Go! Run Fast!

The one I stepped on back in November? Well, I underestimated its impact. That ankle that went all twisty hurt until about a month ago. It gradually got better, but took nearly 6 months to heal properly. Not cool.

The rock itself lived on my window sill for a while. I got tired of looking at it, so now it’s outside that window on the ground by the air conditioner. I don’t anticipate it will go anywhere between now and when I figure out how to make it suffer.

My New Balance 768s have treated me well. However, I’ve had nagging IT band problems since 2006 (which includes a couple years pre-NB768s). Most of the time it’s just annoying but doesn’t really disturb my running. However, in the Chicago marathon and Miami marathon (the two races I ran with the 768s), I’ve had serious knee issues relating to the IT band that really slowed my already slow running.

After it become irritated during last week’s relatively short 11 mile “long” run, I decided to work with it a little more actively. In addition to new strengthening and stretching exercises, I’m going to try out some shoes designed for moderate to severe overpronators. I didn’t think that was a problem of mine, but it is common with IT band problems. Thus, I’ve purchased a new pair of New Balance 859s. They arrived today and will make their first trip out tomorrow. Hopefully they will take some of the stress off my poor IT band.

Horay for Miami! Despite having to endure this round of gruesome blisters this week, the more I’ve reflected on the race, the more enthusiastic I am to repeat this Chicago-Miami double again next year.

Chicago registration is this weekend, and I plan to be the first person signed up. And soon, once I’m fully recovered, I’ll register for Miami 2010.
Here are some photos from the race !

The Miami Marathon was this morning. I woke up at 4:45 for this race. Normally this would make me exceptionally crabby, but I was quite pleased to get outside in the beautiful weather. Sure, it was dark, but it was 60 degrees at 5:45 when we started our walk to the start line.I had a very good race, though it could have been better. I finished in 5:13:58, a decent time for me. I’m very happy to have finished in under 5:15. The only caveat is that my legs and endurance were fine; I was slowed by a knee problem. I never have problems with my knees when I’m training. In Chicago last October, my right knee was very tight - it felt like the IT band and something else - but I thought that was because I was compensating for my stitches. However, this morning, my knee caught around mile 10. That’s never happened to me before, and I was *very* nervous that it was happening so early in the race. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish and briefly considered if I should finish with the half marathoners. I figured instead to go as long as I could and walk the rest.

It turns out that I didn’t need any walking and didn’t even need the long aid station walking breaks I took in Chicago this year. I basically just had to run a 12:30 or slower mile. My legs really wanted to go faster, and I tried to push it a couple times, but my knee caught every time which made me gasp and yelp (much to the scared astonishment of my running neighbors) and convinced me to slow down. I think if this hadn’t been an issue I may have been able to get down around 5 hours. I didn’t have any of the fuzzy headedness or other symptoms that typically hit me at the end of a marathon.

Sure, there was some pain, but that’s kind of the point. Overall, I really enjoyed myself. The race was well organized, the weather was beautiful (60 degrees at the start, 75 and sunny by finish time), I felt pretty good, and I was very entertained. I credit my extensive CSI:Miami viewing with helping things seem more familiar.

The medals are excellent. I’ve included a picture I took with my phone here at the airport, but I’ll post better ones soon.

However, the best part is that MOM AND TOM were here! We had dinner, went grocery shopping, had the usual navagating misadventures, ate lunch at the Cheesecake factory, and had the same great time we always do at these races.

So, I’m looking forward to the break for the rest of this month and then taking it easy until May when I start up my training for the Chicago Marathon in October.

Last weekend I did two 5 mile runs. I did not impale myself on anything, so this must be considered a success. While I’m still irritated that I didn’t finish my 20 mile training run, I feel ready and good. I don’t have any pain or injuries, and my motivation is good (except when it’s really cold).

The weather report for Sunday is holding at perfect. 76 degrees, partly sunny, and “pleasant” according to Accuweather. The low between Saturday and Sunday is 61. This will be a good trip.

An article in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism reports that chocolate milk is an excellent recovery drink. Early on in my Miami training, I gave this a try.

This might be one of the greatest scientific discoveries ever.

Ok. Maybe not that great, but it’s still pretty great! I didn’t do even an uncontrolled study about how it helps me recover, but I feel well recovered. More than that, I love it. I don’t think I’d had a glass of chocolate milk for like a decade, and I don’t drink it otherwise, but I love it after the runs. I start to look forward to it usually before I’m halfway done. It is a great great thing.

