Week 26, Day 3

Today's weight: 198.4

Today's blood pressure: 129/91

Today's food: donut, yogurt, carl's jr santa fe chicken combo, banana, 1/2 donut

Today's exercise: run 5 miles (with 2 miles @ 8:42); 40 pushups

Week 26, Day 2

Today's weight: 198.4

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: yogurt, apple, 2 donuts, chicken bacon syrup pasta, donut

Today's exercise: none

Week 26, Day 1

Today's weight: 201

Today's blood pressure: 122/91

Today's food: can of mountain dew, yogurt, banana, a handful of popcorn, poached salmon in tarragon cream sauce, m&ms, 2 donuts, orange

Today's exercise: run 3 miles; 40 pushups

Week 25 Wrapup

It's much easier for me to keep running when I have some sort of a schedule to stick to towards a specific goal. I'd like to try the 10k again, but the racing season is pretty much shut down for the summer here. I don't really know what I want to do yet long term with my running, but I know I'd like to run longer or faster. Without a specific idea in mind other than that, I decided to start marathon training.

I decided this for a few reasons, none of which have anything to do with running a marathon. I am not planning on running a marathon. However, I am curious to see how far I could actually make it towards training for one without killing myself. I'm also curious how someone could go about training for a marathon during the Arizona summer without, you know, dying.

I dug around online and settled on a training schedule that's only three days a week. Each day has a particular focus. Monday is a shorter run at an easy pace. Wednesday is a longer tempo run or speedwork, and Saturday is a long run. I picked this schedule for a few reasons: For one, it's hard to find the time to run, and longer runs will mean more time I have to find. Finding time three days a week is easier than 4 or 5. Also, before I hurt my leg, I was only running about 15-18 miles a week. To start marathon training and throw in some long runs would mean that I either increase my mileage by way more than the 10% safe threshold that's usually recommended, or else run really short runs on the non-long run days.

I figure if I make it more than a couple of weeks without hurting myself I could add another easy run on Thursday or something if I feel like I'm not doing enough. If I manage to make it through 10 or 12 weeks of this, at that point I can consider whether or not I would want to find a marathon to run. But again, just to make it clear, I have no plans to run a marathon at this point.

I was in Mexico this week, and did my Wednesday tempo run right in the middle of the day with Carson. I thought this would be no problem at all because it felt pretty cool outside. I failed to realize that the reason it felt so cool was that there was a 6 mph wind blowing east while we were running west. Once we turned around and started running back, we were running with the wind, so it was just hot still air all around us. Also, I was supposed to do 1 mile warmup, then 3 miles at 9:33, then 1 mile cooldown. The 9:33 is a little faster than my normal pace, and that was overheating me as well. So, after 2 1/2 miles of the fast part, I was feeling a little light headed and had to stop or risk some sort of heatstroke.

Saturday's run was a lot easier. It was eight miles down to the guard shack and back, and went just fine.

Week 25, Day 7

Today's weight: don't know

Today's blood pressure: don't know

Today's food: hamburger, egg salad sandwich, popcorn

Today's exercise: day of rest

mexico

Week 25, Day 6

Today's weight: don't know

Today's blood pressure: don't know

Today's food: lasagna, quesadilla, hamburger, chocolate cake, and lots more

Today's exercise: run 8 miles; 40 pushups

mexico

Week 25, Day 5

Today's weight: don't know

Today's blood pressure: don't know

Today's food: street chicken, another garlic shrimp dish, brownies, and much much more!

Today's exercise: none

mexico

Week 25, Day 4

Today's weight: don't know

Today's blood pressure: don't know

Today's food: among many other things, there were street tacos and garlicky shrimp pasta

Today's exercise: 1 mile warmup, 3 mile tempo run at 9:33, 1 mile cooldown

mexico

Week 25, Day 3

Today's weight: 198.4

Today's blood pressure: 135/94

Today's food: yogurt, grapes, quarter pounder combo, small pulled pork sandwich, apple, granola

Today's exercise: none

went to mexico today

Week 25, Day 2

Today's weight: 198.4

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: 3 soft boiled eggs, ribeye steak, baked potato, fish burrito, limeade, jelly bellys, popcorn

Today's exercise: none

Week 25, Day 1

Today's weight: 198.6

Today's blood pressure: 133/89

Today's food: roll, yogurt, apple, piece of sushi, leftover aparagus/sausage risotto, 4 ginger snaps, leftover seafood ravioli, limeade, popcorn

Today's exercise: run 3 miles; 40 pushups

Week 24 Wrapup

Prior to starting running again on Thursday, I had only run two days in almost three weeks. In that time, I've had one business trip, two large birthday dinners, and a twenty-fold increase in my average weekly cookie consumption. All of these things combined have caused me to take a running leap over the 200 pound mark. I'm very confident I'll go under 200 again at the beginning of next week, but by the middle of next week I'll be in Mexico again for another food orgy. So, I have no idea where my weight will be when I get back.

