Book Review: Staying The Course: A Runner's Toughest Race

I thought I'd change things up a little bit and make things a little more interesting because lets face it, my training isn't all that interesting, and no one really cares. So today, I finished reading a book. Yes, thats right, a real book! Like, one that's not required for class, er, its kind of for a class in that it fits in with my sociology research progress which is on endurance sports and social class class boundaries.

Anyways, so the book. In my opinion, if you've already read Duel in The Sun, I wouldn't bother with this book. Not that its bad, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it rehashes most of the stuff presented in Duel in the Sun. Given, its an easy read, it took me like two days to read so nothing was lost there. There's a lot more emotional feeling in the book, especially toward the end where Dick goes into rehab. Like I said though, if you've read Duel in the Sun, you could guess the plot of the book and probably write most of it. Bottom line, go to the library, check it out and read it, but I wouldn't buy it

G- day minus 82/ not running, not racing

I don't have anything to say.

So I really don't know why I'm posting this, but I am. Actually, I did run some this week, but not enough. I ran three days for nine miles, actually two days if you want to get technical. My run on Wednesday was at 2:00 in the morning, so I king of ran a double but the two runs had over 12 hours in between them, thus not making it a double. Anyways, doesn't really matter, but that was probably the best run of the three, which is not saying much. I was still hurting, but not as bad as usual. Maybe that was because I took more motrin than usual, I'm not sure, but all three hurt, so I stopped, no use throwing my whole training away with 12 weeks to go.

Last week was ridiculously busy, so I didn't fault myself too much for not running, although maybe I should have. I was signed up for the Human Race 8k on Saturday, and probably could have ran it, probably, but cooler heads prevailed and I didn't. Physically not running the race was fine, I wasn't upset about it, although it would have been an awesome day for running. What really ate at me was that I had spent $20 on race registration and now that would go to waste. That usually wouldn't weigh on my conscience that much, but this week looks to be an expensive one despite getting my tax return- I've got to pay for my Sigma Chi Formal tickets, MLB Gameday Audio Subscription, Running Socks, reload my bus card, and pay for real food since the cafeteria is closed over spring break- so $20 is a big deal right now. I hate spending money. I called my buddy Joe, who I am training for Grandmas with to ask if he could use my race entry. He said he could, especially since he hadn't run a race before. I picked up my entry and gave it to him then, which is probably totally illegal so arrest me if you want. I hung out with the TC Running crew in TC Running mobile-1, which is the RV that TC Running drives around to a couple local races and exhibits shoes. I hung out with them for a while and ran about a mile in the Nike Zoom Streak XC 2's, which were okay, really skinny, and definitely not my cup 'o tea.

I watched the end of the 5k, which was a hell of a race. I wish I stole those flats from the TC van because I really wanted to run the course and run it fast. After the 5k finished, I took the bus to Run 'N' Fun to complete my tour de running stores. Those guys are my boys, they've got my back. I was surprised that I got somebody to help me out because the place was pretty busy. I mean it always is a popular place, but it was packed for a Sunday. So I got a guy to look at me and he looked at my shoes while I lectured him about how I got injured and why and all that. He put me in a pair of Glycerin 8's and they felt amazing. They're way more cushioned than the Adrenaline 8's I'm currently rocking. He said that I could forget the insoles I currently wear because while they do provide cushion, that cushion will wear out after a while and then my feet have to take the beating which probably triggered my injury. He gave me some flak when I explained that I wouldn't buy the shoes, and I always feel bad when I explain I can't afford things, but it happens.

• Congrats to Steve Stenzel over at Steve in a Speedo for finishing second in the 5k today in 17:11
• Congrats to my training partner Joe Cronin who pinch ran the 8k for me in 36:46
• Visit Run 'n' fun at http://www.run-n-fun.com/

G- day minus 93/ the week that wasn't

Can you believe we're inside 100 days until the marathon? I can't. Its beautiful out, there's no snow, but I'm not running. Actually, I am running, it just happens to be measured in hours instead of miles and I'm in a pool instead of on pavement, but other than that its all good. It all started on Wednesday when I had that super awesome endorphin filled run and then went downhill fast from that point. I kinda think that I could have been in shock or something that whole run because my feet felt like they weren't even hitting the ground. Well, after that my forefoot started hurting. Not bad, just noticeably. I ran on Wednesday and gutted it out, allhough I knew I shouldn't, but my one rule is to never give up on a workout so I didn't, and that was fine. Friday morning I had a meeting with the principal of Ramsey Junior High and had no money for the bus so I walked the mile and a bit there and mile and a bit back in my dress shoes. Bad idea. I chafed so much I have two pretty big holes in my Achilles area. It hurts, and I can't do much about it. See, you're expected to where shoes pretty much everywhere, and if you're a runner you're forced to wear shoes everywhere out of common decency. So its a long, slow process trying to get that healed.

