Week Two – Run Number Four

Hey, what happened to my Monday run? Well, about that…

It appears that on Friday, when I pushed myself a little harder, I did something to my right foot. It doesn’t hurt to touch it or anything, but putting any pressure on it when standing is enough pain to make me wince and hurt. It started Friday night, and left me keeping it elevated nearly all day Saturday. By Sunday I could walk on it with shoes on, but not for a long period of time. Monday felt the same as Sunday, so out of caution I took that extra day of rest because I didn’t want to make it worse and have to end up at the Doctors. Tuesday which is normally my rest day, I did some sprints in the back yard. It hurt a little but it didn’t get worse.

So, I got off my butt this morning and took off for my first run of the week. I’m feeling very secure in my route now, I’ve mentally mapped every section of the path that could pose as a threat and switch sides far in advance. The weather is unseasonably warm here in Utah right now. It must have rained a little since the sidewalks and such were damp. It almost felt like being back in the Seattle area where I grew up, which I really do miss. I wanted to push myself a little hard by this point in my training, but I don’t want to make my foot any worse. I plan on keeping the same pace that I set last week with the goal of adding more miles to my runs in Week Three.

I came across a great infographic that my friend Chris aka Marathon Dad created. If you know about sports supplements and such, you’ve probably heard of those GU Gels that you can take before a run to give yourself an extra added boost. Well, Chris found a research paper that shows that consuming one of those little boxes of raisins is essentially the same effect as taking one GU Gel. The difference? You can buy a 6 pack of those little raisin boxes for $1.25. Whereas a single GU Gel will cost you the same $1.25. So, I’m adding to my grocery list is a pack of those raises, which if I’m running 3 days a week. Is two weeks worth of small energy boost for $1.25, not too shabby right?

Today my run was 2.2 Miles in 24:52 making my pace 11:17 per mile. Now, remember how I said I was going to be taking it easy today? I sure as heck felt like I did, I even thought I was going too slow because I didn’t want to hurt my food. This is endurance building at it’s finest. My body is slowly conditioning itself into a more refined machine. Without knowing it, I shaved a good 10 seconds off my pace time. While that may not seem like a lot, it means that soon I’ll be doing every mile in under 11 minutes. Sometimes just little mental changes, like seeing instead of an 11:17 per mile pace and a 10:59 per mile pace can have a HUGE impact. It’s progress and I’m loving every second of it.