Fall Race Plans

So I am looking at a couple of fall race events and am now starting to commit to a few of them, it is critical that I get totally serious with regard to my training and staying on plan to avoid that normal --

:My next race is the Porcupine Mountains Trail Marathon in Silver City, Michigan on October 5th. It is an inaugural event and should accomplish two things, it will be my first trail marathon or greater event in a couple of years and it will allow me to click off Michigan as my 13th state. For the last 2 weekends I have gone down to Murphy and gotten in some longer runs. Week 1 was 2 hours and week 2 was 3 hours They were slow miles so I have a lot of work to do to get in shape to get through the Michigan event. I don't know anything about the course other than they have a 7 hr time limit. The way I am looking at it is that I have done Chippewa, Afton and other events within that time window but I have to train.

I am still working through the injuries but I think I am making progress, I have eliminated most of the foot pain but am still figuring out the calf. It often feels torqued but through self massage and foam rolling I seem to be getting through it. The real test will come in the next few weeks as I continue to ramp the mileage.

Beyond this marathon, I am debating between Surf the Murph 50k and 50M, I should do the 50k but the 50 miler has appeal for a couple of reasons. First I haven't done a 50 miler in 2 years so it would be a welcome back to ultras, of course I haven't done a 50k either but that's where the other thing comes to mind. Next May, they have added a 100 mile event at Murphy, it's called the Savage 100 and it might be my first 100. The advantage is I know the course (6 loops on the Surf the Murph course), it's on May 17th so the temps should be ok, it has a reasonably generous time limit (34 hours), it starts at 3 am which should mean a slower first loop which could setup the day.  Anyway, it's something to think about.

Shoe Update

I was looking through my running spreadsheet the other day and I noticed a few interesting things.

I am now running in my 94th pair of shoes and I have 9 pairs in my rotation (2 pairs of road shoes, 4 pairs of trail shoes, 3 pairs of minimalist shoes) and 3 pairs out of service but not completely abandoned. Without a doubt this is the highest number of shoes I have ever had active. The shoes shown here are the latest addition to my collection (although I bought them in blue versus orange), a pair of Skechers Go Bionic Trail shoes and after a few runs I may have found the perfect shoe for me. I love that I can keep the insole in and have 4 mil drop shoes or remove it and have 0 drop. I have run in them on both roads and trails, no issues running in them on the road and they worked great on the trails with good protection and traction. Of course I have thought that before and changed my mind after 50 or 100 or 150 miles. I will do a complete review on them in a future post. Here are a couple of recent reviews: RunBlogger and Coach Caleb.

Go Run Ride 2

Turns out I may really become a convert to Skechers as I was emailed today that I won their contest and will be receiving a pair of Go Run Ride 2's, Sweet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was thinking before I heard this that I should try their road shoes and now I can. For those not familiar with Skechers, I think they are listening to runners and working to create shoes that work for us so you should check them out as they have done a great job in hitting the low to zero heel drop shoe market space. And here is a review on these shoes: Running Swede.

Why do I have so many shoes active right now? Well there is a good reason, ok, that may be a stretch but here is my rationale. I went minimalist a couple years ago to try and resolve some injuries which led me to buy minimalist shoes. I consider those to be active but hadn't run in them for over 6 months until the past couple weeks as I got to thinking that not running in them might have been contributing to some of my injury issues more on that in a future post.

And since, I have been dealing with injuries I have been running more on roads as the trail surfaces have been aggravating my problems. So I added the road shoes in addition to my trail shoes. Plus I have to admit that I have bought a few pairs of trail shoes to try and compensate the injuries.

Here is the high level summary of my current shoes:

Minimalist:
New Balance MT10 ($80): 225 miles, some protection, 4 mil drop
Merrell Trail Gloves ($58): 54 miles, not much protection, 0 mil drop
Vibram Five Fingers ($85) - TrekSports: 88 miles, not much protection, 0 mil drop

Road shoes:
Altra Provision ($77): 130 miles, cushioned, run short, 0 mil drop
Brooks Cadence ($78): 109 miles, cushioned, nice fit, 5 mil drop

Trail shoes:
Altra Lone Peak ($77): 55 miles, very good protection, 0 mil drop
Brooks PureGrit ($70): 169 miles, good protection, poor traction, 5 mil drop
Saucony Xodus 3.0  ($44): 9 miles, good protection, 4 mil drop
Skechers Go Bionic Trails ($64): 19 miles, really nice fit, good protection, 4 mil drop

Out of service for the time being:
Inov-8 330 ($51): 52 miles, hard, extreme protection, 9 mil drop
Inov-8 295 ($78): 157 miles, like them, good protection, 9 mil drop
New Balance MT110 ($60): 140 miles, ok protection, 4 mil drop

If you want to see the history for all of my shoes, see the subpage called "shoes".

