Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

5am, 81F.  I didn't really get any questions answered about my heel yet.  It's now a little worse than it was before my run - pretty much regressed to Friday.  Definitely runnable, but will I make a small injury into a big one by continuing?  Who knows...  We'll see how it feels in 24 hours, I guess, and evaluate it then.  Run was 8:24 pace.

Update - 14 hours later it's much better, as good as it's felt in days.  I took ibuprofen and elevated the foot end of my mattress and it is now only very slightly tender to the touch.  Weird.  But also makes me think it's not a stress fracture if quickly feels better like that.  But I'm also pretty sure I don't know what I'm talking about.  Either way I'm probably running in the morning.

5am, 83F.  8:02 AP.  It was dark for the first few miles and I started a bit too fast since I couldn't see my watch (except when it lit up each mile), then decided I didn't feel like slowing down.  Last mile a 7:37 - HM pace - is my arbitrary "fast mile" threshold so I'll tally 1 fast mile.  The Garmin 405 doesn't like getting sweat on it; if I don't lock the bezel by the 3rd mile, it starts going nuts (I guess sweat gets in there) and I can't manipulate it.

As far as my heel, I guess it was a little better today, if anything.  Pain never exceeded a 3 or so and it's better than yesterday post-run.  I took ibuprofen 7 hours beforehand so I don't think that would have been a factor in making it feel better.

Tried to do an easy run in the morning and couldn't - too much of a hobble and pain from my right foot.  Knowing it gets worse as the run goes on, I called it off.  I don't think it's a stress fracture since the impact on the ground doesn't hurt; it's right before I push off, when the angle from foot to shin is sharpest.  More research led me toward tendonitis - posterior tibial tendonitis or anterior, depending on which random website I go by.  Either way I'm supposed to rest it to fix it.  Having said that, there is a 10k on Friday that I'd like to try so I might rest until then, warmup a few miles without NSAIDs to test it, them maybe run it.  Sound dumb enough?

The last 2 mornings I've definitely felt like I could've run and the tendonitis, or whatever it is, is basically gone when I'm walking.  So I'm gonna try a nice easy 2 miles (at the most) after work on Sat. morning.  The ibuprofen and rest have been doing it good.  We'll see how it goes!

Zilch.  I knew after the first few steps it probably wasn't gonna happen, but I went to a quarter mile to make sure.  I guess having my foot feel good with ibuprofen while walking doesn't necessarily translate into ready-to-run.  I walked straight to the gym after I realized I wouldn't be running and went at the elliptical pretty hard for 30 min; my legs were wobbly and shaking afterward.  Good.  That cheered me up a little.  I'll go longer and slower, so to speak, next time but I had some frustration to take out this morning.

I see the doc on Monday and I doubt I'll be running the rest of the month, at least, based on the lack of progress after 5 days rest.  Depending on when I can come back to running, I might try to switch to the half in January.  I rerally don't want to enter my first marathon untrained.  My wife and I are tentatively planning to do OKC in April anyway.  But it's obviously too early to push the panic button yet; I'll continue to use the torture machines in the gym for now.