RANT TIME!
First off, I have to comment on the spammers out there who are continually spamming my blog. Its becoming annoying to have to keep removing comments from it. I hope they all die a painful death!
OK RANT OVER!

I completed my longest mileage week ever, and my longest run ever at 19 miles. It was rough though, and I feel that I now know what its like to ‘hit the wall’ in some sense. The way the run was laid out, the last 4 miles are actually on a slight incline (see here), and I think thats what killed me. I did survive the run, but it was difficult to continue when my body wanted me to stop …. I have to find out more on this ‘hitting the wall’ and what I can do to overcome it.

My body was quite sore, both my foot and my knee, by the time I got done. A nice ice bath helped after the long run. I did get new shoes after the run yesterday at National Running Center, which seems to have helped because my foot didn’t bother me on my 9-mile pace run today. I got the new Asics Gel-Nimbus VIII, upgrading from the VII I wore previously, and according to the girl at NRC, its the same shoe, next edition …. it was good to talk to a fellow runner about running, she was a young thing and was only running for a year and half, but said she was addicted. Its hard to find people to talk to with the same addiction that I have in running. She joked about how she gets bummed out when she can’t run .. I certainly know that feeling, I guess its the psychosis of a runner, eh?

Anyway, I’m not sure what the deal is with my foot, the pain seems to come and go and isn’t consistent with any type of foot injury i have read about on the internet. Most importantly, it doesn’t bother me when I run, so it doesn’t really matter I guess. I noted in my running log that it was plantar fascitis, but I don’t think thats it. I just think its being overused … although I’m thinking that it started bothering me heavily overnight Thurs/Fri, and i wore a new pair of sandals on Thursday for like 2 hours … I’m wondering if maybe that is what caused the discomfort, although I didn’t note the pain i had in my foot last Sunday when I was done running (the reason being that it just subsided within 10 minutes after the run.)

As I head into my toughest week, a nice easy day tomorrow of cross-training is in order, I certainly need it. We’ll see how the foot comes out, and see what other soreness hits me this week. It always seems to be something every week, so we’ll see.

I have to say that I don’t feel as bad as I did last weekend, although i am craving a recovery week. This upcoming week (week 13) is the HARDEST week yet, and I will peak my mileage and my distance with a 20-miler next weekend. I know i can do it, I just have to prepare.