My foot would like to update you...

Message from my right foot:

I am doing a lot better! I had a close call the other day though while barefoot so I will have to go back to napping, stretching, and wearing these really comfy shoes called Vibram Five Fingers. My owner also has been kind enough to occasionally ice me and rub me down. But sometimes she puts this weird thing on me at night called The Sock. Sometimes it digs into my friend, the calf, so she usually takes it off in the middle of the night. Lastly, she sometimes rolls a golf ball on me while standing up. This feels like it's ironing out the wrinkles on me. And I like that.

Alright, alright. Thank you foot for the update. So, as you can see, the time off from activity has been beneficial. So far, this summer has been going well, too. I am not in any classes but have been spending my time working on a manuscript for a contemporary fiction novel, which means most of my time is spent at a desk, not only exercising my mind but also allowing my foot to heal. I would like to thank my supportive boyfriend for helping make this "internship with myself" possible. I am able to experience the life of a writer and so far, I am loving it (meager pay, blank screens and all)! Other exciting news is that I will be going back to my high school this coming fall to be an assistant cross country coach. I am looking forward to this opportunity as it is something I've always wanted to do. I just didn't think it would be happening this soon. The team has some promising talent and still has Coach Gorby leading the way.

That's it for the updates. This warmer weather is teasing my foot but we'll be back out there soon enough!

The Cleveland Marathon, I was there...

...I got the shirt, I got the goodies, I got a DNS. However, I had fun biking along the course as James ran the 10k. Compared to when I watched the race back in 2007, it definitely has improved. They changed the start and finish lines, making it feel less crowded. There were a ton of port-o-johns so lines were not insane. Overall, it was a great day to run for those that were able to run.

In the meantime, I spent the last week or so doing easy treadmill work that did involve some running but only noticed a slight improvement with pain. So, I made the difficult decision to start all over. This type of injury is hard to overcome because when you are not running, you are still putting pressure on the injury whenever you walk. I haven't run since Thursday and have noticed decreased pain. But some hours during the day, it comes back to haunt me. And haunt me real bad.

I am going to take it week by week right now. All I want to be able to do at this point is run for 30 minutes on the Towpath, that's all. It can even be really slow. I hope resting like this will be the solution to this annoying problem.

Getting ansy!

Took some time off last week while traveling the roads of a few southern states. My mindset going in to the trip was to just relax and not worry about getting a workout in- a mental break of sorts. I have found in the past that after taking a week "off" any bothersome pain is nearly gone when I come back. I didn't take the whole week off, as I did a 6 mile hike in NC and ran away from annoying bumblebees on a disk golf course in VA. Both days there was some pain afterwards but the next day it was minimal. Since then, my achilles on the bum foot has been tight and the bottom of the heel still hurts somewhat.

I then "ran" for 10 minutes on Sunday and Monday to test it out. It was the most comfortable that I've felt running since becoming injured. I could probably start running now but in the long run it may not be a good idea as I started this injury adventure with similar pain. It's as if it's healing by reverting back to its original state- pre PF pain. Each week feels better and better, I just wish it would go away, or go back to normal, already. The hike and the little 10 minute jogs provided me with a sneak peak of what is to come once this is all said and done. Until then, I will continue to milk the rec's pool and maybe elliptical until my membership expires on May, 10th.

Lessons Learned

It's been nearly one year since I added running back into my daily routine and made it a priority in my life. I started off with a few 1.5 mile jogs around my old neighborhood, worked my way up to including weekend long runs, integrated some tempo work, raced my first half marathon, started a marathon buildup that reached a 40 mile week, got injured, and currently cross training like never before. What an interesting ride it has been. While I will not be able to run the Cleveland Marathon this year, I will be running alongside my roommate, Emily Archer, as she runs her very first 5k. It was hard to succumb to my injury and pull out of the marathon but doing so has proved to be the biggest lesson I have learned-- PATIENCE.

• Once I decided that running was important enough to me that I would make training a daily occurrence and that certain life decisions would be based upon running goals, I realized that there is no need to rush training. A proper marathon buildup (especially for a beginner like me) will take longer than 3 months. In the next year, I plan to slowly focus on building up mileage, speed, and intensity, not run any marathons anytime soon, only run a race if the timing is right (i.e. don't register for a race 3 months in advance, rather register for low key races a few weeks out), and find a balance between training and life.

Other lessons:

• Being injured is not the end of the world, in fact it can be fun. I think I've made more strides and improvement in cross training than I have running. Never did I think I could muster up enough motivation to aqua jog for an hour, swim a mile, and be able to use the elliptical hands-free (ellipti-running) without falling off! Once I am ready to start running again, I feel that while I may not be ready to go fast at first, I will feel fresh, in shape, and stronger.
• When old "fast" paces start to feel easy, it means the work is paying off. When it feels hard, it means that work needs to be done. When I was starting to train hard, 7:30s felt quite easy. I had never been at such a level and that was encouraging for future training. It helped me to learn how to read my body.
• You don't have to be anal to be a runner. Being too anal will cause stress, anxiety, and OCDs to develop, like I can't run at night or I can't run after eating ice cream or I can't run without my iPOD or I can't run in Dickie's. Not being anal enough can also have a negative effect on training as well so the idea is to find a good balance. I'm still trying to figure out my ideal balance.
• STRETCH, STRETCH, AND MORE STRETCH-- especially my calves.
• A troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as letsrun.com
• EveryBODY is different- different responses to training, hours of sleep, training goals, outlooks on life, handling stress, the list goes on and on. What helps is learning about these differences, trying some out, and being open to suggestions.

