Injuries & Cherry Blossom 10K

Run Stats:
 
Cherry Blossom 10 Miler
45 degrees (felt like 39)
10 miles
1:52:49
Pace: 11:06, 10:47, 10:41, 10:39, 11:04, 11:16*, 11:35, 12:05, 11:59, 11:38
With: Sheri & self

*Right about here is where my hamstring cramped up & never really let go for the rest of the run.  : ((

It was a magical day in that it was beautiful, there were entertaining people (a gorilla playing a cowbell on the sidelines, santa, etc), and that I was even able to run in the first place (see injury below).  I have to be honest, the fact that I fell in love with this year's shirt when I saw it yesterday, and got so excited to be able to wear it proudly after I finished the damn thing, is probably the only thing that kept me from walking the last mile or so (that and stubbornness: "I didn't spend three months training to NOT finish it!!").  The hamstring cramp stunk & then ended up pulling my knee weird, so now I have some things that need babying for a bit.  : )  I'm still on the fence about the half-marathon.  It depends on if I can get myself there without injury. 


Injury:
The reason I haven't posted a run since March 25 is that I went for an injury-free leisure hike & ended up attempting to punt the only rock on the entire trail.  I was out of comission for 3+ days, thought I broke it, it hurt so bad.  Monday of this week I went to get X-rays.  No break.  It was just the world's most insane toe jamming ever.  As a result, I took this last week off to see if I could heal enough to run.  Ironically, my toe gave me no problems today.  I think, though, that the weird hobbling I did most of this week probably contributed to the cramping today.  : (

Here's my day:

It was a gorgeous sunrise over the capital...

 

The Washington Monument, just because you always need a picture of it:

 It was great that J came down to watch me cross the finish line in freezing weather & a very early wake-up:

 Sheri & I were both successful finishers:

This was THE shirt...  the one that kept me going.  Now I can proudly wear it!

Week 10, Run 2

Run Stats:
 
Week 10, Run 2
37 degrees
3 miles
33:05
Pace: 10:31, 11:30, 10:59
With: self

Week 10, Run 1

Run Stats:
 
Week 10, Run 1
61 degrees
4.50 miles
50:10
Pace: 10:46, 11:16, 11:14, 11:14, 11:16(for the last 1/2 mile)
With: self


Today's earworm during the run was the new Mumford & sons song (not little lion man - the other one).  Also, you never really know your neighborhoods until you explore it slowly - I found a little enclave that looked like I had stepped back in time.  It was weird..

Week 9, run 3

Run Stats:
 
Week 9, Run 3
56 degrees
8.00 miles!!!
1hr, 29 minutes
Pace: 11:09, 11:35, 10:53, 11:01, 11;19, 11:08, 11:36*, 11:13
With: Sheri!  : )

*DAMN HILL!  It was at least a half a mile & about a 200 ft elevation increase over that span.  Yargh!

Week 9, Run 2

Run Stats:
 
Week 9, Run 2
61 degrees
3.00 miles
31:53 minutes
Pace: 10:13, 10:45, 10:55
With: myself

The warmth is a challenge.

Week 9, run 1

Run Stats:
 
Week 9, Run 1
54 degrees
5.00 miles
56:45 minutes
Pace: 10:37, 10:49, 11:09, 11:44, 12:26
With: myself

well, not as good as I would have hoped because I walked for bits of mile 4 and 5 (but must not have walked that much as the times weren't horrendous), but it happened and the rain held out.  5 miles is close to too much for me if there are no trees and no company.  Ugh, boring suburb streets.  Blech!  On the up side a 3 year old on a bike raced me down the street.  On the down side, he beat me...  but he had wheels, cheater.  

Failure, Fixes & Resumption

So...  yeah, I was supposed to do my 8 mile run two weeks ago, but I was in New Orleans for Mardi Gras....  yeah...  you guessed it: that didn't happen.  Next I planned to do my 8 miles yesterday.  Due to a commedy of errors involving starting late, running into gastric distress AGAIN, and losing people, that didn't happen either.  (though I did get a cumulative 3 miles in). 

So I'm starting on 5-3-8 again this week.

I WILL be doing it.  Also, I may have discovered the cause/solution to my "distress" after doing an embarassing google search on "running diarrhea"!  I was worried that it was due to psyching myself out before my long runs & kicking the flight-or-fight response on, but I never feel that nervous or stressed. After the google search, it looks like it could be related to how close I eat to when I run.  Then I talked to my coworker and he said he would have the same problem when he was on the cross country team (yes, we talk about poop at work) and that if he ate anything closer than 4 hours before, he would have issues at about 1.5 miles.  That's EXACTLY when my issues tend to kick in.  Guess it has something to do with your body shunting blood away from GI tract to muscles for running and then your body says, "well, I can't do anything with this now...  no point, let's dump it!"  Good to know!  I can't wait to try again this weekend now.  Guess I'll try to get the run in before lunch if possible.  : )

Yeah, I bet you ALL wanted to know about this, but maybe someone else will find the info useful.  hrm.

As a CAVEAT:  I had been making sure to eat 2 hours or more before a run.  I thought that would be enough digestion time.