Training for 9/30/13

I still have yet to run, but I feel like my foot is close to normal again. In fact, if I wasn’t so lazy, I might have tried a short trail run today. I think I’ll hold off until tomorrow though.

Friday evening, I did strength training upstairs first — ab exercises, push-ups, invisible chair-sitting and weights, and then I did a quick ride around the 4.5-mile loop on my bike. That evening, Clark and I took Pepper to the Evo brewpub in Salisbury for dinner, where some drunk guy insisted we should be studding out our tiny, runty weimaraner and watching the waves of profits roll in haha.

Saturday morning, I rode my bike a little more than 14 miles. It was a rather windy day, which was killing me when I had to ride head-on into it. Other than that, it was a pretty enjoyable ride.

That afternoon, I went to Choptank for the party barge’s last ride before my brother puts it away for the winter. My parents, cousin, sister-in-law and her brother also came along.

It wasn’t warm enough for skiing; the water was very choppy because of the wind anyway. We putted up to Suicide for lunch first:

Then we kept going toward Cambridge, taking our time and looking at all the houses along the water. After a bathroom stop at the Hyatt, we went back to Choptank. Sad to think I won’t get to go out on the boat again until next year!

Schmidts on a boat: Kasey, Dave, Corey, Wes, Dad and Mom.

That evening, Clark and I went to the fundraiser at the arboretum outside Ridgely. It was us and a bunch of rich old people. These people were blowing more money on single live auction items than I make in a month. I just ate the free food and drank the free booze and kept the bidding paddle we all got at check-in firmly on the table, where no one could accidentally think I just bid thousands of dollars on something.

Sunday morning, Clark and I met Mike at his house around 9 a.m. and drove up to Dover to start tailgating. It was just the three of us for a while.

Mike and Clark.

Then the rest of my family stopped by on their way to the track for some of our food. We had another surprise for them though. A few weeks ago, for reasons I can’t remember, Mike bought some MD 20/20 — more commonly known to underage drinkers the world over as Mad Dog — and it sat in our fridge ever since. We brought it to Dover to pass around.

Dad, Richard and Aunt Debbie with the Mad Dog.

Mom taking her first ever swig of Mad Dog.

We made our way to the track after that. It was a nice day in the stands for a NASCAR race. Unfortunately, not only did Bobby not start, Jimmie stupid Johnson won — which also broke a three-way tie between him, Richard Petty and Bobby Allison as the winningest driver in Dover history. Not the best day in my book!

Oh well. We still had a good time.

Dad and Mom — Dad always manages to get a few free Buds from us.

Clark.

I borrowed Clark’s sunglasses. I can’t remember if this was taken before or after Clark insisted we both do several fist bumps with that kid sitting next to me.

On the walk back to the shuttle pick-up area after the race, Mike and I walked through a lawn full of picnic tables, each with a huge umbrella that had something about The Chase and Dover printed on them. We thought one of these would make a perfect free souvenir, so we unscrewed one and walked away with it.

We didn’t get far before a couple of cops asked us what we were doing. Mike made up a story about a guy in a gray T-shirt who said we could have it. One cop was trying to hold back laughter. The other one gave us an exasperated look — I think he was tired of dealing with drunks all day — and asked if we thought he was stupid haha.

We put it back.

It was for the best; I don’t know how we would have gotten it on the school bus to ride back to the parking lot, and neither of us has a patio or picnic table with an umbrella holder anyway. No hard feelings, Dover police!

We went to my aunt’s house for dinner. When we got home, Clark decided he was still hungry, and he wanted some leftover pizza that’s been in our fridge for more than a week. He heated up the oven to warm it up. I was not hungry for old pizza, so I went to bed.

I woke up a couple of hours later to the weirdest smell. I followed it out to the kitchen, where I found Clark asleep on the couch, and the pizza box in the oven, baking away. I turned off the oven and pulled out the pizza — it had turned to a sheet of black rock and smelled awful haha. I guess I should just be happy nothing caught fire!

This morning, I didn’t feel too bad when I woke up, but I still slacked off on doing any kind of workout.

Today is the last day of September, so it’s time to sum up the month.

Mileage:

• Week 1 (Sept. 1-7): 54.9 miles
• Week 2 (Sept. 8-14): 9.5
• Week 3 (Sept. 15-21): 0
• Week 4 (Sept. 22-28): 7.5
• Week 5 (Sept. 29-30): 0

Total: 71.9 miles

I think I had about 220 miles scheduled for the month. Obviously it did not go how I planned.

