Week in Review – March 29, 2015

This week turned out to be a pretty good week after a bit of a rough start. Let me start with the news/updates.

News/Updates

This week I went to the doctor on Wednesday to get my foot checked out. I had a lot of pain in it last week and took some time off. I called Monday and got in on Wednesday to get it checked out.

Turns out that there were no breaks or fractures or anything wrong with the bones. Actually on Tuesday and Wednesday (the day I went in), it felt really good. The doctor said I may have just strained it and had some inflammation.  He told me to take it easy but I could run as I tolerated it and to take 2-3 Ibuprofen 3 times a day for the next couple of weeks. I ended up running 4.57 miles on it the afternoon of my appointment with no pain at all. Luckily, I think it just needed a bit of rest.

Training

This brings me to the training that was impacted by the foot pain issue I had. I ran a total of 17.17 miles in 3:21:17. I ran 3 days straight after my doctor appointment and had no pain at all, so that is a great sign! I was scheduled to run 10 miles on Sunday, but I decided to skip it. I still went to the gym and lifted and worked on the elliptical machine, but I felt like I wanted to give my foot a bit more time to make sure everything is ok. I will be starting back up with the next week of my training schedule so I want to make sure I don’t do anything to hurt my training for the half marathon.

The runs I did, as I said, felt good and had no pain at all. It just felt really good to get back into the running. It is always a good reminder when you can’t run, just how much it means to you to run. The elliptical machine is good, but nothing beats running for me. I am also hoping that with next weeks training and the hopefully better weather, I can hit the trails again! I love running trails actually. More so than on the road actually. I will have to see if I can get some trail races in this year.

Races

I have a 5K coming up on Friday April 3rd. It looks to be a fun, flat and fast 5K. I highly doubt I will place like I did in the last 5K, but I am looking forward to running it. I plan to take it a bit easy given my foot, but that always changes when the adrenaline hits and you get around all the other runners. Should be a fun race.

Gear

This weeks new gear is not really gear, but a book I have been reading. I finally started reading the 80/20 Running: Run Stronger and Race Faster by Training Slower by Matt Fitzgerald. So far, I am really enjoying it. The author spends the first half of the book explaining the science behind the 80/20 running and the second half explaining how to actually do it. Turns out most amateurs run about a 50/50 mix of hard and actual easy runs (some a lot less easy as what they say is easy, really isn’t). I am only through the first half of the book, but I am a believer so far. Now I just gotta learn how to apply it. I will have a fuller review when I complete it but I have already started running my easy runs at more of an actual easy pace.

Well, that is it for this week. I hope everyone gets out and get s chance to run!