August 2017 Running Challenge

Non-running update: It's going to be a while. Saw the podiatrist today. Went over the history of how it happened. Diagnosis is Posterior Tibial Tendinitis, possible tear in the PTT, probably arising from putting more stress on the PTT from running with a weak Achilles tendon.

There are multiple paths to treatment. The goal is to calm the tendon down and get to no pain as soon as possible; one of the tactics is to immobilize the ankle:



There's also a prescription NSAID with a long scary list of side effects, but not to worry. I was on the same thing with the Achilles tendinitis, and didn't have any of the awful side effects. But I can't take the first one till my current naproxen wears off; part of the sound track is you DO NOT take this stuff and OTC anti-inflammatories at the same time.

On the bright side, if I'm going to sit around being not very mobile much of the time, it's nice to have a lapful of purr:



So that pretty much closes out August running for me. 84.31 miles out of the nominal target of 260. Achieved my goals for Pound the Ground 10K and Bergen 5K, at great cost. In 20-20 hindsight, it would have been better to sit out Bergen. There will be a DNS for the USATF Masters Mile, missing that goal. Training for the Rochester Marathon has been canceled, missing that goal. And the most important goal, staying healthy, gets an F. August has not been a good month for me.

Told Coach yesterday I wasn't going to Flint. It's pretty clear from today that I won't be running Oak Tree Half or Rochester Marathon, either. Beyond that, I could be getting back into being able to run a little. Maybe I can have a race in October, maybe not.

I may read this thread and sometimes comment; or it may get to be more than I can stand to read about how other people are running and doing well in races and achieving new PRs for distance and race results. I'll see how I feel as time passes.

@MobyCarp I clicked like on your post, but only because your cat is so cute. The diagnosis from your doctor is defenitely nothing to like - I'm really sorry you won't be able to run!! I hope the pain dies down quickly, so that you can get rid of the fancy new boot you are wearing.

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Not sure what temperatures to put in my running log for tonights run - it was 30°C when I started, but cooled down to 24°C by the time I finished nearly three hours later (86F to 75F). For now I put the 30°C, since my route today was up and down a mountain, the first 11.x km where all uphill, and the heat during that part of the run really sucked!
Still, in the end my time for the climb segment was almost as good as my PR, 1:35:33 instead of 1:34:22. It probably would have been only ~30s, but when I was nearly at the top I got a call on my on-call phone from work and walked during the conversation. It actually turned out to be one of those things where I had to get back to work. Something like that happens maybe 2-3 times per year, so did it really have to be tonight in the middle of my long run? Usually I would have added a little hill as a bonus at the end of the long descent before going back to the car. I skipped that in favour of stumbling in to work sweaty and exhausted and spending 15min to fix the problem, before I could go home to shower, food and stretches.
And now it's nearly midnight and I still have 1300kcal left, which is a weird side-effect of moving my long run to a workday. If I go for a long run in the morning on a weekend, I usually have almost the entire day left to eat all kinds of stuff

@MobyCarp Sorry to hear your update; hope the meds do their thing and you heal up sooner rather than later.

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Today's run was brought to you by the letters R, A, I and N, and was chock-a-block full of awesomeness and kittens. And I think there's even more kittens in the forecast. Fantabulous!

02 - 13.54
03 - 10.08
04 - 25.21
06 - 5.62
08 - 7.35
09 - 12.10
10 - 7.47
12 - 7.31
18 - 14.40
21 - 14.29
22 - 10.37
23 - 14.49

Total: 142.23 / 200 miles