WeekS in Review: June 4 - 17

This is my weekly training journal. Including it in the blog gives me a little extra accountability in the mileage department & helps me stick to my schedule. :)

1 week to SF Pride Run 5K

7 weeks to Summer Breeze 10K

10 weeks to Santa Rosa Half Marathon

I am combining these two weeks because there is really no point in writing two separate posts. My running activity for the last two weeks consisted of exactly three runs:

Monday, June 4: 5-7 easy Karate + strength work. After not running Sunday, I really, really wanted to get some--really, any--amount in on Monday, but Don & I actually both started new jobs that day, & with trying to work out our transportation arrangements & get ourselves to karate, there was just no time.

Tuesday, June 5: 5.7 easy. Ugh...You can read about this horror story of a run here if you want. That's really all I have to say about that.

Wednesday, June 6: Karate + strength work. I think it's safe to say that from here on out, there will literally be zero time for running on Mondays or Wednesdays in the foreseeable future unless I skip karate.

Friday: 3 easy + 4 HM/LTish pace + 1 easy = 8. I really had no plan for this run; all I knew was that I was getting that twitchy, anxious feeling I get when I haven't been able to run much, so even though I was physically exhausted when I got home, I headed out. For most of the first mile, I debated how far I would go and at what pace (four miles? Ten? Six? Eight? All easy? Some HM paces miles? A few speed intervals?). In the end I decided not to overdo it, but to try to pick up some of the middle miles & just run at a faster pace that felt good. Miles 4-7 ended up being 7:27, 7:28, 7:09, & 7:21, so somewhere between LT & HM pace. Ultimately a good run (and no asthma or hives, which was a great relief after Tuesday), though the pain in my left heel came back after I'd showered, changed, & relaxed on the couch for a while. :P

Saturday, June 9: 10 easy. I don't know if there's a "wait an hour after champagne / cheese / cheetos" rule when it comes to running, but if there's not, there probably should be. I spent Saturday afternoon celebrating Courtney's birthday in Golden Gate Park, which led to ingesting the above. As glorious as it was, my stomach was NOT happy afterward during the run, which I suppose I should've foreseen. I'd (kind of half-heartedly) planned 14, but there was just no way it was going to happen. I was quite proud of just getting to double digits

June 10 - 18: No running. No karate.

So yeah. That whole 200 mile June thing? Apparently the part of my brain that keeps my work schedule forgot to communicate with the part of my brain that sets my running schedule as I've basically done nothing but work and drive since that last run.

In addition to not running this past week, I've also been skipping karate and eating the free breakfast offered at my morning job:

Oh hai, empty carbs!

Not because it's good or I like it, but because it means less work for me in the morning. (Key, because this job has me getting up a bit earlier than I'm used to.)

So yeah. Between all these things, it's been kind of hard to get excited about PrideRun this Saturday. It's gone from no-pressure-almost-a-fun-run to dear-Jesus-just-please-don't-let-me-embarrass-myself. In the end, though, it's for a good cause, and, hey, at least it means I'm guaranteed to get in 3-4 miles this week, so I'll probably still do it

Besides, taking a little break this might not have been the worst idea I ever had. In the last few months, I've started having weird pain in my heels. It started in the right, around the sides (ie, if I put my index finger & thumb around the back of my heel & squeezed, it felt tender), then gradually appeared in the left as well. My first association when it comes to heel pain is always plantar fasciitis, but I've never had it before and everything I've ever heard/read about that has described the pain as more on the bottom of the heel, towards the arch. The only other thing I could find that sounded even remotely plausible was a calcaneous stress fracture, but stress fractures are generally MUCH more painful that this and don't show up symmetrically, so I dismissed that pretty quickly & just kind of hoped the pain would just go away on its own. (Hey, sometimes it really does.)

But in recent weeks, it hasn't gone away. The pain in the right heel is still there but much milder than it used to be, while the left has gotten much worse. Also, the pain has worked its way down from the sides of my heel to underneath it, which brought me back to the possibility of PF. But again, everything I've read about it says the pain is usually more towards the arch and sometimes up into the arch, and mine isn't at all. It's mostly on the outer edges of the heel part of my sole, with some tenderness right in the middle. After 9 days off, they feel a little better, but the pain is still distinctly there even just walking.

So that's kind of where things stand. Part of the trouble with the last week was that I was trying to juggle four jobs simultaneously, but now that one of them is done, I'll hopefully be able to get at least *some* amount of running in this week. I mean, it would be good if I showed up to PrideRun actually remembering how to run a 5K, right?

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