TODAY'S THEME:
Head to the woods to get out of the woods
Since overdoing it on my hot HIM run in early June (stoopid competitiveness > 2/35 AG and injured because of it), I'd been haunted by a relatively minor - but sore - ball of foot issue that I was worried might devolve into metatarsalgia, especially in this final peak training block. I've tried to be sensible since then, putting in just the right types of runs/week to keep the fitness, and baby the foot wherever possible, give a few extra days off here & there, keep swapping out shoes types, and so on. It seemed to be trending positively, but there was still the question of how the final few long runs would be (let alone the IM run itself).
Had a 2:45 run on the schedule for last Sunday, and I was determined to approach it as carefully as possible, so I wrapped the dog with old-school moleskin and this time drove myself to my favourite trails rather than run there as I usually do (which would have entailed running on pavement for 6 of the 32kms). I think it may have made all the difference to stay on dirt all the way: I sit here typing 3 days later with two intact feet! The moleskin came loose in the 1st hour so I stopped & removed it... the lion's share of the run was just "me and my shoes." I really focussed on mid-foot landings (which was counter-intuitive, perhaps, but I reckoned that using my full arch/instep skeletal suspension would cushion the ball of the foot better than landing further back and rolling onto the balls.)
Fingers crossed this sticks; I feel really lucky to be getting away with it - so far. For me this reinforces how we need to make our own reality checks and not rigidly adhere to routines when some common sense dictates otherwise.
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