I have been neglecting this blog. Actually, I've been neglecting my personal one as well. I haven't written much here because I haven't been running. I decided to take 2 weeks off from no running at all. Gotta give time for this IT band to heal and heal properly. I am no longer limping but there are times when I still feel pain, really more like a dull ache on the outside of my right knee. And it kinda hard to lay on my stomach and have my heel touch my butt, I can feel the knee tight then. Ryan Hall gave himself 2 weeks rest, so I figured if it's good enough for an elite, it's good enough for me! :-D
In other news, my right big toenail, the one that I also bruised in my 1st half marathon of St. Jude, is really bruised this time around! And no, I don't have ill fitting shoes. I never had a problem the entire training time. It's because of the hills. Below is a lovely picture of it. It's not as bad as it could be. I've seen black toenails before. At least I have a good part on the outside of the nailbed. So I don't think I'll lose it. It'll just come loose and be sore to the touch for a while. It'll take a good year to finally grow that out I bet!
Click to see bigger. You know you want to!Now comes biking season. I finally have my entire road bike decked out. I have clipless pedals (even though they're mountain bike pedals) and finally bought shoes for it yesterday. I had to get them ordered though. I went to 2 different stores and finally the second one had several sizes that I could at least try on. They both wanted me to fit in a mens orginally. I kept telling them, no, it's gonna be too wide. Sure enough! One was too wide in the forefoot and the other pair in the heel. But eventually we found a brand and tried on size 43 and it fit. But I didn't like that model so I went with another model. One that would let me walk better since the cleats are recessed into the sole of the shoe. It's heavier but I can always buy another road pair later on if I need to.
Just tonight, I finally rode my bike for a decent amount of time. More than I did last time. 6.3 miles to be exact. I need to remember even on easy rides to NOT WEAR COTTON!!!!! But man, I forgot how good it felt to sweat! No knee pain, no thigh pain. Though I did only go 6 miles. But the good news is that I could feel my thighs working. And more good news, I averaged around 13 miles per hour for the whole trip. But while pedaling around 15-16. I couldn't do that with my mountain bike unless I was going downhill! This is going to be sweet!
I contacted Garmin about
Phil, my 405. I looked on their website and it says that it's waterproof. Which says to me, that I can take it out in the rain just don't swim with it. So it should stand up to a little rain. Still to be safe I decided not to tell them about it (my luck they'll find this blog now). They wrote back to me telling me how to do a soft reset and a master reset if the soft reset doesn't work. Both didn't do a damn thing. The digital readout should fade and then restart. Well, they faded but that's it. And in order to get it back to normal, I have to plug it in and let it "charge" which really does nothing too. So I faxed them a copy of the receipt and they'll send me an RMA so I can send it back. This greatly disappoints me because....
...Next week I plan on going to Hilton Head, SC for a vacation with my brother. This is going to be great! Normally I'm not a warm weather person so it'll be interesting. Sunny and low 80's all week. But I also plan on starting to run again that week. I wanted to use my
Phil to help me keep track of my miles but I guess I'll just go by time and estimate that I run at 9:30 min/mi for 30 minutes and 10 min/mi for anything longer than that. I know that's really stretching it and my times are faster than that but I'll play it safe. and I must remember to get up early to run before we do stuff that day.
I think I also have something wrong with me mind. When I go on a vacation, I want to do everything I can possibly do. Horseback riding, swimming with dolphins, hiking, parasailing, tennis, hitting golf balls, shopping, etc. But John mentioned that since this is a vacation he wants a few days to just kick back and read a couple books by the pool. That's gonna be hard for me but I'm gonna need to do it too. I think I have just way too much energy. Like I imagine a vacation in Colorado will be me outside moving THE ENTIRE TIME. Winter, Fall, Spring or Summer! I hope I can find a guy that will keep up with me!
Speaking of guys, there's something new in that department too but it's not going to spring into anything. He's not into the sports/active thing. But because I miss companionship & flirting with a male counterpart, I'm hanging on. My heart is just not that into it. Everything will be compared to my previous relationship, I'm afraid. Someone who had the EXACT SAME MTN BIKE as me. How's that for a sign?
