Jeff's training blog: 3 months, 30 pounds lost!

[veginator]

Forgot to reset my odometer, but I think I went just over 20 miles on the bike in 1:43, average HR 113, max 150.

 

I hate to miss tomorrow's 5k, but I'm just not sure it's a good idea with the way my foot has been feeling. It felt good this morning and feels good tonight, but most of the day it's been painful enough that there was no way in hell I felt like running even if there weren't the consideration of saving myself for the 5k. So, I've got my eye on one that's on the 22nd, and in the meantime I'm going to stay off the foot a lot and do lots of biking. Unfortunately it hasn't gone away even when I've rested it for several weeks in the past, but it was feeling good enough for me to run 10-30 miles for the last several weeks, so the rest must have done something. But now that the weather's good enough to bike, may as well just do that for a while.

[lobsteriffic]

Resting your foot is definitely the thing to do.

 

My foot was bothering me for about a month...I never went and got it diagnosed so I'm not sure what the problem was. I stayed away from running for about 4 weeks...mainly focused on cycling. Now it's okay to run on again. I'm still taking it easy so I don't hurt it again.

 

Silly injuries. It seems quite a number of us on this forum are nursing recent foot injuries.

 

Anyway - keep up the good work!

[veginator]

Wow, what a difference not even 24 hours makes. I found a conversation about tarsal tunnel at http://www.plantar-fasciitis.org/talk/topic35.html, and a massage therapist involved in the conversation recommended a particular stretching technique as well as massaging the foot in the general vicinity (just not on top) of the tibial nerve, the one that gets pinched if you've got tarsal tunnel syndrome. So, I did a lot of self-massage and stretching last night, and the foot felt 1000% better this morning. I didn't run the 5k anyway because I slept in since I wasn't planning on running it. Just as well, the more I thought about it the more I realized I'd rather wait 3 weeks and get a decent time than spend $25 to find out I'm still not in good enough shape to get a good time yet, which I already knew!

 

Decided to go running anyway since the foot felt pretty good. Since I didn't do the race, I decided to push myself a little bit today. Ran 4.4 miles in 40:13, average HR 148 and peak of about 165.

[veginator]

Rode 20 miles today in 1:32, average HR 124, max 153.

 

Weight is currently plateaued at about 168. We'll see if the 20 miles at a pretty fast pace do anything to the scales in the morning.

[veginator]

Rode 27 miles in 2:15 yesterday, average HR 114, max 159.

 

Unfortunately it takes a lot more time to get a decent amount of exercise on the bike than running--from what I've read something like 3 miles of biking is equivalent to 1 mile of running, and in my current physical condition I could have done 9 miles running in probably 1:45 or less. Past experience has shown that not running doesn't cure my foot ailment, but I can't say it didn't help at all, so I'm going to try to stick with the bike for a while.

 

Weight this morning was at 167.6 (or was it 167.8? Can't remember.).

[veginator]

Rode 12.42 miles in 54:48 yesterday, average HR 121. I only had this amount of time to ride, so I stayed in town where the hills aren't so steep, thus the higher average speed than on my usual hilly route.

 

Weight this morning: 167.2.

 

Still have my eye on a 5k May 22. I'm going to continue laying off the running and everything else involving being on my feet a lot for a while so that hopefully my foot will be significantly better by then and stay that way. If I can just keep building up endurance on the bike and lose 4 or 5 more pounds by then, I ought to be able to run it in under 25, maybe even around 23.

[lobsteriffic]

Good luck with the 5K!

[veginator]

Thanks! Good luck with the...what was it, half-marathon you've got coming up?

 

Rode 22 miles in 1:37 today, average HR 116 and max of 150.

[veginator]

Weight this morning: 166.8.

 

Rode 12.12 miles in 55:25, average HR 117, max 155.

[veginator]

Rode 20.1 miles in 1:31, average HR 109, max 135. 113.64 miles on the bike over the last 6 days.

[veginator]

Scale is giving widely varying readings this morning, but the middle of the pack reading that was most consistently delivered was 166.0, so I'll go with that for my morning weight.

[veginator]

Didn't exercise yesterday. Today I rode 28.63 miles in 2:14, average HR 120, max of 151.

[veginator]

Busy with end of the semester grading Monday and Tuesday. Today I rode 30.99 miles in 2:16, average HR 127. About halfway through the ride, I did a big hill three times, reaching a peak HR of 165 each time.

 

Despite laying off of running for over a week and a half now, my foot still isn't really any better. The pain kind of comes and goes. It's so random that it's hard to tell which if any of the various things I do from time to time (ibuprofen, ice, massage, stretching, and of course resting it a lot lately) does any good. If anything were doing a lot of good, my foot would be better by now. Frustrating! Back to the podiatrist Friday to see what the next step (ha ha) is.

[veginator]

Rode 45 miles in 3:31, average HR 114.

[lobsteriffic]

Here's hoping you get things sorted out with your foot soon. Nice work on all of the cycling!

[veginator]

Today I went to the podiatrist and got a cortisone shot in my foot. It hurt like hell, so it had better do some good!