With that all said, good luck to those who are running any of the races at the Cleveland Marathon, whether it's the full, the half, the 10k, or the 5k. I know there are quite a few of you out there! In the meantime, I am looking forward to the day (and I feel like it will be very soon) that I can join you all back on the pavement. And when that happens, I will feel like a new person.

Weekly Recap...just trying to be pain free at this point

Monday: 80 minutes in pool- 60 min aqua jog, 20 min swim

Tuesday: 50 minutes various activities (inc. running!)- went to Wooster to visit James's coach, Matt Woods, of Real Fitness. He offered some input on my foot, cross training, and marathon prep. Like I realized last week, there is no need to rush a marathon. It's best to ease back into it (started with 3 x 5 minutes of running). This approach will lengthen my base training and better prepare me for a fall marathon (pending no more injuries). I plan to try running every other day with this approach for the next week or two while cross training in between. The more I swim and aqua jog, the more I want to integrate it into my training when I am not injured! It will be interesting to see how it has payed off.

Wednesday: 73 minutes in pool- aqua jogging, 10 min w/up, 4 x mile simulations (7:35, 7:37, 7:29, 7:23) with 90 seconds rest in between (except last repeat, 2 min 40 sec rest to go pee), then 10 min cool down. Felt moderately difficult, heart rate got up to 160. After jog, swam 1000 meters around 24 minutes. My swimming is getting a little faster, but focusing more on duration and aerobic base than speed.


Thursday: Started off with 5 minute walking warm-up, excited as hell to try running again after having minimal pain all day. Then as soon as I started running, the pain kicked in. I couldn't even hold 2 minutes of running. I kept pronating inward on the bum foot. My form felt funny and I didn't want to adjust or compensate for the pain so I started walking again. I used 10 minutes as my warm-up then hit the stationary bike for 30 minutes and went up to the track to try walk/jog again. Duh me, the tighter curves didn't help with the pronating so that only lasted a minute. I went back to the treadmill to try walking but there was pain so I raised the white flag and called it a night. Currently, the foot is not getting any worse (when I'm not active) but it's not getting any better. I'm not going to start running again until the pain is all gone. F U plantar fasciitis!

Friday: 50 minute swim

Saturday: 60 minutes elliptical. Foot was feeling ok before workout then started to ache a lot afterwards. Not sure if this was due to incorporating a new cross training activity or the stupid PF. I think I will stick to swimming and biking as my main activities. Although, I felt like I had a nice workout aerobically, as I held a 6.8 mph pace (an improvement from my past elliptical efforts). I actually was averaging 7.5 mph for the first 30 minutes but bathroom troubles slowed me down for the last 30 minutes.

Sunday: Off

TOTAL: 5 hr 53 min cross training

Weekly Recap

Monday: Swim 30 min
Tuesday: Swim 60 min
Wednesday: Swim 61 min
Thursday: Swim 40 min
Friday: Swim 73 min
Saturday: Bike 11 miles
Sunday: Swim 40 min

TOTALS: Swim 5 hours, bike 11 miles

Got serious this week about cross training and it worked to my advantage. I noticed my mood improve around Wednesday. I made sure to push myself each time I went in the pool and as a result, I doubled the amount of time I previously did in the past during cross training. I also had a nice bike session on Saturday. It was an easy ride, not really a workout for me, but for James. I felt like the pace car during a marathon! If I couldn't run, it was at least nice to ride alongside someone else who is able to.

Still taking it day by day with the foot. Today it feels better but there is still pain. It's similar to the pain I had throughout the last few months before I messed it up in my workout a few weeks ago. That makes me think that whatever snapped is healing. I will be getting the foot looked at tomorrow so that should help with direction as well.

Me, a few days ago: My foot hurts. The pain makes any other ailment I ever had seem like just a case of a sore muscle. I believe this is my very first injury and it had to come at a perfect time: halfway through marathon training. I worked so hard to establish a nice base and I was well on my way to experiencing runs beyond 2 hours. Crap.

Me, today: Maybe this is a blessing in disguise? I don't know when or how I screwed up my foot but it did hinder my spring race plans. However, why was I rushing to do a spring marathon? Well, when I signed up for the race, I was only in school at the time. I figured it would be easier to train while I was in school. Training hard when I had to go back to the "real world" would be too difficult, I could only do it recreationally and say goodbye to my Boston dreams. I forgot I had these thoughts a few months later when I found myself working a full time job that was 1.5 hours away and still going to grad school. Everything happened so fast!

It wasn't until this injury that I realized I was doing it already! I was working full time and training my hardest. Granted this work-school-run schedule didn't work out in the "long run", it was great practice for learning how to prioritize! School and running have now become my focus, which I am very fortunate to be able to do.

I also learned a great lesson in patience. I was rushing to get in quality training. To be able to run the time I want to run, I know I need more than 3 months to train. But this little mishap is just a bump in the long road ahead.

For the last three days, it has been uncomfortable to walk. Though, each day the pain is less severe and the walking, less awkward. I believe my pool workout last night gave me the inspiration I needed to continue fighting through this challenge. I finally swam a mile and aqua-jogged for a solid twenty minutes. To maintain the fitness I built up this winter, I know I'm going to have to push myself each day cross training, which I've never done before. Cross training usually leaves me bored but probably because I never pushed the limits. Swimming that mile put me in a zone similar to running where the mind wants to stop. And like a run, I didn't listen. I kept on keeping on.

I've planned for the worst case scenario, which is 4 weeks off from running but active rest in the pool. If the foot gets better each day, like it has been, it may not be that long, more along the lines of 2 weeks off. Whether I'll be doing the marathon or the half marathon is still TBA. But I won't let the running break spoil my training, as I still plan on showing up in Cleveland on Sunday, May 16th.