This Running Life

Wow. I haven’t posted in a month. First there was final exam week, which meant I had to grade and make sure my faculty got their grades in. Then I worked on errands and my book manuscript. Each day, I told myself I needed to post. I haven’t run much. I have been quite busy refereeing soccer games. The money for calling high school soccer games in Louisiana is pretty good, so I got a bunch of games ad paid off our Christmas bills already.

So I have run, but in a sprinting, quick turns, lateral movement way. My first “run” in a couple of weeks was two days ago. I did three miles. No Achilles pain, but my IT band was a bit bothersome, mainly due to my not stretching it and not running much.

yesterday I did two speed miles. I ran 1 mile at sub-5K pace, walked a 1/4 mile, then ran a mile at 5K pace. I didn’t want to run a lot, because I haven’t run two days in a row in sometime, except for reffing soccer games, of course.

I’ll run again tomorrow–Christmas Day–and then will try to get some runs in at Mom’s house. I guess I should have mentioned earlier that Christmas is time when we travel a bunch. I am in semi-sunny Florida right now. A good friend of mine is house sitting and feeding our animals, so we can travel with peace of mind.

We are also taking our kids to Disney World from Jan 1 to 7th, so I will not run at all that week, but I will walk a great deal. I’ll probably drop a few pounds just during that week alone. I know I did last year. That was right after we discovered my high BP, so I was avoiding fried foods, eating mostly salads and wraps at Disney World. I dropped 6 pounds that week. It has been said that one can walk upwards of 7-12 miles a day at Disney World. I believe it.

Hope you all have a great holiday season.

Runners are resourceful. Have a blister? Slap some duct tape on it and run long. In the era before Body Glide, Vaseline was the best thing to prevent chafing–and is still used for “old school” marathoners. A few weeks ago a good friend introduced me to a fancy muscle roller she had purchased. I looked like a dumb bell but had bearings and a block that allowed you to work over sore muscles. I loved it and wanted one. But I just couldn’t pull the trigger on 60 dollars. I had used foam rollers and before yoga class, I usually go over my Achilles and calves with my Yogi’s foam roller. Still, 17 dollars for a three foot rod of foam was still a bit much. Then I had it–a brain storm. I was in Target yesterday and bought my new muscle roller for less than 5 dollars.

Voila! a common kitchen dough roller!

I was listening to the September 21st issue of the Phedippidations Podcast and was surprised, honored, and proud to have been named the blog of the week. Steve Runner is a great guy and I love the podcast–he says he is not a philosophical type, but I get a lot out of his ruminations. At any rate, thanks, Steve. You can check it out yourself at http://www.steverunner.com. Awesome stuff.

2d day back this morning. Back at the track. I walked two laps as warmup, then ran the straights and walked the curves for 2.5 more miles. Getting used to the footpod. I had thought it was measuring my distance a little generous until I realized that for the first part of my session, I was NOT in the inside lane of the track. Rather I had waked/run on the outside lanes, which added distance. So, all worked fine.

Ice and ibuprofen after exercise and alternate workout tomorrow. Back at it Thursday. I felt much betrer all over this morning. No IT band/knee soreness. No achilles issues either.

So far so good. Taking it slooowww. Which means no soccer reffing for a while. I told the local assignor that I won’t be able to ref any local soccer games until I am fully back.

Sunday was my first day back to running in more than a month. As instructed, I ran around our local high school track (nice padded surface). I ran the straights and walked the curves. I did jog one lap at the end to calibrate my new foot pod. I ran a total of probably three miles. One thing I HATE about the track is my inability to keep up with how many laps I run. Was that 6 or 7? Have I gone a mile yet?

The foot pod will assist my memory for future runs. But to accurately calibrate the thing, one has to run at least 4oo meters. I didn’t want to do that until well after I had warmed up.

I felt…well… okay. No pain in the achilles area. Although my body did react in a way that it realized something new was happening. I underestimated how much I would have to reintroduce my body to running. From my feet through my hips, the body is reacquainted itself with pounding and running. My IT band got stiff near the end of the run, in my outer left knee area. But this is just a matter of better IT stretching.

I’ll do this for a couple of weeks and then get back into distance runs off the track, maybe. So far, so good.