It has been awhile, again. I have been running in the Vibram 5-fingers for a couple of months now and I have to say that I am enjoying them. I really like the trail pair, the Treks. They are very comfortable and grip very well. The only problem with them is that when they get wet, I end up getting blisters (since I am running without socks). But overall, I do not regret making the change. I probably could have eased into it a bit more than I did. So this is the reason for this post.
I tweaked my left hamstring again two weekends ago while running with Pam, Davnet and Grace at Hartland Park on the Saturday. I ran about 3.5 miles on Tuesday evening and it felt okay, but not anywhere close to 100%. I did not run anything else until Saturday. Now Saturday is the L & M Hospital 3.5 mile race that starts one block from my house and I normally run, walk or just hang out every year. But my friend Melanie was the race director for a race in Westerly, a 5K which I have never run so I decided to make the journey there and try an easy run in my Vibram's.
The race went well, so well that I ended up running a sub 7-minute pace. During the race I had no problems with the shoes. But afterward was a different story. When I went out to get in a cool down run, I had to stop because of the pain on my left foot. I had a huge blood blister that I did not feel while racing, but after cooling down, wow, it was there. But that is not the major problem. About an hour after the race I noticed a pain radiating along the outside of my right foot. It got worse. I iced it for a bit and took some ibuprofen and I have not run since. I wanted to run the following day in the woods, but the person that I was supposed to run with did not show, so I decided to not run. That was probably a good decision. If I walk around barefoot, the pain is barely there. Once I put a pair of shoes on, the pain returns. I have not run nor have I ridden the bike. It is getting better, but since I am on my feet quite a bit during work, the foot is quite sore by the end of my shift. Hopefully I will be able to run soon, at least get out for a short jog to see how it reacts. I cannot seem to get away from being injured. I just want to be able to run, especially out on the trails.

Another return

I pulled or slightly tore my left hamstring at the end of January. Of course, I was doing something stupid, doing speed work early on a very cold morning in shorts. By now, you would think that I would learn. I think that I have said that before. I have been seeing Dr. Strecker, who has helped me out with ultrasound and stretching. He also has given me some exercises to strenghten the muscles that complement the hamstrings.
I read the book Born to Run and have been running without insoles inside my shoes. I believe that it has helped me with my running form and keeps me healthy (minus the hamstring). While on vacation in Las Vegas, I found a kiosk that was selling Vibram Five-Finger running "shoes" and bought 2 pairs - one for the roads and a heavy duty pair for running on the trails. I started running again (with the doc's blessing) while on vacation. I took my first run in San Diego along side the Pacific Ocean (wow, were the waves huge!) and felt good. I ran every other day as I want to take it easy getting back to normal. I found the kiosk the day after Carol and I drove from San Diego to Las Vegas and Carol told me to buy two pair (now is she not a fantastic person, in addition to being gorgous). I started running in them the next day. The soles of the shoes are thin with toes. Basically they are barefoot runners. The idea is that they make runners run the way that the human body is supposed to run; on the balls of the feet and shortened strides. As far as I was concerned, they felt good. Of course the bottoms of my feet are very tender from all that time encased in do-it-all for you shoes. I feel any little stones that I run over. The other thing about them is they make my calfs very sore. At least the pair that I bought to run on the roads.
This past Saturday, I ran with the Saturday Slugs in Stonington. It rained the whole time, although I only ran 5 miles. The big thing was that later in the afternoon, I discovered a blood blister on the big toe of my right foot. That was the first for me and I am guessing that it was because of the rain wearing the shoes.
On Sunday, I went for my first trail run at Bluff Point, wearing the trail version of the shoes. It was very wet with just a bit of rain. The trail version fit well, but I ended up with a blister on my blister. But the shoes were good. I did not feel most of the stuff that I stepped on. They worked very well on the wet rocks and just like normal running shoes, they were slippery in the mud. The big thing was that my calfs were not sore from the trail running, at least not like they were when I ran on the roads.
A friend suggested that I do not run in the Vibram's twice in a row, worried that I would blow out a calf muscle. I may take his advice. I do know that I want to accelerate my use of these shoes. They make my knees feel better. Hopefully they do the same thing for my back. Once it gets warm enough, I will be walking around barefoot as much as possible. Gotta toughen up my feet.