 

The podiatrist said running or whatever form of exercise was fine, "as tolerated." Maybe I took him a little too literally, because I decided to run 10 miles to test out how my foot was doing! It definitely hurts some, but I think it will be fine for doing some more running (though not that far!) in a couple of days. So between what the doctor said and my own experience, I've concluded that 1) a few miles of running here and there, maybe 15 a week (?), won't hurt my foot but 2) my plan to get in really good shape is going to need to rely mainly on biking.

 

Did the 10 miles in 2:04, average HR 128.

[veginator]

27 miles in 1:56, average HR 109. This was in Evansville, which is much flatter than Bloomington. I'd have ridden faster, but the outsides of my feet were hurting a lot from pushing against my cycling shoes. I need to remember to wear thicker socks, or maybe put something cushiony in that part of the shoe.

[veginator]

Weight this morning: 166.4. Stuck! Same weight as over a week ago despite 10 miles of running and 130 or so of cycling in the interim. Very frustrating.

[veginator]

Weight this morning: 165.4. Maybe I had some extra water weight yesterday morning?

 

Yesterday it rained all day, so no bike ride. Went to the gym and lifted for a while, practiced racquetball about half an hour (I think I'm going to have to take tennis back up since nobody seems to be playing racquetball lately), and did some intervals on the elliptical trainer. Did five intervals where I got my heart rate above 160, which took about a minute and a half each, with about 2 minute recoveries in between and a couple of minutes warmup and cooldown. Highest HR was 166, average was 130, and total time was 20 minutes.

[lobsteriffic]

How is the cortisone shot working out?

 

I'm sure you've heard this loads of times, but try not to rely too much on what the scale tells you. Water, undigested food, going to the bathroom, etc etc. all of these things can affect it!

[veginator]

How is the cortisone shot working out?

 

I'm sure you've heard this loads of times, but try not to rely too much on what the scale tells you. Water, undigested food, going to the bathroom, etc etc. all of these things can affect it!

 

Yeah, I always try to weigh myself at the same time under the same conditions, etc., but sometimes it's hard to know whether there's subtle bloating, an unusually late night snack, or whatever affecting things.

 

I'm not noticing much difference with the cortisone shot, unfortunately, although I've read that sometimes it takes a while and sometimes it takes more than one shot--if it works, that is. I'm going to look into a different form of active release therapy than what I had before, because someone in the Runner's World forums said it had worked for them for this type of injury.

 

Today's workout: Quick run, about 2.9 miles in 25:49, average HR 140, max 160. My sense from this is that although it won't be easy, I should be able to reach my goal of getting under 25 minutes in this weekend's 5k. It was also good to learn that running 5k at a relatively fast pace doesn't seem to do anything horrible to my foot, so I'm feeling okay about running the race this weekend.

[veginator]

Bike computer probably needs new battery; wasn't able to record distance or average speed today. I rode for 1:40, average HR 124 and max of about 150.

[veginator]

Yesterday I did intervals. Jogged 1 mile over to the park, then did 2.4 miles of alternating sprints and walking, then walked home. The intervals were pretty short since I was running pretty hard each time, reaching a max HR of about 160 or more each time, with the highest being 167. I did about a dozen of them, with enough walking in between to get my HR down to anywhere from 120 to 150, depending on what I felt like. Average HR for the intervals was 149 and time was 23:24.

 

No exercise today because I'm a little sore. I'm hoping that goes away tonight, because I'm doing a 5k tomorrow morning!

[veginator]

Weight this morning: 165.2.

 

Ran a 5k race this morning, and managed to reach my goal time of under 25 minutes--24:54.6, to be exact. My heart rate monitor went haywire (again) for the first few minutes of the race, so I wasn't able to time it personally or get an average HR for the whole race, but the part I did get I had an average HR of 162. Foot doesn't feel significantly worse, so that's good. As I had predicted, my son beat me by a little over a minute. He's in the middle of his soccer season, so he's definitely in a little better shape than I am. Being 14 and thus having almost no body fat helps, too!

 

My hamstrings were still a little sore this morning from my intervals Thursday. It should be interesting to see what my legs feel like tomorrow!

Edited June 5, 2010 by veginator

[veginator]

Weight this morning, although on a particularly empty stomach since I ate dinner pretty early last night, was 164.0.

 

Yesterday I got lots of exercise. Played three games of 1 on 1 basketball (two to 30, one to 20) with my son, which I assume took over an hour though I didn't check the time. Then I went for a run, intending to do a pretty hard tempo run of 4 miles or so with a mile warmup and cooldown tacked on before and after. It wound up being so hot that I couldn't really do quite what I'd planned. I jogged the first mile over to the park in 12 minutes, then did 4 miles of 10-minute miles, then just walked home because I was so hot. Total time for the 5 miles I ran was 52:34, with average HR of 148.

 

Shortly thereafter, I did 21.65 miles on the bike in 1:44, average HR about 113 (I forgot to shut the monitor off right away when I got home, so I'm just guessing about HR).