Plantar Fasciitis Persist

Back on May 21 I said that I would run another 5.5 miles on the following day to see how my treatment of the plantar fascia is going. Well, not so good. I did run the course on that Tuesday morning and wisely decided to forgo any additional running for a while. In fact, I've decided to exit running for two weeks. "Dag nab it" Two whole weeks?!? What to do, what to do. I've got it. I'll go to the fitness center in my neighborhood and do 45-50 minutes of the dreaded, boring elliptical machine every day. Talk about a boring experience.




It has been a week since that time and I'm getting used to the boredom but still not very happy. I go in each morning with my trusted pair of Oakley Thump Pro mp3 player. They work so great. I guess it would be neat if they also had an FM tuner so I could listen to the TV while at the gym. Oh well, that is not why I bought them. I hate wires. The year is 2007 we should be able to listen to mp3 music without the drag of wires. Well Oakley believes same and has been the only company to do something about it. The shades rock. You can even switch out the lenses whenever you want. This is a little cumbersome and I fear I might break the shades, so I'm extra careful.

A little on the philosophy of running with music. I bring this up because I have not always been a fan of running with music and then I go out and purchase a $300 pair of music players. Well, to be honest, I still do not train with them. In other words, when I'm running with my buddies during the week or even on the weekend I do not wear extra music. I like my running buddies a lot and want to hear everything they have to say. But on those rare occasions when I have to go it alone I may opt for the music. Not all days, mind you. Most of those lone days I enjoy the sound of my breathing and my dang heavy feet hitting the concrete. Still there are those days when the only strength I can muster is to say to myself, "self, just get dressed for the run and I'll take care of everything else". On those days I need ear blasting, mind numbing hip-hop and rock beats pounding into my head to push me through. And believe me, when you're out with an injury and can only stand in one place pumping out stress on that dreaded, boring elliptical machine, the music becomes a much welcomed diversion.

Plantar Fasciitis? Is that a Video Game Character?

WTH!?! - This pain in my left heel is not good. Nope not at all. I've been nursing this thing since early April. I can't run as fast as before and I seem to be gaining weight? WTH!?! When will this pain depart me. I'm not a big fan but, it seems to love me. I've heard that Plantar Fasciitis is the singular worse thing that can happen to a runner and could potentially end a career.

I guess I could get on the elliptical machine for the next couple of weeks. I hate the idea of sitting in one spot building up a sweat doing some modified version of the moon walk. I'm not Michael Jackson for crying out loud. What other choices do I have?

Of course, I ran 6 miles this morning. I'd hardly call it running. It was more like hop along Cassidy but I pushed through it.

I'm using the tennis ball tonite to message the heel and foot tonite then I'm going out for a 5.5 miler tomorrow morning. Well see how it goes.

Not Running as Much as I'd Like

I have not been able to have a consistent week of running for about three weeks now. I'm missing my fun clan of running buddies I run with every morning at 6am. I hope to be back to it sometime late next week.

OK. So, I've had my Garmin Forerunner 305 for about 8 months and I like it just fine. Now, I have to start deleting some of my runs because it's running out of memory. I'm sure this will be a long drawn out process. I don't know how to delete faster than a week at a time. I might as well get to it though.

So earlier this week a running buddy and I were on the local college track and saw some of the fit track stars training. One girl was running 200's and made it look so easy. Those track folks look so relaxed when they're doing their thing.

Oh Yes, My Forerunner 305!

Well, all is good with the world. My technique worked. I plugged it in and just let it sit for about 12 hours. When I got home from my track workout and visit to 24hour Fitness I looked over at it and saw that wonderful statement, "charging in progress". Awesome, thank you Triune God.

OK, so the track was a pretty tough today. I finished 7x400 and they were not that fun. It has been about 10 days since I've run real hard so I was feeling a little sluggish. It'll be alright I just need about another week of solid running in my town and I'll be back to normal.

Oh No, My Forerunner 305!

OMG! I get to my Friday run this morning (I don't usually run on Fridays, only when I've been slacking during the week) jump out of the car and turn on my trusty Forerunner 305. What? Turn on! Maybe I need to re-push the button. Nope. What the $#@$? OK, so when I get home I'll simply plug it back into the adapter. Nope, that didn't work either. Dag gum it. What is the problem? Will I lose all my saved data? My last ditch hope is the try plugging it back in and hoping that through some electronic miracle it will "fix itself". I'm no idiot, I'm just hopeful. If this does not work then I will capitulate and send it in for repair or replacement. I cringe at the very notion.

5K Racing is Hard but Fun

OK so on April 14 I race in 5k. It's one that is held every year and is good for charity. I am coaching a group of folks who are trying to get faster 5k times this year. They are doing so well. At this race they all improved by about 3 to 4 minutes. Quite amazing, I'm sure they were holding something back at the beginning of the program. Of course, back then they did not know their abilities so our training has really taught them to push themselves outside their comfort zones.

Anyway back to me. I raced my first 5k in over a year. Mainly because last year I trained and finished 6 marathons in 14 months. Now for some that may not seem like much of a feat, but those 6 marathons have brought my total marathons to 7! I'm running one in every state. No, I'm not a member of any of the official 50 in 50 clubs. I'm doing this for me and I can set the rules as I go.

OK back to the 5k. I ran it pretty fast considering it's been so long since I've trained for that distance. I really didn't know what to expect. Now, it was not a PR but was only about 15 seconds from a PR. Wow, that's the first time I did the math on that. But, it's true, only 15 seconds off. The kool thing about this fact is that I felt strong enough to run a little faster during mile 2. Instead of running faster, though, I settled in behind one of my running buddies. Her marathon times are faster than mine and when we run together during the week her easy pace is always faster than mine. Besides that she has much more racing experience than me so I thought it smart to settle in behind her rather than risking running too fast in mile 2 and not having anything left for mile 3.

I may have worn off my welcome for a little bit because when I turned it on near the end she did not stay right with me. I was expecting to see her breeze past me at the last second but she did not. During our race we had another friend come up and start pacing us. He is much faster than both of us and found it quite easy to jump in front and keep the pace. I know I have to get to his pace before I have a shot at qualifying for Boston. I know I've got it in me but I need to lose about 25-30 pounds before he and I are at the same weight. Still working on that, of course.

The only problem is that now I'm 1200 miles away from home visiting a terminally ill family member and I'm not eating right at all. I know my progress has completely frozen even though I've been keeping my running up. I would hardly call it running, more like jogging. 9:20-9:50 pace for 7 miles yesterday. I have not been running yet today but I expect to only run about 5 miles. I'm feeling pretty lazy.

Longest blog yet for me and still no one has been reading them. It's OK. I have not given the location of this blog to any of my friends or family. I half expect someone to find my site on their own and start reading it because something here interest them. We'll keep watching. If in about two more weeks or so no one finds this site then I'll start sending it out to my running buddies so they can have something boring to read when they need to fall asleep.

First real track work out in a while

Well this morning I met some friends at the track for 10x400s. And today was the first time I ever wore my Asics Speedstars. I felt like I did as a kid when I used to get new shoes. Thought I could conquer the world and they're suppose to weigh less than typical trainers, thus lending more opportunity to me running faster. I don't really know about that, I think losing several dozen pounds will help more, but I can dream can't I. The shoes are pretty good but because of my overpronation I had some fairly uncomfortable sensations in the plantar area. I also had my custom orthodics inserted in the shoes so, I may try a track date without them to see if that helps. Any things' worth a try.