Long time between posts

Wow, it has been quite some time since my last post. With work and now school, I do not seem to have much free time lately. School is an interesting situation. I do not always agree with the methods and the teachings that the school is having me do, yet I am not sure what I can do with my disagreement. Normally I can be pretty caustic about anything that displeases me, caustic in the sarcastic way. But if I send an email to the professor about something that I do not like, is that going to affect my grade? I am through 4 complete units and until the last on in unit 4, I had gotten 100 on everything. I got a 95 on the last one so I sent an email to the professor asking what it was that I did or did not do, saying that I did not want to repeat whatever it was. She said that I was not as thorough as the others, but if I wanted to argue about it, she would listen. I have to reread what I sent in.
At least the school is keeping me busy. I am not running. Dummy me that I can be, I decided to work on my speed-during some of the worst cold this winter. Three weeks ago last Tuesday, I pulled my left hamstring while doing intervals on the road. I did not run again until the following Saturday. First I did a bike spin in a friend's garage and then I went out for a 6-mile run. At least most of it was in the woods. I should not have done it, but by the time it started to bother me, I was out in the woods and I had to get back, so I continued to run. I went and saw Dr. Strecker and he has been using ultra-sound on it. I can go for a while and think that it is getting better but then I do something like almost run into something and pull up short and oh, the pain! So I am erratically working out; I swam this past Tuesday. I have done yoga once and am doing some body weight workouts. Pretty much takes me out of the running to do the new CT 50K this April. I was looking forward to that. So now hopefully I can get well enough to run the Yale to Harvard race. I would hate to let the team down.

2010

Happy New Year! Goodby 2009, hello 2010. Looking out the window this morning, the world has the look of a new world, with the snow blanketing everything. Here's hoping that it portends a good change for most people in this new year. I will probably be going to Mystic to run with approximately 100 crazy people who will crawl through 5 miles and then jump into the chilly Long Island Sound. I always wonder if there is any benefit to chilling out warm limbs or is there a detrement? It does feel to me like a major washing off of anything that was bad in the last year. Since I do this most years, it has allowed me to enjoy the feeling of purity when I come out of the water (not that I should or would be considered that).
I know that only one person reads this, but I will put this down anyway. Happy New Year to my friends and family! Here is hoping that the year treats everyone well and that all of America has a better year than last. Hope to see everyone out on the roads and trails.

Snow day, pain day

Wow,what a snow storm. Carol and I went to a party at a friend's home in Rhode Island last night. We woke up Saturday morning and listened to the weatherman give dire predictions about the impending snowstorm. They said that it would start around noon, last into the night and be done by daybreak today. So while Carol and I were doing our errands, we were trying to decide if we would be able to attend the party. With no snow by 3 PM, we called our friends and they said that the party was still on if we wanted to come. We decided that we would go, taking the 4 x 4 truck (just in case) and try to have some fun for a bit. We were there for 3 and 1/2 hours before it started to flurry. At 9:30 we decided it was time to leave. It was a good thing that we brought the truck. The snow was coming down pretty fast, the wind was blowing and the highway was a mess. But we did not have any problems getting home other than trying to get by some of the really slow drivers. When we got up this morning the first thing that I did was go out onto the deck to clear a path and area so that the dog could do her business. As I was coming back in to go to the front door, I felt a twinge in my back on the lower left side. I thought that I had not done anything serious, so I went out the door to clear off my front walk and the elderly couple's walkway across the street. Every shovelful of snow reminded me of what I had done. But I kept on going. Just like when I do something while running. When I went back in the house, I told Carol that I had done something to my back and I would be unable to finish the shoveling. But I decided that I could take my dog for a walk and pick up the newspaper. Again not the right thing to do. So the rest of today, I have been in pain and having difficulty getting around. I wanted to get out for a run today and that did not happen. I want to work out tomorrow morning and I believe that will not happen either. I may have to go see my doctor. I am going to turn fifty and I still do not know how to listen to my body clearly. Hopefully this does not last too long. I was having too much fun being healthy.

