Cursed Realm of the Faceless Ghost

I think my Monday workouts are starting to feel like the hardest of the week. Today the schedule called for two miles at about 5:50 followed by another seven at about 6:20 with no rest in between. And about a quarter mile into my (short) warmup I could fell that my legs were still sore from Saturday and I thought there was no way I was going to finish the workout. But I took it five minutes at a time, and as my legs loosened up I kept feeling better and I managed to finish. 

On Saturday my foot started to hurt at about 16 miles in exactly the same spot I hurt it on my last long run. (And I hurt it at about 16 miles in my last long run, too.) I wasn't as worried about it because I knew it cleared up last time, and it's already feeling much better. But it is interesting that this keeps happening on long runs, and I'll need to figure out what's going on pretty soon.  

Easy miles on the treadmill. (I'm not tough enough to run in the rain if I don't have to.)

Like I said, my workouts are getting harder. Sometimes I wonder if I can finish them. But I guess it's a good sign if I worry about failing but pull it off anyway. 

The sets today were 0.25 mile at 5:00, 0.5 at 5:36, and 1.5 at 6:00 (no rests in between). I did two sets, walking for 4:00 in between. It sucked, even though it was short.   

Bad news. I was supposed to run 10 miles this morning and I didn't. 

My right foot started to hurt a little last evening for no apparent reason. It sill hurt in the morning, but I didn't think much of it. But a few miles into my run it was apparent that things were getting worse rather than better. So I turned around and limped back home. I'll cross train tomorrow, and I hope to be back up to speed on Saturday. If not, I'll rest a couple more days and see what happens.

I hate missing workouts. But an old coach used to always remind me that there's no single workout that will make or break your training. It's the day in, day out consistency that matters. In that context, this is nothing but a hiccup.

Like I said yesterday, my foot hurt when I tried to run, so I had to cut things short. Tonight I skipped the run altogether and cross trained on the stair stepper instead. It was only supposed to be a short run anyway, so it wasn't too bad--25 minutes watching an old episode of Miami Vice on the treadmill. My foot feels better because of the rest, but it still hurts, so I don't know what to do about tomorrow. I think I'll roll the dice and try to run. If it hurts I'll develop a new plan of attack.

I haven't mentioned this here, but when my foot hurts I usually stop wearing my flip flops and Sanuks to school and wear an old set of New Balance shoes instead, because they're the only shoes I have with anything close to meaningful arch support. That does seem to help. I wonder if I should get a set of running shoes with a little more support for my injury days. I think I may look into that at Runner's Corner. 

I was supposed to run 11 miles at goal pace this morning, but I didn't want to. So I decided to deviate from the plan and go run a trail. Believe it or not, I think that was my first trail run of the year. Weird. 

It went about as well as you would expect, which is to say, not good. I guess I shouldn't be surprised to feel like I have no climbing legs when I haven't climbed anything in months. But I was surprised at how lousy I felt in general. Still, it was nice to be outside and in the mountains.