Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Catching Up

Alright, it's been a while......that happens a lot, but here I am!

So here's how the final leg of my training went for the Georgia Half Marathon. Basically I jumped into training too quickly without maintaining a good base, so that caused a few issues. The first issue was my knee, which I wrote about earlier. Basically my right IT band was being strained, which caused the outside of my knee to hurt. An IT knee strap helped a lot. I'd rather not have to rely on a knee strap to run, but it's been helpful so I'll keep using it while focusing on strengthening my IT bands on cross training days. The second issue was my left foot. Last year I started to get heel pain, and it was finally diagnosed as plantar fasciitis. I wear a boot when I sleep, and I've been trying to wear more flats at work instead of my usual pumps and incorporating calf exercises during cross training. Unfortunately it's still painful. I need to get back to the podiatrist so I can deal with it more directly.

Considering everything though, I did pretty well at the half! I tried out KT Tape, which is AMAZING! I mean, it's just a band-aid for the injuries but it did help me finish the race in a decent time. My time ended up being 2:40, which is only 8 minutes longer than my PR. If I can keep up training this summer I can run other races in a decent time.

All in all - I'm doing okay. I just need to address my foot issue and make sure I stay on top of a bare minimum with my running. I've been doing a lot of cross training too, and I've been improving my strength. It's time to research how to make it more challenging without just adding more and more reps. It has helped my running quite a bit, and it's helped me lose some weight. Woohoo!

Monday, April 15, 2013

#bostonmarathon

I had planned on making a very overdue post about my training, but then the tragedy at the Boston Marathon happened. bbiab...