Sick, sick, sick
We've had kind of a crazy week in the ol' Average Runner household. We started out last weekend with my husband coming home from his 50K event sick. Now I am pretty sure that he headed down there sick, too, because no one develops a fever and headache/body aches on the race course (do they?). He suffered miserably through sixteen miles of trail run before throwing in the towel and heading to the car to sleep. It's bad enough to DNF, but to add insult to injury this is the race that presented him with his first (of now two) DNF(s) last year when inclement weather and nasty snow cover resulted in 75 percent of the field not finishing. I know he was looking forward to showing this event what he had, but it was not to be. Ah well, next year, I guess. After two days missed from work and a full week of no exercise, he is finally rebounding and getting back to his regular routine. That's good, because I don't know what to do with Distance Dude when he is not following his regular routine. (Luckily, he was too sick to really ever make it to the extremely crabby stage of not exercising, but I am sure it was coming soon.)
Speaking of down and out, both kids have had colds this week, too, resulting in some hefty coughing. So far, I am the only one not stricken with some malady or malaise (knocking on wood), so I take every day as a gift. I am sure my time is coming.
The road to recovery, I hope...
This past week also saw me finally turning over control of my shin recovery to someone else. That is to say that I went in to see my physical therapist for some advice. (And I even paid her this time!) After a complete assessment of my strength and flexibility, it was determined that my left quad and IT band were extremely tight and that hip a bit weak. Why this is? Who knows. There is some thought that it might be a compensation injury left over from when the right hip was hurting. I may have adjusted my running and then never re-adjusted it. Anyway, for the time being, I have some quad stretches I am supposed to be focusing on. Everything else is to stay the same until further notice. One thing I found interesting is that - of course - when I went in to see the PT nothing hurt! That always happens to me. The time I want to show someone what is happening, it doesn't happen.
Unfortunately, this leads me to May. I think I must finally concede that a May marathon is not in the cards for me. As much as I hate to do it, I am planning on downgrading my entry in the Kalamazoo Marathon to the half this time around. I was really excited about doing another full marathon, but the truth is that there is no way I can get marathon ready in 11 weeks. I don't have enough of a base, and I don't do these things enough. Also, the next marathon I do, I want to really be ready for it. I don't want it to be half-assed. I am disappointed, but sometimes you have to take the logical route, not the one you want to do. I spent all last year doing whatever the hell I wanted to do regarding running. And I had a great year! It just so happens that when you buy things on credit, the bill eventually comes due. So, now I am paying for my year of craziness. Once I have this debt paid off, I'll work on building up my credit again, and then I'll start buying myself some more runs.
Mama's got some new shoes, baby!
So, from stupid "shopping" analogies to talk of real shopping done. I am very excited to be the proud owner of two new pairs of running shoes. I couldn't help myself. I have been drooling over New Balance's WT110s for a while now since reading a review on the IRunFar blog. These are an upgrade from the WT101s, which I love. The review and the making of article were so overwhelmingly positive that I had to buy a pair online sight unseen. At the time of this writing, they are still sight unseen, so I'll have more to say in a few days once I get them in my little hands.
My second pair of shoes was bought locally at a store that I just so happened to have a gift certificate to. (Thanks, Mom and Dad!) After dropping E. off at a birthday party, we dragged the Little Guy into the store to check out some shoes. At times, LG can be absolutely charming. Unfortunately, this was not a day he was going to put on his "charming" hat. Tired, hungry, and feeling short-changed in the birthday party arena of his life, he let it be known that he was only going to be happy if he pulled out every GU and Roctane in the place and quizzed me on every flavor they had. Not so bad when it's just you and the sales person in the store. Worse when it is a shop full of people checking out the merchandise. Luckily, a bag of sport beans and some finger foods placated him long enough to check out the shoes, and what I settled on was a pair of Brooks PureConnect Flow. I am very excited to give these shoes a whirl. I think they are what I have been looking for with some cushioning (but not too much), a nice roomy fit, not a lot of support, and less of a drop from heel to toe. I am sure I'll have more to say about them later, too, once I have started really running in them, but so far I feel good about them.
Not an all-out effort
Exercise-wise, this past week, I dropped my entire schedule down to 70 percent of the previous week's output. I thought I might try something new where I give my body a bit of a break every three weeks or so. It's something I read about in Running Times so we'll see how that works out. Tomorrow's workout is my first increase in effort. I'll go from 90 minutes of exercise to 105 minutes, if all goes well. That will allow for a slight increase in running, and the rest will be elliptical.
Tomorrow is also my rest day for the ab fab Fab Abs challenge. Thank God. This is getting tough. If I don't have abs of steel by the end of February, they will have died trying.
Happy running!
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