Today’s topic – feet.  Both mine and Jennie’s.  Still there? Or did you run away yet?  I’d probably have run away.

Well, if you are still there, two quick updates. 

First, yesterday afternoon I managed to step on bee.  I’m not allergic to bee stings, but the bottom of my foot swelled up pretty good.  I spent the morning with my foot in an bucket of ice water to reduce the swelling.  My swim at lunch seemed to help too. 

The bike ride was a bit more interesting though.  The cleat of my bike shoe (aka. where all my pressure is) was right over, or rather under, the swollen part of foot.  It was uncomfortable at first, but I eventually got used to it.  I finished with 27.5 miles in 1:28:17 which put me over 4,000 miles on my bike too!!!

Now, on to Jennie’s feet.  No disgusting foot pictures for this part.  I promise.  Besides, she has cute feet anyways.

Tonight, Jennie and I went to Gazelle Sports, the local running shop, where she bought her first pair of real running shoes!  No more whatever-is-on-sale-and-looks-cute from Kohl’s for this new runner. 

She was a bit nervous at first, not knowing what to expect.  However, we had a very helpful salesman named Eric who did an excellent job helping her out.  He helped her try out a variety of shoes; Brooks DYAD (what I wear), Adidas AdiStar Solution, Pearl Izumi syncroPace III, Suacony ProGrid Echelon, and a pair of Asics.  After spending some time walking around in each pair, it was down to the Brooks DYADs or the Saucony Echelons.  So, it was off to the treadmill to see which pair worked best.  After walking for a bit, the Saucony’s came out as the clear winner.  And as a bonus, they were on sale!

Fingers crossed that she has plenty of existing running clothes that match the shoes so that they don’t require a new wardrobe!   You gotta match you know!

*Title courtesy of Jennie

I ache today.  It is a good ache.  That pushed myself to the limit and then kept going ache.  It was a good weekend though.  I finished up another tough week of training for my marathon schedule, and now I get to relax with a light week of training.

Saturday

Saturday morning was spent shopping.  We had a ton of errands to do.  Mainly Christmas gift cards to spend.  The first stop was a stop for me at Lowe’s to spend a gift card.  I got a new drill.  I am so sick of my cordless drill getting a dead battery whenever I needed it that I went with a corded one this time.  Next was a stop for Jennie.  Kohls.  Or as @jharpold so eloquently referred to it, “Satan’s Den”.

Thankfully, after that and a quick trip to the mall, we followed that up with a stop to the local running shop, Gazelle Sports.

They were having a big shoe sale, and they actually had my shoes in stock.  That never happens.  So I got a new pair of Brooks Dyads for 25% off.  Yay!  I still had money left on my gift card, so I sprung for an 18 inch foam roller.

This is part of my attempt to do more “non-exercise” exercises.  By “non-exercise” I mean stretching, foam rolling, and strength workouts.  I know that they will help me improve flexibility and overall fitness, but I just never feel as good after doing them as I do after a good run, which makes them hard to do.

After all the errands, I had to get some exercise in.  So, I did a circuit workout on the trainer.  I biked for 15 minutes to warm up.  Then I did a set of pushups and situps: 20 pushups, 20 situps, 15 pushups, 15 situps ,10 pushups, 10 situps.  After that, I jumped back on the bike and did 1 minute high RPM and one minute recovery for the next 15 minutes.  Then it was another set of the pushups and situps followed by 15 more minutes on the bike.  After that I was pooped.  Doing the situps and pushups was very humbling.  It just reinforces how much I need to do more core training.

Sunday

I started Sunday with a swim workout up at the high school.  It was an absolute zoo up there.  I am glad I got there right at 12:30 so that I got a lane.  It was mainly high school kids and younger that seemed to all be in a big group and know each other.  So, thankfully they all shared lanes and put 5 or 6 people in lane.  It is by far the most people I have seen up there for an open swim.

