Tag Archives: feet

Ramping back up

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Once again on the road to recovering my fitness. After two weeks off and before that short runs with the dog, I am ramping up my longer runs. Well not necessarily super long runs but 6+ milers (to start). Getting back into running after a break is always a difficult thing. The runs all seem harder than they used to be and your pace seems slower than you remember it. The frustrations appear around every corner but the only choice is to blast through them and keep going.This time no exception. The good news is that I at least feel like I have stopped on the precipice of falling out of shape and turned back. My health almost instantly feels better, I feel thinner and firmer. It might all be a mental thing, but hey I’ll take what good feelings I can get.

One bummer is that my feet seem to be aching more now. I thought that the two week rest would do some good, but it appears as if just the opposite has happened. Its as if the running develops some sort of barrier to the pain/discomfort in my feet. Taking time off removes that barrier. Maybe I am just no longer used to it and my body is reacquainting itself with the discomfort. I have done four runs since restarting and it actually does feel a bit better, but at first (and maybe I was expecting my feet to feel better from the break) I was dissapointed. Even during the break my feet were bugging me, but those first couple of runs they were barking!

Yesterday’s run was not too fast but my HR was really high through a lot of it. Made me think that I need to get back to working in recovery runs (my goal for the day!). I really would like to get back on a HR training program and perhaps that is what I will do. Time to break out the HR books and get some inspiration. For the moment, a recovery run will do!

I have also been thinking about picking up a pair of Newton shoes which are well known for their ability to mimic the barefoot runner experience while offering your feet protection (and not looking stupid, so damn important!) If they weren’t so damn expensive $150-200 I would try a pair, but I keep getting caught up with the cost. That and the fact that I haven’t seen them locally and would have to get them online. Not that that has ever been a problem for me in the past!

Hard run after week off

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Not that it is surprising after my increase in miles, but I took a break for a week. Actually it had more to do with the cold wet weather w have had, but my tired body wasn’t arguing. Certainly wasn’t screaming for me to get out in that rain and run! I felt bad for our dog who has been my running partner for the last couple weeks. She gets to go out with me for the first mile and then gets dropped off at home. She loves it! It was funny yesterday near the end of our run she was getting pooped and started to lag behind. Then we cam upon a woman walking her two dogs and Fig perked up to show off darting ahead of me to set the pace. Funny pooch.

I am about 90% certain that I won’t run the full marathon in Vancouver this summer. My feet have really been aching with the increase in miles and I don’t think I want to put up with the training pain just to run the race. Also my pace has been so slow that I don’t feel inspired to really push it. That said I want to keep up with the training (gotta fit into my new jeans and all!) and we’ll see what happens. There is a mara in San Fransisco that I have always wanted to do later in the summer and perhaps that will become my goal. After all I have been threatening to do my solo trip/mara for awhile now, this would be as good a chance as any. It is supposed to be really beautiful. I think I will at least try to do the half in Vancouver, I know I can handle that for sure.

My ever present problems with pain/numbness in my feet are bugging me. A woman who is a naturopathic practitioner said I should breathe in Chi through the top of my head and exhale out the bottoms on my feet, then reverse the process. Supposed to make me feel more grounded which dovetails nicely with the natural running I have been experimenting with. I have tried it a bit, but not enough to really do anything. I have also been focusing on my balance and the position of my feet when stretching to make sure they are flat on the ground. The connection with the earth seems to help a bit there.

Well I have a nice break of sun out right now, so I think I will run a couple of errands that I have. Who knows when it will be sunny again in Portland!

Labor Day recovery

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Well not a recovery from Labor Day, that sounds more like a hangover. This recovery was from yesterday’s 15.5 miles of hard road. I awoke feeling a bit worn out from yesterday. A bit might be an understatement, I was sore and felt pretty sluggish. So getting up I decided to have my usual two cups of coffee (as opposed to only one I would have right before a morning run) and a full compliment of toast and honey. I think the combination of breakfast and yesterday’s eating I recovered pretty solidly and was able to take off for a 5 mile recovery run by 10:30. Makes me think I am still up for a marathon training program. That said I am still pretty worn from the long run. My big toe (with the torn nail) is still hurting, but not bleeding nearly as much as it has been. Add on general foot weariness and I begin to paint a picture of my biggest obstacle to marathon training.

My feet seem to be the most effected part of my health from the ms. I do place the blame for a lot of that on running. Still I believe the benefits of running (and more to the point the high level at which I am doing it) far outweigh any discomfort I am feeling. I suppose I may have to change that assessment down the road, but for now all is good (well mostly all).

So back to the recovery run. I started out with a high HR often approaching 160 before I had even gone a half mile. As warmed up (and/or my heart monitor received a better signal due to sweating) the HR dropped down to a more normal place. I have noticed the high HR at the start of runs in the past. I don’t think it is a misread by the monitor as my heart rate does feel elevated even though I am not putting in the effort. Interestingly when I first started feeling the major ms symptoms, they would always seem to come on heavy at the start of my runs. At first one of my hopeful theories was that I was allergic to some sort of plant in the area as the episodes would occur on the same stretch of blocks. Could it have been the higher HR that brought the stumbling/mumbling episodes on? Nothing else made sense, so this could have been the trigger? Though hills and picking up the pace later in the runs didn’t seem to have anything to do with it.

Other than the initial spike, not much interesting happened on this run. I kept the HR at an acceptable level pretty much throughout. The last hill out of reed pushed me over, but I was busy keeping a decent pace to run past coeds… I think I may do another recovery run tomorrow and save any sort of speed work until Wednesday. It is sort of a necessity with band rehearsal Tues night, gotta keep the mind mostly alert for that.