Well not too long, but longer than I have done lately. This break comes courtesy of my schedule, too much music to keep running regularly. But I can’t blame it all on the music, my laziness has had its place in this as well.Today, I broke through the lazy barrier and slipped on my running shoes and out the door I went.
Speaking of shoes, I have always had a problem with foot sensations. My feet often feel like I am wearing shoes that are too tight. This gets pretty uncomfortable while I am running for sure. Sometimes I just focus on my feet not feeling so uncomfortable and I can trick myself into believing it. I am not too good at it, but I try. It usually works well for short stretches of time. I visualize my feet hitting the ground and how they compress with each step. I often try to feel the entire bottom of my foot hitting the ground flatly and evenly. Its almost as if each step is embracing the weight I am putting on it. This will work or short periods of time, but my brain is smart enough to know discomfort when it feels it! Still, it often gets me through the ends of my runs. Last week I was noticing how particularly tight the fronts of my feet near the ball of my foot and toes. As I was going along and ruminating on it I looked down at my feet and noticed that they look ed a little tight as well. So when I got home I loosened them up quite a bit especially towards the bottom of the laces. This seemed to help quite a bit, especially at the start. After a mile or so I had to tighten them up a bit near the top, but I left the toe area loose. As the run went on they started feeling tight again around mile 3.5. I have noticed this threshold before as well. Probably has to do with my feet swelling a bit as they get stomped on. Still I have to say this really seemed to help. Certainly didn’t stop the discomfort, but hey, us msers are all about small improvements! And I was able to run eight miles today with little issue. At one point I noticed that my breathing felt pretty solid, my legs didn’t feel tired, I didn’t feel tired and it was only my feet that were barking at me. The looser laces seemed to help me with my visualizing of comfort as I felt my feet spreading out and filling my shoes. Overall I think it was a good decision, now I just need to loosen my other pair!
It wasn’t too hot today at noon, but not cool either. I am finding myself really enjoying the hot runs. Of course I have to have water which is sort of a pain, but it isn’t too bad to deal with, especially now that I loosened my water belt a tad too to go along with my shoes! Sweating so hard really takes it out of me hydration wise and I have to really work to reestablish proper levels. Still working on it today…