Freethinker ~ Freerunner

Good run this morning.  Very cold at 26 degrees, but fortunately we ran east and west for the majority of the run so we avoided the north wind.  

My Garmin was dead this morning, so my data comes from my running buddy's Garmin.  

Splits: 

7:23

7:41

7:21

7:16

7:41

7:20

7:35

7:54

8:01

7:31

Good run this morning.  Very cold at 26 degrees, but I'm pretty sure I've decided that the extreme cold makes me run faster.  I have more incentive to get back home to the warmth.  I ran this run the same distance with my running buddy on Sunday.  I feel pretty good because I ran this mornings run 31 seconds faster than my Sunday run with my running buddy.  

Hard run at 4:30 in the after noon.   I would have rather gotten this run in this morning, but there was no way I was going to pull my self out of bed early after yesterday.  I did not get but 5 hours of sleep the night before and yesterday was quite a long day for me.  I got my braces on in the morning and we had our company dinner at P.F. Changs after work last night.  I'm ready to take some time off from work.  

Splits:  

7:21

7:05

7:09

6:57

6:48

7:05

Went running while on vacation on Monkey Island at Grand Lake.  It was about 20 degrees with 14 to 20 mile per hour winds.  I was seriously worried for a few mile in the middle that my cheeks might get frost bite.  I kept reaching up and touching my face with my hands to make sure that I still had feeling.  

The roads of Monkey Island are super hilly.  It was awesome.  A great workout.  

This morning was a little warmer and much less windy.  It was a much more enjoyable run.  The only part about it that was not enjoyable was that my Garmin died at exactly 10 miles.  I calculated my turn around point to put me back at my hotel at approximately 11.5 miles.  Why approximately?  Because I ran around a little bit in the opposite direction of my hotel before eventually coming back by.  Looking at the map of the run I can reasonably estimate that I ran 11.5 miles.   I learned my lesson on charging my Garmin the night before.  It turned it on to see if it needed a charge.  At first it indicated that one cell was missing, but that that cell lit up.  So I put it away thinking it was fully charged.  It was not.  This was a really fun run none the less.  The hills on monkey island are challenging to say the least.  

I had a really nice run this morning up until about mile 8.  I felt shooting pain through my right calf, but lower more towards my ankle.  I eased up a bit and the pain went away but I could definitely still feel something.  I iced it when I got back home, but shortly thereafter I had to go to work.  I will ice it again tonight before bed as it still feels slightly sore to walk around on.  I've sustained a injury or pulled muscle quite like this.  I will rest tomorrow and hopefully it will be healed so I can ride on Saturday and run on Sunday.  

I decided to rest today.  I ran 29 miles last week, with two of my three days on my family vacation out of town at Monkey Island on Grand Lake.  The hills and change of scenery were nice, but I noticed a nagging injury flair back up that I thought was mostly gone.  I think I have metatarsalgia in my left foot.  It is quite an annoying injury.  I actually don't usually ever feel it while running.  But it has a nasty habit of flaring up in the hours after a run has concluded.  I find it uncomfortable to walk, especially on hard surfaces without shoes or house shoes.   

I just spent the last hour reading through the last 2 and half months of my blog to see when I first noticed this injury.  I found that I first wrote about it on November 2nd. 

To review the injury, metatarsalgia is common in repetitive use motions such as running.  It causes pain in the ball of the foot just behind the middle toes or toes next to the big toe.  It is caused from the metatarsal heads, which are the ends of the bones that connect to the toe bones, pounding the ground repetitively.  I have discovered by researching the Mayo Clinic website that some common causes are shoes that have a narrow toe box or not enough shock absorption.  Ways to alleviate the pain and heal the injury are ice and rest.   Sometimes runners will use extra padding in their shoes or use metatarsal gel straps which pad the ball of the foot while walking.  I'm not sure the gel straps are intended to be worn while running, but I have read that putting padding in the shoes under the ball of the foot helps to alleviate the stress on the metatarsal heads while running. 

I'm not sure that I'm at the point of visiting my bone doctor quite yet.  I plan on icing and resting this week, and wearing comfortable shoes around the house.  If I still feel the effects of this injury after my usual Sunday run one week from today on December 26th, I will probably schedule an appointment to visit my doctor.  

If anyone has any personal experience with this injury I would love to know about it.  How did you beat it?  How much down time before returning to running? etc.  

Christmas morning run.  I have not run since Thursday December, 16th.  It has been a little over one week.  I had decided to rest for a little while to try to heal up some injuries. 

The good news is that I did not feel the metatarsalgia in my left foot very much at all.  We shall see if I feel it later today or tomorrow morning.  The bad news is that my right calf muscle that I strained on my last run that I thought was completely healed is apparently not.  I felt it flare up near mile two.  It felt it just slightly for the rest of the run.  Of-course I slowed it down a little as not to over work it.  Then at around mile 8 I felt a weird feeling in the back of my right knee.  Not the knee itself but the muscles back there.  I had to stop to stretch for a minute before I made it the rest of the way home.  

Now I'm ready to shower and have Christmas morning with my family.