Well, Friday into Saturday it really started bugging me. A stabbing pain in my third and fourth metatarsals. I ran around Lake Calhoun early Saturday trying to find the water stop I was assigned to work at and that just sucked. Actually, it didn't hurt so much after 10 minutes or so, but it was nothing like I've ever felt up until that point. So that was not fun. Pretty much that whole morning was full of pain and cold. Oh yeah, weather.com said it was going to be 50 that morning, so I busted out a long sleeve race shirt and jeans. Nope, it was like 20 or 30, which added to my misery. I can take a considerable amount of pain before I start to notice it, which in my case was a bad thing. I was limping and almost in tears by the end of the day and decided to go to the doctor Sunday, although I dont know why because I knew what they'd say. The doctor said because of my extremely high arch, I was coming down abnormally on my toes, and because my third and fourth toes aren't straight, the heads of those toes take the brunt of every stride. He recommended a forefoot gel pad, when we went to the shoe store to get one, the foot specialist just ripped him to shreds. It was funny, but I think he was right, a metatarsal pad wasn't going to do anything for me, what I needed was more cushion. Also, if you looked at the insole in my GTS 10's, you could see the hole my forefoot dug into the insole. Also, my right foot was slid over in my right insole so that the ball of my foot butted up against the edge of the insole, whereas that didn't happen on the right. I don't really know what that means, but it happened. To address the cushion aspect as well as that my foot moved around side to side a lot, the shoe guy hooked me up with some Spenco Cross Training insoles, a long with a lot of other gibberish to help me run again. He recommend I get custom insoles, which I may take him up on, but still, most of the stuff he suggested probably wouldn't work. See, my feet are arched as high as they are to compensate for my lack of cerebellum, so not every solution for people with high arched feet will work for me.

However, he didn't condemn me for running like the sports medicine doctor did when I told him how many miles I run, which is nice. So its coming to the end of the week, and I feel like I could actually feasibly run on Monday. Obviously, I won't be hitting my planned 57 miles, but I hope to be around 30 with a race on Saturday. Who knows, I won't push it, its too early in the training plan for that. I've got a lot more to say, but I should probably post this since I've been working on it off and on for three days.

G- day minus 103/ Call us Mr. Flintstone, 'cause team 89's going to make your bed rock!

Contrary to popular demand , I'll start about talking about my shenanigans before my running and hope I don't lose any readers. First, I signed up for the Human Race 8k on March 28th, and actually I just found the corse on map my run that I'll imbed right here:

So its going to be a pretty boring course, I've ran it thousands of times before, but its a race, and its on the 28th, so it fits in my training schedule so I'm going to run it. Plus, it starts at like 11:30 or so pretty much right outside my door which is awesome since I wont have to wake up at five in the morning. I also signed up to volunteer at a water stop at the Irish For a Day 10 miler at lake harriet next weekend. I have a six miler that day, so I'll probably stow my running stuff at Marathon Sports (awesome store, you should go there) before my call of duty and go six after we pack up, twice around Harriet or around Harriet and Calhoun.

Lastly, yesterday (Saturday night) a few brothers from Sigma Chi including myself met up with a couple sisters from the Alpha Zeta sorority from Wisconsin- River Falls at Buck Hill for the Bridging Bed Race. So, how did we get hooked up with a chapter from River Falls? Well, our Grand Praetor, Joel Jensen's wife does the same type of thing for Alpha Zeta. So anyways we got hooked up with those lovely ladies for the night and met at Buck Hill at 5:00 or so to register our teams. What we did was have two teams, each comprised of two Sigs and two Alpha Zetas, and we somehow got the finances figured out so bridging could get their donations. It was really cold outside surprisingly, and it was raining a little. All I had brought to wear was a tight fitting running jacket and some running gloves which I gave to one of the AZ ladies on my team because she didn't have any. There were a ton of teams, like 140 or so, and even with five teams racing at the same time it took like three hours for each team to do two runs. The other team was #90, so we always were in adjacent lanes, which made for some friendly competition. The first run we blew the other team out of the water and got second overall in the heat, and the second run we just got nipped out by the other team and got second to last. Overall, that was a good time, I definitely had a blast and I think everyone else did too. Definitely a philanthropy event we'll be doing next year.

As for running, its going great, finally Its warming up which is awesome. My only bad run I guess you could call it was on Wednesday, I was just full to the brim with lactic acid. But hey, I started back on my core routine this week. Its tough to get me to do core in the winter because all I want to do after a run is take a warm shower but now that I don't have that problem, I'm back at it. My 9 miler on Saturday was definitely the best this week. I inaugurated my Brooks ID gear without wearing anything under it which felt awesome, but I did get some odd looks considering that most other people who were out running were all bundled up. Today I went 14 (I'll post the route) and it was another singlet and shorts run, but I thought it was going to rain the whole time I was out there. The sky just looked nasty and I almost didn't make my 7:15 wake up call because of it. Nonetheless,my route wasnt very interesting this time around, but I didn't get lost as many times as I did last weekend. I hate runs in Minneapolis- actually I should rephrase that- I hate runs where I can't run straight. Next week is a recovery week, only 38 miles, plus I'm going to a Ragnar Great River clinic monday night.