Catching Up, Part 2: Lessons Learned

Hello again friends. Welcome to Part 2 of our latest catch up, en route to, yes you heard right, a ✨👟marathon race report👟✨ (by which, just to be clear, I mean a race report about a marathon, not just, like, a **really long** race report).

Catching Up: Part 1 (icymi)

Where were we? Oh yes! End of July 2025; missing out on Tracksmith SF 5000; recovering from a horrific back strain. Let us move on to late summer.

In general, the plan was:

• Mid August ➡️ train for & run a one-mile time trial on the track
• Late August ➡️ Tahoe vacation with family
• September ➡️ Start training for CIM

AUGUST

In which the future was still so bright (in many ways). My back continued to feel fine; I continued to rip fast workouts on the track without worrying too much about building overall mileage. Having run a 6:28 mile on the roads in May with, like, two weeks of mile-specific training, I was very curious what I could manage on the track in spikes having spent the summer doing honest-to-gods speed work. 6:20? 6:15? Faster?? I tried getting a group together for a time trial day (mostly for my own selfish rabbiting purposes) but at that point people were mostly busy getting ready for other things so I ended up going it alone. On a weirdly humid August 17 I drove to the track, did a little warm-up and some strides, put my spikes on, and did my best to flog myself to one all-out mile, with not-terrible results: 

Catching Up, Yet Again: Part 1

Heyyyyy friends 👋👋👋 Long time no post. Such is life; things take crazy turns and suddenly writing about one's hobbies on the internet no longer falls into the top ten most critical tasks to be spending ostensible free time on. However, I HAVE JUST RUN A MARATHON and I feel that needs to be immortalized in these digital pages one way or another, so I'm making time.

But first, we need some context. This series of catch-up posts ends in a race report, but it's a race report that won't make a ton of sense without quickly (well, relatively quickly) buzzing back through the last seven months. So, without further ado......

Where We Left Off

Last we spoke, I had just run a pretty solid track 5K in Oakland (June 19), with plans to spend four weeks getting even faster, then run another track 5K in San Francisco on July 19.  Things went okay for a couple of weeks, and then, in retrospect, I started getting a bunch of messages from my body that ** Hey we are not okay, maybe take a few days off here **, but none of them were ever, like, BRIGHT BLINKING RED and/or I was just so distracted by everything else going on in life that it never really hit me all at once the way it should have.

Big Miles + Radical Rest (Eugene Half Week 4 of 8)

Like most weeks, lately, this one was stressful and exhausting. Maybe not as much as some weeks. But still, I spent so much of the time feeling tired, both in terms of feeling fatigued (runs are hard, hard to motivate off the couch to accomplish basic tasks such as feeding myself) and sleepy (not always getting enough sleep, fighting off daytime naps).

By the time I finished Friday's 7-mile easy run, I was already thinking forward to Sunday's nontrivial long run workout (15 miles including 3 x 2 mile reps at half marathon effort) and strategizing about how I was going to make sure I got the most out of it. Thankfully, this past weekend was one of those rare and beautiful ones where I had absolutely no concrete commitments beyond keeping myself & the cats alive and doing the bare minimum necessary to keep our living space some basic level of functional/not gross.

The strategy I settled on was radical rest, which included the following pillars:

• After running on Friday evening, feed & hydrate self/cats ➡️ sit on couch & watch TV ➡️ go to bed early.
• Saturday ➡️ sleep in as much as possible ➡️ feed & hydrate self/cats ➡️ mostly sit on couch, feed/hydrate as necessary / carb load like a mother ➡️ go to bed early.
• Saturday ➡️ sleep in as much as possible ➡️ hydrate/consume moar carbs (& feed cats) ➡️ coffee ➡️ friggin' *crush* this long run workout.

Now, this *mostly* went to plan, though I cannot honestly say there were *no* deviations:

How Quickly Do We Lose Fitness? (Eugene Half Week 3 of 8)

In case you missed it:

Eugene Half Week 1
Eugene Half Week 2

One of my favorite running podcasts as I've mentioned before is Pro Running News with Dave Lipman and Matt Fox; recently Matt Fox has also started doing his own separate podcast in addition to PRN called Sweat Elite (after his training/coaching company of the same name). 

