Week Three, Thursday - Numb Feet

Foot rather.

20 minutes in, in the thick of my 17 minute stretch, I noticed my foot felt numb. It wasn't completely without sensation since I thought I could feel the banging when I landed on that leg. And, for awhile, I thought I'd be able to just sort of shake it around, land differently, roll differently, something. Usually when something hurts, that helps. I tried everything I knew how to do and it only got...numb-er. And my calf, mainly on the front, got numb, too. Even now, an hour and half later, I'm numbish. But now it's confined to my arch and upper calf. I doubt anything is wrong. Except for being numb.

Maybe my shoe was tied too tight again. As wonderful as these shoes feel most of the time, maybe they just don't fit. When I stopped to walk after 17 minutes and it didn't get better I cooled down and got off the treadmill to stretch, done for the night. I was really disappointed in myself for not finishing the workout, but the increasing numbness couldn't be ignored. So now I'm wondering...will I be numb again tomorrow? What can I do to avoid being numb? Can I run numb? Can I stop running now that I've started?

I have to go to the nutritionist Monday. I feel like I haven't done enough to make a difference since last time, despite the small achievement of lowered blood pressure. Humph. I guess 17 minutes of endorphins don't last long...

W5 - 3.5, R5 - 4.5, W2 - 3.5, R17 - 4.3, W2 - 3.0 = 32 min.

Week Three, Tuesday - Sweat

I took a two day break before this run. I'm blaming that for my sluggishness bookending my run today. I've started tacking on minutes to the middle, longer run so that it's eventually all one big run with no walking breaks. Despite feeling slow and heavy, I managed it by thinking of the adrenaline boosts. This wouldn't be nearly as fun without them. I'm finding that it's getting easier for me to run past discomfort and distinguish it from stop-now pain. I am watching my shins though, since today they ached more than usual.

I was starving today after my run and shower. Flat out starving. I ate a respectable breakfast - Go Lean (recommended by my nutritionist) with milk and half a banana. That fuel was gone by the time I finished. Or, if not gone, just absent from my stomach, which was howling for sustenance. I tossed it some almonds (also per the nutritionist) and it seems to have quieted somewhat. I was proud of myself for not eating the cookies in the cupboard. They didn't even sound appetizing.

At the end, what made it all worthwhile today was the sweat. I've never been a heavy sweater and I've always been envious of those always skeletal, tall, men decorating black plastic treadmills all over the world with glistening blotches of sweat. I've never been that person. I sweat in more of a sheen, not a drip. Even when I've mustered a drip, in my formerly fit days, it was never enough to splotch on the equipment - a goal I've since given up. But I still love the sensation of a bead of sweat gathering and streaking down my skin. Today, drips were falling off of my elbows within the first five minutes. Sure, summer is coming and with it, humidity. And we've opened the windows and turned off the desert-heat furnace. Maybe that caused most of my dripping but some of it, at least a little bit, was caused by my getting-in-shape body.

W5 - 3.5, R5 - 4.5, W2 - 3.5, R16 - 4.3, W2 - 3.5, R9 - 4.3, W5 - 3.5, W2 - 3.0 = 46min.

Sunday, Week Three - Pizza?

This man gets pizza delivered to him on his runs. Is that a reasonable goal? It might be.

Saturday, Week Two - Exhilaration

I tested my blood pressure at the grocery store yesterday and it was much lower than it has been. Still not perfectly normal, but normal enough. I'd like it to be irrevocably normal though, which was the driving force behind today's run.

After searching a zillion sites for a good training program that didn't start at the couch potato stage but that didn't assume I was jauntily running 5ks between breakfast and mid-morning tea each day, I decided give up. Is it too much to ask for a simple day to day program that addresses intensity, time, rest breaks and so forth on a weekly basis, but that doesn't assume you can't go more than 30 seconds at a time? Or, conversely, does not assume you're speeding along at treadmill speeds surpassing 7.0? To this point, I've been doing a 5 minute fast walking warm-up followed by an initial 5 minute run. Let me point out that run in this case, means jog for most people that aren't as large/inexperienced/frail as I am. I follow the initial run with a 2 minute fast walk and then tack on 10 and 15 minute runs separated by two minute walks and followed with a 7 minute cool down. It works, I'm covering about 3 miles, total. But based on some of what I've read/seen, I decided to put the 15 minute run in the middle, when I have the most energy. It works. I'm planning to gradually decreased the end run minutes and build up the middle minutes - ideally running 3 miles in a pop, instead of broken up.

