It’s been almost a week since my last post where I was a little depressed about taking a step back in my latest comeback attempt. But since then things have been pretty good. I ran last Thursday after having taken 2 days off. In that run I decided to truly experiment with a forefoot landing. I’ve been wearing my Nike Frees on and off the last few months, but when wearing them for the most part not altering my running style at all, so likely with a solid heel strike. On the run Thursday I decided to start out focusing specifically on a forefoot strike. Being very inexperienced in this area, I made a big rookie mistake in that I ran with the forefoot strike for the first 1.5 miles of the run. While it felt good on the run, and for the remaining distance of the run I ran with the heel strike, for the next 3 days my calves were extremely sore! They felt as if I had run a marathon. At least now I know better and will experiment with shorter distances of forefoot strike until my calves get used to it.
With the sore calves, I added an extra day of rest, running today (Monday) rather than yesterday (Sunday). With the excessive rain we had today I decided not to do my typical run in East River Park, because the park and the connector to the park flood easily. Instead I took it to the streets! Running a 4.6 mile course that at one time was a staple run for me. However in looking at my history, I see the last time I did that run was Dec 6, 2011, almost 3 years ago! Crazy that it has been so long, but for the last 3 years I’ve been mostly injured and doing virtually no serious running. It was really nice to get out there again, push the pace at times to catch green lights and to run a couple of small hills. Here are the vital stats, courtesy of Runmeter.
In looking closer at my running history, I see the first time I did that run was May 2004. In the last 10+ years, I’ve done the run 40 times! And sadly this one was the slowest. Not surprising, of course, given my current level of training, and it serves as motivation to keep up running to get faster again. Honestly my foot is feeling a bit sore now after the run, but hopefully with some TLC, it will bounce back easily and I’ll be able to run in 3 or 4 more days.
I’m still on track in 2014 to beat 217.8 miles, my pathetic total from 2013 🙂 If all continues to go well, I’ll crack that nut in the 2nd week of December, and then I have another important 2014 goal, but I’ll hold off on explaining that one for now.
