A Tale of Two Runs

As I move closer to a full year of achilles tendonitis, I am still learning a few do's an dont's. I have found some shoes that work well and some excercises that help my feet become more responsive as they hit the ground (helping to relieve some stress off the achilles). I have also found a number of shoes that dont work. Last week I started a run in a pair of these shoes and had to turn around and switch into the good shoes. It would seem as if armed with this knowledge I might be able to progress a little. Fortunately, I have made a little progress. I have run 30 miles the last two weeks and am on pace to run even more this week. Unfortunately, I have had painful runs in the good shoes... hence "A Tale of Two Runs". Even worse, I have had some good runs in other shoes.

The trick over the past few weeks has been to focus on the current week and the next week no matter how well things are going. I have had some definite days where I was feeling great and had to fight off thoughts of 40, 50, 60.... mile weeks. All I can really do is stick with one of my favorite corporate slogans over the past couple of years.... "I am what I am"

Wheres Waldo

... remember that childhood game? Well thats kind of like my running over the past couple of years. Every so often when I least expect it, I see that striped hat, but more often than not I am just blankly staring into open spaces.
Last month I was starting to feel pretty good, albeit over the course of pretty short runs (30-50 min). Now I am dealing with some slight plantar issues, but I have been on the stationary bike 5 days a week for around 60 min over the past couple weeks.
I am finally heading to PT today, so I am hopeful for the future. The surprising thing is that I have never been really frustrated over the past couple years. I have been good at not letting running take over, but that might be because I have run so little that I havent really built myself up too much.

RITZ....12:56!

Update

The achilles has calmed down a bit, which has allowed to attempt a long base phase. I still plan on heading to PT in October since I still have a bump on my achilles. At the moment I am just running 30-40 minutes a day 5-6 days a week. Depending on how I feel, I am going to slowly creep up the durations of the run. At some point I am going to have to start running with people because comebacks are usually slow when its just one person on their own.

Still Injured

My achilles is still bothering but I have least found a pair of shoes I can run in that minimizes the pain. At the moment I am trying to save a little cash for pt. I was getting treatment until my health plan switched over in june. I have talked to a couple people and it sounds like this injury could take some time to treat, but I have all the time in the world (or at least until I hit my early 30's).

good news bad news

I went for a short run last night and my achilles was definitely tight. That makes it about a month and a half since it first started bothering me, with about only about 5 runs in that time period. The good news is that the pain was higher up and not at the insertion point anymore. This should make it easier to stretch and massage.

Track 2 : four tet-glue of the world

I have a massage tomorrow so this warm weather injury mix might end soon

Warm February Mix Track : My Morning Jacket - Dondante

Enjoy this mix with the windows open and the sound up

Weak Week

With the ice and some achilles tendonitis, this has been a fairly unproductive week. Recently I have been just running by feel to take it easy on my achilles. I am almost certain this is a result of doing strides in spikes. I can only imagine trying to run a 12k in spikes.
Todays run was actually good....not great. I started off at mid 7 minute pace and finished off just under 6 for an hour long run. My achilles was tight for the first couple miles but slowly warmed up as the run went on.
The plan is to keep taking it easy until I can get back to regular training.

Best Week of Workouts Ever

No, not this week.... I found the link to my old training log that was poorly converted over to active. So just in case active trainer or cool running uses google alerts, I have to state how terrible the new training log is. I understand that the costs of running the training log was probably too much for the site, but active does not compare to the user-friendliness of cool running. For now I use logyourrun.com.
But back to the actual post, I have tracked down what is most likely my best week of workouts ever. The week started on April 11th 2005(my 22nd bday!). The first workout on Tuesday and we did 3x800 and 3x200. The 800s were followed with full (6 minute) recovery. I am not sure what the pace was originally, but I guess it was something like 2:04 for all by looking at the times. That is a workout that you have to be focused and feeling good for. We ended up running 2:04, 2:03, 1:59. Running that close to 2:00, anybody would start to get a little hungry and try and dip under 2. I remember the workout going relatively smoothly and feeling in control on the final 800.
Side note, I just found a workout that I did solo that started with a 1:57 800 two years prior. The coach was not even on the track for this workout, which makes it even more impressive. But back to the original topic because that is only one workout.
The second workout seemed more intimidating than the 3x800 in the low 2 minute range. The plan was to run a 1000 in 2:30, followed by 8x200, and ending with an all out 500. I was confused by the fact that I would have to run an all out 500 after running a 1000 at my current all out best. The good news was that it was so windy we changed the 500 to a 400. The bad news was that we were still going to run 2:30 with the wind. Fortunately we had teammates who were doing strides that took turns blocking the wind during the 1000. We ended up running 2:29 low for the 1000(a pr for me). My teammate who had run 2:25 indoors, edged me out as he had in every workout that year. We followed that up with 8x200 and then the dreaded all out 400 with nobody to block the wind. I cant remember, but I can only imagine I was barely edged out again even after running a 54 400 .
I wound up running a 3:49(which ended up being my pr) that year, but feeling as everybody does, I should have run faster.

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for the week. This week was a step forward from last week in both quality and quantity. The workout was not spectacular, but there will be plenty more workouts, and as long they are better than previous weeks, I'll be happy. In addition to running a touch more mileage, I made a conscious effort to start running faster on the normal runs.

First Workout/Racing

I finally got in my first workout on Wed night after work. It was somewhat of a rude awakening. I am really out of shape!
I did 4 miles in 22:24(5:36 avg). I chose a difficult route for my workout, that way at least I could blame some of a slower time on the hills. I started in downtown bethesda on the capital crescent and headed down towards georgetown for 2 miles. The first two miles were nice with the downhill: 5:21 and 5:27. I actually felt really good when I turned around, but the uphill got the better of me. My breathing became labored even though I felt like the effort was right and the bottom slowly fell out as the workout progressed. The next two miles were in 5:50 and 5:43. The last mile was a little faster because it flattened out. At least I have an idea where I am, and I realize I have long way to go.

I have a racing schedule lined up, but I am going to wait until about 3 weeks before races to decide if I am going to race because some races have back up races if I am in not enough shape for the primary race. The first race will be George Washington Birthday 10k in Alexandria on February 14th. The goals are 31:45(minimum), 31:30(good), 31:15(!).

52

miles last week with a crazy long run. Saturday I nearly died after a rough long run. The first 11 miles actually went really well, but running into the wind eventually caught up to me. I did a slow death into the wind and eventually finished up with a 7:30 final miles after running under 6:30 pace the whole way. I spent the next few hours in bed shaking and slighty chilled for the next 4-5 hours.

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Guest post...kind of

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I took the weekend off from running when I was in NY, Ill get back into this week with my first workout of the year.

The Week Behind/The Week Ahead

I finished up the week with53 miles. It was another good week, with a good long run and 10 miler with a 3 mile pick up at the end. Todays long run was a little over 13 and the overall pace was under 6:30. Once I start running under 6:15 comfortably, then I know it is time to go. I did a 3 mile pickup in the middle of the week, which is something I picked up from Hudson's book. I usually scheduled workouts with no real easing into the workouts, so the first couple workouts are a shock to the system. With the pickups, I am gradually getting my body ready for tempos later on (2 weeks). The miles were approximately 5:59, 5:53, 5:36. The second mile was the most impressive given where I ran it.
The plan for next week is to take it easy. I will probably only run 6 days as I am heading to new york on Friday to meetup with some old teammates. No workouts, 80 minute long run, 3 days core, and two days of strides.