Category Archives: FiveFinger Runs

Thursday – 4.63 Miles – 40:35 – 8:46/mile – HR: 143 – Ascent: 430ft

Just taking it easy.  My legs feel fine.  My right glut still has some sore muscles, but it doesn’t hurt at all to run, and I haven’t felt any hip pain while running.

Friday - 6.15 Miles – 54:38 – 8:53/mile – HR: 134 – 650ft. elevation gain/loss.

That was a nice easy run again today.  My legs feel fine.  My right glut is feeling better, still some residual minor soreness, and I noticed my right hip/butt feeling slight tiredness at one point in the run, but no pain.  I secretly want to get up early and go run for 4 hours just because (ok I guess its not secret anymore, jun, you’re giving me the bug), but I’m restraining myself on account of…well…prudence I guess.

I was listening to “The Revolution” by Ron Paul for the 2nd time on my run this morning.  I highly recommend reading it for a fresh perspective that doesn’t get much attention unfortunately.

Had a really great run on Friday.  But after the run, and for the rest of the day my right hip became more and more stiff…BUMMER!

Saturday I was still sore and could feel the inflamed tendon going over my hip socket.  Not cool.

So what did I do wrong?

I think its pretty clear that I just ran too much too soon.  I went from running zero miles 2 weeks ago, to 46 miles in a one week period.  Which is way more than I have ever run in a one week period, and I ran a lot of those miles at a fast pace, then finished myself off with over 2000 feet of climbing on a 2 hour run.

I felt fine going into that last run, so I’m not sure what to do differently for the future.  Other than just watching my weekly mileage and bumping it up more consistently, I’m not sure…any ideas for me?

Here’s what I ran today.

3.63 Miles – 31:28 – 8:40/mile – HR: 142 – Ascent: 408ft

I went out for a really easy short run to see how my hip would feel.

The good news is that I didn’t feel any pain at all!  That was pleasing.

The pain in the tendon right across my hip was gone by Monday morning, but my glut muscles all around there were tight.  Went to my Nan’s ART therapist on Tuesday and I think that stuff was really beneficial.  He recommended I keep running on it and recommended core and hip exercises.  I’m going to run easy again Thursday morning and I will add the core and hip exercises into my routine daily.  I’m pretty happy that it doesn’t appear to be a major injury, just a minor setback and a good learning lesson.

Tonight my kids were so excited to go to the mall and spend their hard earned cash on candy and toys!

My 4 year old Breanne was ESPECIALLY fun to go to the candy store with.  SO MUCH FUN watching her just going to town picking out the coolest candy, then watching her get a thrill out of sharing it with her brother and sister.

So after helping Abe figure out how to transform his new power ranger he saved all week for, and tucking the kids in, I decided it was my turn.

Looked at the temperature – 31 degrees, perfect – threw on all my tights and slipped on my new FiveFinger Treks for their inaugural run.

I didn’t want to break them in easy…so I threw on a head lamp and headed straight for the rockiest trail by my house – a six mile kind of hilly loop around a pond.

The result:  THEY PASSED WITH FLYING COLORS!  I’m in major like with those shoes.

Here are the run stats, it was a little slow going on some of the hills with very little light:

6.5 Miles – 54 Minutes – 8:18/mile – HR: 154 bpm – Ascent/Descent: 690 ft

My headlamp was basically useless because it was so dim, and so I was charging through all sorts of rocks and ice clumps and never rolled my ankle or felt any amount of pain.

Hammering up and down those trails in the dark I just had a huge grin on my face.  At one point, listening to Cake – going the distance (super fun song to run to) – I felt like my daughter must have felt at that candy store.  I love being a kid.

Those are fantastic trail running shoes for me.  If they can stand up to a night trail run through snow, ice, small rocks, big rocks, up and down steep hills, without good light, and still protect my feet, they should fit the bill.  I really like the added protection they give me, while maintaining a lot of flexibility and still being completely flat soled with no padding.

The thing I predict though, is that they would last a long time, EXCEPT that I bet the tread on the bottoms is going to wear down within a few hundred miles.  But they were very comfortable.

7.5 Miles – 53:15 – 7:06/mile avg – HR: ~165-170 – ascent/descent: 0 ft.

I’m loving how my body feels today.

I ran on the track at the gym because it was cold and snowy and I didn’t feel like running in the cold today.  I warmed up in a 7:50 mile and then the rest of the miles were between 6:40-6:50 I think.

Although my heart was in the 170′s a lot of the time, it felt great and not difficult at all.  I think I was grinning the whole time at how smooth and good I felt.  I’m really pleased with how my body recovered from that 3.5 hour run on saturday and how much good the week off last week did for my ankle.  I don’t feel any problem there at all anymore

Today I was focusing on my upper body form, staying very upright and pumping my arms fast and tight the whole time.  I noticed that if I wanted to speed up, if I focused on my arms, my legs just naturally seemed to flow and have great form and speed.  I think there is a lot to be said for good upper body form.

I’m feeling like running 30 for my 30th in a few weeks is going to be fun and that my body can definitely be ready for it.

Today’s workout was kind of weird, but great.

I ran 1/2 mile warm up to get to the gym from the Tire store where I dropped my car to get new tires.  My ankle felt a bit weird.  I thought I would just lift weights and swim at the gym.

Here’s where you can tell I’m kind of hooked on running.

I was in my running shorts and a tank top and FiveFingers, fully intending to go lift weights.  I stashed my bag in the locker, and headed out to lift some weights.  Before I knew it my feet had taken me up the stairs and I was running around the track.  And I was going fast and feeling really good.  Just passing the same people running about every other lap.  My whole body felt fantastic, it was so easy, and smooth.

I was just counting my laps.  Didn’t have a watch on or heart rate strap.  But I looked at the clock when I started.  After 2 miles it was about 13 minutes, and I felt like I was just getting warmed up.  After 3 miles I decided to stop because even though my ankle felt completely fine, I really do want to take it easy on it to let it heal completely.

I did 3 miles in under 20 minutes, I checked my heart rate and it was in the low 160′s when I stopped.  MAN that felt good.  It’s kind of cool to know that I can run a little faster pace and not be maxing my heart rate out.

Then I went and lifted for a while.  Then I ran back to the tire store, but when I ran outside my ankle was hurting.  I wonder if the 26 degrees outside is part of the problem on my sore ankle tendons?  It didn’t hurt at all to run inside, but before and after when running outside it was bothering me a little.   Weird.

3.35 Miles – 7:42/mile – HR: 155 avg – Ascent/descent: 381 ft (there’s no such thing as a flat run by my house)

My body felt good today but I decided not to do too many miles for the sake of not overdoing it on my recovering ankle.  I think with taking it easy the rest of this week and just running lower miles, I should be fine running longer again next week.

Running is a constant learning process.  You keep expanding your abilities, running into new road blocks, having to figure out how to get around them and keep pressing forward.  I thoroughly enjoy the process.  Sometimes its discouraging when I can’t run as far as I would like to.  But it reminds me to not be too attached to any one outcome, and I learn to appreciate just having a healthy body in general.

Running has so many parallels to life.  I feel like running keeps me conscious to life in general, because the lessons I learn remind me to live each day to the fullest and enjoy the journey every step of the way.  I guess that’s part of why it feels so good to me to run. The combination of physical, mental, and spiritual betterment is just a great feeling way to live each day.