In general Sweat Elite doesn't speak to me in quite the same way as PRN, but every now and then there is an episode or two that piques my interest. Recently Matt has been doing a series called "Training Talk" which is more focused on the nuts and bolts and fiddly details of designing good training and how a well-designed training plan creates the physiological adaptations (ie., "fitness") that make for strong performance. This week I listened to episode six in the series, entitled How Fast Do You Lose Fitness?, in which Matt interviewed Max Frankel, one of the Sweat Elite coaches and in fact the coach who has actually been designing Matt Fox's own marathon training. (Historically, Matt was/is a pretty high level middle distance runner who I believe even ran for some Australian national teams in his younger days.) 

Originally the episode was supposed to focus on a different topic but thanks to various Life Things, Matt had recently taken some unplanned days off from training, so instead they pivoted to discussing the role and impact of such unscheduled rest days. Ergo: How Fast Do You Lose Fitness?

Thanksgiving Week! (Kaiser Half Week 3 of 13)

This past week was a strange one. It probably all started when I was in Southern California for work last week and basically didn't sleep the night of the 15th, predictably sending my recovery score into the toilet. I recovered a bit over the next couple of days, but after a tempo interval workout Friday followed by a friend's birthday bash, it was back in freefall. I really tried taking it pretty easy those couple of days and was rewarded by a nice solid green spike on Monday just in time for a speed workout! But after that it was right back into the toilet. 🤣😭 

I didn't even look at the score before the Turkey Trot (because why), but later was happy to see that things are slowly once again trending in the right direction!

Anyone else determined to be an absolute sloth the day after Thanksgiving? 😅

 ~*~*~ 🎡 🎡 Kaiser Permanente Half Week 3 of 13 🎡 🎡 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 37 miles

🐌 Easy: 31.4 miles
🐎 Speed: 2.5 miles
🏅 Race: 3.1 miles

⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 85% vs. 15%

More Recovery Talk (Victory Half Week 3 of 8)

Not that I've had any actual *hard* or *intense* weeks yet, but this last week was slightly easier (in terms of how much running I've done) than Week 2 for a couple of reasons:

1) A last-minute ski weekend in Tahoe! Back in December I got new skis and have been looking forward to trying them out. Since there's now ten bazillion feet of snow in Tahoe (and somehow all my free Jan/Feb weekends are starting to fill up with Stuff), it seemed like a good time to go. (Also, this early in my season when I am running fairly low mileage, I don't really mind taking an extra day or two off of running.)

 Top of Lake View Chair at Palisades

2) My lower left leg/ankle has been feeling a bit tight and pound-y, and again, there's no reason to risk overdoing it this early when I'm just trying to build up the miles and re-acclimate my whole body to running. Luckily I was able to get in with my massage therapist on Wednesday who did some SERIOUS work beating up my various fascias and such. It's generally better to give body work a good 12-24 hours to settle in before a run anyway, so rather than thinking of it as a Sad Unplanned Rest Day, I tried to think of it as smart recovery so I could run happy on Thursday.

Speaking of recovery, a quick reminder of the basic equation that governs all of training, for literally anything:

All-In On Recovery (Victory Half Week 1 of 8)

Technology is amazing, think of all the years I spent without a watch to let me know how tired I am. 🤣😭

So, starting in mid-2021, I decided to go all-in on injury prevention. Of course injury prevention is key for anyone making an effort to challenge themselves with their running and racing, but the older I get, the more clear it is that keeping all my parts strong and happy and bouncing back from what I ask them to do is going to take regular, systematic attention (vs. the whack-a-mole / catch-as-catch-can approach of my 20s and 30s).

Of course part of the reason I was never able to attack injury prevention with as much gusto as I would have liked in my younger years (especially 20s) has (like so many other things in life) to do with time and money. Not that I'm rolling in the dollah dollah bills now or anything, but one of the perks of getting older and further along in my career has meant that I do have more flexibility and control over my time than I used to, and a bit more expendable income. Even so, just a few years ago, I still did a lot of skimping around stuff like strength and body work and was constantly asking myself, "Geez, this stuff isn't cheap, is it really worth it?" 

