Last year I raced the USATF 5000 meter track race at Hamline.  I am glad it wasn’t part of the circuit this year! It also served as Foto Friday.  Over the same weekend last year was a heart-wrenching 3200m for Nicole Cochran of Washington.  You may recall the story, she won the race but was DQ’ed after the fact and then after reviewing some video footage of the  race she was eventually reinstated as the state champion.   From two years ago, I wrote about running at Westwood Park in New Castle, IN.

Last Year’s Mileage

Run: 26.9 Miles
Bike: 67.0 Miles
Swim: 500 Yards

Monday I went to the YWCA for a short weight session and swimming.  I know Higdon’s plan calls for running an easy 3 on Monday, but for now I’m going to keep using it as a cross training session.  Maybe as time goes on I’ll switch to running, but I think right now this is good.  I used his suggested 6 strength exercises (forgetting 2 of them), which are bench press, lunges, curls, overhead triceps, sitting row, and crunches.  I did light weights since it has been a long while!  Then I swam for about 300 yards.  Towards the end I kept getting water in my mouth, so I just stopped.

Tuesday I did a 30 minute tempo run along the Greenway.  Once I got warmed up my foot stopped hurting.  I ran a pretty solid workout getting 4.13 miles in during the 30 minutes (7:17 pace) and easily hitting tempo pace.  It was 46 and overcast so a nice morning to run.  Today was 8th grade graduation promotion at work and I was on my feet running around for most of the day.

I woke up Wednesday with some of the worst pain I’ve had from the Plantar Fasciitis in a long time, so I opted not to run.  I got really discouraged throughout the day and at one point even thought about quiting running altogether.  I waffled between whether I should run Thursday’s pace workout or not and finally came to the point of saying I’m not going to run again for awhile.  I’m tired of my foot always hurting so I’m going to do what I should have done almost 2 months ago – REST.

It is hard knowing that I should be training for the marathon which is now 16 weeks away, but I realized that the chances of me making it through 18 weeks of hard training with a nagging injury are pretty slim.  I managed to get through the half-marathon training program, but it seems silly to keep pushing and injuring my body more and more.  All that being said though, the MDRA offers a fall-marathon training class which starts June 23 (pdf).  So I know I’m not completely dropping the ball – unless I’m still experiencing pain at that point – which I’ll probably just charge right on through if I do.

So a little reassessment mid-stride! I didn’t do any cross-training this week really – just my bike commute – unless you count the Wii Fit.  On Tues, Weds, and Fri and I “played” Yoga, Balance, and Strength games.   This sounds almost ridiculous to say but some of the things are challenging and really have worked my core/stabilizer muscles.  Stop laughing.  You should try it sometime and see.  You can’t really rely on the feedback about your “Wii Fit Age” because it fluctuates so much – one day I was 40 and then the next I was 26.

Weekly Mileage

Run: 4.1 Miles
Bike: 37.5 Miles
Swim: 300 Yards