Oh, let's see I have a couple entries I've been thinking about... This one and then the one for 0SPF which kinda ties in...
Dang runner's mind... I know the waves it goes in and I've heard from so many others that it's the same. Running is great! Why am I doing this?! I'm never running again! OK, Let's sign up for the next one! Something like that... So I'm trying to take my time with decisions.
So the big challenges this year were the Wineglass Marathon which I did last year and was the only race I didn't enjoy and was in a lot of pain at the end. And then the Green Monster 50K which will take me to Ultra status, and is just crazy cause it's like 7800' of elevation...
Well, those 2 aren't until October, but with my other more "normal" races in between and not wanting to run 30 miles the week before or after a race, I worked on building up the mileage early.
So... as of about 2 weeks ago I finished up 3 weeks in a row of a long run each Monday. (there might have been another couple days around the first week, not sure...) but those runs were 26+, 29 and 30 miles respectively. I walked a lot and was out there 6-8.5hrs at a time. I think the 26 mile one I did a lot on the Finger Lakes Trail. The others I kept on my local seasonal road I run which just meant 4 trips back and forth across the hills and the rock laden areas. The first two went about as expected, slow, tiring, but done.
The last one I tried going a bit slower from the start, hoping for some negative splits or just somehow not being in as bad a shape. Yeah, that didn't really work. My feet were still awfully worn out around the halfway point and I was walking most of it.
I think that was my issue. Walking on tired feet in minimal footwear over golfball sized rocks for 30 miles... Still, things felt mostly normal tired afterwards, maybe a tad more knee, hip and hamstring issue, but not too bad. Then like a couple days later I started getting some weird floating issues... I even had a couple pretty good feeling runs in there... But during the course of most of the last 2 weeks, there have been bits of toe numbness, right foot pain, left knee pain, right hip/hamstring pain(that's been pretty minimal). Mainly it was the right foot. I took a walk one day and isolated it to the fact that it was leaning to the right a bit and kind of in the area where an arch would be if I had one. If I kept my weight up on the balls of my feet where it should be, all was fine. it was just the sloppy walking that hurt, which I'm sure I did plenty of and jamming rocks in that area at the same time during that 30 miles...
So then I tried wearing some more protective shoes for recovery for a few days and I think that led to my ankle pain because I wasn't used to having that extra inch of leverage under my feet, or off-angle stuff on a couple pairs.(the other 2 pairs I have are at least 0 drop so that's good).
Anyway, don't get me wrong, I've felt plenty tired and sore after plenty of runs. But after a number of these 20+ mile "runs" in the 6-8hr range, I've pretty confidently concluded that I don't like them. It's more than I want to do. And I rather wish I hadn't signed up for those 2 long races at the end of the year. I believe my hope was that since more mileage felt fine this year that going longer shouldn't be as hard. Well, it would seem I'm still hitting that dang wall at around 16-20 miles, even with more practice.
Now, I don't know that I couldn't build myself up to that level, but I do not want to invest that much time.
So...
The current questions/thoughts are...
-While I wouldn't have conceived of not doing these races I've already paid for... How much pain will I be in, and how much do I really NOT enjoy these distances? I'm seriously considering the option of just skipping them...
-Unless I make the decision of dropping them, how little training can I get away with(currently still only planning on one more long one in the next couple weeks and then maybe another one or two before taper). And which shoes should I wear during training and/or racing...
After this 13.5 mile race on Saturday I went through the feelings of being pretty much OK with just dropping out of EVERY race I'm signed up for the rest of the year, but now I'm feeling better. But still a bit unsure.
I know Wineglass only offers the option to defer my entry to next year. No refunds or transfers. Not positive about trying to switch to the half... Not sure on Green Monster, but might be similar...
I'm not looking for stellar times, I was already figuring most of green monster would be walking, but I guess that's my concern now... I seem to be having more trouble with walking that running... but there's no way I'm going to be running that far, or that far uphill for Monster...
So, we'll see. Right now my feet and calves have bits of notice, but in general I'm feeling pretty decent. But I think I'd like to get my feet feeling pretty well completely recovered before I were to try another run...
We'll see...
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