Bumbling Towards Bimbler's

Only 6 days till Mr. Bimbler's Bluff 50k, time to start the taper. This is good becuase my foot was killing me this morning. The last two weeks have been run on a sore foot, I dropped a big box on it at work. That afternoon I ran 10+ miles on it at Mt. Tom. I iced and it calmed down, also I took the next four days off. That was my best behavior, then I started running on it again. I attempted the Reservoir Tour. This was one of the three long runs I posted about. The course morphed into something slightly different, but great fun. As it got dark, and my foot didn't agree with my choice to trailrun at night, I opted to switch to the roads for the return trip to McLean Reservoir, like so ...

East Mtn. Road was a great choice over the trails, I'd never run the whole thing before. There was little or no traffic, and the full moon was bright enough to be seen within the beam of my flashlight. Apremont Highway has a great hill, back up to McLean. I picked up the pace nicely back at the reservoir, into sub 8's.

My foot was a bit sore, but not bad enough to earn any therapy. No new ice baths, no problem. I ran on it two days later at the Thursday fun run, with the club. That was obviously a bad idea. It needed more time off. I needed more training for Mr. Bimble too, at least a 20 miler. I was able to push this off till Sunday, yesterday. My foot is pretty sore afterwards, but I can promise some rest time for it and plenty of ice. My son and I did this new course, him on his bike and myself running.

This went really well. My son ran into Stop & Shop for water at mile 7.5, which we stashed. I drank and ate well, but my pace slid markedly. From home on the Bike Path, I was 65:57 to S&S, 8:48 pace, feeling great. Then up to the end of Northampton's Bike Path and back in 50:48, 10:10 pace. This was a long slow uphill that never seemed to end. My foot was pretty sore by halfway and slow on the way down, only 1:32 faster. The end was largely a drag/slog/miserable grind, 72:05 I had a mile to go. That 11:05 pace ended with a water fountain stop, little over a mile left was inspring and I found some speed. I decided to clock the last mile and ran an 8:32. 

 

My foot was kind of swollen and after icing this morning is alright, but sore. It gets time off till Thursday, I promise. Of course, I'm injured. I'll run Thursday to restart the engines, biking in the meantime. Then, maybe I don't run till the Bluff. After the Bluff I can take a week off, or more. This feels like the equivalent of jamming your finger, sort of a sprained feeling that just needs some chill out time to heal. Worst thing about it, is that every muscle on my right side is tense and shortening becuase of the uncomfortable foot. So, just core and flexibility workouts with cycling this week, until Thursday.