Monday, July 28, 2014

week in review; july 21–27


Monday, July 21: 1.52 miles

Tuesday, July 22: 3.56 miles + 1 mile walk

Wednesday, July 23: 1.15 miles

Thursday, July 24: Esprit de She 10K (60th and Final Day of my running streak)

Friday, July 25: 15 minute walk

Saturday, July 26: rest day

Sunday, July 27: 3.02 miles

I made a very tough decision this week, which was to end my running streak. I didn't think it would be as difficult as it was. Originally, I had only planned on running the 40 that the Runner's World Challenge had set up, but it was such a great motivator, I kept it up for 60 days. I figured 60 was a great number, and that in order to prevent burnout and injury, it would be best to stop and have some rest days, especially since Dopey training will get more difficult as the weeks go on. I definitely don't want to hurt myself now and halt my training, which is more important than a streak. Still, not going for a run on Friday made me a little sad... just ask my husband haha. 

Anyway, I've been having a bit of arch pain this past week, which I think is plantar fasciitis. I ordered some heel seats today, which I've heard from a few people have helped alleviate most of the pain. On my run yesterday, I used KT Tape, which worked well on my right foot, but my left was still in pain (perhaps I applied it more accurately on my right than left). The website also has a lot of videos on how to stretch the area out, which I'll be giving a try.

On Thursday night, I ran the Esprit de She 10K, which was a lot of fun. The weather was PERFECT (which is a rare thing for me to say about weather at the end of July). I'll have a recap up at some point, but it was well organized and a great female-based race.

Due to a very late night Thursday (I didn't get home till after midnight), the rest of my week/end was a bit lazy, as I was exhausted and dealing with arch pains. Saturday I was out of the house the entire day and all night, standing for quite a few hours (which I'm sure didn't help my arches), but other than that there wasn't any type of exercising.

Even with Friday and Saturday being lazy/rest days, I did get all of my training runs in, though I cut the run short by 10 minutes Sunday due to my arch pains. The plan was for 2-45 minute runs and a 5.5 mile long run on the weekend. Since I had the 10K Thursday, I switched the Saturday run to Thursday, and the original Thursday to Sunday. The runs went well, and I felt really good during the 10K (minus a small bit of knee pangs).

After Sunday's run, my husband and I decided to go out for some hair of the dog ;) Not to say we were hungover, but it was a nice afternoon, and we wanted to be out of the house, despite the number of chores we were supposed get done. Sometimes, it's more important to spend time together when the chance is there. We also watched 'The Shining' with Jack Nicholson. Anyone ever see this? I was expecting to be horrified and have nightmares, as I had heard it was quite the scary movie, but I mostly just laughed or rolled my eyes, annoyed with some of the acting/story line. We had both just read the book, and found the movie disappointing. While I thoroughly enjoyed Nicholson's performance (he's awesome), that's about all I enjoyed. We're going to watch the miniseries version and see if it's any better (which I am hoping it is, since it was written by Stephen King himself, it may be more accurate to the book, which I found more thrilling than the movie). I know it can be hard to depict certain things in tv/movies, but I just couldn't get on board with the Stanley Kubrick adaptation. Oh well.

Scenes from the week.

I was hoping to get in some strength training this week, but I didn't find the time or energy, but I WILL get two days in this week. I have my first Pure Barre class this week as well, and I am going to try a spin class on Thursday if I can get there on time. Quite the week planned, and this weekend I have a 3-day pass to Lollapalooza. That will certainly include a LOT of walking, as it's a mile from the north end to the south end, and I imagine I'll be doing a lot of running back and forth in order to catch the bands I want to see at the various stages.

It's weird to have two weekends in a row without races, but after the past two weeks having two weekday races and then back-to-back at Rock 'n' Roll the other weekend, it's a nice change of pace, especially since I'm so busy with other things.

What's on your calendar for this week/end? Do you ever have arch pains? What do you do to help alleviate the pain? 

8 comments:

  1. Nice week, good on you for recognizing that ending the run streak was a wise decision. That's my main concern with run streaks, sometimes they're just over-doing it.

    Also don't worry to much about the arch pain, it could be a simple overuse injury from the runstreak that might be remedied by..well ending the streak! The below URL is an article I wrote about a recent overuse injury I almost had: kylekranz.com/case-study-achilles-overuse/

    I had arch/heel pain a long time ago, and I took most of a summer of from running in an attempt to let it heal up. In the end what helped the most was moving to lower profile shoes that were flexible and did not have a raised heel.

    Good luck!

    Kyle @ SKORA

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  2. I've never experienced arch pain but it sounds horrible. I hope you find that less running and more cross training solves the problem. I only run 3 times per week (during Dopey training I ran 4) and it has worked really well for me.

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    1. Thanks, I hope so too! My usual training is 3–4 times as well, so I hope getting back to running less days and adding in cross and strength training helps to keep me fit and injury free :)

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  3. Good for you for ending the streak! After doing Dopey training last year I can tell you- rest up for as long as you can! November and December are BRUTAL training months and you'll want to enter them with as little pain as possible.

    I've also struggled with PF for about a year. Here's what's helped- daily stretching (you can google stretches for PF), custom orthotic inserts, and a night splint. And lots of rest on rest days :-) Good luck! If you have specific questions, please reach out to me- I'd be happy to help in any way I can!

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    1. Thanks Sarah! In my mind I know it was the right thing to do, my heart was just having a bit of trouble grasping the concept of stopping haha.

      I am looking into getting orthotics and have looked up some stretches – I hope they help. If not, I'll be emailing you looking for some tips!

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  4. I hope your arch pain is going away! I look forward to reading about your Espiri de She recap .

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