I started running again on Thursday, just trying to do an easy 2.5 miles each day. On Thursday, I ran in my Mizunos with my new stability inserts. I didn't have any pain at the spot where it's been hurting for the last several weeks. What I did have, though, was a tearing pain in my outer left shin after a mile, kind of like the shin splints I had when I first started running. I stopped and stretched it, then finished my run, and it got a little better.

On Friday, I ran the same thing with my New Balance shoes, the original pair I bought when I first started running in 2001. I figured I'd try those since they were a motion control shoe. I had not intended to buy a motion control shoe; I just bought whatever was the best deal since I hadn't run before and would have no way to predict what problems I would have. The results were pretty much the same as Thursday's but with a twist. Since my Mizuno's have such a meshy part around the toe, they really circulate air through the shoe well. That's not so great when it's cold out, but is excellent in the summer. Going from those to the New Balance made my feet feel like they were baking. They felt so hot in those shoes I practically had to tear the shoes off as soon as I walked in the door. Obviously, they were fine to run in when I did run in them for a whole summer, but the contrast of going straight from the Mizunos to these really messed with my perception.

On Saturday, I ran the same thing in my other (identical) Mizunos, but with the arch support inserts. I had a little less of the tearing shin pain, and a little more just general pain and soreness around my ankle and whole lower leg. Also, it felt like I had a very large hard thing stuffed under the arch of each foot. None of the pain at the the specific spot where I hurt before, though, so I think I've got that problem licked.

Week 24, Day 7

Today's weight: 200.2

Today's blood pressure: 133/81

Today's food: 2 ginger snaps, leftover gumbo, limeade, herb mustard chicken and orzo, 4 rolls

Today's exercise: day of rest

Week 24, Day 6

Today's weight: 200.8

Today's blood pressure: 129/83

Today's food: costco samples, chicken caesar salad, mixed fruit, seafood ravioli, sauteed green beans, shrimp cocktail, limeade, popcorn

Today's exercise: run 2.5 miles; 40 pushups

Week 24, Day 5

Today's weight: 202

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: banana, a few fries, cream risotto with white asparagus and andouille, frozen mixed fruit, 4 ginger snaps, potato chips

Today's exercise: run 2.5 miles; 40 pushups

Week 24, Day 4

Today's weight: 203.8

Today's blood pressure: 143/92

Today's food: banana, fish and chips, coke, panda express (orange chicken, beijing beef, beef and broccoli)

Today's exercise: run 2.5 miles; 40 pushups

Week 24, Day 3

Today's weight: 202

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: yogurt, 2 cookies, snickers, chili cheeseburger, crisscut fries, 2 pancakes, 8 strips bacon, orange juice, 3 eggs

Today's exercise: none

Week 24, Day 2

Today's weight: 200.2

Today's blood pressure: 151/81

Today's food: yogurt, sesame chicken, shrimp stir-fry, banana, meatballs over noodles, an obscene amount of cookies, potato chips

Today's exercise: none

Week 24, Day 1

Today's weight: 199.6

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: yogurt, chicken caesar salad, pork chop, stuffing, corn, hamburger, potato chips, orange juice, many cookies

Today's exercise: none

Week 23 Wrapup

I took the whole last week off to try to heal my leg. Then, I ran Monday and Wednesday of this week, and it didn't feel any better. So, I went to the doctor on Friday to see what he would have to say about it. I thought the most likely scenario would be a variation of the classic "Doc, it hurts when I do this", "Well stop doing that!". I still wanted to go, though, in case I developed a stress fracture that required two months of immobilization or something like that.

The doctor felt around a few places, and based on the location of the pain, diagnosed it as shin splints. That's kind of what I figured, although this is a completely different kind of pain than the shin splints I'm used to. That's to be expected, I guess, with a completely non-specific term like "shin splints", which is used to describe pretty much any pain in the shin. In my particular case, the muscle was tearing away from the shin at a specific point of attachment. My previous pains when I first started running were just general soreness of undeveloped shin muscles.

He had me take off my socks and stand in bare feet and said instantly, "Oh yeah, your feet are not any good for running". He could see that my arches were flat, and my whole foot rolled inward. This was kind of surprising, because I never thought I had a flat arch. I had done the "wet foot test" a couple of times, where you wet your foot, step on a smooth surface, and then compare your footprint to see what type of foot/arch you have. Mine always looked normal on that. He explained that even if the skin on the inside on my foot isn't touching the ground, it's way lower than it should be for my foot/ankle/leg to keep everything in alignment. He then moved my foot around to visually demonstrate the difference between having my ankle straight when I'm standing, and what it's like with it rolled in like I usually have it.