More Changes

Alice Cooper sang, "School's out forever". That does not apply here. As of January 11th, 2010, I will be going back to school. I had always wanted my children to go to college and so they have done. My son graduated with a degree in English Literature, although I do not have any idea what he is going to do with that degree. Kathleen, my daughter, is presently in her second year of college and doing very well. While they were growing up, I tried a couple of times to return to school to get a degree but with kids growing up it is very hard to raise them and go to school. To save family relations, both times I dropped out. Now that they are both on their own (to a certain degree) my wife decided that she would buy me a laptop on the stipulation that I go back to school so that she would not have to hear me moan and groan about wanting to do so. I will be attending an on-line college, Capella University. My work schedule changes every week so the traditional way of going to college would not work. The on-line school gives me the opportunity to attend when my schedule allows. Of course, this probably means that I might have to curtail the number of races I attend for a while. As long as I can get out most days for a run, I should still be able to stay sane. Here is to "forever".

Unknown speed

For the last few years, my times at races have been slowly slowing. Part of that is to blame on no speed work, part is on my running longer runs and part is probably on getting older. But I have not been running very quickly or at least not as quickly as I used to. Especially in the shorter races. I have tended to shy away from road races in favor of the trails. I get so much enjoyment out of getting into the woods, away from the noise of people and vehicles. But I still do some of the local road races, mostly to keep in touch with people who I have met at those races. I went to the Pearl Harbor Day Masters run this past Sunday. I had already decided that I would do no more races this year when I remembered about this race. So last week I hunted down an application at Waterford's Community Center and signed up. Sunday morning was cold and windy, but I have been waiting for the weather to change and actually look forward to the cold weather. The race time was 11 am. I arrived at 10:30, got my number and t-shirt and headed out for a small warm up. I was trying to decide on whether or not to wear a windbreaker during the race. The wind was cold, but ultimately I decided that the shirt I was wearing was enough.
With my recent history of running slower I have been starting toward the back of the pack at race starts. Sunday I started near the front so that as the pack started to string out there was maybe fifteen people ahead of me. I felt great, but I knew that it was faster than I have been running. I thought about it while maintaining my pace and decided that I would just keep on going until I fell apart. I was surprised when I caught up with the first woman, who called out that we did the first mile in 6:38. I am not sure how she knew where the first mile was as there was no mile markers that I could see. That was the last I would see of her, surprising me since I rarely finish in front of the first woman. Up Boston Post Road we ran, powering up the hill. I crested the hill running with Todd Fisher, whom I had not met before, and staying with him down the small slope to Oswegatchie Road where we took a left. I stayed with Todd for a while, but eventually he started to pull away. Just about half way down the road, he stopped to stretch his calf. I asked if he was all right as I went past and he replied that he was fine. At three quarters of the way down Oswegatchie, there is a stop sign and a race offical was there directing the runners to go straight. His truck was parked at the opposite stop sign and as I went past, noticed that there was a set of keys on the ground. I worried that some runner had lost them and one of the other runners would kick the keys under the truck and not be seen, so I stopped, ran back a couple of steps and yelled to the official that there were keys on the ground. As soon as I saw that he was reacting to that, I turned back and started to run again. Todd had been right behind me and went by and another guy also passed me. The other guy was also someone who I had never met before, but he amazed me. I found out later that his name is Dave. He does not look like your typical runner, especially one who was running at the pace we were. He had a belly and looked slightly out of shape, but he was running very well.
Getting started again was tough. I had been in a really good groove and it took a bit to start to feel good again. I ran through the neighborhood with someone on my heels. He stayed there as we came off of Oswegatchie and onto River Road. As soon as we took the left onto River Road, the wind hit us right in the face. The guy that was following me tucked in behind me and was content to let me be his wind break. We took a right onto Boston Post Road and headed back up to the the finish line. The guy behind me takes the opportunity to pass me here and I find out that it was Dave Jacobs in his normal green shorts. As he started to pull away from me I decided to try to stick with him. Now this race has a nasty little hill at the end; it does not look like much but after running almost five miles, it can be a killer. The good thing this year was that the wind was mostly at out backs. Halfway up the hill Dave Jacobs passed the other Dave. A minute later so did I. As we crested the hill and headed across the intersection (thank you Waterford Police Department!) I felt good and started pushing toward the finish. Dave Jacobs had nothing left and I passed him about 100 yards from the finish. Of course, here is the thing about Dave. He is 64 years old and I believe that this was the first time that I have beaten him. Fantastic runner! So I finished the 5.2 mile race in 35:45, a 6:53/mile pace, 6th place overall and second in my age division. Not too shabby. It would be nice to be able to bottle that feeling. I could clean up.