And the conclusion I came to at age 40 (knowing that I have enough expendable income now to do it without being irresponsible) is "HELL YES, it's worth it." Because it's not just about being able to run the way I want to; it's also about just generally taking care of my various bones and muscles and joints so that I can be that old lady toodling happily around the track and living happily and independently well into my golden years.

This year's theme, I think, is shaping up to be recovery.

Stacking Solid Weeks (& avoiding overtraining...)

Christmas Relays Team 246 (minus one)!

Happy holiday season, friends! I hope you are doing well and getting some time for rest and relaxation.

I'd still count this most recent week as "solid," but will *also* admit that I probably got a bit overexciting when my calf stopped seizing up and overdid the miles. (Jumping from a month+ at ~10 miles/week or so to 28.5 is something my 31-year-old self could get away with; my 41-year-old self, on the other hand, maybe not so much.) Plus there was "racing" two events in two weeks when my body is very, very, VERY much not in racing shape. I'm still feeling healthy and injury-free (🙌), but my body and mind have been absolutely ***exhausted*** this week, I've slept over nine hours on several consecutive nights, and my numbers in the gym (even upper body stuff) have completely fallen off a cliff.

My strength coach has informed me that this proooooobably indicates a mild case of overtraining (or what the fitness pros refer to as "nonfunctional overreaching") these past two weeks, to the extent that it's causing central nervous system fatigue (hence why all my lifting has been poopy and not just leg stuff). This is not a huge deal but apparently it does indicate that I haven't been fully recovering from what I've been putting my body through, even though I've been getting plenty of sleep and food.

But hey, it's the holidays, so great timing I guess??? We are heading out to Spokane this week so I'll definitely have time to get plenty of sleep and a break from work & the grind of daily life.

 ~*~*~ Week of 12/12-12/18 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 22.5 miles

* 15.2 easy
* 2.8 speed
* 4.5 race

Training Log: Two Weeks to SACTOWN 10 Miles

 Hey, I survived Oakland Half Marathon! Better than survived it!

Running last week was pretty boring as I was mostly just trying to recover from the race, so maybe it's a good time to mention how *weird* that race/recovery process was compared to my memory of past half marathons. Like I said in my race report, I didn't feel like I ran the race all that hard -- for the first seven miles I was running in total comfort, and I didn't really try to run hard until the last 5K. That said, I ran hard enough at the end that I was VERY happy to be done, but I also felt pretty normal pretty quickly after (ie, no wandering around in a daze/looking for a place to throw up) and drove home feeling peppy and spry.

That evening and the next couple days, though? Oh ho ho! A different story!

When the Itch Comes Back

No, this is not a TMI post about some kind of dermatological problem; rest assured I am rash- and pest-free and have not been going barefoot in the gym shower.

Believe it or not, we're talking about the itch to run.

Like I kind of mentioned in this post, since I started training "seriously" (whatever that means) about nine years ago, I've never *really* given myself permission to take an extended break from running. If you don't count serious injuries, I think the longest amount of time I've gone without running since 2009 was about a month, after my first marathon in 2011. Other than that, I don't think I've ever taken off more than a week, maybe two but maybe not, when I've been completely healthy and physically able to run.

After B2B, though, I needed to. Like obviously I needed some physical recovery time but I also felt like I just needed some time mentally away not just from training but any kind of running at all. It was almost like having a little bit of a running hangover; I didn't even want to jog across the street to make a light.

I wanted to come home from work and go work on my house, or read a book, or work on a grant proposal, or just freaking sit on the couch and watch an episode of Quantico. (Do not watch that show, btw, it is awful. It's too late for me but there may be hope still for you.)

I wanted to run errands and grocery shop and cook without constantly looking at the clock.

I wanted to go out to eat or to a BBQ or have friends over and not overthink every bite and sip that went into my mouth.

