Plantar fasciitis conquered?, Cutback week: Ten miles tomorrow, and Ice bath!

Well, I had my first running-related injury - I developed a pain in my left heel following my 13 mile run, which I thought might be plantar fasciitis, inflammation of the tendon that connects your heel to your toes (a very common affliction among runners.) It's not that I can't run 13 miles, or even longer, mind you - it's just that I put on those miles too quickly. I ended up going out of town for a couple of weekends. While I religiously found routes to run, it never occurred to me that I needed to keep up with the long distance schedule - an incredibly obvious mistake, now that I look back on it. I went from my longest run ever at 9.5 miles to 13 miles with only my shorter weekday runs in the middle, and it was just too much. Cautionary tale - never increase your mileage by more than 10% a week!

In any case, Tony and I decided to go swimming on Monday, in part because I wanted to give my foot a chance to heal but still get some activity in. The heel certainly slowed up my Tuesday and Wednesday running (of course, in re-reading "Marathoning for Mortals" last night, I learned I was supposed to be not training on that foot for four days - oopsies!) and I took Thursday off. All this week I have been taking ibuprofin and icing during the day at work alternating cold packs. As recently as about noon I still felt its twinge, and now this afternoon, I suddenly realized - hey, I'm walking without pain! I even jogged in place for a few seconds - no pain there either! Of course, I'm going to continue to be cautious - nothing worse than reinjuring an almost-healed condition - but things are looking bright, and now I know! All of this inspired a long walk with the pup... and now the pain has moved to the side of my foot. Probably not plantar fasciitis, but still. I am icing it tonight in the hopes I'll be able to take on tomorrow's long run with the team.

Speaking of tomorrow's run - this week is a cutback week! Cutback weeks are built into the schedule to allow the body to rest, repair and get stronger. We will be doing only 10 miles on the long run tomorrow. On Wednesday, we did an interesting team track run - everyone ran 1 mile at their marathon pace (so we were dividing our goal time marathon pace into quarter mile segments) and then took 1 lap (quarter mile) to recover, then repeated two more times. My goal is pretty modest - I hope to finish without getting swept up by the you're-too-slow-to-finish-in-the-maximum-time bus. That pace is 13:44 per mile. If you ever visit my cubicle, you'll see a map of the Twin Cities marathon with "13:44" written on it in bold numbers.

The good news was that even with 1/4mile walk breaks, I was doing MUCH better than 13:44! Now, that's not to say I could maintain that pace throughout 26.2 miles - running a mile is a far cry from running the real deal. But it did give me a feel for running at the pace I need to be at or beat, which was more than comfortable, and that was fantastic. Also, I have been moving onto 8:2 run/walk intervals, which I'm actually finding quite comfortable. I think it will be awhile before I give up my two minutes of walking recovery but I think I could move into a 10:2 ratio comfortably.

I should also belatedly mention that at the end of last week's thirteen mile run, I took my first ice bath, and it was wonderful. "Ice bath" is actually a bad name for it, as the bath has very little ice in it, and only cool water, a bit cooler than room temperature but NOT as cold as the tap will go. You can add ice, but if you do, add no more than a few cups and add it after you're in the tub. You fill the tub up enough that you can submerge yourself from the waist down, and then you get in the tub and submerge everything below the waist, especially your hips, knees and ankles. Some folks wear a sweatshirt to lessen the shock, and let me tell you, you will be breathless with the shock! Then, you sit in the tub for seven minutes - no more or you risk hypothermia. All of this helps your joints recover - mine felt the best they ever had after a long run. I will definitely be using this as we head into the August and September training runs.

Onward!