Hey everyone,
Hoping that the rain goes away soon - feels like up here in MA its been raining for weeks now.
To continue the drain pipe discussion from April, my wife called me last night from our condo up in VT. It turns out the drain pipe from the bathrooms in the condos above us (we're on the ground floor) has been leaking for quite some time. My wife noticed part of the sheet rock behind the toilet was starting to get wavy and have some discoloration so she called maintenance. They pulled the wall apart and found the leaky sections they need to replace.
The worst part is there is black mold all in the walls. So my wife had to vacate and move to another condo (luckily it is not busy up there so she was able to find a place with no issues) and they said it will be a week or two to take care of it because they need to make sure they get all the pipe fixed and remove all the mold otherwise it will continue to spread.
The only upside is that since it is coming from above and is inside the wall, the homeowner association is covering the costs to fix all this. But UGH!!!!
On the running side of life, I've been getting in better mileage the last few weeks and even able to throw in a few speed sessions - nothing too crazy but just some pick ups, which have felt pretty good. 5 weeks until my 10 miler in June.
Plumbing saga - That is a crazy story but I do love the timing.
Running - I've decided to ramp up the progress. Went for a "real" run 2 days ago. Today I went for another and was very surprised at the various sore muscles I didn't know were there. I guess that's what you get when you take almost a year off. The hip is a little mad. I'll take a couple days off now and focus on walking until the pain goes down.
Ran a Mile road race on Sunday. A USATF series race so mostly super fast guys and gals. They send you off in heats - I was in the 50 and over male heat. I had run a couple of track Miles the past few weeks with times of 6:36 and then a 6:38. But I've always run better on the roads than the track so I figured I'd be able to run faster. Anyway I ran a 6:30 with a nice finishing 1/4 mile of 91.7 seconds. On that last quarter there were two guys ahead of me that looked to be in my range so I picked it up and was able to get to the line ahead of both of them. If they hadn't been there I probably would have run no faster than 6:35. I looked in the results afterwards and those two guys were 71 and 76! 10+ years older than me (and age REALLY matters as you get into your 60s and 70s) and running a Mile better than I was. The 71 year old ran 6:35 and the 76 year old ran 6:39. I'm pretty sure, based on my rate of decline, I won't be able to touch sub-7 mile in my 70s. Impressed ... and a little embarrassed that I kicked to beat 70 year olds! Pretty sure they didn't care.
Great race Kcam! Sounds like you have your motivation.
Sounds like you had a great race and you really can't compare yourself to other people. For all you know both of those guys were running 4 minute miles in their 20s. I have found over the years that people that had a running background in high school and college can come back and run pretty decent times on little training - their body just seems to remember how to run fast. I do not have that background and fight for every mile and every second I can get.
Nice job!!
I finally broke down and figured out how to manually import my runs from Garmin. I am wildly addicted to the RunningAhead tracking of my runs. Hopefully Eric will get around to fixing the interface but in the meantime I have a work around.
OMG, will the injuries never end??????
My knee has been feeling better for the most part better - no pain most of the day and usually no pain when running (sometimes a little achy at the beginning but feels better once it loosens up).
However, a few days ago I started getting some pains in the heel of my right foot (opposite leg to the knee pain). So it seems I think I have developed a case of plantar fasciitis in that foot. So now I'm going to need to do some rest days and get to work with the golf ball and frozen water bottle to try to heal that up.
My wife and I just started playing pickleball on Thursday nights and I think it was on last Friday that the pain started so I'm wondering if that has anything to do with it.
UGH!!! Just when my mileage was back up to a reasonable level and feeling pretty consistent.
Hey JeffD
However, a few days ago I started getting some pains in the heel of my right foot (opposite leg to the knee pain). So it seems I think I have developed a case of plantar fasciitis in that foot. So now I'm going to need to do some rest days and get to work with the golf ball and frozen water bottle to try to heal that up. My wife and I just started playing pickleball on Thursday nights and I think it was on last Friday that the pain started so I'm wondering if that has anything to do with it.
It's me again - with unsolicited advice. Can't help myself 🤦♀️ I agree that your new sport activity is the likely culprit.
Don't panic. It actually could be one of two things: an arch strain or simply tightness OR insertional Achilles tendonitis or simply tightness. I'm betting you don't have an actual :-itis", but more likely a tightness or spasm in a muscle that has it pulling on the attachment to the heel. I'll share what has helped me with these.
If you put a tennis ball under your arch and put your weight onto it - how much does that hurt?! Move the ball to different spots. LOL - sometimes it hurts and you didn't even know the arch was tight! I'm always shocked how painful it can be just behind the ball of the foot. Check both feet for fun. Do this anyway because it you have the other thing, this will help too.