I wanted to go to karate and not be exhausted, to have my legs feel light and snappy and like I could spar full speed with other black belts and not endanger myself.

So I did. And it has been So. Great. If you've generally been in the habit of jumping from training cycle to training cycle, never taking more than a week or two off either because of fear of losing fitness or gaining weight or FOMO or peer pressure or just plain suppressing any inkling of desire to take an extended break from running, I highly *highly* recommend it.

I kind of felt like I wanted to start training mid-June-ish for my September 10K and October half, but I never put a hard and fast timeline on it. Something I definitely did NOT want to do was try to start training again if it was going to feel like a chore. Basically, every morning I'd wake up and ask myself, "Do I feel like running today? Even just 2-3 miles, maybe?"

And every day, the answer was, "Nope! Not even a little. 100% into chores/errands/renovations work/Netflix & wine." I've even (mostly) kept up with my blog reading, which in the past has sometimes made me want to go register for all the things. But this time my response was more, "WOO GO SO-N-SO!!" {as I sit back & turn on HBO & refill my glass of pinot.}

This past weekend, though, I have to say there was just a glimmer of an itch. My painful toenail finally fell off. My massage therapist has very nearly turned my steel cable (her words) adductors back into flesh & blood. Being semi-sedentary is starting to lose just a *bit* of its glamor.

I'm not saying I want to go smash something at the track. I'm not saying I want to go run 20 miles, or even 10. Some little aches & pains that I assumed were running related have not yet fully healed or gone away, and I haven't spent quite as much time in the gym or doing mobility work as I'd planned to this month.

Still. I was reading a blog post on Saturday about someone reaching a half marathon milestone time goal by less than 30 seconds and how amazing it felt, and for just a second I thought, "I WANT TO DO THAT! (Maybe, sort of? Semi-soonish?)"

So, yeah. I finally dug back into the running bag I never completely unpacked after Big Sur. I plugged in my watch (completely dead, of course) and fished out my road ID. There's technically a training plan for my 10K & half loaded into RunCoach but I'm a long way from ready to jump into it, so maybe sometime this week I'll head out to one of the local trails on the way home from work and set my watch to show nothing but time of day & heart rate & see how it feels to jog two or three nice easy miles. Just a little something to get the legs moving, and then we'll go from there.

The Life-Changing Magic of Bottoming Out

As you might imagine, after we got home from Big Sur on April 30th, I took a week completely off all physical activity (except going to work, which is to say, I went to work *at least* three days of five). Recently, though, I've gotten back to a basic level of activity. Very, very basic.

Some things I've been up to post-Boston/Big Sur:

Karate. I've been treating my class like my red headed step child these last few months & was starting to wonder if our students would even remember who I was. I still can't do any kicks properly but at least I can move around okay.

Hell Yeah Mellow March

So like I mentioned before, in the days immediately following NVM, I had all these grand plans about getting back to srsbzns training sooner rather than later, because what is a non-race pace marathon besides a glorified long run?

Of course I quickly accepted that, DERP, clearly according to my body, a marathon is still a marathon, even if you don't attempt to actively blow the doors off the thing.

So my March weekly mileage has looked like this:

• Week 1: 0 miles
• Week 2: 23 miles
• Week 3: 15 miles
• Week 4: 16 miles

In some cases I would have run more had I not been traveling for work or out of town for the weekend, but since my body has been *quite* clearly communicating sentiments along the lines of "Six miles is plenty at once, plzthnx" and "Maybe not so much with the two days in a row for now," that's actually kind of been good timing.

Other things I have been doing shall we say less-than-much of include 1) eating like any kind of remotely serious athlete and 2) strength work. I did have a session with AT this month (where we worked on deadlifts, HELL YEAH DEADLIFTS) but other than that I've been to the gym maybe 4-5 times. Probably 4. (Though I would be remiss if I didn't mention that on one of those visits, I straight-up DEADLIFTED MY BODY WEIGHT for the first time since probably high school. And since I definitely weigh more now than then, deadlift PR FTW.)

It was pretty much like this.

