Out of it for a while

So my heels are hurting so badly that I limp around all day...not good.  :)  I am trying to keep off my feet as much as possible, and I am using inserts in my shoes because it is most likely Plantar Fasciitis.  Now that I am reading about it, I am going to try ice as well.  Unfortunately, they say that it takes a long time (i.e. months!) to get rid the pain in most cases.   Yikes!  I am seeing my doctor for my annual physical in a couple weeks, so I will hold on until then.  Needless to say, running is off the table for now, but I still have quite a while before September to get back to it.  

Internal and External Hills (Basins of Potential)

So much of my experience of running recently has been thinking around the route.

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The problem here is that if I want to run up any of the North facing roads toward Broadway (which, as a road with a light rail line, is fairly flat), I have to go across a bit of a valley which stresses the ankle at the start and the end of the run. A real headache. Going directly South involves going down a hill steep enough that, if we were to line it with aluminum, children would pay to slide down it. That pretty much leaves West as the most tenable direction. But for me, running is often about trying new routes, etc., and until my ankle is not problematic anymore, it's kind of boring to always run up Espy.

OK. Now I'm just whining.

Thinking about Brian's statement about runners as masochist. There might be something to that. The thing to remember, I think, is that at least in part the masochism is to the end of enjoying your running later. At some point, when the initial struggle is over, running for me feels good in a way that is somewhat similar to stretching. Maybe one way to put it is that, for me, running can lead to a pleasure inherent in pushing the internal boundaries to make myself bigger, to enlarge my experience. On the other hand, maybe that's what's going on with masochists as well.

It's Father's Day. I don't know what's in the plans, but I'm looking forward to whatever awaits. Happy Father's Day, bro. I'm proud of you for all of those boundaries you've broken.

Broken through the ceiling

My heel was hurting a lot this morning, but I set out anyway.  I was favoring my right leg a bit as I ran, but I told myself that it would get better, and it did a bit.  After a while, I thought that if I took a break between my runs that it would hurt more when I started up again.  I wasn't feeling any worse after I ran past what was normally around my 10 minute mark, either with my legs or being winded, so I kept going.  I ran to my turn-around point (which is normally around 15 min), and back to past where normally my second 10-min run would end.  I refused to look at my watch the whole time, because I felt it would be discouraging, but when I finally did, I had run 20 minutes straight!  I stopped then, stretched, ran a bit, and walked the rest of the way home.  I didn't want to push my heel that much, but the next stage of my running schedule was to run 20 minutes anyway, so I had already satisfied the schedule.  Now the point is to run longer than 20 minutes.  

I also notice how quickly an asymmetry  is felt.  I feel sore on my right thigh, and my lower right back, having favored a little my right leg due to my left heel being sore.  

Feeling Greek today

So I am feeling a bit greek today.  I mean, Achilles and Sisyphus.  :)  My heels hurt today, and I will give it a break tomorrow.  I almost gave up on my running today, as I slogged my way through the last leg.  I still finished my 10 min run/2 min walk x3, but it was *really* hard.  It also felt like I wasn't making much progress, but I guess I should go back about 3 or 4 weeks and read the blog.  It was a tough day.

Running slowly

Occasionally I would see a runner going at a snail's pace.  I thought to myself, with a slightly condescending grin, I could *walk* faster than that.  Today, as I struggled to finish my last 9 minutes, with my foot and leg hurting, I realized that I was going perhaps at a walk-pace.  I finally understood the difference between running and walking, and why the slow runners are to be given more credit than I had been giving them.

Most other times I would look at runners and simply think that they are insane masochists.  That viewpoint hasn't actually changed since I started running.  :)

Tough, but Successful, Day

Today when I started to run, my right ankle was hurting to the point that I was obviously favoring my left leg even when walking.  I figured it would go away after running for a while, which it did somewhat, but then my left leg muscle started hurting mid-way through the run because of the extra work. 

I had done 9 min run/2 min walk yesterday, and planned on increasing for today.  I decided that, while limping during my warm-up walk, I shouldn't push it today.  Wasn't sure I'd do the full run, but I did the 9 min run/2 min walk.  

