Week 5 - Training Report

Yeah, I skipped week four. There wasn't much to say other than I took the week easy in preparation for the 10k I ran last Saturday.

This week was tough, not because I had difficult workouts but because I got a cold. Though it was at its worst around Wednesday and Thursday and didn't start to improve until yesterday, I made it through my runs. I usually get pretty fatigued when I'm sick, so I'm glad that didn't happen this time.

Tuesday -
6 miles, easy. After some consulting, it was decided that my two quality runs would be tempos and long progression runs. That meant I needed to be diligent about taking my easy runs easy. It feels like I'm going a lot slower, but I kind of like just being able to settle into a groove without worrying about pace. I kept this run around a 9:23 average.

Wednesday -
5 miles with strides. My foot has been causing me trouble since last week, and especially during the race. It doesn't affect my running in the sense that I have to hobble, but it could progress to that point. Because of that, I decided not to run a tempo and replaced it with strides. Just trying to take it easy.

Thursday -
6 miles, easy. I almost didn't run this one. My head was pretty foggy and I had trouble breathing due to my cold. But I finished it with an average pace of 9:27.

Saturday -
11 miles, progression. I expected to fail miserably out there, so I was pleased that it went so well. My chest felt a little stuffed, but the miles ticked by at a rather fast clip and I felt pretty good despite the cold symptoms. My splits:

11.03 mi 01:35 08:36 pace

9:11.77
9:10.92
9:09.52
8:47.52
8:36.94
8:30.22
8:20.04
8:16.82
8:18.03
8:11.36
8:10.44

My half marathon pace will be 8:18, so I wanted to hit that pace the last four miles. It felt alright, though I was more tired than expected (which I don't think was from the run itself).

Total - 28

Now about that foot. I located the pain to the left side of my right foot. If I press hard, the bone hurts. I looked up anatomical foot pictures, Googled pain associated with names of the part of the foot that seemed to be where my pain is, and came up with accessory navicular syndrome. To sum it up, "the accessory navicular is an extra bone or piece of cartilage located on the inner side of the foot or just above the arch." The symptoms of accessory navicular is a visible bony prominence on the midfoot, located redness and swelling, and vague pain or throbbing, usually occurring during or after periods of activity. It doesn't look to me like I have a bony prominence, but I feel a bump when I rub the side of my foot, and it hurts when pressed.

Internet diagnosing aside, the real cause of my foot pain is my foot strike. After looking at my stride, I see that my knee rotates inward, causing me to strike on the inside of my foot. That would hurt, extra bony protrusion or not. My plan is to add walking lunges and squats after runs to strengthen my hip and knee in hopes that it realigns my leg and helps me land on my feet properly. I am also doing foot strengthening exercises as well as massaging my foot myself, which hurts really, really bad.

Already, if I land further back on my foot instead of forefoot, it feels much better. I also try not to flex my forefoot on the push off because that causes me much pain. I'm hoping the strengthening and stretching will help solve the problem.

So that's that. Next week, I'll be running a tempo again, only I'm slowing it down to an 8:00-8:10 average pace and increasing the tempo distance by a mile. I'm also running my longest run of the training plan, which will be twelve miles. See you then.