August 2019 Monthly Running Challenge

So I've been home in the UK for ten days visiting family so didn't have time to keep up with this thread. Wow it moves fast. Well dome to everyone running in the insane temperatures you have posted. @Faebert I ran in the UK over each day of the bank holiday weekend, I agree, too hot for running really. I enjoyed running in the beautiful Norfolk countryside though, some pictures below. And a picture of the dog I took running (belonging to my aunt), such a cutie! I ran quite a lot so was proud of that. However, now I'm home in Bucharest and back at work and just can't motivate myself to run. I would have to get up at like 5am and I just can't. So I don't think I'll make my monthly total, but am close, so I'll be happy with that!

8.1 miles today after an unplanned rest day yesterday. I'll have to run these all 3 of these last days this month to come right up against 120 without going over. Good thing the goal is to stay under, right? I may have run too hard on that last run - did something slightly unpleasant to something in my hip. It's not getting worse, and it felt ok to run today. Also having some twinges in the right hamstring, just above the back of the knee. If that ever cramps up instead of just twinging, I'm going to wind up falling off the treadmill. It feels like it might try it. I'm a little concerned. I should look up some stretches or something.

The car: Yesterday I managed to get to work early enough to park under a lamp and unload the trunk to access the spare and pump it up to spec with the bike pump. The tire pressure warning went away. The car is definitely reading the spare in the trunk.

I got almost all the way home before the light started flashing. It flashes for about a minute and then stays lit. I went to work this morning. No light until I turned into the parking lot at work. Flashing. Awesome. I drove almost home with no warning lights again, but just as I turned into the neighborhood, flashing again. Ok. After about a week of this, last time they changed the oil, and it reset itself. Except I wasn't just arriving at my destination when it started flashing, and I hadn't already experienced this, so it was much more stressful. I'm just going to wait it out. But I do need to address the spare tire having a screw in it. I do not foresee any difficulty there. Discount Tire has always done right by me.

Today I ran 3.58 miles around my home lake. The first mile sucked, but by 1.25 I was in the groove. There was still some pain, and I remain a little concerned about my ability to run 13.1 miles in less than two weeks, but that’s what this weekend’s 10 miler is for. Registration closes September 1, which doesn’t give me a lot of time to decide whether to switch to the 10K, but so it goes. Also, I keep forgetting that I'm running a 5K on Labor Day (aka next Monday). My dad and step mom are coming to visit tomorrow through Monday and wanted to see a race, so I found one. I'd been hoping to try and top my 5K PR from March, but I think instead I'll just take it easy.

I have now run more miles this month than I did in any other month in 2019 so far. January was the runner up, which speaks to how much my mileage has suffered from aches and pains this year. Well, so it goes. I hope that this season will make me a stronger runner going forward, and there’s still a lot of perfect running weather to enjoy. Today was sunny, mid-60s, dew point around 50, and pretty much perfect, if a little on the windy side. The lake is higher than I’ve ever seen it and the choppiness from the wind was quite lovely. I'm seeing more people running in long sleeves, but I'll be in my racerbacks for another 20 degrees or so.

I'm getting back into yoga and strength training after taking about a month off the former and missing two non-consecutive weeks of the latter due to travel and the weasels. It feels good. It's just worked out that I've been exercising in the mid-late morning this week and it's actually been working pretty well for me. I may stick with that for a while unless we get another really hot streak. Last year I did almost all of my running first thing in the morning and enjoyed that, but after switching to mid-day during the winter to take advantage of what sun I could, I just never got back into the habit of morning runs. Well, miles are miles - that's the joy of setting your own hours.

August Total: 45.33 miles

August Goals: Run 55 miles, lift minimum 2x/week, 15 minutes/day of moderate cardio, 15 minutes/day of mobility.

