Every day is a new day

2.5 mileson the treadmill the 35 minutes on the elliptical.

I decided to see if I could make more than five miles.  Still stayed at an easy pace of 9:00/ mile and, although tired, had no trouble making the 6 miles. I hope that a couple of easy weeks will put me back to where I can actually train again. 

For the first time in 61 days I got out on the road.  It was a beautiful sunny day with noon temp at 34 degrees.  Much of the ice has melted or at least was mushy so the roads, with a few exceptions, were good to run on.  I did the Whale park run but turned around at 3.25 as I am not yet ready for an easy day nine miler.  I did however manage to survive the big hill and feel like I achieved something.  What I know I achieved is very sore legs.  With little running, alll on a treadmill the road will takea little getting used to. I have 60 days to get back in shape.  Not long enough for any PR's but  long enoughto train toa level so as not to embarass byself and avoid injury at the same time.  Just a couple of miles tomorrow then a tentitive tempo run on  Thursday

65 elliptical minutes today.  Rest  day from running,

3 miles at 8:30 pace was going ok til the power went out in the gym.  Ended up doing 30 more minutes of exercise on the elliptical.

Just 4 easy miles until my knee tightened up.  Enough for ne day.

Only 2.25 treadmill miles before the breaker tripped again.  Did 35 elliptical minutes as well for an assumed 5 miles.

Foot hurts a lot today so no running.  Did 50 minutes on the elliptical then walked 2 miles at 15% grade on the mill to get the 1000 calorie mark for the day.  Bought new shoes and inserts.  They seem a little more cushoning so maybe that will help.  Continued a lot of calf and hamstring stretching.

Five real miles today.  Thought it time to pick up the pace a bit so averaged 8:45 miles.  Foot hurt more than usual today.  Still hurts tonight actually.  Will not run tomorrow.  The good news is this is the first run since starting up again that was enjoyable not painful.  Maybe they are right about endourance returning relatively fast.  Anyway enjoyed the run except for the foot pain.

I did a 10 minute warm up of the bike then moved into a 55 minute, 7.7 mile session on the elliptical.  I taped my foot today for the first time and that without a doubt decreased the pain.  It actually did not hurt to use the elliptical.  Tomorrow I will try a short and slow run with my foot taped.  Between that and a night splint maybe I can beat this thing.

I feel like this was a good day.  Yesterday I started taping my foot.  I did it wrong a couple of times getting too close to the small toe and causing a little bruising, but the tape eliminated virtually all the plantar pain.  I felt good this mornig and decided to test it a little.  Felt like no harm if no better and if it let me run with less pain I was all for it.  Since I have another 1/2 marathon race in six short weeks and I took three month off until 13 days ago I realize I need to build mileage as fast as is safe to do so.  So with that in mind I did 7 miles in 64 minutes.  No foot pain and only a reasonable amount of leg soreness due to lack of miles.  Breathing finally seemed good as I was not winded just muscle tired.  But the best news is no plantar pain whatsoever.  Not during, not after and not now three hours later after sitting in my office.  I know the tape will not cure the problem so I will continue to do all the other things, but no pain is great and it should mean that healing is then possible.

I was only going to run a couple of miles today then cross train.  My taped foot felt pretty good so I decided to push just a little and ran an easy 10K.  I was a little surprised that it wasn't "easy" since yesterday was.  I know I should not expect too much too soon however and I still am lacking in endurance  clearly shown by being tired from yesterday. Still no real pain and two longer run days in a row, I feel pretty good about being ready to at least participate in a half race in a little over seven weeks.

Decided an easy day was a good idea since I have my first long run since November 30th scheduled for tomorrow.  Hope to do 12 with a range of 10-13.  I am running with a much faster runner so we will see.  So today I ran an easy 4.6 miles in 40 minutes then did 25 minutes on the elliptical.  Felt good, foot while taped feels good and even my knee was not any problem.  So that is 18.1 miles in three days with no foot pain.  Feels great to end a run without pain.

I went to the gym early today just to warm up and stretch.  So I did 25 minutes on the elliptical to warm up first.  Long run planned for late this afternon.

Update:  Missed my connection with the fast guy.  Ran in the park by myself instead.  Good news, bad news situation.  I ran 9 miles at a nine minute pace so a total of 81 minutes.  Since I have not run that far since November that is good news, the bad news was that was all I had to give at this point.  One more mile would have driven me to jog at best.  Still nine miles is better than nothing, and improvement is likely even by adding only a mile a week to the long run.  Seven weeks and counting til the next race.

Planned day off.  I went to the gym to do a little stretching and decided an unforced 40 minutes on the elliptical would still count as a rest day.  Foot felt great and my knee felt better than average,  So good day all around.

Felt tired at the start and almost decided to just do the treadmill.  I am sure glad I did not.  Ran the park loops then out the road to the small child tha plays in the street house and back the same way.  Felt much better than expected up the long (.4 mile) hill and felt good the whole way.  Started at a 9:15 pace and ended with an 8:30 last mile.  No foot problems at all.

Started with a 9:30/ mile warm up for 1 mile.  Then did a 5K tempo at 8:00/ mile for 24:40.  Then a 1 mile cool down at 9:30.  Felt a little winded but if the place was not busy and I could have stayed longer on the machine I feel 4 would have been easy, 4.5 a workout and 5 would have been the limit.  So not bad for my first tempo run since late November.  Since I only did 3.1 miles I may do another short tempo on Thursday.