But otherwise I have been mostly embracing Matt Fitzgerald's very reasonable-sounding philosophy that no one can eat like a serious athlete 100% of the time (not even serious athletes) & that, much like having a relaxed recovery period after a training cycle, letting yourself have a bit of time where you eat more or less whatever you want, whenever you want (and knowing you'll let yourself do that for a while after a goal race) can help give you the resolve you need to eat well when you're in the middle of training for something you seriously care about.

Seriously all the Trader Joe's snack dips.

I'd originally planned to start some easy hill workouts in the last week or two of March, but with "easy" runs still not quite feeling easy enough yet for my taste, I decided to push it off until April, which seemed to make a lot of sense given that we'll be in Colorado skiing (or hiking, or maybe swimming?? Only the weather will tell) this weekend.

But after that, it is ON.

Hill sprints, get your game face on, because I am coming for you on April 7.

(Er....assuming I don't break myself skiing. :-/ )

Admit it, sloth is kind of awesome.

Life has been fairly calm since NVM. This past week I slept a lot, wrote a couple of race reports, caught up on some work, and spent a lot of time drinking wine in soft pants.

It turns out sloth recovery is pretty awesome.

I'd figured I'd do a little running on Wednesday or Thursday, just two or three miles or so to shake out my legs, which actually would have been fine since I was never really sore from the race (?!?!); however, as of Tuesday a couple of my toes started to feel like they'd been slammed in a car door and/or broken, so running was not really in the cards for a few days.

Which, honestly, was fine. I did go to karate both days, but besides that, it's been kind of nice to spend the evenings sitting around slothing it up recovering & catching up on some reading.

(Speaking of which, I have some reviews in the works for you. And also a "Classics of 2015" post that is just taking an absurdly long time to finish.)

Various dentists have been bugging me to get my wisdom teeth out for the last ten years or so and at my check-up in January I was informed that I had my very first cavities ever (THREE. Wtf?) & needed some fillings. The first weekend post-marathon when I'm slothing it up recovering anyway seemed like the most logical time to deal with all that, so this weekend has been pretty chill as well.

Apparently, I took a bunch of horrific selfies when I got home from the dentist Friday morning while I was still "under the influence." I remember nothing until about 10pm that night.

I recovered incredibly quickly, though, which was good since Saturday was our "W" dinner party.

Welsh Rarebit on wheat & white bread. If you are not acquainted with the magic that is Welsh rarebit, just imagine what it might be like if you mixed melted cheddar cheese, heavy cream, Porter, & a bunch of spices together. Basically the most amazing cheese sauce in the history of ever.

Wings

(Beef) Wellington

(Beef) Wellington w/ wilted spinach salad with watermelon radishes, whipped potatoes, & Washington cab

Winter fruits with whiskey-infused whipped cream, whiskey syrup, and walnut liqueur.
(This may have been the best idea I ever had, btw.)

Could there possibly be a more fitting meal with which to end my week of sloth recovery? I think perhaps no.

I've started some preliminary planning for the next phase of my attack on 3:30, so more on that soon. Before that, though, I suppose I should formally close the book on this training cycle with one last weekly recap:

~*~*~NVM WEEK 16 OF 16~*~*~

Grand Total: 41.9 miles

* 17.5 easy
* 26.4 race

No strength work besides some push-ups & crunches in karate. I've promised myself I'll get back to it with some amount of consistency now that my week of sloth recovery is over.

Monday: Karate

Tuesday: 6 easy

Technically this was supposed to include a couple of GMP miles, but I still wasn't feeling 100% & decided it was more likely that I would regret doing the fast miles than regret not doing them.

Wednesday: Karate

I had to teach this night but took it pretty easy. There are not many things worse on race week than inflicting some dumb and completely avoidable injury on yourself (which I have done).

Thursday: 6 easy

Forgot to charge my watch so just ran my usual six-mile loop at a super easy pace, which maybe is not the worst thing ever three days out from a race.

Friday: Rest

Actually would have really liked to have gotten a short run in, but I restrained myself & stuck to the plan.

Saturday: 2 easy

A quick shake-out jaunt around the neighborhood before we headed to Napa.