So everyone - get some good milk and some Hershey’s syrup, go run 13 miles, and drink up!

You know the race is really coming when you can get the weather report for it. Today is the first day that race day hits the 15-day forecast on Accuweather.

This is not particularly useful information. I believe in the early days of seeing the forecast for Chicago it was supposed to be 38 with high winds and freezing rain/ice. It was sunny and 80, and the forecast swung everywhere in between over those two weeks.

However, Miami’s weather seems to be quite consistently 70-something and sunny pretty much EVERY SINGLE DAY. This makes me question again why I don’t live in Miami.

Current race day prediction: 74 with a mix of sun and clouds.

This weekend was supposed to be my 20 mile run. Saturday it was warm but raining. Sunday it was cold and windy. Today was supposed to be warmer and not windy, so I decided to do the run today.
Last night I woke up in the middle of the night with a stomach ache, which basically never happens. It kept me up from around 2am until I finally got out of bed at 8:30. I was woozy and “watery” is the word that keeps coming to mind to describe my legs. I didn’t want to eat anything but forced down a luna bar and piece of toast before going out.
I suppose “warmer” and “not windy” are relative terms, as I was quite cold and the 30mph gusts sure felt windy to me. I also felt outright terrible. If I stopped running, my stomach hurt a lot, but my energy levels were low and I was exhausted even within the first mile. I spent the first couple hours cursing both my body and the midwest weather. The only benefit of running in Crystal Lake is that there is lots of family around. I had drinks dropped at several of their houses along the route. I stopped at one of the houses about half way through. No one was home, but I went in, had a drink of water, sat down on the couch, and cried. The entire run was demoralizing and awful.

I managed to go a few more miles past that, and by the time I reached my gramma’s house between mile 13 and 14, I was done. I kept trying to make myself go on, but I was sobbing in frustration and low blood sugar and discomfort as I approached her house, and there was no way I could have imagined going even a mile further. Gram was very good, as always, and gave me a drink, some kleenex, and a ride home.

This is a major disappointment for me in a bunch of ways. I’ve never been unable to finish a run before. Plus, this was my only really long run in the Miami training plan. I start tapering already next week, so there is no way to make this up. I just have to hope that a 17 miler will suffice so I can finish the race. I guess this is why we are not supposed to do marathons so close together. The ultra-compressed training schedule is susceptible to any problem, whereas a longer plan would let me bump the long runs around a bit.

So now it’s basically the race left. The taper will go fine, assuming I don’t impale myself on anything. I am really looking forward to the break after this race. I’m looking forward to the race, too, but It’s been a lot of work between Chicago and Miami and I need the rest.

And on that note, I’m going back to sleep now to hopefully beat off this stupid stomach ache over night.

This weekend was my 17 mile run. Despite being kind of sluggish during the week, the run went well. At a bit past 16 miles I felt a little woozy - light headed, broke out in a sweat, obviously needed a little more sugar. But it passed and I made it home fine. It looks like I’m going to finish out this training successfully barring another violent accident. I’m confident that I can do the 20 miles and that’s the only hard thing I have left between now and the race in 6 weeks.

The illness of Thanksgiving week superseded this post about the rock. Here is said rock:

Granted, it’s not a boulder, but it’s a pretty big rock to step on while running, which is exactly what I did a couple weeks ago. I have no idea how I missed it, but I landed square on it and messed up my ankle. I didn’t sprain it, thank goodness.

Side note: I had never sprained an ankle until my 2nd year of college. It was in the midst of having mono and I was simply walking down the stairs of my dorm and all of a sudden things twisted and popped and man did it hurt. Since then, I’ve sprained both many many times, and one of my larger running fears is that I’ll do it again. 

When I landed on this rock - only a couple blocks after starting - my ankle went twisty in a bunch of weird ways, and it really hurt, but fortunately I avoided any serious damage. I finished the 5 mile run just fine, took the next day off as scheduled, and had no problems running on it. It hurt to walk stairs for the next few days, and it’s still a little tender if I put pressure on it, but it’s pretty much fine. Maybe this is my one “injury” for the Miami Marathon training?
You will note from the picture that I brought the rock home. I don’t know what I plan to do with it just yet, but after attacking me like that it became my enemy. I couldn’t just leave it out there to live out the rest of the millions of years left in it’s life as a free rock. It will pay.