Mileage Reporting 4th Week 2014

Most excellent 8 mile run at 2:00 pm 37 deg. f., 31 deg. wind chill. This run was through a nature trail. saw lots of different birds, ducks, one hawk, one screech owl. I did not know the screechers came out in the day.
 
w-nothing. took my niece to the airport. mom went with her so i took them to bfast then dropped them off and went to school. no time for run.
th-1:45 trail "run".
f-got a gait analysis from another student. holy crap. i think it needs it's own post. i'll just say it was bad. worse than i thought but corrected fairly quickly.
 
Friday - 5 plus miles hike to waterfall. First half of hike steep uphill, so coming back I got to use knee bent downhill skills. I wore Lunas almost the whole time and was glad since much of the trail had very sharp rocks. Swam in the classic pool under the waterfall for a bit, even sitting for a while on some rocks right in front of it. Camera trouble when we got back to home base, so I still don't know if the photos are safely on the memory chip. sigh.
 
21 miles for the week. All barefoot, easy, short walks and runs. Still dealing with a sore knee. Biked a little - cold, somewhat boring, sore back and butt, the dogs can't keep up, but I will stick with it. Also, was very careful about what I ate and drank (or didn't drink) this week and lost a whopping 1 pound. (I know, too soon to get results). Sorry for the mini rant, I get a little cranky when I can't run. Looking forward to next week. I am helping out with an Ultra race, Antelope Canyon, in Page Arizona. Here is another plug for Ultra Adventures: http://www.ultra-adventures.com/events/antelope-canyon/
 
took the dogs for a walk out to the park. i let them off leash and then started some strides, i guess. i'm going to have to build quite a bit of strength to hole this new form.
 
6.25 miles at 10:33 avg pace. First run in a couple weeks I think. I am still trying to figure out how to run during the week. My work has a shower and lockers so Im gonna try short little 2 mile runs at lunch. I think that should give me enough time to eat and shower before my lunch is over. My plan of waking up early and working out before work seems to be a no go as the baby decided to start waking up at that time now... Not gonna be able to wake up at 3am to get in a run. Oh, and I now have some personal time to read and started reading Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes. Way inspirational.
 
friday: 2 shortish swims, at lunch and in the evening
saturday: SNOWED IN AGAIN. Argh. Had lots of activities planned for today. stuff is cancelled, conditions are white-out, roads are worse than in a long time, and that's saying a lot. Cabin Fever extraordinaire. Tomorrow anything close to passable and I am outta here.
Oh, so I did weights this morning, not all the way through them yet, and forced 1.5 in snow (the howling winds and snow blowing hard in my face. so over this)
 
Almost 23.5 miles on the week, 14.5 bare as I took advantage of two highs around freezing that bookended the week's midweek cold snap. We just got another layer of snow though, and tomorrow's supposed to be -11 F / -24 C high with -28 F/-33 C windchill (the low tonight will be -19 F with -42 F windchill), so no baring it again for a while. By mid February temps are supposed to return to a more seasonal average of mid-20s to low-30s, but till then I'll continue to have to pick and choose the days I can get in a decent run bare. It's been a brutal December and January; tomorrow they're closing the schools for the fourth time this month!

Zero weights after Wednesday. I gotta implement the early morning routine in earnest this week. It's amazing how quickly the sloth sets in once you take a break. Overall, I think I've put on 10-15 pounds since the end of November.
 
16km/10mi Sunday morning run, relatively slow....I am not entirely out of the wood, I still feel my left foot, and also my left inner thigh (adductors).

I think both pains are related and reading through migangelo's report on his gait analysis exercise has me thinking now...Even though I hate strength training, maybe I need to do that.

My local beach has some outdoor area with some gym equipment, I just hate the idea of going to a fitness club
 
Wife caught me practicing in my gravel box a couple of days ago: "Why are you walking on rocks?"
Me: "So I can run on rocks."

7.5 mile trail run today.

Saw a shoddie running down the road and turn into the park as I was driving up. There were some trucks with horse trailers parked in the lot, and avoiding horse apples was part of today's run.

The trail is usually compacted dirt with some rocks scattered about, which are avoidable with a bit of work. Apparently, the park service did some trail maintenance and added a nice soft layer of brown dirt. It was quite luxe. uploadfromtaptalk1390780779084.jpg
Caught the shoddie coming back about a mile in. Waved hello, but no response. He must have been out of breath from those heavy shoes!

Around the bridge, there was some of the old trail with rocks, but still manageable. uploadfromtaptalk1390780865306.jpg (photo from a different day)

More nice brown dirt after the bridge, then the grassy part of the trail, which was quite nice, too! uploadfromtaptalk1390780835429.jpg
So, after about 3.5 miles in, I came to the gravel section.uploadfromtaptalk1390780908103.jpg (photo from a different day)

From my gravel box experience, I knew that the center part, which is piled high with rocks, is actually the least painful part to run on. Those rocks are loosely packed, so they scatter when you land on them. (Sometimes, I'll pile the rocks in my gravel box into the middle, so I can massage my arches.) However, the problem is that since they are loose, they are actually quite slippery and hard to balance on. (I guess if you want easy, there's always the sidewalk or treadmill.)

Feet were getting a bit sore, though. So, I look at the GPS on my phone to see how far I've gone, to see if I should turn around or keep going. uploadfromtaptalk1390780996885.jpg
I figure that I'm about halfway, so I continue on. I get to the end of the gravel section and look at my phone again. If I go around the loop, it's about 5 miles to get back to the car, vs. going back the way I came for 3.5 miles. I'd been swimming most of last year, so 7 miles has been my longest distance in a while.

Suddenly, I hear people chatting! I look down the path and see two ladies ambling towards me slowly, on horses! It's a double track trail, so they're riding side by side. I look up and down the trail, looking for place that I can step aside and let them pass. However, as you can see in the photos, there are no clearings, just Florida scrub, and the area has rattlesnakes. I wave hello, and they say hello.

I really didn't want to run the 5 mile loop. Time was ticking and they were getting closer. I contemplated doubling back, but I didn't want to let them pass, only to have to get past them again. Decisions, decisions. They were just a couple hundred feet from me.

So, off I went, back over the rocks! A bit too proud to stop and take a walking break, I ran through the whole section without stopping and all the way back to the car.

7.5 mile trail run with 500m of rocks.
So after 3 years of stretching and exercising, my bunions are straight, and I can run on rocks. Podiatrists, eat your hearts out! :p
 
I did my first BF run of the year this afternoon. It was nice and sunny and about 45F. We've got a lot of old, crusty snow on the ground, and the roads have a ton of sand and gritty stuff (not to mention mag chloride!), so I started off in my Vibrams until I got to a nice paved bike path at about the 3.25 mile mark. I took them off and did 1.5 miles barefooted (pretty fast, too!), and then put the Vibrams back on for the last mile back home when I hit the asphalt again. It was nice! I hope it wasn't TMTS (I haven't run barefooted since 12/1, but have done a lot in Vibrams), but so far my feet feel great!