Insertional Achilles tendonitis affects the lower part of the heel, where the tendon connects, or inserts, to the heel bone. It most commonly affects people who overuse the tendon, such as long-distance runners or sports that involve quick stops and starts (pickleball?) If you press into the Achilles with your fingers or pressing it into a tennis ball, is it sore or tender? If you do a stretch, is it tight? Calf stretches, soleus stretches, stretching with the foot on a slant board or with ball of foot pressed up onto something so it's at a slant - all good for treating this. Hold stretches for 20 to 30 sec, release, repeat 3 times. Massage too (before stretching). When resolved, start doing calf raises with hand weights a few times a week. These are good for the foot and the calf.
Be sure to stretch when you get home from pickleball.
Since you mentioned icing the foot, just a reminder to keep icing separate from stretching and deep tissue massage because you want the muscles/tendons to be warm for those activities. Best to ice afterwards.
If things are just tight, I continue to run -- light massage to warm up the tissues and stretch before heading out the door. Stretch after, then ice if you want. Additional stretching before bed can be magic - I don't know why.
Don't make excuses for why you can't get it done.
Focus on all the reasons why you must make it happen.
Hi HappyFeat
Thanks for the information. I think you may have been right and I may have just strained it a bit which caused some tightness in that area. The foot is feeling much better today. I rolled it on a golf ball and on a frozen water bottle a few times each day for the last few days and each day was feeling better. It still hurt a bit when I stepped out of bed this morning but loosened up by the time I left for the gym.
I'm supposed to play pickleball again tonight but am thinking I might pass this week and let it rest some more before I do that - and maybe this weekend will do some lateral movement drills to ease myself into those quick stop/start movements for next week.
When I took your advice and stepped on a ball the main area of tenderness was back on the heel itself which lead me to believe the fascia ligament was just super tight and pulling on that insertion point - the massage and ice I think helped to loosen it back up.
I would really just love a good couple of weeks where nothing bothers me and I can just go out for a nice enjoyable pain-free run.
I think you speak for all of us! That's the dream, isn't it?
It's kind of scary that I might be the least injured at the moment (knocks wood). My OCD got the best of me this week. I wanted to go on a bit longer run but my standard running routes are all greater than 6 miles. Once I started on one of my routes it was 6 miles or nothing. I stuck to a 2 min run/2 min walk for the run and there was very little hip irritation. I'll go back to daily walks for several days now.
Kind of distracted at the moment because one of my friends needed some car work. I've spent the last couple days in the garage replacing CV shafts and ball joints. I'm getting too old to be crawling under cars all day. I'll call it cross training.
What do you guys think of RA's 'condition' lately? Auto weather updating has been broken for a couple months, auto transfer of data from Garmin Connect is broken half the time (today's run and bike rides haven't appeared yet). I'm thinking this place isn't long for this world.
I dont much care about the weather loading as I typically check my weather on my phone and do not have that widget loaded on my dashboard.
As for the garmin loading, I use Garmin for all my outdoor (and some treadmill) runs and I think it is unfair to say it is broken half of the time. Yes, it has broken a couple times over the last year but it would be more accurate to say it is broken like 5% of the time.
I don't think Eric spends the time on it that he used to years ago, but that could very well be because this is not that profitable for him. While I do subscribe and typically add in an extra amount each year I have no idea how many of the users actually do that and if it is worth his time. I don't expect him to do it for free and if he made the fees mandatory instead of voluntary I would still pay for it as the log has everything I am looking for and I like the community (this group for example) for getting advice and talking to other people that run ( I dont really have an IRL friends that run so this is all I get).
Overall I would be sad if RA shut down. I don't know of any other decent alternatives that have the log and community we have here.
I've always paid for RA and, like you, add a little extra when I renew. I would be beyond sad if RA does ever shut down because I've come to love it over the years.
I'm not arguing the usefulness of either feature that is broken, just the fact that RA is showing some ragged edges in maintenance. My workouts from yesterday and today have not auto-uploaded. Lack of maintenance of features is a precursor. Download your data regularly.
I do download it a couple times a year, but maybe should just remind myself to do it at the end of each month. I'd hate to lose some of the data.
Agreed and I know that at one point years ago Eric had wanted to make this his living when he tried to monetize it (adding ads and subscriptions so you dont have to see the ads). I don't know how many users there are or how many of them actually donate, nor do I know how much it actually costs Eric per month to keep this site up and running. It's not like its a simple site that you can create on Wix or Squarespace.
On the running side of things, my foot felt really good this morning when I got out of bed (really tried hard last night to sleep on my side instead of my stomach so the foot was not extended all night). So I was able to actually go outside for more than my mile - only did about 3 miles but it felt pretty good. Feeling a little tightness/soreness on the outside of the arch right now, but overall was happy. Will do a rest day mile tomorrow and see if I can't do another 3 on Friday while letting this heal as much as possible. Still going to ice and roll on the golf ball several times each day going forward until I'm sure it is healed up.