This morning I felt the foot was getting even better and I should b able to run. Running is very addictive. I felt very deprived all week last week. So I packed clothes for a lunchtime run. I packed clothes for outside running in the 40 degree (5C) weather as well as a T-shirt for running on the treadmill or to work out in the gym if I decided not to run. I figured I would play it by ear. As the morning progressed I still wasn’t sure if I should run and I have rated my foot at about 85%. 85% might not sound all that good but it is certainly a lot better than 20% which is what I would have rated it last Monday night.

By lunch time I decided that it was time to give running a shot. I knew that I was going to take it easy and I was not going to do anything stupid. I also decided that if the pain would get worse I’d stop immediately. Since it is hard to stop and get in your car immediately when you run mostly out and back runs on a trail, today I have decided to stick with a track. So I drove to a park that has a 1/3 mile track so the worst I’d have to do is walk 1/6th mile after I’d call it quits. Luckily I didn’t have to call it quits.

I took it very easy and ran at the first 2 miles at 11 minute a mile pace. Then I tried a bit of a tempo run just to see how it feels and I picked up the pace all the way to 6:30 at one point but the whole tempo ran only lasted 0.1 miles and I was back to over 10 minute miles afterward. All in all I ran 3 miles today at an average pace of 10:42 which is a recovery pace for me at this time.

Once I got back to the office I could feel tenderness in the tendon but I still would have rated it at 85%. I have also decided that I would take another day off tomorrow just to give it more time to heal. But right now as I’m typing up this blog post the foot feels fine. I’d rate it 95% easily. So if it stays this way by the morning I’ll be running again tomorrow. We shall see! I’ crossing my fingers and holding my breath, I’m so ready for another 3 miler tomorrow! My 10k race is less than 2 weeks away so I’ll just stay with easy runs and taper. Do you think I’m doing the right thing?

Here is what my street looks like this morning:

And here is a picture of our backyard:

I had a pretty good upper body workout Tuesday at the gym. I figured if I can’t work out my wheels at least keep the top in shape. It’s only been two days and I’m already missing the running. Grr, I’m so stupid! Note to self: next time something hurts a little, take care of it then don’t let other body parts getting hurt too.

But I decided to run in the rain. My knee pain has improved and I thought my knee was getting really good. But now my right foot hurts pretty bad from the bad gait that I have been utilizing due to the knee pain. It seems like one injury is causing another. But I went and ran anyway. When I go to work I usually run on a trail. The trail is 2 miles long from the trail head then it follows on as a bike path next to a road. As long as I was running 4 or less miles my run was all on the trail. Now that I’m running longer I have to go out on the road which means camber and it means more beating for my foot and knees. But today I actually wanted to run out on the road as the trail was flooded in several places and my shoes got really wet. Where the standing water was ankle deep I tried to navigate through the rough grass only to scratch my legs up pretty good. The run was cold and wet at the beginning then the rain subdued towards the second half. I ran at a steady pace around 10:20 min/mile. With the changed gait due to the limp my cadence has been staying pretty high, I have averaged 86 again just as on Saturday’s long run.

But sadly the run took its toll on me. Even though I felt good towards the end and I felt the pain was gone it was only temporary. As soon as I got back to the office my foot pain became pretty unbearable. I now have a severe limp and I feel like I can barely walk. If I sit and don’t put weight on it for a while it gets better but as soon as I start walking on it the pain comes back within 50 yards of walking. When the pain gets bad enough it gets better if I walk on the front of my foot and not let the heel touch the ground. The pain is also lessened if I walk bare foot. All in all it’s pretty bad. I think it’s a case of tendonitis of the peroneus longus tendon. Sounds like I’ll be taking a break from running for the next couple of days to give these tendons some time to heal.

I had a video chat with my dad today and we were talking about my weight loss and how he could stand to lose 30 lbs himself. Then I tried to tell him about how he should eat healthier, and probably do some basic strength exercise. I’m supposed to put together a simple non-boring nutritional plan for him that he and his wife can follow that would help him lose weight. Simple yet non-boring is going to be a challenge in itself. I also told him that he should probably do some strength training to keep and build muscle. I told him push-ups would probably work for him pretty good. And I told him that he’s probably pretty wimpy right now and start easy with the push-ups. Then he told me that he’s probably good for 20 push-ups. At this point I told him that there is no way he can do more than 15 good form real push-ups. I also told him that even I, who has been training for the past 3 months can only do about 28 of them and I have started at 12 push-ups when I first gave it a shot 2 months ago.

So We had a push-up contest over Skype. I managed to do 30 of them and I probably could have done 2-3 more if I really wanted to but the form would have gone downhill. Then he got down on all fours and managed to do 10. I felt pretty bad. There was my dad with a broken back doing push-ups for me just to prove me wrong. It was silly. He did manage 10 of them and then he called it quits. He said he could have done more but didn’t want to hurt his back. His form wasn’t pretty and I though he probably struggled with it. But he’s 56 and not in the best shape as you understand by now. I just hope I didn’t make him injure himself. But he’s talking about going skiing in 2 weeks which might be nuts with his back but I can’t stop him.

Maybe I’m overreacting and I’m overly concerned about my dad’s back and the doctors are right by telling him that it’s not that bad and he can exercise and go skiing. But he’s my only dad and I want to make sure that he will walk for a long long time.

Push-ups

• 1×30 at BW