Then did 25 minutes at a fairly easy pace on the elliptical to round out the session.  Felt like a real workout and shows me I have a long way to in a short time.  No foot pain at all.

Felt just a little sore today after the short tempo yesterday but not too bad.  Decided to do an easy run so ran 7 miles in 64:10 for a 9:10 pace.  Felt good but was a little tired at the end.  My legs were a little weak but fine in the end.  No foot or knee issues to report.  I hope I am doing a reasonable job of ot increasing time or effrt too fast.  Seems OK so far.

Legs were a little sore this morning.  I also slipped twice on ice last night and tweeked my foot a little bit but thankfully no obvious damage.  Decided a recovery pace or there abouts was all I wanted today.  Thought I would go until I started to tire or my legs started to complain.  Turned out I felt fine the whole time not winded or tired just bored. Decided 7.2 miles at a 9:10 pace was enough.  Legs are a little stiff now but not too bad.

Since I want to try a real honest long run this weekend, hopefully tomorrow, I decided to just do an easy 5 miles on the treadmill.  It seemed a little harder than it should and I was breathing a little harder than expected near the end.  When I stopped I realized that I was at a 2% slope which is not a lot but for a shallow base person it realy made a difference.  Anyway feel good ready for 12-14 this weekend.

I committed to a long run with a guy training for a full marathon.  He is about 30 seconds a mile faster for training pace so I knew even if he slowed down a little I would have a challenging day.  He did slow down but I have not run double diget miles since November.  I was a challenge but I did make it.

Times were: 1 mile @ 10:00 warm up

                   12 miles @ 9:00

                     1 mile @10:00  cool down

Last fall this would have been a pretty easy day, but with my lack of training this was about all I had.  Looking forwaerd to a day off tommorrow!

Easy day.  Felt better than expected after 14 miles on Saturday.  Only a little sore yesterday and fine today.  So I picked a 9:13 pace on the treadmill and did 8.1 for a little over 74 minutes.  A little tired near the end but it was hot in the gym today and I lost over 6 pounds of water during the run.  Maybe I need to hydrate if I am going to lose that much water.

It was supposed to be a tempo run today. While doing my 2 mile warm up I felt a slight twinge in my left calf. Just off and on, I did an extra .5 mile warm up. I decided that it was not worth the risk to run on a suspect calf. So after the 2.5 mile warm up I switched to the elliptical and did a fairly hard 45 minutes. Calf is just a wee bit sore so we will see what tomorrows warm up does.

Good news calf did not feel sore today.  Bad news is I have caught the lightheadedness cold.  Not much breathing trouble but feel "off".  Decided a run might help.  Did 6.1 miles om the mill at a 9:00 pace with 1% grade.  Calf got irritated right at the end so I stopped.  Felt tired but think it is due to the cold not the run.  Still would like to get a tempo in but not while lightheaded or with an irratated calf.

Easy run 6.6 miles 1:01 or about a 9:10 pace.  Calf only sore the last minute or two but better than the last two days and no pain two hours later.

Still feeling a little lightheaded today.  Long run planned for tomorrow so I held back a little today.  Did an easy 5.7 miles in just over 51 minutes.  Felt OK throughout until I thought of my knee and it of course started hurting.  Went away as soon as I started to slow down.

Easy two hour run planned for today with the marathon ladies. They are early in the training cycle so it usually works well for pace as we are pretty similar pace wise.  Today was fine for the first hour even with slush and persistant snow.  At about 8.5 miles I felt a little light headed a symtom of the cold I have been fighting all week.  The next two miles were progessively getting harder and I was breathing much harder than the pace indicated.  I started to realize I was not boing to make it all the way back.  I had to walk for a few minutes before jogging in.  Surprise, surprise when I weighed myself to find out I was nine pounds lighter than yesterday.  That much water loss really hurts performance and I am now not a bit surprised that I faded so badly.

Did a really slow 5K to try out the idea of active rest.  I did not get done what I had intended yesterday so felt pretty good today.  I went slow enough that I did not feel like I was "working" anything and then did a long careful and not to difficult stretch routine.  I will see how I feel in the norning and again after I run at noon.

Finally thought I better try some kind of tempo day.  So did a one mile warmup at 9:30, then went into the tempo at a little under 8:00 pace.  Felt great for a mile, good for a mile reasonable for a mile and somewhat tired for a mile.  While I probably could have made the last mile I decided injury risk was too high given my lack of training so I did a cool down mile and called it good.  I guess I should be happy I went 1 mile further at 10 seconds a mile faster than last time, even if it was not the full planned distance.  Will try the same run on Thursday for comparison if I feel good tomorrow after this one.

Wt.  193 so far so good -10 in the last month.  10 more to go the end of April.

Easy day after yerterdays tempo.  Felt OK this morning, not too stiff.  Funny thing was my diaphram hurt.  I don't remember that before from a tempo run.  Anyway did an easy 7.2 miles at a9:10 pace.  Legs felt great but breathing was harder than expected by the end.  All in though it felt like a good recovery day.

WT. 191