We're headed to Spokane! [37M]

This week Jake and I will be flying out with his assistant coach and one of his athletes for the NCAA D2 National Championships! His athlete is extremely talented and won the individual title this past weekend at their NCCAA National Championships. I'm definitely looking forward to visiting Spokane, and especially excited to watch this lady compete!

In terms of my own training this week, not much will change from the past few weeks. I'm still following the same basic skeletal plan with long on Sunday, short fartlek style work on Tuesday, and some good aerobic work on Friday. I can tell that I am improving and I have felt great in terms of strength and energy, but my feet, joints, and IT bands have really been hurting for the past week. I'm wondering if part of it is from so many tight, winding turns on the trails last Sunday, which would be nice. That would mean all I need to do is take good care of them and wait for them to heal up.... They shouldn't be getting any worse.

Sunday, November 17th
9M run with Carolyn at WRL. We started out nice and easy with an 8:20 mile and finished the run with a 6:58 mile, so it was a pretty typical progression for us. We usually pick it up pretty well when we go long together. Finished with a 7:43 average pace and the same achy arch and IT bands as when I started, haha. Bought some epsom salt today though! Woohoo!

Monday, November 18th
Rest day! Two days of foam rolling, plus a nice epsom salt bath yesterday and today has worked like magic! My IT bands feel fantastic!

Tuesday, November 19th
1M test run at lunch + 6M with 2M of straights and curves at night. I was dealing with some major arch and ankle pain during my mid-day run (see picture below!), so I stopped after a mile and went to visit the trainers. They didn't seem the least bit concerned so Jake, ever so kindly, took me to the track to get it in at night. Absolutely perfect in terms of how I felt. Literally, I felt like my old self again. Going from 100 pounds when I was sick (but super fast) to 115 now, I just have felt heavy and uncoordinated and, well, just... heavy. No better way to say it. For the first time tonight, I felt lean and like my old self where I was running on air and could run as fast as I chose to allow myself. So freeing. At any rate, the 2 miles hard were completed in 12:40. Hard 100's were between 5:13 and 4:38; easy 100's were between 7:11 and 7:59. The first mile was mostly in the 5:00-5:11 range for the hard parts, second mile was all sub 5:00. Felt great. Now I just need to fix up this arch!!!

Check out that vein on my right ankle!

Wednesday, November 20th
6M run and weights. I ran like a snail for the first three miles because my joints hurt so bad from the way I was altering my form on the gravel. For the last three miles I switched to a more packed gravel surface and was a little better off. My ankle is still bothering me, but now the opposite hip flexor and knee are as well! Eek. Going to ART tonight.

Thursday, November 21st
6M + 6 strides. We woke up at 4:30 and traveled pretty much all day! Got to Spokane and did our run outside (bad idea for me!). My reynauds got the best of me and I had to stop 3 minutes early and skip the strides. Just miserable! After the first 30 minutes I realized I was only getting colder and considered going inside to finish on the treadmill, but decided to just really take off and move my body with a much higher effort in hopes to get warmer. It worked for everything but my hands, but then my left knee started giving me a sharp pain so I called it a day when I got back to the hotel. Same painful, swollen ankle vein!

Friday, November 22nd
6M with 3M hard. Nothing exciting to report on this one. Same ankle pains, also some shin and IT band pain but that's very much to be expected and not concerning to me. I did a normal easy first mile, then my usual 1' hard, 1' easy for the second mile to get my HR up. Did a teeny bit of drills in the small hotel gym and then knocked out my 3 miles at 6:44 pace. I think the hardest part of the run was all in the lungs. I felt like I was suffocating for the first 2 miles or so because it was so hot in there, but after that I was sweating enough that I could breathe a bit better. Still a good, full effort though, which is embarrassing but got to be thankful for progress! Getting a test done on my ankle when we get home next week to check the blood flow.

Saturday, November 23rd
3M shakeout. Just a nice easy run! First mile was a nice wake up mile, then I cut down every quarter mile after that to finish in the low 7:20s. Felt fine energy wise, but still feeling the IT bands and shins. Wearing compression socks pretty much 24/7 right now for the ankle, haha! Good thing it's cold here!