I find I get shots of adrenaline in 4-5 minutes increments. It's amazing. I swam for 15 years competitively and never felt the rush that running brings. It's like novicaine, morphine, it simultaneously numbs and lifts so I feel like I'm floating. For a minute, nothing hurts, nothing aches, nothing pounds or feels off. I feel like I'm skipping or sliding smoothly. I feel like I could go forever. It doesn't last for more than a minute or two but it's reliably back in four more and I can wait for it, even if the third minute drags interminably. I wonder if the thrill will spread out as I run more often. Will it be every ten minutes? Every 20? Or will I continue to get these four-minute joyous injections that make every sore muscle worth it for days after?

W5 - 3.5, R5 - 4.5, W2 - 3.5, R15 - 4.3, W2 - 3.5, R10 - 4.3, W5 - 3.5, W2 - 3.0 = 46min.

Thursday, Week Two - Shoes

I was running in crap shoes. I've picked up that adjective from D. It doesn't mean I like it, but it encompasses the trailing, seeping, bleeding awfulness that was my old shoes. I've been moaning over them for months actually. Long before the running came to the forefront. Long before I started waking up dreaming about running. The inner heels were worn down, the support was non-existent, I felt like they warmly invited shin splints into my life, offering them a guest bedroom and endless crack to make them stay. I didn't like their dark-blueness. I didn't like that they hadn't taken me from huge to svelte (as they promised me on the shelf). I resented their very existence. I'd lamented them to D. more than once and had even bought them cushy soles to coax them into serviceability. Nothing worked.

But I have a new love. Oh, we're still working through our growing pains. The super exciting (and needed) "Stability Web®" crunches my mid-foot enough to make me wonder if I suddenly need extra-wides. Surely, not even my foot is fat? But then I remembered that the ex-shoes had a similar problem at first, even taking to turning my toes numb if I didn't stop to loosen my laces. This was at the beginning though, and they were quickly worn out of it. My mother always told me to buy tennis shoes that fit right off. She was all for breaking in stiff, unwieldy, leather dress shoes (ps - those don't break in so much as break your feet in), but was firmly against any sport shoe that needed adjustment. But I love these shoes, enough to live with a week or two or weird foot crunch solved by lace loosening.

They are light, bouncy and Runners World picked them as an Editor's favorite. Some reviews complain that they aren't light enough, but when you're lifting as much leg as I am, everything on your foot feels light. They even have exciting no-slip laces that work as well as any strategy I've seen, despite taking an extra second or so to tighten up. Bottom line? They make my legs feel good, my feet land right and I look forward to putting them on again.

W5 - 3.5, R5 - 4.5, W2 - 3.5, R10 - 4.3, W2 - 3.5, R15 - 4.3, W5 - 3.5, W2 - 3.0 - 46min.

Wednesday, Week Two - The Dutch Doctor

I'm not built for running. I'm too big, too stocky, too heavy, too awkward. I'm not gazelle graceful. I look okay while sprinting, but still a little lion-like, floppy, powerful and very out of breath afterward, usually with nothing to show for it. My lanky runner friends spring agiley through the spring grass, spritely wiping dew from their barely sweating brows and then have a joyous salad and a cup of water. They exist on air and adrenaline. I like to eat and lounge, not always in that order. I've been a swimmer, a soccer and tennis and raquetball player. But I only squeaked past the running bits. More recently, I've noticed that if I walk fast my fat parts itch. Definitely not inspiration to run that marathon. Once, I even began training for such a fat-itching marathon - through a game park in Africa - until shin splints sidelined me midway through my first training week. The kindly Dutch doctor told me I should think of taking up another sport since I would never be a runner and I haven't tried since. Not until my partner and I bought an industrial strength treadmill in October in a last ditch effort to lose weight.

To our credit, the treadmill never languished dustily. It never stood in for the clothes hangers. I walked on it once or twice a week and D. did the same. We started seeing a nutritionist. But in February, I still hadn't lost any weight. Oh sure, my body fat percentage went down (somewhat) but my blood pressure was still big-person-high and neither D. or I had cracked 3.5 on the treadmill. But then she started running and, the nerve, bragging about the rush. She wanted to do it all the time. And of course, that made me want to do it too. And so, about two weeks ago, I started running. Though I don't want to pollute the internet with a journal/food log/exercise tracker that doesn't mean anything to anyone but me, I know there are other shin-splinted, fat-itching, too big, too floppy, too tired of faking it, big people out there who might want to see someone else's path. That, and I like to see my progress in pretty colors.

W5 - 3.5, R5 - 4.5, W2 - 3.5, R8 - 4.3, W2 - 3.5, R11 - 4.3, W5 - 3.5, W2 - 3.0 - 40min.