After my situps and pushups, my arms were a bit sore.  Nevertheless, I picked a tough workout that I got from Krista’s blog:

500 meter warm-up
10 x 100′s on 2 minutes
10 x 50′s on 1 minute
5 x 100 pulling (focus on technique)
100 cool-down
Total: 2600 meters

I managed to keep all my 100’s under 1:40 with a couple right at 1:30/1:31.  I was really feeling it in my arms during the 50’s though.  After pushing hard through the first set of 100’s and then the 50’s, the 100’s pulling were a breeze.  It was almost like a cool down with those.  I slowed down a bit and averaged between 1:40 and 1:45 for those while I focused on technique.

After the swim, I took a loooonnnnggg nap.  It was very much needed.  However, afterwards, the last thing I wanted to do was go for a run.  I had 6 miles on the schedule though.  So I bundled up and out I went.  It was very windy, which brought the feels like temperature down to 8F.  It was slow going, but the running actually loosened me up a bit.

After the run was my first experience with the foam roller.  I felt very awkward doing some of the exercises.  I probably looked ridiculous too.  I really didn’t know what exercises to do, so I headed to YouTube and found the Top 5 Foam Roller Exercises.  They seemed to do the trick.  If anyone has any foam roller tips, I’d appreciate the advice!

And finally, I leave you with this.  During our grocery shopping trip on Saturday, I found this label on the back of a jar of peanut butter.  I was happy to see that the only ingredient is peanuts, but is the allergy warning “Contains Peanuts” really necessary?

I busted out a (somewhat) new pair of shoes.  I say somewhat, because I actually bought them over a month ago after the Brooksie Way Half Marathon.  I was lazy though and didn’t order a new pair of speed laces until last week. They arrived today – in a stylish red to match the shoes (my wife will be so proud of me).

Out with the old and in with the new!
(please don’t tell Jennifer that I put my shoes, albeit new, on the brand new table)

It is always amazing how much different a new pair of shoes feels.  They feel so puffy and comfortable.  The retired pair of shoes doesn’t look that bad in the picture, but they have over 500 miles on them and are starting to develop holes in the mesh and the soles have seen better days.  I still have an older pair of shoes that I will continue to rotate with the new pair.  I try to buy a new pair of shoes every 250 miles and wear each pair for 500 miles so that I always have two pairs going.  I wish I had kept a better count of my shoes since I started running, but I believe that this is at least my 12th pair of Brooks DYADs over the years and countless Asics Gel 2100 series before that.

As for my run itself, it went great.  I am experimenting running without my iPod.  I usually rely on it to busy my mind while I run (mainly NPR Podcasts like Car Talk, Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, and This American Life), but realize that it is a crutch and I should learn to run without it.  It was actually quite liberating. Granted I only did about 6 miles, so I didn’t have that much time to truly get bored.  I’m sure I’ll pick it back up every now and then, but I’m going to try and run without it as much as possible.

As planned, I was able to do my long bike ride today.  It was a 36 mile ride out to Grand Haven.  Usually an uneventful ride, I had a bit of an equipment malfunction along the way.  I was about 20 miles into the ride as I approached a red light.  As I slowed down, I twisted my right foot to unclip from my pedal.  Except my foot didn’t come free.  I tried again and realized it was stuck.  Thankfully, I was able to quickly unclip my left foot and avoid tipping over at a standstill in the middle of traffic.  That would have been embarrassing. Despite unclipping, I still almost tipped over because I am so used to balancing on my right foot at a stop; leaning left, instead of right, just seemed awkward.

After I got through the light, I pulled over to inspect my bike.  I found that the cleat on my right shoe was missing a bolt and the second bolt was loose.  I ended up taking a bolt from the left shoe so that my primary foot for stopping had both bolts.  I tightened everything down and was back on my way.  I still had 15 miles to go and was slightly worried about the left shoe only having the one bolt, but there was nothing I could about it at that time.

My equipment malfunction.  If you can’t tell, the top bolt is missing

I ended up making it to Grand Haven without further incident.  Once I got there, I loaded up my bike for the ride home with Jennifer.  As soon as we got home, I dropped off Jennifer and took the car into the repair shop for some scheduled work.  At the shop, I pulled my bike out and biked the 4 miles back home.

As for my shoes, I am hoping to find a replacement bolt at the hardware store so that I don’t have to order a whole new set of cleats.

Stats: 36.19 miles in 1:47:27 (20.2 mph)