2019 Races! (bold registered)
January 26: Securian 10K, St. Paul, MN Chip time: 1:05:07
February 16: Half Fast 10K DNS - weather
March 23: Hot Dash 5K, Mpls, MN Chip time: 0:28:39 (*PR!)
May 19: Women Run the Cities 5K, Mpls, MN Chip time: 0:33:02
June 8: PHRC Pensieve 10K (virtual)
June 12: ESTRS French 5K, Plymouth, MN DNS - injury
June 29 Lift Bridge 5K, Bayport MN Chip time: 0:32:51
August 3: Beat the Blerch 10K, Carnation, WA
September 2: MDRA Victory Labor Day 5K, Mpls, MN
September 8: Sioux Falls Half Marathon, Sioux Falls, SD
October 5: TCM 10K, St. Paul, MN
October 6: TCM 10Mi, Minneapolis to St. Paul, MN
October 12: Bemidji Blue Ox 26K, Bemidji, MN
November 28: Turkey Trot St. Paul 10K, St. Paul, MN
December 14: Reindeer Run 10K, Mpls, MN

No run today, the first day of the new job. Probably take a week or so to figure out a new run schedule.

Elise4270 wrote: »

rheddmobile wrote: »

PastorVincent wrote: »

@rheddmobile any tingling or numbness elsewhere?

Nope, nothing. Since the Baker’s cyst behind the other knee presses on the nerve cluster I’ve gotten pretty familiar with variations of nerve issues. It doesn’t have that sharp “nervy” sort of feeling, and it doesn’t have the persistence of a muscle cramp. My instincts are telling me it’s an issue with a tendon getting out of alignment, especially since the only other thing going on is my hip popping on that side (which it does sometimes) but looking at anatomy books there’s nothing obvious located where the issue is.

Have you googled hip snapping syndrome? Regarding the hamstring pain, is it deep? Burning and stab? Is it between the itb and hamstring?

Body image

Perhaps this is the same muscle @PastorVincent is referring too. If it is, then getting to it to elicit pain might be difficult as it’s under other muscles. I wonder if it’s a bit of tendinitis. Good luck with it.

That does look like the right area. It feels like a surface pain, it’s very stabby and brief. I have a notoriously high pain threshold (one reason my doctors almost let me die of an ovarian torsion was that apparently I wasn’t acting like I was in enough pain) and when it hits it makes me swear out loud, but then the pain is immediately gone with no soreness or tightness. My feeling is that something is slightly out of whack and that tendon is catching on something. The hip snapping is a mostly benign thing that’s been happening for years off and on, probably exacerbated by me favoring one leg due to my knee and ankle issues. Once in a while it causes soreness, etc. on down the chain and I figure something similar is happening here.

Thank you all for your well wishes and input!

Anyway, YAY it didn’t bother me today! I did two things differently - wore my spare knee brace on the side with the weird thing going on, in hopes of offering a little support to the tendons where they attach behind the knee. And only ran 5k. Since it tends to start up after about 3 miles I may just not have run far enough to trigger it, or maybe the knee brace helped, but in any case not a twinge today. I’m going to continue with the knee brace next time when I have 10k scheduled, and if that goes well, will try again without it. Fingers crossed.

It felt good to have a nice fast run today. Haven’t run faster than easy pace since I can’t remember due to the heat. Temperature was still almost 90 but humidity was only thirty-something percent, which is like a miracle for Memphis, so it felt comparatively pleasant. I have lost so much conditioning this month due to the heat, y’all! Really pushed it and ended up just under 30 minute 5k, two months ago the same effort would have been two minutes faster. But it’s been a long hot August with no speedwork, just trying not to die of heatstroke. I am seriously looking forward to September.

Took a nice long walk after running since in the shade it was perfect walking weather. Rescued a huge millipede from being run over by a bicycle. Watched a territorial dispute between a family of cardinals and a family of nuthatches. Saw an indigo bunting. Discovered a wild fig tree!

On the subject of birdwatching, my backyard feeder has been visited twice by a leucistic blue jay! I haven’t succeeded in getting a photo yet. He’s very spiffy, all the parts of him which should be blue are bright white. He seems to be shyer than normal blue jays, and he doesn’t associate with them, which makes me wonder if they don’t recognize him as one of them.

Hi all. Popping in really quick. Scanned through all the posts I've missed and you all are awesome.

Live has been crazy busy, with the school year about to begin, getting to taper before my race next week, being dad to a very active 4.5 year old, having a guest speaker for my school stay at my house, and going to training as a SAR applicant. I don't get here as much as I want to. I hope everyone is having a runderful week.