Week ending February 19, 2011

This was my second week back to training after a break and I wanted to log 100 miles. I started with a speed workout of 10x800 on Sunday morning followed by 5+ miles in the afternoon. Monday was a long run of about 15 miles and I ran easy Tuesday morning. Then I hurt my toe. I was playing floor hockey with some teenagers Tuesday afternoon and ran into a corner behind one of the kids. He stopped in front of me and my foot (no shoes) struck his heel at full speed. My pinky toe nailed him no differently than if I kicked a brick wall. I went down and was in a lot of pain. The kids thought I was faking, or at least didn't believe how much pain I was in. I played goalie the rest of the game and limped the rest of the day. On my way home I was still planning on running. It was just toe pain and I can run through pain. Then I changed clothes and took off my socks. Oh my. My pinky toe was the size of my big toe and was purple and blue. I couldn't believe the size of the swelling nor the discoloration. No wonder I was in so much pain. Regardless, I decided to lace up my shoes and go for a run. I lasted about 3 steps. It looked nasty, we took pictures. Our school trainer was surprised at how bad it looked and couldn't tell if it was broken. I ran again on Friday and was still in pain. I tried running on both Wednesday and Thursday and just couldn't do it. I ran a double on Saturday to try to make up some lost miles. The toe still hurt. 62 miles for the week.

Week ending February 12, 2011

This was my first week back to it after a small break. My goal for the next month is really just to stay in shape, keep up the base miles, and not lose speed. I ran some doubles (three) for the first time in a long time this week. I started the week with a 15 mile run on Sunday. I followed up with a double on Monday and didn't run on Tuesday. On Wednesday I ran 8x1200 as a workout and felt pretty good. Thursday was another long run. I had a goal of running 100 miles, but taking Tuesday off threw that goal out the window. 85 miles for the week.

Week ending February 5, 2011

I only ran one day this week. I ran a hard tempo run on Sunday and didn't run again all week. This was a planned break, but I didn't mean to put in zero miles over six days. Usually when I take a planned break I will still run 5 or so miles every other day or something similar. We had really bad weather though, with the high around 5 degrees from Monday through Wednesday, so I was happy to stay inside. The Sunday tempo run really sucked. I had taken it easy the few days before Sunday because I really wanted to hammer this workout knowing I was taken a break after it. I started out fine, but by mile 3 or 4, I felt slow and sluggish. I just couldn't get into a groove and started hitting some slow miles (6:00+). One mile was 6:34 and I got pissed. I hammered after that one; the day was lost though. Not a good workout. Looked forward to a break. 17 miles for the week.