Rhett

Weight training, heavy lower body, light upper body, followed by recumbant bike for 30 mins.

Upper body weight lifting.  Gotta look good for the beach this weekend.  I'm so excited about running tomorrow morning with Doone.  I hope my foot feels ok.  I'm off to Glendora, a little town outside of LA, in a couple hours.  Everyone have a great 4th!  And good luck on any holiday races you're running.

Running with Doone was one of the highlights of my trip.  It is just great to be out with your sweetie on a cool summer morning and running and talking.  She is training for a 1/2 over Labor Day and had an 8 miler planned.  I let her set the pace.  It was nice and easy averaging around 9:30 minutes, so it was perfect for me not to push the foot.  I figured I'd run as long as I could and then stop and let her go on.  We really had a good time running a chatting around the turnaround point I started feeling a slight discomfort in my foot soon it started to increase, so I stopped and told her to go on.  As I walked the pain increased to a pretty intense level.  How wondered how in the world I ever ran a full marathon on that thing.  She finally came back in the car and rescued me.  For the next few days my pain level was very high, a few time almost bringing me to my knees when I stepped wrong.  I am going to call the doc today and get it looked at again.  I figure he'll just tell me to wear my boot and rest it longer, but I better let him look at it.  It doesn't look like I'll be doing TOU.  What a disappointment.

I went to the gym, felt like crude, so I just did an hour on the stationary back.  I felt a bit better after finishing.

In the afternoon I saw my podiatrist.  He was suprised that I was still having problems.  He said I could get an MRI or I could shoot it up with cortisone and see what happened.  I went with plan B since it is quicker and much less expensive.  If it doesn't work I'll have to fork out the cash for an MRI, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  I had him fit me with some new orthodics while I was there also.  Maybe that will help out some, but I won't get them for 3 weeks.  For now I'm not allowed to run for a couple weeks, then I'm supposed to go out for a short easy run and see how it responds.

I decided I had been patient enough and it was time to try and run again. My last run was July 4th and my cortisone shot was 22 days ago. I decided it was best to do it on the TM so I could stop at any point and not be pressured to keep going to get home. I had no idea what to expect.

I started off really slow and the first 1/2 mile was pain free. As I move the pace to around 9 min miles I could start to feel some tightness but not pain. When I dropped the pace to 8:30 min it hurt so I quickly went back to 9 min pace. I ran a slow 3 miles. 27:40. I finished in much better shape than my last run, but I was disappointed with how slowly I had to run to keep from hurting and even at the slow pace there was definitely a tight pulling feeling with each step.

I really don't know what else to do. I've been so good for a long time. I haven't even been doing the elliptical for the last few weeks. I have another appointment with the podiatrist this coming Friday, but he seems to be at a loss. Maybe it is time to try a new doc. If I don't start logging some miles soon I won't even be ready for Boston next year.