Getting back to Boston

I hope I'm just being overly cautious here, but better to be overly cautious at this point, I think. Went out for a planned 12-miler this afternoon after the baseball game (which Hogs won 17-16 on a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth). It was warm, windy and humid. Didn't push the pace real hard, but didn't just jog either. Ran one loop to Shiloh, came back to the houe to get a drink, make a pitstop and change shirts, and was setting out to duplicate the same loop. On Camino Real, though, sensed trouble. I had a new pain in my right foot, really the right heel, that I've never had before. Didn't feel right. Don't remember twisting the ankle or anything, although the last mile of the first loop I had to run in the grass a lot due to heavy traffic on Silent Grove. Anyway, tried to see if I could walk it out, and it did stop hurting after 100 yards or so. Tried to run again, and the discomfort soon returned. I wouldn't even call it a pain, really, just a niggle that didn't feel right. So I shut it down and walked back through JBH to the house. I'll go soak it shortly and elevate it just to make sure.

Went out to test the heel/foot tonight. It passed the test nicely; no twinges. Hammies weren't quite so kind, but they eventually loosened up as well. ITB took a little longer. But eventually the main limiting factor on tonight's run was the failure to wear a headband. I found myself largely blinded very quickly, in spite of a nice breeze. Fortunately no rocks/sticks littering the trail to trip me up. Tried to run at about Daniels E pace. It was easy enough on the legs, but the HR was a little above recommended  Averaged 138, peaked into the 140s. Garmin called that zone 3. That's probably about right. I could blame it on the temp, which is still in the high 60s even at 9:30. Anyway, think I may take another easy run tomorrow and postpone intervals until Wednesday, blaming aftereffects of Saturday's race. Or maybe not. I may not decide until about two miles into tomorrow's run.

I'm not a happy camper tonight, but it has nothing to do with the home turmoil. I learned today that my online friend and mentor, Jim Fortner, known on RWOL as Jim2, lost his battle with cancer last Thursday at age 69. Jim had forgotten more about marathoning than most marathoners ever know, but he was never overbearing with his information or ideas. It was there, in his posts and his extremely informative website, and he helped me immensely. He's the one, for instance, that suggested I do a "spring training" of speedwork and training for short races instead of focusing on marathon training all the time. That, in fact, is what I'm doing right now, and my speed and confidence are immensely improved because of it. He also gave me confidence that I might actually be figuring this running thing out when he agreed with some ideas I posted on the MRT forum in the early days.

So, after learning of Jim's passing when I arrived home and logged on to RWOL, I liiked at Hudson's schedule. He had an extremely difficult "specific endurance" run tonight which I had never done before -- 8 X 1K at or near 10K pace with only brief recoveries. I wasn't sure I could pull it off, but I decided if Jim could be as brave as he was fighting cancer, I could HTFU and do a hard interval run. So off to JBH I went.

Warmed up for two laps, stretched some, then set out of the first interval. As usual, took me a bit to get my pacing bearings. Started out too quick on some, too slow on others. Paces for the intervals were 7:21, 7:21, 7:17, 7:23, 7:08, 7:21, 7:16 and 7:09. The range I had been shooting for was 7:15 to 7:25, so did a pretty good job of hitting those marks, and actually had to back off late on the 7:08 and 7:09 reps to get that slow. Then jogged home, which felt like I was crawling, except that it was low-9 pace.

I guess you could call this the Jim Fortner Memorial Tempo Run. Thanks, Jim. You helped me a ton, and you are already missed in our little corner of the virtual running world.

Kind of a scary run tonight. Left leg was bothering me at work some, but I took some ibuprofen and got through work OK. No problems this evening either, until I started the run. Then the bottom of my left foot went numb within the first mile and a half. Stopped, stretched, it eased off some, but then came back With the burning down the back of the left calf, I know exactly what it is -- S1 radiculopathy. Did I tweak it on that interval run last night? Maybe. Stumbled through three laps at the park, then decided that it was reaching the point of being stupid to continue and headed home. Still got in 4 and change.

Twelve this evening when I definitely didn't want to run. Or do anything else, except maybe drink heavily. I'll be living alone in a few days, and it feels like I already am. Got the official word last night, and I think I'm still dehydrated from crying. Not sure what made me get out and run, except maybe force of habit. Probably should have done just a quick 3-4, but nooooo, I had to do 12. Got it done, somehow. Felt terrible, but got it done.