Week 9 Training

Week 9 done. Officially half way through the training plan for the Philadelphia Marathon.

Shifted a couple of things around this week but managed to get my cross training day in on Monday. The temperatures crept up again this week and my mid-week morning runs were tough in the heat and humidity. Thankfully this was a step back week. One morning this week I had to run in fog. It’s amazing how useless a headlamp is in fog. I chose my steps carefully and stayed on the path inside the park. Better safe than sorry.

I was supposed to run 11 miles as my long run this weekend but my wife and I ran 13.1 as we were taking part in the 2013 Philadelphia Rock n’ Roll Half Marathon. I will be doing a separate race recap on this in the next couple of days. Tonight I plan to get an early night as I start upping the mileage again this week with a long run of 17 at the weekend.

Today’s half marathon took my total of half marathon events to 10. Something I never imagined when I started running just over 3 years ago.

I’m supposed to be cross training again tomorrow but I’m feeling pretty tired after this weekend. I may sleep a little longer tomorrow and break out the stability ball and foam roller for 20 minutes or so when I get up. It’s something which is better than nothing. I’m heading into the chiropractor again in the morning for another adjustment. All this training can beat you up sometimes. An ache here can lead to an ache there. I pulled a muscle a couple of weeks ago and although the discomfort went after a couple of days I must have overcompensated elsewhere as I began to develop some heel discomfort. Without a diagnosis I was worried that I may have the beginings of plantar fasciitis but thankfully (I guess) although the symptons seemed like that it was actually a result of my leg, ankle and foot locking up as a result of the muscle pull.  Relief for sure.

Interestingly at the Rock and Roll expo I spoke with a Brooks representative about the wear on my running shoes and he diagnosed the wear pattern on having tight hamstrings and not clearing the ground enough while running. I stretched quite a bit over the last couple of days and took extra time to do so before today’s half marathon and I have to admit that I did notice a change that I was not scuffing my feet so much (which my wife often points out when we run). I’ll be looking into stretching a bit more over the next few weeks as a way of staying healthy and hopefully less sore.

I broke out a new pair of the Pro Compressions socks for the half marathon today and they are feeling good. Again, I appreciate the arch wrap on some tired feet.

Onto week 10.

Thanks for reading.