Sunday: 1.5 warm-up / 26.4 race

Race report here. :)

NVM WEEK 2: bones all still on the inside....for now....

This week has been a combination of not getting to sleep when I wanted, not sleeping well, and feeling exhausted even when I have slept well. I did not get up early for the gym even once, went to work late once, took half a sick day on another day, & just worked from home altogether on a third. I'd hoped that all of that would help me catch up on sleep some & that I would be feeling better by the end of the week, but no.

In general my strategy for fitting everything in is getting up at 6am three times a week, getting to the gym by 6:45, (ideally) getting to work between 8 & 8:30, then running first thing when I get home. To make this work, I've learned by trial and error that I really need to get in bed by 10:00 and sleep well. If I'm up too much later than that, don't sleep well, or wake up at 3am & can't get back to sleep (which, sadly, is sometimes a thing), it's just not going to happen.

I used to try to push through sleep deprivation & do my 6:45 strength work anyway & then work a full day, but the result was almost always 1) pulling off the highway to sleep because I'm nodding off at the wheel, 2) falling asleep in the locker room, 3) falling asleep at work, or 4) getting next to nothing done at work & crashing as soon as I get home. No more. These days, if I don't sleep enough or well, then I either skip the gym & do it another day or work from home, depending on how severe things are.

(If you want my opinion--which I can only assume you do; I mean you're reading this voluntarily, after all--skimping on sleep in order to find extra time is about as smart as skipping meals in order to drop weight or ignoring your bills in order to save money. Which is to say, it's stupid and ultimately ineffective. Sooner or later, the Sandman will hunt your ass down and extract his pound of flesh, with interest.)

In the last year or so I've really been trying to take sleep more seriously, partly on the advice of Coach Tom. Something I learned from him was that while rest days are important for bone and muscle recovery, sleep plays an even more important role since that's when your body pumps out massive amounts of human growth hormone (HGH). HGH is important for all kinds of bodily healing, but it is particularly important for bone healing and regeneration. Apparently the one thing that just about all elite runners (and athletes in many other sports as well) have in common is sleeping 9-10 hours a day, with many even making a point of getting a nap in between a.m. & p.m. workouts, partly for this reason.

So yeah, ideally I'd sleep well & then get up & go do my 6am strength workout 3x weekly without fail, but if I have to choose between the two, these days I choose sleep, every time, no question. (After eight years of teaching school, I'm also incredibly thankful to now have a job where I can work from home from part or all of the day from time to time. Given that going to the office means 1.5-2 hours of commuting, being able to trade that time for extra sleep occasionally is a big help.)

I had three runs towards the end of this week (Thursday, Friday, & Sunday) which were not great, & a bunch of little niggles that haven't bothered me in a while started popping up. At first this was just mysterious & upsetting, but then Sunday night while I was fretting about all this, two things hit me:

1) I remembered the whole sleep-healing-HGH thing. Not enough sleep => stuff not healing all the way / as quickly => niggles, in addition to generally feeling like ass.

2) Although my mileage lately has been hanging out in the mid 30s which is not really all that much for me, I kind of started to wonder how the amount of time I've spent running lately compares to this summer when I was marathon training at much faster paces.

Behold:

Thanks, RunningAhead!

So yeah. In terms of number of hours spent pounding the pavement each week, apparently I've been sneaking up into that mid-to-peak marathon training range, just because I've been running so much more slowly. Don't get me wrong, in general I definitely have felt MUCH better than during peak marathon training & haven't had any actual injury scares (fingers crossed), but it wouldn't surprise me if feeling tired & a bit niggly here & there was related not only to miles per week but to hours per week as well.

~*~*~NVM WEEK 2 OF 16~*~*~

Grand Total: 33 miles

* 29 easy
* 4 goal marathon pace
* a few bits & scraps of strength work here & there? :/

Monday: a.m. strength work / p.m. karate

I have been trying to do my strength work on Monday, Wednesday, & Friday mornings, but I think I may be reaching that point with long runs where my body needs the extra sleep the morning after. Or this may be just another manifestation of my lack of good sleep in general.

