Running Chick

I salvaged a lackluster running week with a 6.5 miler this morning and then another 2.5 with Josh for a 9 mile day. It was nice and cool today, unlike earlier in the week.  I swear, I almost died on Monday when I ran down to the Nara Trail to meet Josh. It.Was.HOT. Once we hit the trail, it was cooler, but I was feeling the effects of that run for hours afterward. Yuck.  I ended up with just over 17 mile this week, which was pretty amazing since mostly all I did was sit around soaking up the a/c in my house. I hate to say this, but I am ready for this heat wave to be over.

Here’s the excitement that happened in the last week in RC world.

We worked at the Copperman Triathlon in Copper Harbor last Saturday. Our location was called “Fake Lake”, which I never knew existed until Saturday. Here’s a little video of our station by way of Josh and his new video camera thinger.

On the way back home, an obligatory stop at the Jampot for some goodies.

More narcissism from yours truly.

Great Sand Bay. Wow, there’s been a lot of work going on: stairs to the beach, official paved parking areas. When did this all happen? Clearly I need to get out more.

We stopped at an estate sale in Lake Linden and found that we’d parked next to an old Bosch Brewing Company building.

Then we came to a screeching halt by this old International truck which Josh said I needed to take a picture of.

The Cool Thing of the Week was a tie between this fancy new burr grinder that Josh got me. I think he got tired of hearing me bitch about my old Mr. Coffee grinder and not do anything about it. Note that my coffee now lives in a hopper. A hopper. Someone get the Intervention folks after me.

 

…and this fancy new bracelet that Josh also got me. It’s earthy and pretty, just how I like my jewels.

Dumb Thing of the Week is me having to write Josh’s c25k intervals on my arm because I simply cannot remember them no matter what. CRS, I has it.

WTF of the Week. At least it was really early so there wasn’t much traffic out to be killed by the falling load.

I'm Old Moment of the Week.

Most Visited Place of the Week Last Month. Nara Trail, three times a week in the last month. Josh is already planning on doing the Bridge to 10k after he finishes up the Couch to 5k, so we’ll be on this trail until the snow flies.

Yums of the Week. Salmon on the grill and sautéed mushrooms and Vidalia onions with thyme.

Booger of the Week

Somebody stop me, I do dumb things.

I’ve been feeling a little discomfort in my shins lately, nothing major and completely kept under control by icing & Advil, but it’s there. The other day I got to thinking that maybe I should try my custom orthotics on a run just to see how my legs feel. So, I did.  Now, this wasn’t necessarily a dumb idea per se, but completely ignoring that these custom orthotics gave me such bad knee pain that they knocked me out of consistent running for almost a year, was stupid.

The first mile of my four mile run was kind of promising. No shin pain, no other issues. The next quarter mile, my shins started to ache and by a half mile they were pissed off. I stopped, stretched for a bit and took off again, but I didn’t get too far and had to stop again. I thought about walking back to my house, but decided to take out the insoles and see how that went. The pain went away by probably 50%, and I considered finishing my full run, but for once, I listened to what my body was telling me and ended with three.

I’ve been icing both shins for 20-30 minutes every 1-1/2 to 2 hours and I think I’d downgrade them from pissed off to aggravated. Fingers crossed that they’re okay for my long run on Saturday.

Anyhoo, I decided that I need to add some hill training to my regime so on Tuesday, I sent out to do four miles of hills. I wasn’t interested in doing sprint repeats, I wanted some mid-length upward grinds with some downhill recovery and I found my perfect loop on Jacker Avenue.

The loop (square, more like) is about .8 of a mile long, the first .4 mile (starting at the corner of Jacker & Military) is uphill, the next .2 is flat and the last .2 is downhill.  I did about a mile warm-up and then did the Jacker –> Dodge –> Frue –> Military Road loop three times. It’s a pretty steady half-mile climb from Jacker to Frue and I struggled and stopped once for a few seconds on the first loop and once again on the second loop.

I forgot to press the lap button on my Garmin on each loop, but thanks to my handy dandy SportTracks program, I was able to estimate that I did the first loop in 10:19, the second loop in 10:16 and the last loop in 10:08. I would love to take all the credit for the time on that last loop, but there was some extra downhill in there as I made my way back to my house. I imagine the actual time was slower than the second loop because I could feel myself running out of steam toward the end.

Here’s the elevation profile. It looks ickier than it actually was, but I felt like I got in a really good workout.

I haven’t decided if I want to add hill training to my weekly schedule yet, though. Now that I’m getting into bigger mileage weeks, I’m a little bit scared of overloading my legs and getting injured.

...but I can still run! After a three week layoff from running while I was nursing posterior tibial tendonitis and adjusting to my custom orthotics, I started running again on Monday. The first run went great. There was no pain, not even a twinge. Granted I took it very s-l-o-w and cautious, but it felt great to run without pain. The orthotics felt great - meaning I couldn't even tell I was using them. The second run felt good as well, but I made a key mistake in the beginning of the run, which I'm pretty sure stuck me back in Podiatrist's office. I ran three blocks downhill. Like straight downhill. As I was about mid-way through the last block it occurred to me that it probably wasn't a smart choice because I could feel the stress on my lower legs more so than before. Wouldn't you know it, toward the end I could feel a little something happening on my inside shin area. Crap. Ice, Advil, ice, Advil. At start of my third run, I felt a twinge. Or maybe something stronger than a twinge. A pinch? Whatever. Anyway, that twinge subsided after about a quarter-mile and I didn't really feel anything until I stopped and then started up again. Then, the twinge hit again. Cue a burning feeling, which is a tell-tale sign that my tendon was on the verge of being pissed off. Fortunately, I was at the end of my run, so I walked home and immediately started my ice, Advil, ice routine. This morning I woke up and assessed the situation. The burning feeling is still there and is now accompanied by a really tender spot on my shin. So, I called Podiatrist who told me to get my butt into the office ASAP and don't run. Craaaaaap. Fortunately, I was able to get an appointment for this afternoon. Podiatrist and I discussed the situation and he agrees with me that it was probably the downhill running that aggrevated my tendon. He made a slight adjustment in my orthotics to give me some more lift in my heel (yay, I'm taller!) and gave me some stuff called CryoDerm, a pain relieving spray that I supposed spray on my leg before I run. I'm also back on the Meloxicam (so long, beer!) to keep the inflammation from getting out of control. Finally, he instructed me that I should do wall-push calf stretches three times/day to keep my calves loose. Oh, and I'm also supposed to keep up with the icing and try to stay off the pavement. After discussing all that, Podiatrist and I then had an interesting conversation about the drug Propofol. That's the potent anesthetic Michael Jackson was taking to supposedly help him sleep; the stuff everybody's saying is really hard to get. Apparently the drug companies Podiatrist buys from have started to push Propofol big-time. Cheaply, too, Podiatrist said around $3.50/vial. He can't figure out why they suddenly started to push this drug when he's never used it in his practice before and it's not something he would ever use. The only thing he figured was that this was all fall-out from MJ. I find that to be very bizarre. But, we are talking about Michael Jackson, here, who can probably be summed up by the same word. He made dang good music, though. Dang good. If I hadn't sold my Thriller and Bad cassettes (yes, I'm that old) at a garage sale last year, I'd totally be jamming out to them right now. Shamon!