Good morning

Good morning storms. Good morning 16 mph winds. Good morning sunrise. Good morning shoes. Good morning roads. Good morning 10-mile run. I'M BAAAAAAACK!

My 10-day rest is over and I'm back running. It feels great! My knee and foot were bothersome for a little while, but overall it was a great run. About mile 2.5 I started to really feel my foot. It had a sharp pain toward the back of the arch. I thought it was going to be a loooong run. It eventually subsided and I kept going.

I've been thinking about these pains all week. My foot research stated causes as running the gutter of the road, hills, sudden increase in training miles, and overpornation of the foot. The hills could be a culprit. I immediately crossed off sudden increase in training miles, but after further thought I realized I actually increased my miles by 8 during the marathon! Oh, maybe that IS the reason. The gutter of the road. Hmmmm possibly. The 2-3 weeks before the marathon all my running was in town and I always ran to the side of the street rather than in the middle of street where the hump was. This accumulated a few miles over time so that could be a culprit as well.

I examined my shoes and realized they are wearing on the outside edge of the right heel a bit. I found some youtube videos about the biomechanics of running and a pronated foot. I took some mental notes and today I consciously focused on my foot strike during the run. I really tried to run on the mid section and the ball of my foot. This was supposed to make my calves work more and possibly be more sore after the run. I was ready for it! During the run I realized when I started getting tired, I would run on different parts of my foot to alleviate pain in that foot. I was running on all parts of my foot at different times.

Running on the ball of my foot makes me push off better while running and feels like "the ducks". I even ran on my toes for about 1/4 mile or so. I also really felt as if I was leaning forward more. Maybe I should take some video of my running and look at it see exactly what I am doing and then compare it to a "good runner". I could even video different runs, such as running with a heel strike, running with a mid-foot strike and running with a toe strike to see what that looks like.

Ok, back to running... I ran the first mile with Bill. He ran back home for a good 2-mile run this morning. I really like running with him. I'm glad he is starting to run with me. I ran a total of 6 miles with J. It's great to be back with her! When we got back to town, I did another 4 miles to complete the 10-mile run. I wasn't sure if I could finish the last 4 all by myself, but it was a good run. I think I need to start doing more solo runs to get myself good and tired for what it will be like race-day and I have to have the mental fortitude to keep going through the pain and I'm all alone.

I'm going to try to do the Des Moines marathon for my next one. I didn't think I could do the book again so I went online and looked for a different marathon training schedule. I found one that steps up and then back down. It's a 21-week program and I only have like 16 weeks left. The shortest mileage is 5 and the longest is 20 so that should be ok if I don't do the whole thing. I will also have 2 weeks of 20 miles. I may also up one of those to like 22-24 miles just to make the marathon not seem so bad. I hope I can do it! This will give me another good schedule to follow. However, on the other side, I'm a little concerned about time. The beginning of the school year is also very busy and stressful. Training takes a lot away from my family so I hope I have time to do all this! We are also taking a 2 week vacation in the middle of this training schedule so I will be losing a lot of running time.

10 mile run; .25 mile walk; RPE - 3