Tuesday: 2 wu, 2 @ GMP, 1 easy, 2 @ GMP, 2 cd = 9 total

A little bit tougher than my first GMP run last week, which I'm guessing has to do with doing a long run only 48 hours prior, whereas last week I'd had two days of rest plus a day of short, easy running between the long run & GMP run. Also I was feeling so enthusiastic about the 1400 v2's that I wore them for this run, which I think was a bit too much, too soon for my feet.

Wednesday: a.m. strength work / p.m. karate Rest

Didn't sleep well & woke up feeling not so great & decided again that nope, I still needed sleep more than I needed strength work. Then it poured Wednesday night which wreaked havoc on Bay Area traffic, & when Google Maps said it would likely take us 1.5 hours to drive the 15 miles to Berkeley, we decided to cancel class for the night. But hey, I used that time to clean almost our whole house, so at least I was productive!

Thursday: 8 easy

My legs felt kind of whiny & unstable on this run (again, in retrospect, I am blaming lack of sleep) which was exacerbated by the rain, darkness, & the horrible fear I have of slipping & falling on wet pavement & suffering some kind of grievous injury. On the other hand, it ended up being my second best speed-to-heart-rate ratio run thus far, so yay?

Friday: 6 easy

Similar to the day before, I never felt great on this run while it was happening, and later that evening I started having some rather concerning achey pain in the spot on my left leg where I had the stress fracture earlier this year. If you've ever had a stress fracture or similar injury that put you out for multiple months, you know how paranoid and panicky you can get about those things, even if it's been totally fine for a long time. I made it through my entire Santa Rosa training cycle this past summer without a peep from that bone (running a LOT more towards the end than I am now), so I didn't really get why pain in that area would pop up suddenly like that now. But again, in retrospect, I am at least in part blaming lack of good sleep.

Saturday: trails in the rain Rest

I'd planned to join Jen & a few other folks on a trail run in Marin on Saturday morning, but around 3am the same pain in the same spot as I'd had the day before woke me up out of a dead sleep & didn't go away for hours. (Once I definitely had the stress fracture last Christmas, being kept up at night by the pain was one of the worst parts, so this definitely had all my panic neurons firing.) It bummed me out a lot to do it but I ended up bailing on the trail run in order to sleep more & pump out a bunch of that sweet, sweet HGH & hopefully give whatever was going on in my leg a chance to heal. I can hop and walk and run with no pain on impact & can knock the bone pretty hard & roll it on a Lacrosse ball with no pain, so I know the stress fracture is not back (we can talk about the completely and totally unmistakable pain involved in stress fractures sometime if you want), but it is still right in the same spot, so that's causing me to pay more attention to it when I run & see if I can pinpoint anything I'm doing that might be aggravating it.

Sunday: 14 long 10 easy

By Sunday morning, the pain was pretty much completely gone, so I figured I'd try a few easy miles & see if it seemed like systems were all go for my scheduled 14 miler. Alas, I was (again) exhausted Saturday night & slept in Sunday morning & then lost track of time while we were running afternoon errands, & by the time I started my run I only had enough time for ten before I needed to be home to get ready for dinner with friends. Which was okay, actually, because for whatever reason my feet were KILLING me after about seven, and I was also having some bizarro bone pain in the top of my right shin, which is not a thing that's ever happened before (SLEEP!!! {shakes fist at sky}).

So, yeah. I hadn't planned for this to be a cut-back/recovery week, mainly because I feel like I'm not actually doing much of anything all that intense enough to need to cut-back/recover from. But to quote what Kelly was saying a couple weeks back, "when your body is done it’s done. You can’t make it not be done. You can’t tell it that that really wasn’t too much training or that other people would be fine on that schedule. If you’re done, then that’s that."

So it's probably for the best that this is a holiday week. I'll have several days to catch up on sleep, & it will be okay if all the traveling & conditions in Spokane means I don't get in as much mileage this week as planned. Better to cut back & recover a little bit & then be ready to get back at it for reals (for a few weeks, anyway) when we get back.