After a rather crappy last few weeks, I made the decision last week to drop to the half in Indy and not run anything longer than that for the rest of the year. I also signed up last week to do the Whale Challenge at the Shamrock marathon weekend next March, for the third year in a row.

On the bright side, my foot is feeling pretty good again, finally, and I think I’ll be running again soon. Until then, I will keep riding the bike. I’ve put about 140 miles on it since my foot started bothering me.

Training for 9/27/13

I haven’t done anything yet today, after the blood donation yesterday afternoon. I might do some strength training and/or go for a short bike ride when I get home though.

This weekend, I think I’ll be going for a nice long bike ride tomorrow, and then taking a rest day Sunday.

Outside of (not) running, I get to cover a hoity-toity fundraising event for the paper tomorrow evening. Usually I hate having to waste a Saturday night working, but I got two tickets, so Clark’s going too, and it looks like it’s going to be a fun time with a lot of good food, that we get to eat for free, if I just take a few pictures.

Sunday is the Dover race! We haven’t made plans yet, but I assume we’ll be heading up early to tailgate. I’m a little bummed that Bobby Labonte isn’t racing this weekend. I’ve only attended one other live race that Bobby wasn’t in, and that was my very first one, Sept. 20, 1992, in Dover. I was 9 and he was still driving in the Busch Series.

He’s sort of being pushed out of his current ride early; he’ll still drive a few more races in the 47 car this year, but the team already announced the guy driving the other races this year will be the full-time driver in 2014. I haven’t heard any rumors about where Bobby might drive next year, and it’s getting pretty late in the season to be getting a good ride, but I’m still hopeful he’ll find something.

Training for 9/26/13

This morning, I rode my bike around the 14.5-mile loop.

I have an appointment to donate blood in about 20 minutes. I was going to reschedule it, as I should have been in the middle of a high-mileage training week, but since that’s no longer the case, I’ll let them have it.

Training for 9/25/13

This morning, I was about to lie back on the weight bench for a set of bench presses, when I had an epiphany.

It’s time to drop to the half at Indy.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, since before whatever went wrong in my foot. It started as a joke when I was in the first couple of miles of a long run — “If I just dropped to the half, I wouldn’t have to run so damn far today.”  Those were, of course, the long runs I actually did, which were getting pretty sparse.

I just couldn’t get into training for this marathon, but I was trying to push myself through it, since I’d already paid for registration and the flights. Besides, I run two marathons a year — Shamrock and whatever sounds good in the fall — and this was supposed to be my fall marathon.

Then, after a weekend when I finally ran all the miles I was supposed to, my foot hurt so bad I couldn’t walk on it for a couple of days. Suddenly that marathon that a month ago sounded about as appealing as a pile of dirty socks became my holy grail. I MUST RUN IT. Foot, heal thyself!

For the next two weeks, I iced, stretched and rolled over a tennis ball that stupid foot whenever I had a free minute. I rode my bike, did my strength training and went to hot yoga to keep up my fitness. All day, I would think about how much time I had left until Indy, how much more time I thought it would be until I could run again and if I’d be ready for the marathon.

Sunday, I was encouraged by a 3-mile trail run that didn’t feel too bad. I rested again Monday, and then yesterday, I ran 4.5 miles on the road.

I knew from the first step I shouldn’t have done it. But I was tired of waiting to run again, so I ran the whole loop.

This morning, my foot let me know how stupid I still am. I could feel it before I even stepped out of bed. It is by no means back at square one — I can still walk on it normally — but the whole thing was tight and sore and mad as hell.

I went upstairs to do my strength training. I had finished my abs, push-ups and invisible chair-sitting, and had just done some squats (which do not bother the foot) and sat down for the bench presses, when it dawned on me that I was tired of worrying about this marathon.

I don’t know how long it’s going to be until I can run pain-free again. But even if it’s not until the day of the race itself, five weeks from this coming Saturday, I know I could still finish a half. I don’t think it’s going to be that long, but what if it is? I don’t feel like thinking about it anymore. That had a lot to do with why I kept running yesterday, even though I knew I shouldn’t.

Anyway, I finished up my strength training, and then I took my bike out for a short ride. I was going to do the 5.5-mile loop. When I turned onto Bowman Road, I saw Al up ahead, walking in the same direction, back toward his house. I really didn’t feel like telling him why I was on my bike, because I was sure it would lead to more unsolicited advice about how I run too much. So I just did a U-turn and followed the 6.5-mile route home instead.

