Old Man Still running

This morning I swam two miles at the Saratoga pool.  I've never swam that far prior to work before.   My quarter miles splits were 10:29, 11:00, 11:05, 11:02 for 43:37:46 for the first mile.   Mile 2 was 11:34, 11:53, 13:04, 11:38 for 47:09 for mile two.   It was a good 90 minute workout.  The foot feels good this morning, very little pain.   It tends to feel better in the afternoons, typical for tendons.  

I swam 2.5 miles before work this morning.  This is the furthest I have ever swam in one stretch and it felt pretty easy.  That boggles my mind because I have only been swimming for one week.  In the past I thought it takes weeks to work up the swiming endurance and I thought I had miserable upper body strength, but I guess, not so.  The shoulders feel great and I have no soreness at all.  Perhaps my technique is better than in the past.

My split quarter mile (400 meter) times today were: 10:19, 10:25, 10:54, 11:03 for 42:41 for mile 1.  9:46, 11:17, 11:05, 10:43 for 42:51 for mile 2.   10:57, and 11:11 for the last two splits.   I did take a little break after the miles to drink Gatorade.   Those splits are a good improvement from yesterday.   I through in some flip turns now and then to improve the speed.

The pool got pretty crowded during my last few laps as it approached 6:00 a.m.  There were eight people in the pool trying to swim laps.

The foot progress is discouraging.   I checked the foot last night like the doctor did and the tendon is still pretty painful but the strength is better than last Thursday.   I can tell if I tried to start running again now, I wouldn't last long and would really irritate the tendon.   This is a very slow heal process.  I just hope it can heal without surgery.

Swam 1.5 miles this morning.  My 400-meter split times were: 10:20, 10:31, 10:35, and 10:55 for 42:21 mile.   Next splits were 11:02, 10:33.    I then did some leg work.  Tough kicking on back for hamstrings, and then 12 hard minutes on the stationary bike.   I plan to start doing more leg work.   Foot feels a little better today.

11-straight days without running.   This is nearing PR territory for me.   My last long running break was in March 2007 when I took off 14-days to let a shin splint heal.  Then I jumped in and ran 80 miles on the 14th day.

P.M.  Walked briskly downtown to and from meetings.  Very little pain felt....encouraging.

I swam 5k (5000 meters, 200 laps(lengths)) this morning.  That is the furthest I have ever swam in one stretch.  My 400 meter splits were 10:24, 10:33, 10:47, 10:35 for 42:19 for the first mile.  I took a couple minutes break to drink Gatorade.  My next splits were 10:44, 11:01, 11:02, 11:01 for 43:48 for mile 2.  My next splits were 10:56, 11:01, 11:20, 11:38 for 44:55.  My final 200 meters were 6:15.   The total 5K time was 2:17:18.   I started to cramp in my left calf for some reason toward the end.  I guess all the kicking adds up after awhile.

Skin and hair care is a bother.  With all the products I have to use it affects my man-hood ego.  The biggest irration is to my skin.  Despite all the hyrdation gel, cream, etc.  My sensative skin goes crazy after awhile from over two hours in the over-chlorinated pool.  I hate iching.  I'm going to have to find something else to help to stop the itching.   I also take care to dry out the ears to avoid swimmer's ear (fungus).  That can be very painful.  Drying out the ears or putting vinegar in them afterwards helps dry things out.   I do use ear plugs while swimming, but still some water gets in.

The foot is feeling very good.  I think I may try to experiment with barefoot treadmill walking.

I've set a PR for the most miles swimming in a one-week period.  11.5 miles.  That is roughly equivelent with about 70 miles of running at the pace I usually do on trails in the morning.

I slept in, no pool work this morning.   OK, it has been eight days since I've been to the doctor for the foot.  I've seen some progress but am discouraged because I am so used to recoverying fast from minor injuries.  This one is not recoverying fast and thus is probably not minor.   I worry that the tendon could be torn.  If so, it wouldn't heal from just laying off.  I guess I'll give it another week before asking the doctor for an MRI.   I am seeing improvement, but it just isn't as fast as I want.

I ran for the first time in 14 days, and the first time without bad pain in 21 days!   I’ll get to that later.   I started off my day in the pool at 4:00 a.m. and I swam a PR distance of 4 miles!   I had the pool completely to myself for the first 3 miles and until the “soakers” came to the pool to chat and pretend like they are exercising.  Well, at least they are getting out.

It was a little depressing to see how beautiful the early morning was with a nearly full moon out.   If I wasn’t recoverying from my foot injury, I would be out on the trail, probably running about 35 miles.   But instead, I put on my goggles, ear plugs, and dipped into the waters.

My 400-meter (quarter mile) splits times were:  10:44, 10:41, 10:50, and 10:54 for 43:08 first mile.  Next, 11:03, 11:15, 11:33, 11:15, for 45:04 second miles.   11:34, 11:20, 11:24, 11:26, for 45:45 third mile.  11:30, 11:30, 12:00, 11:42 for 46:42 fourth mile.   Total for the four miles was 3:00:53.   The energy for doing that was roughly the same as running 21 miles.   I felt good afterwards and felt like I could have continued on for quite awhile.   However, three hours in the chlorinated pool really takes its toll on my skin and hear.  Clarifying shampoo helps the hair and a host of skin products helps the skin, but what a hassle taking care of both.   I finished of the morning in the pool by doing ten minutes of tough deep kicking while on my back to work the hamstrings.

The morning view was wonderful.  It was a beautiful as the sun rose above Mount Timpanogos to shin on the clear blue sky.   Some people arrived to do some fishing and a family launched their sail boat from the marina.  It was beautiful to watch the boat float out into Utah Lake.

I next went into the exercise room and timidly decided to try running on a treadmill.   With this injury, I have read that barefoot running is possible at some point.   Running barefoot does not put as much stress on the injured tendon.   At first my pace was only a 18-minute mile pace with a timid jog.  Great, no pain at all.   I eased up the pace slowly and eventually reached a 10-minute mile pace.   Still no pain.  During the second mile I experimented pushing the pace clear up to 8-minute mile pace.  Not bad, but I’m not used to running barefoot, so my foot placement wasn’t smooth enough.  I backed off.   I then tried to run at 5% incline, but pretty quickly started to feel some pain, so I returned to the flats.   After two miles, I peddled on the bike for 15 minutes and then returned to run one more mile.   My feet bottoms aren’t used to the barefoot running.  It will take a little while for them to get used to that.

So, I was very encouraged.  It was very nice to feel the running muscles working again.   I had visions of never being able to run again without pain.   There now is hope.   I’ll continue to be very careful. 

Wow, up to 7 miles for the month!  900 miles for the year.  But in the bright side, I swam a PR one-week distance of 13 miles.   That is roughly equivelent of running 68 miles.  I am maintaining my overall fitness and the swimming is helping the core get stronger.