Tag Archives: foot pain

Over 10, Under 10

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Today was a quality run I marked in red in my running journal. Not quite an LSD run as my heart rate was up for much of it. I’d like to see a slightly slower pace (or not) and the HR down (the main thing) in the future. This is the second week in a row I have gotten one of these longer runs in, big improvement this week. I felt stronger and especially so when I saw that I was under 10 min mile pace at the four mile mark. My route was a pretty nice neighborhoody run through Woodstock and East Moreland and out to the Springwater Corridor where I went through the three bridges section. This led to the neighborhood of mystery which I circled (still mysterious) before I ran through Sellwood and its park curving up into East Moreland and through my long reed college route which included the half mile “O”. On the edge of Reed and Woodstock I took a walking break before heading home (which included another walking portion).

At about the seven mile mark I was still 90 seconds ahead of a 10 min mile pace. I had to push it through the last three miles to barely make it, but I did it! 9:57 for 10.30 miles. Over 10, under 10, damn straight. My feet were quite sore and at one point I found that concentrating on just accepting the pain made it endurable. Jeez, that makes it sound terrible, its not that bad. Just nags at me… I rubbed arnica gel on them twice tonight, seems to help a bit. Good on my leg and glutes too.

10k under 10

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In my effort to do my base runs under 10 min mile pace, I picked up my pace for my ending uphills through Reed and on to Woodstock, 2 miles in all. I did faster than eights to make sure I averaged under ten. Turned out my math was off and I did 9.5, made me happy. I’m pretty pooped tonight, pasta dinner and I have nothing else to do other than lay in bed and watch basketball. I’m sure I’ll get some stretching in too though.

Rotating my new shoes is going really well so far. Both pairs feel really stable and I am getting a good mind-strike with them. They are starting to get a worn-in look. Hopefully they don’t look like resolution shoes anymore. I still have been having foot issues like pain and spasticity, but I guess overall it isn’t too bad. I’d love to find the miracle shoe, but I don’t think it is out there.

Oh today I actually wore shorts without tights for the first time in months. It was nice to get my legs out in the sunlight! I started taking vit D again, not for any other reason other than I should. I wonder how much good the 1000 mg(?) caplets I take actually do for me? I saw some massive dose wafers for sale, the 50000 mg(again I am not sure what they are) really expensive (I thought) at four wavers for $20.

I watched an interesting parkour movie called Beyond the Brink. Daniel Ibaca was really pretty amazing, but kind of a jerk too You can see a trailer here.

Fastest run yet (well in recent days anyway…)

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Today I headed out on my typical 10k course, basically the same route I have been doing a lot lately. Since I rededicated myself to running regularly about three weeks ago I think I have run this route every time but once. One nice thing about doing your running in this manner is it really allows you to judge improvements. So my mini-goal as of late has been to speed up my times. I have been fighting a cold/flu for the last week or so but I have still been able to keep up with running albeit slow runs of greater than 10 min miles. So my mini-goal should be attainable! Not only have I increased my general fitness, but I have also beaten this bug. So on Thursday when I finally topped the 10 min mile mark for an average pace I was pretty excited and figured I was on my way. But then the next day (yesterday) I was back over 10 min miles, my excuse de jour is that I rolled my ankle in the middle of the run. The rolled ankle was not bad enough that I had to hobble home, my rubber ankle rebounded pretty quickly and I was able to walk it off. But I do think that slowed me down a bit as I was trying to be careful.

As a side note I have been experiencing what I think is probably an over-training issue with my foot. Could also have something to do with the new shoes (more than likely a combo). I have some pain on the top of my foot right in the area of the top of my shoe tongue. I really only feel it when I first get started and then it seems to go away. I loosened my laces a bit today and I think that might have actually helped but I still felt the ache for the first mile or so. It seems to be lessened if I focus on a mid-strike and more pronounced if I am hitting with ball of my foot. Hills also seem to irritate this pain a bit. But like I said after a mile or so the pain seems to be gone.

So today I struck out for run #3 in a row. What was different today? I didn’t have the ankle as an excuse, it felt fine (not even a twinge). The top of my foot still experienced pain for the first mile, but that went away as I got going. So, back to the difference (enough whining), I decided early in my run to start pushing myself. It wasn’t quite a tempo run, but I refused to let myself take it easy. My runs have been coming easier and easier which is nice, but today I pushed myself back into that point of exertion similar to how things felt when I was starting out again. I kept reminding myself to go and not take it easy. Again, this was by no means a race pace, but I felt myself working hard throughout the run. And that was the difference. These past three weeks I was just happy to be running regularly again. Today I got passed that and into a training mindset. Well not completely, but I wanted to work today and it paid off. After four miles I was pretty sure I was going to break a 10 min mile average as I was three mins up. I kept pushing and was soon four mins ahead. By the time I finished my average pace was 9:17. Pretty happy with that! Hopefully I will keep that work ethic up or at least on quality run days.

My PR for a 10k is 49:00, today I hit 10k at around 56 mins. Not to bad and plenty of room for improvement.