Off To A Good Start

First run of the week today:  5 miles!  I probably could have kept going, but I have too much to do at work and needed to get back to my desk.  And I didn't want to push it either.  But my leg muscles are getting the hang of what's going on and don't really bother me anymore.  I feel a little bit of soreness in my feet, but I think that will also diminish over time as the muscles in my foot continue to get stronger.  It will be interesting to see what I can do the rest of this week since I found my comfortable pace.  I'd like to get my distance up a bit more, then I'll do some interval training to increase my speed.  But I'll stick with the 6.5 pace for a while.

A Good Week

Here's the summary from this week:

Monday:  3.5 miles
Tuesday:  3.5 miles
Wednesday:  2 miles
Thursday:  2.5 miles
Friday:  4.5 miles

That's a total of 16 miles.  My calves don't hurt anymore and my toes have toughened up a bit now, so they don't bother me anymore.  Friday I was feeling tired and almost didn't run.  But I did anyway, and I'm glad I did.  All week I was pushing my pace a little bit and got tired sooner.

Friday, I bumped my pace back down just a bit.  I was on the treadmill and just decided to keep running without looking at the panel to see how long or how far I had run.  I had glanced at the clock every once in a while, but only a few times.  By the time I looked at the panel on the treadmill, 38 minutes had gone by and I had run just over 4 miles.  I knew I had been running for about that amount of time since the album I was listening to was almost over.  So I decided to go to 4.5 miles and call it a day.

Just by bumping my pace down by 0.2 mph, I was able to keep running without feeling tired or having to think about my breathing.  It just felt natural.  And slowing my pace down just a little bit also kept my heart rate just a little lower, which is important to be able to run long distances.  So, 6.5 mph will be my pace for now.  Not bad, that's a 9.5 minute mile.  If I can sustain that for a long distance, I should be in good shape.

So my goal for next week is to do at least 3 miles a day at that pace.  But for now, two days of rest!

Fresh Start

After not running for 4 days, it felt good to run again today.  I bumped up to 3.5 miles today.  I could have gone further, but opted not to since I was starting to feel it a bit in my calves.  Not right away, though.  For the first 2 miles my run felt really good.  And even after that it felt fine, I just knew that I didn't want to cripple myself again.    I heard somewhere that the best training coach is yourself.  Just listen to what your body is telling you.  When it really starts to hurt, just go a little further, then be done.  I don't know if I was at the point of it really hurting, but better safe than sorry.

So we'll see how I feel tomorrow and go from there.  Two of my toes have fresh blisters, but the others have calluses on them now and don't bother me at all.  Last week, when I ran two days in a row, the blisters didn't bother me at all on the second day, so hopefully I'll be able to do another 3.5 miles tomorrow.

Last Week In Review

Last week I ran 3 times.  Monday I ran 3 miles.  Tuesday I thought I was only going to run 2 miles, but since I felt pretty good as I was nearing mile 2, I decided to do another.  My calves hurt a bit when I was done, but nothing more than just a little soreness.  Stuff at work prevented me from running on Wednesday and Thursday I had the day off.  But I still managed to get 2 miles in by 7:30am. 

So three runs last week for a total of 8 miles.  Not bad, but I hope to do a little better this week.  Hopefully I can get at least 4 days of running in this week.  I'm almost back to running what I was before the Vibram's, so hopefully this week I can get closer to that

On a side note, I just finished Born To Run.  I'll try to post a book review sometime this week.

Back From The Montains

After a week at the mountains, it's good to be back to civilization.  We had a great time, but now it's back to work.  I managed to get 4 runs in last week.  I haven't done much hill running so last week was a bit challenging because of that.  But by the end of the week, I could notice an improvement.

The first day, I took Molly (our dog) with me.  She keep running in and out of the woods, so I had to keep stopping and making sure she was still following me.  At one point she just sat along side the road and stared at me as I kept running.  As soon as I couldn't see her, I turned around.

The second day, Molly followed me again, but I just left her do her thing.  By the time I turned around to head back to the cabin she had already went back.  Both days the hills were a little tough, but my calves were not feeling anything any more.  I can already tell that my legs and feet are strengthening.

The third and forth run last week felt good.  I felt better on the hills and the downhill sprint at the end of my run felt good.  Thank goodness the uphill part is the first half of the run.  I had hoped to get in a 5th run while there, but that didn't happen.  I never exceeded 1.5 miles.  I'm hoping to up my distance this week.  Since I don't really have any soreness in my legs or feet now, I might try bumping back up to 3 miles today.

My last post I had mentioned about how I thought it was easier to maintain the toe to heel method of running on the treadmill.  Well, I can confirm that it was just getting used to running in the Vibrams.  All last week I was either running on grass or a stone road and it was just as easy to run that way as it was on the treadmill the week before.  Today I will be back on the treadmill, so we'll see how that goes.