I just emailed the race director and asked to be moved to the half marathon. So that’s that.

I’ll run the half in Indy at whatever pace I feel up to that day. I’m already registered for the half in Rehoboth on Dec. 7. I could switch to the full if I really wanted to run a fall marathon this year, but I don’t. I think I’ll just go for a PR in the half there. I won’t run anything longer than a half the rest of the year. Then, when training starts for next spring’s Shamrock, maybe I’ll actually want to do it.

One more thing — right before I left the house today, the FedEx guy dropped off my New Balance 1400s. I held them in direct sunlight for a minute and then went up to the attic and turned off the light. They really do glow in the dark!

They also felt really good on my feet. One more reason I can’t wait to run again, but I will.

Training for 9/24/13

This morning, I went out for a run as soon as Pepper had been fed. It was perfect running weather, sunny and chilly, and I was feeling optimistic, since my foot didn’t seem to be bothered at all by Sunday’s 3-miler on the trail.

Today’s run was 4.5 miles on the road. And it didn’t feel nearly as good as Sunday’s did, unfortunately.

The last time I ran before I took those two weeks off, I remember it was a very specific pain in the big toe, every time that foot would land. Then the outside of the foot started to hurt, because I was trying to keep as much pressure off the inside as possible.

Today, the discomfort wasn’t in any one place. It just kind of spread out across the top of the foot.

It wasn’t enough to make me stop though. I thought about it, several times. But it just felt so damn good to be out running as the sun was coming up on a clear, chilly fall morning. I am so tired of waiting on this foot. I did the whole loop.

Did I do the right thing, or did I just set myself back? I don’t know. Unlike two weeks ago, when I couldn’t walk on the foot after that last run, it feels fine to walk on now. In fact, it felt fine to walk on as soon as I was done running, and it hasn’t gotten painful at all in the six hours since.

I planned on not running tomorrow and just doing strength training and riding my bike anyway. My new shoes are supposed to be delivered tomorrow too. Fingers crossed I get to try them out on a run Thursday!

Training for 9/23/13

I believe I am on my way back!

Friday evening, I went to a hot yoga class in Salisbury. I’ve only been to a few of these classes, but even the one I took on a Wednesday morning a couple of years ago was pretty close to full. I was surprised when I was one of only four people in Friday’s class.

The instructor asked if anyone had any trouble spots that needed help. I don’t know what she could have done for “uh, my right big toe stings when I hop on that foot,” so I didn’t say anything. One of the other people said her shoulders were tight, so the instructor said she would throw in some poses to stretch that out.

I really enjoyed that class! Since there were so few of us, the instructor had more time to work one-on-one to help us get as much as we could out of each pose. And that 105-degree room just feels amazing to me. I was sweating my face off, but I never wanted to leave.

When I got home, Clark and I went to Stoked in Cambridge for dinner, which specializes in wood fire-grilled food. It was delicious, definitely somewhere I would recommend.

Saturday morning, my foot felt really good, and I was tempted to ride my bike to the trail and try out a run. But I decided to give it one more day to rest, and rode my bike around the 10.5-mile loop instead. That afternoon, I went to my friend Julie’s house for an extended lunch. Clark and I thought about going to the beach house that evening, but then it poured rain, so we stayed home instead.

Sunday morning, I felt like it was time to try running again. It had been exactly two weeks.

I drove out to the cross country trail. I literally had my fingers crossed as I started up a slow jog at the trail head. I just wanted to run again so bad!

I broke out into a huge smile as I realized my toe wasn’t going to give me any trouble. It didn’t feel perfect — my right foot felt tight and out of practice — but it wasn’t painful, and I was running with a normal stride again. I did the entire 3-mile loop. My breathing felt OK too, but that’s probably because I was going so damn slow, haha.

I was thrilled when I finished that loop! I was still worried things would start to hurt as the day went on, however.

When I got home, I pulled out the bike and rode around the 7.3-mile loop. After that, I iced my foot for 20 minutes.

The rest of the day, we sat around watching NASCAR and football. Much to my relief, my foot felt totally fine all day. I really think I’m OK to ease back into my training plan now!

Today, I will get around to my strength training and another bike ride at some point. I have accomplished one thing though — I had a coupon for $10 off a $50 purchase at Road Runner Sports, so I just ordered a pair of New Balance 1400s. I have always wanted a pair of these shoes, but for some reason I kept putting off getting them. They’re based on the 890s I really liked, but they’re lighter and meant for racing.

