Damn

Well,  this monkeys up a bunch of my plans.  I tripped on the stairs,  rolled up my foot pretty good and ended with an avulsion fracture of the fifth metatarsal on my left foot. It's called a dancer's fracture, so that makes me feel much better.

So, the marathon is out, any thoughts of a 70.3 are out (both were probably bad ideas anyways) and the Liberty Olympic Tri in June is out.  Doc said to take at least six weeks off from running. He said I could get on the stationary bike in a couple weeks, and similar for the pool.  For now, I guess it's just lay around time.

Starting to Plan

For the last couple years, I've done the Polar Plunge for Special Olympics.  This year I raised pledges that totaled $1075.  The jump was this Saturday, February 21.

Now that the plunge is done, it's time to look forward to the summer and race season.

After I did the Turkey Trot 5K in November, I took almost seven weeks off from running.  In the time off, I stared doing some hip and leg strength training.  I think it helped.  When I came back to running, I started out on short slow runs.  I also did some biking before and after running to loosen up my legs.  It was slow going, but adding a little bit at a time seemed to work out fine.  I put on about 20 miles in January and I'll probably hit about 30 miles in February.

In October, before my knee fell apart, I signed up for a marathon in May.  The Lake Wobegon Trail marathon had an early bird special, and I got in for $55.  I was thinking I was going to have to scrap that race as well.  But, at this point I'm thinking I can make a run at it.

Here's my plan.  I'm going to run once every three days, and I'm going to do a longer run every weekend; every third week I'm going to skip my long run.  My plan for long runs is 4, 6, off, 7, 9, off, 11, 13, off, 13, 18, easy week and then race day. I know it's unlikely that this is a good plan, but I'll give it a shot until my knee starts to hurt.  It would be fun to run the marathon, but I won't be very disappointed if I have to cut it.

For the triathlon season, I'm going to go for the Olympic distances.  In June I'm going to do the Liberty Triathlon in Rockford. In August, I'm going to do the Lake Marion Olympic race.  July is still up in the air.  If I can get my run miles up, I may try the July Toughman MN 70.3 in Chisago.  Otherhows, I may do a sprint with my sister.  My bike is a brick (30 lbs), so I'm a little hesitant to try a 70.3.  I'm going to budget in a new bike for next year, but right now I can't justify buying two bikes in two years.

A lot of this is contingent on how my running goes over the next month. Hopefully there aren't any setbacks, but if there is I'll just have to reevaluate.

Turkey Trot 5K Recap

Turkey Trot 5K/10K

Fergus Falls 11/15/14

In late August, I signed up for the 5K Turkey Trot with my sister.  She had won the 6 race series in her area, and the award was going to be presented after the Fergus Falls Turkey Trot in November.  My sis is pretty awesome, and naturally she is my hero.

I was in rough shape.  In the two weeks after Surf the Murph, I had tried three runs, and I had not been able to get to two miles on any of them.  I took the week before the race completely off.  

It snowed the week before the race.  The streets/sidewalks had a lot of hard pack snow and some ice on them.  It was going to be a slow cautious race for a couple reasons.

My nephew also wanted to run, so we all also signed up for the one mile run before the 5K race.

My knee didn't feel too bad on the one mile run. Maybe taking it easy for a couple weeks was going to do the trick.  We ran together for the first half mile. After that, my nephew took off in a quest for the podium.  He passed third place with about 4 blocks to go, and he held on to take the bronze position.  I ran about a nine minute mile; I felt pretty good and optimistic.

My nephew wasn't going to run the 5K.  He found a warm spot to wait it out in the school, and my sis and I went to line up for the 5K.  It was in the teens but there was nearly no wind.  It was reasonable weather for a run, but the footing made it a pretty silly idea.

At the go signal, my first step tweaked my knee.  I started off slow and tried to loosen it up.  It didn't help; it was the same pain on the side of my knee, and it felt like I had a bruise behind my kneecap. A mile into the run, I knew this was going to be the last run of the year.

I stuck it out with a time of 29:00.  My knee felt a little better in the third mile, but I was doing more harm than good.  Around the last corner, I decided to catch the lady in front of me.  She was about a block ahead of me, so I sprinted as best I could (idiot) and caught up.  It seemed like a dick move to pass right at the line, so I pulled up and finished one second behind her.

So that's it; I'm probably done running for the year.  I'm definitely out for the half marathon in a couple weeks.  It's been a good year.  I did a few 5K races, one 10K, two sprint triathlons and one long trail run.

Below are my totals since I signed up for the Lake Marion Sprint Triathlon in February.

Running
Total:                   340 miles
Average length:  3.3 miles
Average Pace:     9:39

Biking
Total Road:          182 miles
Average Length:  11.3 miles
Average Speed:    16 mph    
Total Stationary:  13:27 hours
Avg. Stationary:   33 minutes

Swimming
Total:         14.6 miles
Average:    0.54 miles

Workouts
Total:        11:15 hours
Average:   29 minutes

Me with my sis and nephew
before the 1 mile run.