Week of 09/30/2007 - 10/06/2007 (Transition Week 7)

Obviously the story of the week is Geb, the amazing perfect human being. I was really, really not expecting this turn of events, but at the same time, when I saw it, I wasn't really all that surprised. No one had really even gotten close to Tergat's time in so long, I had started to wonder if it would take the next generation to break it, but then again, Haile has been churning out WR's recently and it was sort of like, well ofcourse, Geb can do anything. duh. The man is fast, and also a fierce competitor, and also a classy, cheery, likeable sort of guy. He's also interesting in that he's adapted with age, always being the best at what he does--instead of having one event and eventually declining and retiring. For me, I guess the fact that people who are 34 years old and still setting world records exist makes the loss of one competitive year of my 20's slightly less devastating.

From the old to the new, someone who's been getting slightly less attention at least for the time being replaces Shalane Flanagan as my new girl hero:

http://www.iaaf.org/WRU07/news/Kind=2/newsId=41916.html

10K girls can do anything. Imagine setting an AR in your debut half marathon. Per a recent Caltech blog thread, she is rapidly becoming the more impressive Goucher.

Sunday 09/30: 42:11 with KB to the RB and back. First "long" run, by which I mean accompanying the lovely Ms. Breeden on a recovery jog :). Felt pretty good though, didn't feel like the extra 10 minutes was taxing, thus leading me to the conclusion that currently the limiting factor is not cardiovascular fitness but the structural integrity of my feet. Time passed quickly, good to talk and chill out.

Ate a lot of bread, then resurrected physical therapy. Lots of icing and stretching. Various aches and pains are coming and going and its hard to tell exactly what's happening. Both ankles now seem to have stabilized, but now the arches feel tight and sore, plus the funny tendons that run above the metatarsals are sometimes achy. I thought for a while that my toe was collapsing again, but upon closer inspection, I can grab the toe itself and jerk it around and joint isn't painful at all... its just that where tendon attaches to the toe knuckle is bizarrely inflamed. Not sure what causes this or how to fix it, so for now, just icing a lot and attempting to stretch the top of my feet (which is an awkward and mostly ineffective endeavor).

Monday 10/01: 30:23, goodbye pile 'o wood chips, hello La Loma bridge! I've finally decided to extend the formerly 30 minute run out a few hundred meters to become the newly 30 minute run. Happy to put the Nike Frees back on my feet. I can't explain why, but my feet just feel better in them. Did some more PT, tried to massage out those weird little tendons on the top of my feet. L Arch still a bit tight and sore, gotta keep an eye on that.

As I was heading back past the park on the Arroyo, my usually calm, pleasant jogging was interrupted by the growing awareness of heavy breathing behind me. Momentarily distressed, I quickly got out of the way to let he/she/it pass on by... and was suddenly confronted by a vision of a former self: a short, dorky looking asian girl came barreling through on my left side, arms flailing wildly in bad form, huffing and puffing, she turned and scrambled on up the trail up to the streets above and disappeared as quickly as she had appeared.

She looked as I imagine I must have looked several years ago as a fledgling runner, with a chip on my shoulder and something to prove, pounding out the miles as fast as I could, running as if the demons were right behind me... Its not that I've quelled those demons, per se. They are still alive and kicking, perched firmly on my shoulder, they've never left my side--whispering sweet nothings in my ear about wasted potential, I've missed my chance, I'll never be unbroken again and gosh, how much of a disappointment I've turned out to be... but what I've learned in the past few months is that what you have to do is grit your teeth and tell them to shut the hell up and be patient. Because shit happens, LIFE happens... and great runners are forged over years, not weeks and months. So you just have to suck it up and do whatever you have to do, every day to train, or be able to train. Its not always pretty, but, I guess that's just too bad.

