Eleven miles to nowhere

Saturday night I was laying in bed anticipating my 11 mile run on tap for yesterday and guessing I wasn't going to be able to do it. My foot was hurting pretty badly and I couldn't get to sleep. After popping some Vitamin I and staying up way too late watching Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer on HBO, I finally conked out. I believe it was around 12:30am by then. I'd hope to be out on the road by 7:00am at the latest for the run but didn't think I'd make it out at any time.

I woke up at 6:20am. It's funny how my body knows when to wake up when it comes to running. If I would have had to get up for work I probably would have slept another two hours. My foot felt much better when I woke up, although I was a little gimpy. I figured since I could walk I could attempt to run. For the first time I thought about taking my phone with me in case I had to stop. I usually just wear a RoadID bracelet that has my vital info on it in case I drop dead on the side of the road or in case I'm run over by a car. I feel that's enough. In the end I decided to forgo the phone because I didn't want having it on me influencing me in cutting the run short or fooling myself into believing I was in too much pain to continue. If worse came to worse I felt I could flag down a car to call home for me.

The first three miles of my run were rough. My foot and ankle were stiff and causing me some discomfort. And I was compensating by cheating to the outside of my foot while I ran. That caused some pretty nice blistering before the run was over. But as the distance increased I was feeling better and better and by the end of the run I felt pretty good. I never couldn't tell there was soreness, but it got to the point where it was no worse than any other ache or pain you might feel by running over 10 miles.

Even though I completed the run I thought it was slow compared to when I ran the same route a few weeks ago leading up to the Frederick Half Marathon. Looking at the data on my Forerunner, however, I discovered that I was only 2 seconds per mile slower yesterday than I was last time when I felt perfect physically. That was a nice surprise.

The foot kind of hurt the rest of the day, and there was the blistering to contend with, but overall I don't believe running 11 miles yesterday was extra detrimental to my foot's health. And today it feels the best it has in 4 or 5 days.

Today is a non-running day, so I'll take it easy at the gym and see how it goes. I'm on tap for 5 miles tomorrow, but I might take an extra day off and push the 5-miler back to Wednesday and just skip the speed work I have planned for that day. I'm worried about being conditioned to finish my half marathon in a couple weeks. I'm not too worried about setting any records, which is what the speed work is designed to help me do.

For all the foot issues I'm having right now, I'm pretty excited for this next half marathon. It should be a good one.