A mixed bag

My left calf is still not quite right and in hindsight the waterfront 10km I did last Thursday was too fast too soon. Weird thing was it felt quite good at the time. Maybe I aggrevated it elsewhere? Maybe I'm getting old?

I didn't run this week - rest and a number of walks - but I did go for a short "confidence" run today (in the rain and hail no less!).

3.64km / 17:05 / 4:41min/km and got through it with no pain although I can tell its not 100%. Running pain free was the acid test about running tomorrow.

Run Auckland 3 tomorrow morning on a dead flat course. I don't intend to break any land speed records or my PB here - my aim is to get through without aggrevating things. If it looks like it is starting to play up I'll fall back to slow jogging or walking.

The weather is supposed to be wet and miserable so that'll make it interesting. Will be telling myself "not to run fast" which is a bit ironic.

Pretty frustrating to be honest.

On the plus side I've started back on a core excercise program at home with a number of "challenges". Last year I started the one-hundred-pushup online program got part of the way through - I think my best was 52 - but frankly got discouraged when it got tough. Come marathon time that sort of attitude isn't going to help much so it is also an excerise in perseverance.

This time I'm going to give it another shot with its cousins two hundred situps and two hundred squats programs. Having a strong core should help with posture and stability.

Pushups: Completed Week 3/Day 3.
Situps: Completed Week 1/Day 2 (my situp ability is sorely lacking)
Squats: Haven't started this yet but will be doing Week 1/Day 1 from Monday.

For those that don't live in New Zealand you got to feel for Steven O'Callaghan who stumbled at the finish of the recent Rotorua marathon. The elite althletes certainly look lean and mean.

Talk nerdy to me

Given the calf strain I have been suprisingly disciplined and not gone running* this week. I've instead created the start of a training log (spreadsheet) to record progress.

My day job is as an Engineer - this means my training log is overdone in terms of calculations and graphs.

One big detail sheet

- day
- date
- week number
- days to go till marathon
- weight
- BMI
- resting heart rate (measured manually at present!)
- distance run in the day
- cumulative distance
- time taken
- speed
- comment
- route name, stored in mapmyrun.com
- total ascent (m), by route from mapmyrun.com
- total descent (m), by route from mapmyrun.com

Might be more to come.

Any number of graphs once the detail table is set up.

The idea being is on marathon-eve to look back at the training log and having a good nights sleep knowing the hard work in training has been done. Yeah right - I'm sure I'll be a bundle of nerves - but it sounds good.

* I have done a fair amount of walking on it and I think thats helped. The leg is feeling much better - not hobbling any more - its still a little tight but no pain. The plan is to try a very gentle slow short run tomorrow morning to see where things are at. Have to remember that my new favourite word is "stretch".

Run Auckland 2 - Injury Strikes

In my last post I mentioned the plan for Run Auckland 2 was to line up near the 45:00 pacers and "give it a nudge". Pretty simple and for the first 3km or so it was looking good. Glancing at my watch at I think it was just on 12 minutes so close to 4 min/km pace. Going through my mind was this hey this is pretty fast might be a challenge to hold this pace till the end.

Shortly after that though felt my left achilles twinge a little enough for me to ease up and then a pretty bad pain in my calf. I think its a pulled muscle. I can't recall excatly but it may have happened on one of the uphill bits or on gravel.After turning the air blue with a naughty word (bad form in public!) hobbled along at a walk. Lots of people blasted past including Andrew and an old friend I hadn't seen for a while. Maybe getting injured is a perhaps a good way to meet new people?

It also gave me a sudden shift in perspective for the race goal rather that trying to get a PB (under 42:47) or even clock in a solid sub 50:00 time I was now just going to try and finish.

Got to the 5km mark in just over 30 minutes and seriously thought about pulling out there and then. However the pain was subsiding a bit and thought at the very least could walk the second loop to finish. Found adjusting my running gait to slow shuffle running on the flats and downhills was possible with only slight discomfort. Had to walk the uphills. Got a comment from someone near the back of the pack when walking up an incline that I was "as bad as they were" walking up a hill. No shame in that I said and we a brief chat about how everyone starts out walk/running.

Finished in 1:01:49 which is a lot slower than I set out to do but I'm glad managed to get to the end.

Met Andrew again at the finish - turns out he had got a personal best on this distance which was awesome for him. Congratulations!

My little sister T came in at 1:16 and change shaving 5 minutes off Race 1. Great stuff! T runs with an ipod and she puts her improved performance down to a better play list. The first race all she had on the ipod was a podcast about Israel and the middle east. Sure it's interesting but would you run to it? :)

Here are positives and negatives.

Positives:
- finishing the race
- finally meeting blogger Andrew after attending a number of races
- seeing an old friend in the same race
- not letting my sister beat me - ha

Negatives:
- injury. :( At 34 not getting any younger so need to pay special attention to better stretching. Actually I'm trying to be circumspect about it all and trying to learn from the experience. Got to have a positive attitude about it all

I'm not running again for at least a week. If I'm pain free then will try and ease back into things. If not will rest more. My next run is scheduled on the 10 May on a dead flat course. At the very least I'll be OK to walk it.

This week I plan to: rest; do some walking; and some core excerices. I also have a couple of books from the local library on marathons and marathon training. Might even post a review or two here for something a bit different.

Stretching, Icing, and a 5km

I've been pretty stretching my foot - well both feet - and I think it is helping. This page has a good couple of excercises. There are a couple - one for the The plantar fascia tendon and another for the achilles tendon.

Went for a walk yesterday and no pain just a bit tender. Things looked good this morning (no pain getting when I woke up) and did my 5.5km flat course. Started off pretty slowly and while a bit sore initially on the foot strikes that soon faded.

5.51km / 24:34 / 4:27min/km.

Stretched well after the run and am now icing the foot as I type this - it's feeling OK. Going to keep up with the "self treatment" and see how it goes.

Swim day tomorrow. There is a 25m pool in Mt Eden that I want to try out. It is on the way to work as well so it could become my new local.

Plantar Fasciitis?

Bit of an education for me learning about this. This from wikipedia:

My right foot arch started hurting a little just after the ADRA run - they were past their due by date - and its been niggling a bit ever since. I had been doing quite a bit of walking on site for my job as well - not sure if that was a factor.

"Plantar fasciitis is a painful inflammatory condition of the foot caused by excessive wear to the plantar fascia that supports the arch or by biomechanical faults that cause abnormal pronation.[1] The pain usually is felt on the underside of the heel, and is often most intense with the first steps of the day. It is commonly associated with long periods of weight bearing or sudden changes in weight bearing or activity. Obesity, weight gain, jobs that require a lot of walking on hard surfaces, shoes with little or no arch support, and inactivity are also associated with the condition."

This site has good info: http://www.marathontraining.com/articles/art_4th.html. It could also mean the problem is achilles tendinitis, a fat pad contusion (bruise on the bottom of your heel), plantar arch strain, tarsal tunnel syndrome.

A 5.5km yesterday on the flat felt a little pain at the start but faded after the first km - 5.51km, 24:38, 4:27min/km.

I think I need to give it a few days to rest - do some stretching exercises as well. When it's pain free I'll do another 5km see how it feels - and then gradually ease back with the distance.

Thinking about getting some swimming goggles today- no excuse now for cross training!