Update:  I ran 3 miles today.  Aside from the small blisters on my toes (guess I need to build up some callouses), I feel great.

Run #2

So as of yesterday, my legs still hurt, but I felt I was up for the challenge of running again.  This time I thought I'd try the treadmill and limit myself to 1.5 miles.  Before the Vibram's, I had been running at about 6 miles an hour.  Not a fast pace by any means, but I was just trying to get a good cardio workout in.  When I hopped on the treadmill with the Vibram's, the 6 mph pace was too slow.  So I bumped it up to 6.5 mph.  That felt pretty good, so I just left it there.

After my mile and a half I still felt pretty good and very briefly thought about running a little more.  Then I quickly remembered the pain I was in on Tuesday and thought I better not.  When I was done, my legs felt sore, but not anything like they did on Monday.

Running on the treadmill is obviously different then running outside, but I felt like I was able to maintain the toe to heal method of running.  I don't know if it was because of the treadmill or because I'm just getting used to the Vibram's or a combination of both.

Waking up today, my legs feel sore, but again, not anything like Monday.  They feel about the same as they did yesterday.  So hopefully limiting myself to 1.5 miles was the right thing and now I can slowly build up from there.

Next week we leave for the mountains for a week, so I'll be running outside again.  And new posts will have to wait until I get back.

Ready To Run

So when we got home from the beach this past Saturday, my new Vibram's were waiting for me.  I had hoped to take them for a spin around the block sometime during the weekend, but I couldn't squeeze a run in.  So I took them to work with me Monday morning (August 2) to try them out over lunch (which is when I usually go to the gym).

It was only about 75 degrees on Monday, so I thought I'd try them outside first.  I wanted to be able to run on the grass and pavement to feel if one way felt better than the other.  Now, the tag on the shoes said to ease yourself into using them.  So I thought that I'd run on Monday and either Wednesday or Thursday.

I ran about 3 miles on Monday.  It felt pretty good.  I could definitely tell that I had to run a bit faster to find a more comfortable stride.  And I knew that it would take a few times to get used to them.  I found myself landing heal first sometimes, which did not feel good at all.  By the end of the 3 miles, my calves were hurting pretty bad, which was no surprise.  Running barefoot and toe to heal uses different muscles that running heal to toe.  But it was a good hurt, so I still felt pretty good.

Well, hindsight is always 20/20 and this was no exception.  Not being a distance runner (yet!), I probably should have limited myself to 1 mile in them for my trial run.  After sitting at my desk for the rest of the afternoon, my leg muscles had tightened up a good bit.  When I left work, my legs were pretty stiff, but not too bad.

The next morning, however, was a different story.  I got out of bed and could barely walk!  My calf muscles in my legs were so incredibly sore and painful!  After a hot shower and some stretching, walking was bearable.  By Tuesday evening walking down steps was almost impossible.

Yikes, I guess I went a little too far.

Inspired

In December of 2009, I made a goal to eat better, exercise more and loose weight.  Whenever I would exercise in the past, I usually included running in my workout.  Never a lot, just enough to get a good cardio workout.  This time was no exception.  Over the past few months (as the weight started coming off), I felt better when I ran and that I was able to run longer and faster.  As of July 2010, I was up to running 3-5 miles, 3 to 5 days a week.

A month or two ago I heard about a book called "Born To Run" by Christopher McDougall.  I didn't give it much thought until a recent vacation to the beach.  Having forgot my running shoes, I decided to go running barefoot on the beach the first day.  It felt strange and very different from my usual running experience...but it was a very good experience.

I knew that "Born To Run" had something to say about a different way to run.  So while on vacation, I bought a copy of the book and began reading it.  As I was reading it, I kept thinking, "this makes a lot of sense".  So I did some quick research and found the Vibram FiveFingers running shoes.

They really aren't so much of a shoe as they are a glorified sock with some extra protection for the bottom of your foot.  But no padding.  I knew the basic concept was to run from toe to heal instead of heal to toe, and from all the reviews I read about the shoes, it seemed like these forced you to run that way.  Being the impulse person that I am, I ordered a pair (I needed new running shoes anyway, and these are about the same price as a new pair of sneakers).

So now, with new Vibrams on my feet, I thought I would document my running journey.  I have to admit that the book has inspired me.  I don't know that I want to be an ultra-marathon runner, but I think I would like to run a regular marathon someday.  For anybody who hasn't heard of an ultra-marathon (I hadn't until I started reading the book), they are crazy races, usually about 100 miles in length, that vary from running through woods and mountains to running on pavement to running through death valley (which by the way, that one is 120 miles long) or any combination of those!

On  your mark...get set...GO!