catherine's running efforts

My calves are a little sore, but other than that so far I feel surprisingly good after Saturday. I did notice on our tiny hike yesterday that my right achilles hurts a bit when going downhill, so I've been thinking about my shoes. On real downhills (like coming down some of the streets perpendicular to 11th avenue or that one little stretch toward the beginning of the Des News 10k) sometimes I try to just kind of let go and go - no thinking about form or anything, just kind of pounding down and hoping that my legs catch me and that I don't have to try to stop suddenly. It's pretty hard on my quads but a nice rest aerobically as long as I remember to breathe. So I wonder if my achilles was sore from Saturday because of the Altra/downhill combination? I run between the midfoot and the forefoot but go more toward the midfoot when I'm going down a steeper hill. Am I going to hurt myself if I try to pound down a real hill in flat shoes? What if I heel strike down the hill to kind of put on the brakes?

Anyway, I procrastinated my run until right after dinner and some brownies. My legs felt heavy and my tummy felt rumbly and I want to try last Tuesday's run again tomorrow, so I just kept it to 2 miles. 

Yesterday was just a bummer day all around, so I got some extra sleep and didn't run. I was looking forward to this morning's run, but about 3 miles into it my right IT band started hurting. This kind of worried me because a long time ago, before I became Forefoot Catherine, I had IT band pain all the time and it kept me from running more than a few miles at a time. I powered through today, stopping to stretch at about 6.5 when it hurt kind of a lot, and I went straight to the foam roller when I got home. 

The Internet suggests several causes for IT band pain. I've been ignoring some minor hip pain for awhile and I hardly ever stretch, so I'm hoping that my pain is because I need to stretch more and do some strength stuff and not because sometimes I run a bunch and sometimes I don't run at all. 

Yesterday I realized that Toby runs within blocks of my house, so last night I asked her if I could run with her this morning. We planned to meet up at 5:25, and it actually didn't feel *that* early when I woke up this morning. My tummy was a little queasy from a late dinner, and I wasn't sure if my knee was going to hurt, so I was glad that I knew Toby would be waiting for me if I didn't show up because otherwise I think I would have just skipped it. But my knee *did* hurt, so when I made it to her I told her that I was going to go back home. I had to walk for the last block. 

I went to the PT at the student health center (I'd really like to go to someone who does ART, but since last year I quit the job that gave us the awesome benefits now we just have crap student benefits, and we've already shelled out a bunch this year to fix the pee problem and for Elliott's feeding therapy so on this one I think I'm just going to go ghetto student style) and they did some stuff and gave me some exercises and confirmed that yes, it is the IT band (but I was sure that was what it was anyway). I think that it was the course on Saturday - almost all of my runs until a couple of weeks ago were on the treadmill, and I kind of just plopped down the downhills on Saturday (plus there were a lot of turns). I don't think it has to do with mileage. So I'm going to stick to running on an incline for a bit and see if that helps.

In other news, remember when I did the bod pod in January and was bummed because I was only moderately lean (and moderately lean is also moderately fat)? I did it again today and was really expecting to have bumped down into the lean category since I've lost about 5% of my January weight and can see leg muscles in my race pictures, but I was still just moderately lean (even though I was about 4% lower). I was outraged. Outraged! Then I thought, "Oh, self, who are you kidding. You had 4 KFC biscuits and some bacon for dinner last night." So I stopped by Krispy Kreme on the way out of Provo. The frosted maple didn't really do anything, but the raspberry filled one helped me feel better about myself.  

I made a plan to just run on an incline on the treadmill until my knee is better, but this morning that hurt. So I just hiked for an hour at 8%. I know it's not "running" running, but it's not like I'd cut those miles out of a race if I walked up a hill. So I'm counting it. 

Good luck to everyone racing tomorrow! We're going to be in Provo to watch Eric's sister do that marathon, so maybe we'll get to see some awesome FRBers.  

This might be a lie. I really can't remember. I'm pretty sure it was at least 2, though.