Tuesday 10/02: 33:04, to the RB and back. Inaugural run in my new old ebay Nike Free's, freshly delivered from Canada! The Nike Free 5.0 v2 is the best shoe ever made. Unfortunately they are REALLY hard to find even on ebay, and my first pair are getting very, very worn. Also some debacles at work, didn't get home until sunset, so did a slightly sketchy Arroyo run in the semi-dark. Hard to see footing, so a bit scary, but otherwise, it was actually really nice. Good temperature, felt relaxed and form felt good, breathing easy, legs fresh.

Wednesday 10/03: 35:39, tried to find the "20 minute rock" and was disgruntled to realize it had either been removed or rolled to the other side. You take half a year off and everything's all different.... sheesh. This used to be the standard 20 minute mark on an easy run starting from my house--thought it would be a good 16-17 minute turnaround for my current Arroyo route, but it ended up taking 18 minutes. Felt crappy today. Stomach felt heavy, had a mild side stitch, breathing felt shallow, legs felt uncoordinated and eyes hurt a lot today from allergy or infection. Went slow(er than usual) and felt irritated. I guess I'm almost 3 whole weeks in at this point, so maybe statistically there's got to be a crummy day in there at some point.

Also noted, per Mark's observation about physical therapy exercises, I feel like mine are both helping and hurting this week. Feeling some good progress in the stability of the toe in question, but at the same time, I feel like those funny little muscles in my shins are sore now, and where they feed into my ankles feels weaker... I think the answer here is to keep at the exercises, and maybe plan in a "down" week next week. I'm on track to be increasing 30 min/week, but when one's weekly total is like 2-3 hours, that's 15-20% increase per week. Maybe that's a lot for just starting out. I guess that's alright since next week will probably end up being light anyways due to travel.

Thursday 10/04: Off. Trying to get stuff done for the trip. Managed to squeeze in some physical therapy, the more PT I do the better my toe feels but the worse my weird little ankle tendons feel. Hope that goes away soon.

Friday 10/05: 43:24 to the RB, a little ways around the trails on the side and then back. Felt... eh. Wasn't going that slow, but kinda choppy, not as relaxed as usual. Just felt like I was getting through the allotted time, which is sad because I usually really enjoy my runs lately. On second thought a lot of this may be explained by the fact that I had to run in the morning, which I've sorely gotten out of the habit of, and we all know I am NOT a morning person, at least not in my natural state. Felt really tired, hard to get out of bed, and just not excited about anything except crawling back into bed.

Mostly all of my other runs have been at dusk, after I've been awake and fed for a while and generally itching to stop doing work stuff and get out there to do some running stuff. This morning I felt inadequately rested, stressed out and crunched for time, which made going out there feel like a chore rather than something to look forward to... I think I'm fixating on this because I really want to avoid that state where running becomes a severe emotional stress, and right now there's no reason why it should have to be that way.

Saturday 10/06: 42:22, debacles in far away lands! Around confusing little Maine country roads, got lost, somehow my "easy" day got turned into a "long" day and running harder than normal too to try to get back to the hotel in time to get ready for Stu's wedding. Nice weekend getaway on the New England coast with Peter though :). Unfortunately not a good running location, all of the things that looked like trails were some rich person's driveway--so ended up running on the pavement for the first time in months in my Nike Frees--not sure I'd recommend this. Argh, my heels hurt... Its so much easier to run on pavement though, other than the impact factor. There were also a lot of these tiny little hills, which made me realize that I am in VERY appallingly poor climbing shape--harder than I would have liked. All in all, the 40 minutes didn't seem too long, and the slightly faster than jogging pace didn't feel too bad, so mostly a good run. Took an Aleve upon returning to help with the anticipated heel pain tomorrow.

Target training: 3 hours and 30 minutes
Traing to date: 3:45:03 hours

As much as I dislike off days, the 1 day off a week system will have to be the steady-state for a while. I find that my feet require that rest day, and while they are still tentative, probably best not to push it. For this week I'd like to phase in a few 35-40 minute type runs provided that my feet are holding steady.