What finally pushed me over the edge was the latest color — they glow in the dark!

 

Considering that I hate running in the dark, I have no idea why this was so appealing to me.

I am by no means putting away my Zeroes, but I’m looking forward to switching it up with these shoes from time to time. Plus, as the sun rises later and later now that it’s officially fall, maybe these will help inspire me to get out the door in the mornings.

Indy is a bit less than six weeks away now. My plan is to run tomorrow, Thursday and Saturday, a little bit farther each time, and to ride my bike the other days. Next week is a cutback week on the schedule, that ends with a 12-mile long run, so I’ll follow that. And if that goes well, I’ll do the final big mileage week, that ends with what should have been my third 20-miler, the week after that.

When that’s over, it’ll already be taper time. I started training for Indy with sub-3:30 in mind. Now I’m just trying to salvage a decent finish out of what has been overall a pretty crappy training cycle, first due to a total lack of motivation and then a two-week layoff. There’s always the next one.

Training for 9/20/13

I’m in a pretty fantastic mood this morning!

My foot feels about 90 percent normal, and I really think I’m going to be able to start running again this weekend. I was very tempted to ride my bike to the trail this morning and try a short run, but I decided against it. I just did 10.5 miles on the bike instead.

This evening, I’m going to a hot yoga class. The last time I had so much trouble with the tendons in my right foot (so I assume), I was on the verge of deferring the upcoming Shamrock Marathon. I went to my first hot yoga class, and the next day, my foot felt 1,000 times better. I was running again a couple of days later, and finished the marathon a few weeks later, albeit slowly, with no trouble. So in my head, hot yoga has become the silver bullet. And yes, I know it’s probably all in my head.

I’m not just happy about my foot though. Yesterday was awesome!

In the afternoon, Clark and I drove to the beach. We stopped at the house to get his wetsuit, and then we stopped at K-Coast in Ocean City so I could look for a wetsuit. They had exactly what I was looking for. I tried on two, and immediately loved them. They felt like full-body compression running tights! I also felt like Spiderman in them haha.

Clark bought the one that felt just a little bit better, and then we drove to Assateague.

Assateague is known for its wild ponies. According to the park website, no one’s really sure how they got on the island, but the two most popular theories are the first ones either escaped from a Spanish shipwreck right off the island, or they were brought there by early settlers to graze. They recently found the remains of a Spanish shipwreck near Assateague, so that might be right.

At any rate, they’ve been there since the 1600s. There are two herds of about 160 ponies each, one on the Virginia side and one on the Maryland side (which are kept separate by a fence on the state line.) Maryland controls the population by shooting females with darts containing contraceptives, and Virginia does it by rounding up a bunch of them every summer for the annual pony swim to Chincoteague, where some of the foals are sold at auction.

People freaking love these ponies. They pay to take boat rides around the island just to look for the ponies. And when a pony or four shows up anywhere close to the road, traffic comes to a dead stop so everyone can stare at them, like they just spotted a unicorn.

I don’t remember seeing many ponies when we’d go to Assateague this summer, but the last two times we’ve gone, since the tourist season has slowed down, they’re everywhere. Just driving to the beach and back yesterday, we probably saw two dozen, which made it impossible to get anywhere. Inevitably, some inconsiderate jerk in front of us would just stop right there in the road to look at the ponies, instead of pulling off to the shoulder or something.

When we finally made it to the parking lot, there were some walking through it — Clark almost hit one with his door as it walked between our truck and the one parked next to us. Then he went to use the bathroom, and three more wandered over while he was waiting for one to open up:

Wild ponies are also inconsiderate line-cutters.

There are signs all over the place warning people not to approach, touch or feed the ponies, but what do you do when they come up to you? These three (there might have been a fourth one around the corner) just stood there, right where everyone was walking to and from the beach. They attracted a good-sized crowd. I saw one guy take a chance and pet one of them. Eventually they wandered back into the brush.

Anyway, after all the pony excitement, we put on our wetsuits and walked the boards out to the beach. The waves didn’t look quite as big as last week, and it was choppier.

We headed out into the ocean. I was immediately impressed with how well that wetsuit worked! I was completely comfortable the whole time.

Even better, Clark and I paddled out all the way past the breakers in about four minutes, instead of having to fight it for a half hour like last week. I think we’re getting better, maybe!

For me, that’s where the improvement ended haha. I stayed out there for more than an hour, trying to catch a wave. It seemed like every time I thought I had one, it would just send my board into a nosedive and me into the water instead. I really wanted to catch one, but yesterday was not my day.

