Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

5:30am, 83F.  A decent-sized dust storm shrunk the vis down to 200m around 4am, but when I went out to hit the TM, it was looking a lot better so I ran outside.  Still pretty dusty though, my face felt like it was caked in a nice sand-sweat mixture.  Not feeling it on the run either, sore legs + stomach cramps + sore foot + out of breath at mile 1... I cut it short and will take a day off tomorrow.  4 days in a row is pretty good for my first week back.  Should be refreshed on Tuesday morning.  Avg pace was 8:30.

5am, 83F.  EZ 5, then 2 at MGP (7:54, 7:55).  8:16 avg.  My goal is a 3:30 marathon, even if that is a stretch right now.  I will have to get way faster, but why not just train for it and see what happens.  So 8:00 will be my goal pace.

My heel is still getting sore and I'm getting suspicious of the tendon again.  I ordered some firm arch supports today to take some pressure off of what I believe is the injured tendon (posterior tibial).  Most websites recommend arch supports for that problem and that info is backed up by what I've noticed in my runs - that if I use mostly the inside of the foot, which is natural for me the faster I go, I can feel it tugging a bit on what I think is that bad tendon.  When I consciously use the outside, it tugs less but gives my foot a pounding.  It seems right that some extra support in the arch would alleviate it, so I'll give it a try.

5am, 72F!!  Where did that cool air come from?  My target was 8:30s today, but the temperature was so nice I just ran easy and let the splits fall where they may...an evenly-paced 8:09 avg.  Coolest temps in months for me.  I actually had more energy after this run than any of my previous runs since the layoff.  Stiil, I will try to slow it down in the future until I start doing MP/tempo runs.  There are a couple 5Ks this weekend; I think I will do at least one and get the sub-22 that I should've gotten awhile ago.  There's one on Saturday and one on Sunday.  Strategy will be to not accept anything slower than 6:59 for miles 1 and 2.  The rest should take care of itself.

My new theory on my heel is that it isn't the tendon this time (although it was before).  This is a good thing, I think.  Now the discomfort comes when my foot hits the ground, and it's more the back of the heel, right below the heel bone.  Calcaneal bursitis is the only thing my googling found that makes sense.  Hopefully, it's just a bruise though - that is what it feels like.  It's totally runnable, just feels like a hotspot back there, and really it depends how I land.  I might never figure it out.  I vow that this is my last entry complaining about it unless it gets too bad to run on.

5am, 71F.  7 easy, then at about 0.2 into the last mile I sped up and brought the last mile's split down to 6:53.  Wanted to test my foot at 5K speed, and it passed so I will run the 5K on Saturday and get that sub-22.  AP for all 8 miles was 8:06.

Think I will take a day off tomorrow, but not sure yet.  I was going to take Saturday off but there are races Saturday and Sunday.  Sunday's race has free t-shirts so I can't skip that one!

5:30am, 73F.  My strategy for this (to ensure sub-22) was to force myself to run the first 2 miles under 7:00, and it paid off to push the pace early; I finally got a 5K time I'm happy with.  I jogged 2.55 miles to the starting line as warmup, then:

Mile 1 - 6:43.  Surprisingly comfortable.

Mile 2 - 6:49.  Kinda hawked the Garmin here to make sure I stuck to the strategy.

Mile 3 - 6:59.  I really battled to keep it under 7.  The pace would keep bleeding back into the 7s and I'd surge.  Definitely struggling (gasping for air!) but it was awesome to look down and see 6-something when it beeped at the 3.0 mark (even if it was by a fraction of a second).

The last 0.13 was 49s (6:14 pace).  Afterward I saw Antonio who now runs in the evenings (when it's well over 90 degrees); he beat me by a little over a minute.  I slowly jogged 2.32 back home - coincidentally it worked out to exactly 8 miles for the day.