for the previous two HR checks, so a clean comparison.  Check it out.

April 13: 14@7:53, HRR 71% (155)
March 30: 11@8:10, HRR 71% (155)
March 20: 11@8:00, HRR 74% (159)

Major progress!  Shame I felt like crap the rest of the week but it doesn’t worry me, it was just a blip.

Mo’ Mileage
I’ve been thinking a lot about it, reading tons of posts and articles and am thinking that 80mpw is my new 70mpw.  In other words, my revised mileage goal is 80+ for the next few months.  It only adds about 40 extra minutes over 75mpw so it seems silly not to go for it and I’m insanely curious to see what the payoff will be.

This, however, has to be my top limit because I can’t go any higher without doubling.  I also reserve the right to say “nah, this is too much” and dial it back if it stops being fun.  But aside from this week, it’s been hunky-dory so I think it’ll stick.  The idea that there might be a little pot of gold at the end of this rainbow is enough to keep it seriously fun.

Toe Mileage
I mentioned acquiring a “where did that come from?” purple toenail last week.  After removing my nail polish yesterday, I discovered 3 “where did those come from?” lavender toenails, too.  It’s strange that I’m getting them, my shoes feel fine and they’re the same style I’ve been wearing for ages now, plus my route is the same, it’s not like I’ve started doing some massive downhills.  Maybe those stretched out socks were the harbingers of evil (bunched up fabric).  Oh well, thank god for new socks and nail polish.

Wow, I slept 11 hours last night.  Made up for a couple lighter nights but seriously…11?  I guess I needed it.

I’m still groggy and haven’t a shred of brain power so I’ll use this end-of-the-week slot to wish all my friends on RWOL and Facebook a memorable and wonderful race on Monday.  Have a superswell time beforehand meeting your imaginary internet friends as they turn into real, flesh and blood huggable pals, take tons and tons of photos for those of us sitting at home and may raceday shine beautifully.  Greet the day with confidence and excitement as you  guide your capable, well-trained selves to the finish.  This is what you’ve been working for, now go kick some Boston ass!

A solid week, for sure:  76 miles in singles over 7 days.  Between the weather, new tunes on the iPod and some deep thinking about life and love, it was easy to wrack ‘em up.

My body is adapting to the new level without any drama.   There was a one-day quad tweak that went away with some tennis ball mashing (too lazy to get on the floor with the foam roller) and a “how did that happen?”  purple toenail, but the load seems normal.  And when I’m out there I feel, I dunno…capable.  Confident.  It’s a deeply satisfying period.

Here’s how the week went:
Mon: 9@8:19
Tues: 12@8:28
Wed: 8@8:03
Thur: 14@8:02
Fri:  8@8:21
Sat:  14@8:03
Sun: 11@8:08
Total: 76 miles (avg pace 8:11)

This is my sweet spot for the next few months, 70-75mpw.  I’ll wait one more week to make sure my legs, ankles and feet are settled and then I’ll start adding strides to a couple runs.  Baby steps, baby steps.

Meanwhile, Broad St (10-mile race) is in 3 weeks and I’ve been thinking about it in the abstract.  I kind of swish it around the way you decide what you want for dinner, trying on different tastes in your mind and belly, but in this case it’s “should I do it or not?”  I feel the best when I stop thinking about it entirely, so that’s a pretty good indication right there.

Also, I haven’t done a quality workout in 3 months, so even if I shove some fast stuff between now and the race, it won’t be pretty.  I mean, I’m guaranteed a fat PR by dint of not having raced a 10-miler since 2008, but this isn’t about a PR.  It’s about having a new number that quantifies whether I’m Good, Bad, Fast or Slow.  Do I really need that information right now?  I don’t think so.

To keep this high going, this joyful, unfettered running…that’s my current assignment, handed to me by Instinct.  It’s an important lesson and I don’t want to mess it up.

Hmmm.  I guess I just made a decision.  No racing until the Fall.  Cool.