This was very interesting to me, because I always wondered why I went from a size 11 to a size 12 about 10 years ago. Turns out my foot didn't get bigger, just flatter as a consequence of age (and probably weight). Makes perfect sense in hindsight, though.

Treatment for the shin splints is anti-inflammatory, ice, and rest. Long-term solution is better shoes or inserts for my current shoes. Turns out he had a very similar problem, and pulled out the inserts out of his own shoes to show them to me.

As far as shoes go, in my case, I'm an overpronator, but not necessarily like the classic overpronator who rolls in too much with every step. I'm already rolled in too much when my foot hits, and when I toe-off. So, I may not need a heavy duty motion control or stability shoe, but rather just some arch support. I'll certainly need to experiment some.

So, I went to the shoe store on Saturday and got two inserts. One's a stability insert with a hard plastic heel to keep the foot from rolling after the heel strike, and the other just has a big ol' uncomfortable hump in the arch to provide support there, and keep the foot rolled out. I'll try them both over the next couple of months and see how they work.

Week 23, Day 7

Today's weight: 198.2

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: gumbo, many cookies, barbecue pork chops, stuffing, corn, popcorn

Today's exercise: day of rest

Week 23, Day 6

Today's weight: 200

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: leftover salmon/shrimp, chili's (4 mini cheeseburgers, fries), cherry limeade

Today's exercise: none

Week 23, Day 5

Today's weight: 199.2

Today's blood pressure: 130/86

Today's food: 2 pop tarts, popcorn, trattoria pina (calamari fra diavolo, mussels, polenta alla griglia, tiramisu), ice cream cake

Today's exercise: none

Week 23, Day 4

Today's weight: 198.8

Today's blood pressure: forgot

Today's food: grapes, double chili cheeseburger, crisscut fries, dinner at gavi's (calamari crema, bread, shrimp and salmon serenata, tiramisu)

Today's exercise: none

Week 23, Day 3

Today's weight: 199.4

Today's blood pressure: 132/86

Today's food: yogurt, grapes, ham sandwich, 2 do-si-dos, beans, grapes, cracked wheat

Today's exercise: run 3 miles; 40 pushups

Week 23, Day 2

Today's weight: 199.8

Today's blood pressure: 155/84

Today's food: yogurt, sesame chicken and rice, do-si-dos (the girl scout cookies), apple, salmon burger, grapes, popcorn

Today's exercise: none

Week 23, Day 1

Today's weight: forgot

Today's blood pressure: 134/91

Today's food: yogurt, footlong seafood and crab, hot ham and cheese, fries, limeade

Today's exercise: run 2.5 miles; 40 pushups

Week 22 Wrapup

Not much to report this week, as I took the week off in an attempt to heal my leg. I didn't rest it completely, because I went to a convention this week, and that entailed a lot of walking. I did swim once at the hotel to get some semblance of exercise. I offset that by eating large meals at fancy restaurants (and one large meal at the fanciest of all restaurants, Sonic).

Week 22, Day 7

Today's weight: 198.8

Today's blood pressure: 144/86

Today's food: leftover spaghetti, egg salad sandwich, grapes, hamburger, french fries

Today's exercise: day of rest

Week 22, Day 6

Today's weight: 197

Today's blood pressure:

Today's food: half pack of m&ms, costco samples, wedding food (mints, salad, fish, asparagus pepper thing, london broil, mashed potatoes, cake, shirley temple)

Today's exercise: rest

Week 22, Day 5

Today's weight: ?

Today's blood pressure: ?

Today's food: breakfast (omelet roast beef bagel, coke), lunch (bread, 1 shrimp, teriyaki beef tip, clam chowder, 1/2 meatloaf sandwich), big sugar daddy, limeade, ham sandwich

Today's exercise:

at convention in Phoenix

Week 22, Day 4

Today's weight: ?

Today's blood pressure: ?

Today's food: breakfast (scrambled eggs, potatoes, english muffin), lunch (gyro, fries, coke), dinner (roll, salmon, baked potato, french onion soup, blueberry cobbler)

Today's exercise: swim laps for half an hour

at convention in Phoenix

Week 22, Day 3

Today's weight: 199.6

Today's blood pressure: 127/94

Today's food: yogurt, orange glazed chicken and rice, apple, rice krispie treat, limeade, sonic (chili cheese coney, onion rings, cherry limeade), bottle of sprite

Today's exercise: rest

Week 22, Day 2

Today's weight: 200.6

Today's blood pressure: 138/86

Today's food: carl's jr. chili cheese burger combo (with crisscut fries and coke), banana, porterhouse steak, limeade

Today's exercise: rest