Moby?

Perhaps it is the whale, although I don't think so.  Most of my music is Jimmy Eat World, Live, and a smattering of other artists like Kelly Clarkson, Melissa Ethridge and (believe it or not) REO Speedwagon.  :)  Perhaps I'll post my running soundtrack later.

Today, another 9 min run/2 min walk after a break of 2 days.  It felt fine, like I could run longer at the end of the run, but I will probably repeat tomorrow and move up to 10 and 2 or 10 and 1 the next day.  We'll see.  My knees were a bit sore today afterward, but are fine now.

I noticed that I am starting to lose a little weight.  I oscillate between the high 140s and the mid 160s.  When I hit 160 I start feeling bad, and it motivates me to exercise.  That was what spurred on this recent wave of exercise for me.  Now I have dipped below 160 (at around 158), and hope to get as low as 150.

As for watches, I went to Target and bought a watch for $10, and it works well.  I find I need the digital seconds (not just hour and minute) in order to motivate myself.  Just 30 more seconds...just 10 more seconds... etc...

Box of Running

Reading quickly through Brian's posts that I've been missing keeps making me think that I ought to buy a watch. Or maybe get the battery replaced on my old Colman watch with the broken lens. What a cheapskate.

Today was the first time that I've ever run with an mp3 player. Just recently picked up an 8g nano, which is really fun! I got it mostly for books on tape in the car, but it's been entertaining for the bug (Hazel) and good for playing music on the home stereo as well. But today was the first time that I thought to use it while running. Listening to Moby up and down the hills. So, I'm not entirely sure whether it was Moby, or just my foot is healing, but I was able to go farther without really feeling the foot pain, or even stopping to flex it. I think I might have stretched a bit more thoroughly in the morning.

In any case, it's kind of strange. I can just barely hear the cacophony of birds. I can hear the buses, but most other cars fade away into the periphery of consciousness. I was thinking at one point that it feels like I'm in the intro to a movie with the main character taking a run and the soundtrack playing overhead. (I'm holding out for Cusack. Not Joan.) I was thinking, too, about Sipiora's work on the walk-man... as sort of an encapsulated box of commoditized culture. I have to say, at least this first run, I miss the birds. It doesn't feel like the run is providing as much of something different from how I spend the rest of my day (often with headphones on listening to people talk.) I'll try it for a few more days, but maybe in the end I'll leave the music and headphones for driving.

(Kidding)

A little more

I went up to 9 minutes run/2 min walk x3 today.  It was easier than I thought it would, but still challenging.  Sometimes I find, during the run, that I lose track of time which is interesting.  I wonder if it is a response to the tedium of running.  I'll have to keep tabs on it to see when it happens.  :)

The work-energy theorem

Given that my net displacement is zero on my run, and I maintain (roughly) a constant kinetic energy, then according to the work-energy theorem, I should be just as tired at the end of my run as I am at the beginning.  That was what my brain was telling me, as I struggled through the last leg of my run today.  Clearly my brain had failed to take into account the energy lost due to friction and, more importantly, the inefficiencies in the biochemical reactions which power my run.  That probably explains why I wasn't too comforted by the analysis.  :)

Again, 8 min run/2 min walk x 3, but I did feel better than yesterday.  I saw a large caterpillar, which I thought I'd bring back to look in our new microscope, but I had no way of carrying it, and didn't want to be cleaning out a squished caterpillar from my pockets.

I'm back...

My daughter is fine, and what I thought was going to be a 2 or 3 day break grew into a 5 day break, because I was just too tired to get up.  :)  This morning I felt it, but still did a 8 min run/2 min walk x 3 (with the last leg very hard).  I need to build up my stamina!  I feel like I've stagnated a bit at this point, and hope that I can get over it soon.  I'd like to get to the point of being able to run 20 minutes straight without stopping.  

No bunnies today, or Mr Skunk.  I did see a number of birds, and my mp3 player lost power on my last leg, so I heard a lot of my own footsteps and breathing.  I prefer the music.