The calm before the storm

It's been slow around here lately. My bad. With my foot injury, I took a week and a half off from running (and skydiving) so there wasn't much to report. I guess an update on my foot is in order.

I've been going to physical therapy and she believes my injury is posterior tibial tendinitis, not anterior tibial tendinitis like I had originally guessed (I was close though!). Luckily she said it wasn't too severe and after a few sessions she had me back to my normal routine. After a week of running it has felt relatively fine, especially if I get a good warm-up in beforehand. I think that really is the key. Last night I ran 8mi and didn't give it a thorough warm-up. The first 3 or 4mi I could feel the slightest discomfort in the tendon, but after getting warmed up the discomfort subsided. This morning when I woke some of the pain had returned, the first time since being given the O-K to run a week ago. Hmm... JFK is 4 days away. Guess I better get serious about this whole "rest" thing. I'll do a few miles Thursday, but that'll be it between now and Saturday. Time for some R-I-C-E baby! (not the asian kind, the rest-ice-compression-elevation variety, duh)

...and then there's Saturday. Holy crap this thing is actually happening! I'm actually going to run my first 50-miler. Aside from the "oh my god what if my foot craps out on me" thought that is currently firing through my head, I think I'm pretty well off. At the peak of my training I did some 80 mile weeks. Most of my running has been on trails. My 50k went amazingly well. I guess now I should start packing some stuff into drop bags for the aide stations. Honestly though, I don't really think I'm going to need much. If anything, I'll need to drop stuff off at the aide stations (jacket, gloves, hat, etc) since it's looking to be 26 degrees at the start line. Then again, I've been so worried about my foot lately I haven't given much time to visualizing the race and what I might actually need when running for 9 or 10 hours. Looks like I've got something to keep my mind occupied the next few days! Stay tuned for a race report on Sunday or early next week.