Plans for July, another option?

I was thinking about taking time off for my calf/foot issue until I was completely pain free and how I wasn't going to sign up for a race until I was healthy. I thought about it a bit more and concluded, nope that ain't me at all. I love running too much to take time off. I know that I run long distances because it is hard for me and I love the challenge and dealing with injuries is part of the challenge. I need the pressure of a race to get my training in. With the pressure of training if I am in pain then sometimes I go in to get it checked out and worked on, granted I sometimes don't. Of course, the down side is if I sign-up I tend to run the event or make the attempt, it's why I ran Grandmas, so I am actively scouting for fall events. Surf the Murph 50k is going to be a given soon. Twin Cities I was going to sign up for but it's full and I would have to sign-up under a charity contribution so it would cost an extra $100 which I am starting to rationalize in my head.

I also am considering the Mill Race Marathon which is a first time event in my home town in late September. Sure would be fun to do. Of course there is the Tecumseh Trail Marathon in Indiana which has been the event I want to do which is in early December. The fun part is trying to find events and I have a couple of weeks to figure it out.

As of yesterday, I have resumed running as the foot is starting to come around. I think with a lot of self massage, some ice and patience I will get it pain free. If not, what's one more marathon in pain. I did have kind of a revelation with regard to my foot while I was on my run. I was thinking how using Kinesio tape has helped take the pressure off of the PTT and how the issue started after I tore my calf and then it hit me,why haven't I used the Kinesio tape on the calf? If the foot pain was caused by the calf then treating the foot probably won't solve the issue. So I have taped the calf and I will see if that helps out. I still remember all too well my Doctors comment (from 2 years back) about the ankle and calf injuries I went to see him for, he said the ankle will be good in another month or so but the calf may bother you for a lot longer. Dang if he wasn't right.

Plans for July

I decided today that instead of worrying about the next race or the current injury issue, instead I would focus on what I can and need to do over the next month.

I did have a lot of potential thoughts going into Grandmas, I was thinking run in Duluth, then run Twin Cities, the 50k at Surf the Murph, and then run either the Zumbro 50 or Potawatomi 50 and then go for the Savage 100. After simply enduring Grandmas, I had to accept where I am in and do something about, hence my 30 day plan. Have I given up on all of the above races, no, not yet but if I do the work I need to do in July, then they could happen if I don't then they won't. It's my move.

I did anticipate issues at Grandmas and had already chosen to skip running at Afton and instead volunteered as I knew I would need some time to work on getting healthy. Now I was surprised at the extent of the issues or said correctly when the issues started. I was comparing my times at Med City to Grandmas over 5 to 6 mile chunks and it's kind of interesting. I was within 30 secs through the first half of the races over the 5 mile chunks and at the halfway point it was actually only 17 secs, I was thinking I would be 5 minutes ahead at Grandmas. From miles 13 to 20, I was 13 minutes faster at Med City, I had planned on being 10 minutes faster at Grandmas. From miles 21 to 26, I was 10 minutes faster at Grandmas. Overall I was 4 minutes slower at Grandmas but had expected to be somewhere between 15 and 25 minutes faster as I expected to be faster through the first 20 by about 10 minutes and then another 10 or so over the final 6. Oh well maybe next year.

So what's the plan, it's simple I am not intending to go in for the foot until at least mid July. In doing my self diagnosis I am convinced the solution will be relieving pressure off the tendon in my foot. When I plantar flex, I feel the calf and ankle do things. The ankle seems to catch and the calf almost spasms on the left leg, no issues on the right leg. When I dorsiflex it, similar issues. I also notice some issues as I apply pressure as I take the foot through some inversion and eversion movements. So the plan is to work on strengthening the calf and foot by using therabands, balancing activities plus a handful of exercises I got off the web. If after 2 weeks if I don't see improvements, then I will go in as I will need someone to help me work on the trigger points.

The other thing I read is that having a good range of dorsiflexion is a by-product of having a strong tibialis posterior muscle and tendon.

I am still unsure of which calf muscle I injured back in 2010 (one Dr said the Plantaris, one said gastrocnemius, who knows maybe it was the tibialis posterior) but I am reasonably convinced that this current issue is caused by that calf tear, aggravated by too much weight and increasing my mileage too fast and oh yeah, probably not a proper rehab by you know who.

The other thing I need to do is to work harder on diet and improvements to my core. So July is about putting up or shutting up. If I do the work, I can be back in the ultra game maybe even this year, if I don't then I won't be. One thing I have learned is starting races in pain makes for very long days.