Arie's Running Blog

6:45AM 68F 70% humidity. After two days without running I felt well rested and anxious to run. The pain in my left foot was almost gone. I used my old pair of shoes. I had a little less than 700 mile son them so they are suppose to be still OK. I decided to drive to the American Tobacco Trail which is 1) a trail surface and 2) roughly flat. I didn't have any plan in terms of distance and decided I'll play it by the ear. The trail is 3.75M and I parked at the north end and decided to run it back and forth. After these 7.5 miles I felt great and had no pain so I turned around and started to run it again but this time till the 2.5M mark point and then back, after these additional 5M I felt good but a bit tired but I, for some reason decided to top it of with an additional 0.6M to make it a half marathon. As you can see in the splits below, I got slower at the last 2 miles but overall did it in a very nice pace and was able to finish strong. Also, if this was an official race time on a certified course, it would have been a new HM PR. A couple of hours after the run we went to the swiiming pool with the kids. The water wer sooooo cold but I loved it. It was great for my muscles. The only problem was that mu nipples were burning from the cold water and chlorine. I still have chafes there.

Splits:
3.75M @ 29:22 (7:50)
3.75M @ 29:41 (7:55)
2.50M @ 19:36 (7:50)
2.50M @ 20:26 (8:10)
0.60M @ 04:39 (7:45)

1:43:45

Tomorrow I'm going to go back to my new shoes and see if the pain returns.

8:45AM 75F 70% humidity. Tried my new pair again and the pain came back big time. This run was really painful. I think I should ditch these shoes and go back to the ridgid stability shoes. It didn't hurt a lot after the run but I don't think I want to go on with these shoes in hope things will get better. I did a very slow pace, especially at the first 1.5 miles. Over all I did 8:43 and I think I can safely assume that this can be more or less a marathon pace for me. If it wasn't for the pain in my left foot I felt I could keep running and running at this pace.

0:55:45

8:45AM, 71F, 85% humidity. School has started for my boys and we are getting up early. That means I will have to run only when I get to my office. So today I ran again between the campuses and did 2 loops on the East campus trail. My left foot still hurts but I see improvement.  Pace today was faster than yesterday (8:17 average) and I was working harder but still not too bad.

0:53:02

Tomorrow an easy day, probably just 5M. On Thursday speed work. They installed completely new tracks in my sons' school and I am excited to try them. They suppose to be one of the best in the state (at least I know why we are paying so much tuition).

8:15AM 74F 80% humidity. School started for my boys so I get earlier to my office after I drop them off. I did a short one today and took it easy (average pace 8:14). Tomorrow I will try to do speed work if my left foot will let me.

0:39:05

8:15AM start, 70F 80% humidity. Went to Duke's tracks to do speed work. It was quite humid but the temperature was OK and it was cloudy. The tracks were relatively empty. The football team was coming out of their change rooms to practice in a near by field so I had to be careful not to bump into any one of them in some of the laps I did. Toward the end of my workout came two guys who looked either kenian or etheiopian. They were warming up at what seemed to me like a 6:30 pace and after I was done with my run I was able to watch them do some speed work. Wow!

Anyway, I did 7.5 miles total and within them four 1 mile repeats with 0.5 mile cool down in between. here are the splits:
1M @ 8:16
1M @ 7:01
0.5M @ 4:36
1M @ 7:02
0.5M @ 4:50
1M @ 7:07
0.5M @ 4:54
1M @ 7:11
1M @ 8:54

I'm not too happy with my 1 mile times and with the fact that I was getting slower. My foot is still not perfect but that's not an excuse. I think recovery is my weakest point.

0:59:51

8:15AM start, 70F 80% humidity. Nothing special just the regular two laps around the golf course. Did the first lap in 24:00 (8:17) and the second at 23:27 (8:05). Foot still hurt inspite all the experiments I did with tying. Need new shoes.

0:47:27