We spent 4 days in Nags Head, NC, and the weather couldn’t have been any nicer. Temperatures were near 100 the day before we got there, but dropped into the 80s for the whole visit, and have since climbed back into the mid-90s. The last couple years we’ve had some bad weather, so we were due.
My dad is training to walk the half-marathon while I run the full marathon in November (Outer Banks Marathon), so as an early birthday present we got him a Garmin 305, which we gave him when we arrived and he played with all weekend. I did 5-mile runs on Saturday and Monday, and joined him for his walks on Friday and Sunday where he gave the Garmin a test drive. He was having a lot of fun with it, and even wore it the couple times we went out on the boat, which made for some fun maps once we pulled the data onto the computer.
Definitely the most well-received gift I’ve given him in a long time, and I think it will help him a lot with his training. He’s really into the training, which in turn gets me motivated for my training, so it’s a big win for all.
As for the personal inventory:
Ailments: I think I’m effectively past my IT Band issues, and I’m keeping up with the stretching on a daily basis. I’ll try working some of the strengthening back in and see what my foot thinks of that. As far as my foot, the Planter Fasciitis doesn’t seem to be getting any worse, but definitely has not gone away. I suspect I’ll be wrestling with this for a long time, so I’ll stick with the rolling, and icing, and avoiding going barefoot, etc. Waiting to see how it responds once I start upping the mileage. The calf strain from the last training round hasn’t returned, so I think that’s behind me. I suspect that this next round of training will bring a new batch of ailments, but in between I’ll enjoy every minute that my body allows me to run.
Gear: Thankfully I think I’m pretty well armed for warm-weather training at this point. At least my credit card has begun to cool down from the flurry of activity over the last few months. My foot woes had me questioning my long-term relationship with the Asics Gel Nimbus, but I finally decided last week that I’d stick with the Nimbii and ordered a pair of the new Nimbus 12 from Roadrunner Sports … and there was much rejoicing. However, on the day they were supposed to ship to me I got an email from Roadrunner saying the new estimated ship date is July 19 …. and there was much sadness. Not crazy about continuing to operate with only one pair of training shoes, but assuming they ship on the 19th it’s not worth trying to order elsewhere. This is my first order with RoadRunner, so we’re off to a rocky start. The one gear item I’m currently looking for is a good pair of running socks. I currently run in some New Balance socks that I ordered from Amazon, and they work fine but they’re starting to wear a bit. For some unexplained reason I’ve decided I want some non-white socks (probably something black), I guess just to change things up and to make them easier to keep separate from my other socks in the laundry. Anybody have any running socks that they would highly recommend? Any of the Thorlos models that work well? Anybody use any of the RoadRunner branded socks?
Conditioning: This one is a bit tricky. When I built my original training plan, I put together a 19-week base-building plan, followed by a 17-week marathon training plan starting on July 18. My injuries blew up my base-building, and week 1 of my marathon training plan is supposed to start with a 10-mile long run, which is too big a jump and would risk injury again. I’m planning to revisit the whole 17-week plan this weekend and see how to ramp up sensibly, and hopefully get back to the original plan distances and frequency by mid to late August. This new plan is more aggressive than my plan for my first marathon, and the longest of the long runs is 23 miles versus 20, so if I’m going to follow this I need to push my mileage and conditioning forward fairly rapidly, but without risking another breakdown. Also going to work some interval, tempo, etc. training into this plan, since last time I basically did the same thing every time I ran, just varying the distance.
Record highs in the Tarheel state again today.
Based on June and the first week of July, we should be around 200 degrees by August. Damn you Al Gore and your global warning.