Clark, on the other hand, caught two, stood up and rode them both all the way back to shore!

It was after 5 p.m. when we decided we should get going. I asked Clark to take a picture of me in my new favorite article of clothing:

The long board makes me look like a little person!

We drove back to Fenwick to leave our wetsuits and the boards at the house. We also took showers, and then drove to Georgetown to have dinner at the Brick Hotel.

Dinner was excellent — I had oyster stew, shrimp polenta ravioli and a huge brownie sundae for dessert. But I will remember this anniversary dinner for what happened at the next table.

There were only two other couples eating dinner there last night, both much older than us. One couple was sitting where I could see them, but Clark couldn’t.

After they’d paid their check, they got up to leave. As the man stood up, he ripped the loudest fart I have heard in a long time — and definitely the loudest one I’ve ever heard in public!

It sounded like when someone wearing shorts moves while sitting on a vinyl seat on a hot day. But this old man wasn’t wearing shorts, it definitely wasn’t hot in there and the seat cushions were upholstered.

I immediately started laughing, but I was trying to keep it under control, since the couple were still standing right where they could see me. (By the way, neither of them looked like they’d even heard it, let alone cared!) Then Clark, who obviously couldn’t see what they were doing, said, “Wow, did that lift someone out of their seat?”

I started laughing harder as I tried to quietly tell him the old man had ripped it while he was standing up. I had tears streaming down my face by this point, but I was still trying to keep quiet until these two finally left. I couldn’t even look in their general direction.

After what felt like an eternity, they finally left the room, and I just let it go. I was laughing hysterically and trying unsuccessfully to keep up with the stream of tears running down my face with my napkin. That was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while!

I kept laughing about the rest of the night, and I’m still laughing about it now just remembering it. Man, I can’t wait until I’m so old I’ll just bust ass in public and not give a crap who hears it!

After dinner, we went out to the circle to revisit where we’d gotten married. It was dark by then, and neither of us are very practiced at taking selfies, so this is the best we could get:

And that was our fourth anniversary. We liked surfing so much we’ve decided that’s a new anniversary tradition now too.

Training for 9/19/13

Hard to believe, but it was four years ago today that Clark powered through his massive hangover from his bachelor party (it still boggles my mind they waited to do that until the night before the wedding!) so we could finally make it official.

I took today off work. This afternoon, Clark and I are going surfing in Assateague, after he buys me a wetsuit. (After all, neoprene is the traditional fourth anniversary gift, right?) Tonight, we’re going back to the Brick Hotel in Georgetown, where our reception was held, for dinner. We’ve done this every year on our anniversary, and I like the tradition.

Today is just as gorgeous outside as Sept. 19, 2009, was. I did some strength training this morning, where something encouraging happened — last week, I couldn’t do lunges because they bothered my right foot so much, but today I could do two sets of 10 while holding a 25-lb. plate! I also did push-ups, ab exercises, invisible chair-sitting and lifted weights.

After all that, I took my bike out for a 10-mile ride. When I got back home, I did all those barefoot exercises (twice in the same week!) and a lot of stretching, and then iced my foot for 20 minutes.

It’s feeling better today, but still not good. I’m really hoping I’ll be running again by this time next week.

Training for 9/18/13

Last night, I finally did some strength training upstairs — ab exercises, push-ups, invisible chair-sitting and weights. When I came back downstairs, I did those barefoot exercises I used to do so regularly, minus the hopping on one foot, since that’s still bothering the right foot. I always get back in the habit of doing those exercises when my right foot starts bothering me again, and then fall right back out after it’s better. I really could feel a difference in my feet back when I did them a few days a week. And they’re so damn simple!

This morning, I did a lap on the bike around the 7.3-mile loop. I was on a back road that sees just about zero traffic when I was inspired to pull the bike to the shoulder and try a little running for the first time in 10 days. Just to see where the foot is at. I didn’t last long. There’s still something wrong there.

I know there are runners out there who put up with chronic aches and pains. Those runners would probably keep running on a foot that feels like mine. I can’t do that though. I’m too worried about doing more permanent damage. I know what it’s supposed to feel like, and if I forget, or start to think “meh, it’s not so bad, I can run on this,” I have my perfectly normal left foot to remind me.

So the running hiatus continues until further notice.

 

Training for 9/17/13

Another day, another bike ride. I had just enough time for 10.5 miles before work. It was downright chilly this morning.

Still waiting on my stupid right big toe to stop stinging every time I put weight on it.