2011 woes continue....

This week I got in 3 consecutive morning runs all in Hyland and all the same course. I kind of like the course it's only 3 miles but it's perfect for a quick run before work. You start at the parking lot by the ski jump, cut through the woods, across the dock, out to bush lake road, loop back. I added the course to the Southern Minnesota trail club website, here is that info:

My first run was on Tuesday and it was slow by design. I didn't want to push it after the long run/hike on Sunday. I started in the dark so I used my headlamp for the first half of the run, except when I was under the trees the moon was so bright I could see without the light. It felt good to run before work. On Wednesday I repeated the loop I kept it slow again but worked on my form. I was 45 seconds faster which was good to see even though I lost some time to some coughing attacks. On Thursday, I decided to push it and continued to work on form. I ended up 3 1/2 minutes faster than Wednesday. I was pleased with the improvement. Still too slow but a nice improvement. The nice thing is that for the last few weeks I am really starting to make progress again. It is so nice to be running pain free.

From that point on my day took a slight twist. I had taken a 1/2 day off from work so we could head out of town to visit a college with my youngest daughter. Before we left I was doing some clean-up when I caught my foot on something that sent me flying, I caught myself but landed hard on my right foot on the concrete, specifically my heel. I was barefoot and it felt like I did some damage but I figured it was just bruised or at least I hoped it was. I chose to ignore the pain and just tried to walk it off as we had to get going. Yes, it may have been denial as I just couldn't be hurt from something like this.

We left shortly after that and as we drove along the foot pretty much throbbed, after we dropped our daughter off for her overnight visit, my wife and I did some shopping. I couldn't walk without pain and she noticed me limping and walking slowly so I told her what I had done. I had the least amount of pain by staying on my toes and I was happy to have a cart to lean on but struggled even with it. I was never so happy to ice it after we got to the hotel. Today it was a little bit better, I can push on it but do get pain to right at the base of the heel or when  I squeeze the side of my foot by the heel. At least I am able to walk with less pain. I am hoping to see more improvement tomorrow and then get in my final long run on Sunday. Yes, I know that it is probably not going to happen but it still might, you gotta have hope.

The question that will be interesting is if I can't get in the final run and see good improvement next week do I still try to run the Surf the Murph 50k or do I drop down to the 25k or do I volunteer?