Training in Montana

5 miles this morning felt good, with no pain in my right foot until I was done and walking. Odd. Iced it for 10 minutes in a bucket. I felt it a bit on my way into work. When I stand tip-toe on my right foot I can feel something in that joint that I'm standing on. I don't know my foot anatomy so not sure what that is. Is there any relation from that joint to the achilles? I noticed this weekend that my achilles was kind of tight, and I've never noticed it tight before.

Will try and ice morning and night.

AP: 8:15 

8 miles in my "new" shoes - I'm fairly certain that's not the issue. Again, I think bumping up the speed too much and too much pavement/concrete running when I'm used to 1/2 gravel/ 1/2 road for my normal runs. My foot felt great, and hours later there's no residual issues so I'm excited. I iced last night like Bam ordered and it seemed to help. Much less painful to do localized ice on the actual spot. Whoda thunk it?

Ran fast today, pushed it to see how I could do. Last 3 miles were 7:22, 7:22, 7:25. AP: 7:58 

5 miles this morning. My legs were pretty tired, walked for a bit after the 1st mile then they warmed up.Finished the last two miles in the 7s, so that's good. Foot feels good. Rest day tomorrow then 10 on Friday @ MP and 20 on Saturday.

AP: 8:23 

9 miles this morning, ran to work. This was supposed to be a 10 mile pace run but for some reason my Garmin was dead this morning. I charged it Wednesday but it must have turned on after charging so it wasn't going to last. That was a bit of a bummer. I took along another watch but it didn't have a stopwatch and I don't remember when I stopped running. I know miles 1, 2, and 3 and I was somewhere in the 8 minute range, +- 30 seconds. The effort felt hard today as I played Ultimate frisbee Wednesday night against the youth at church and we have some good athletes who are 16-18 yrs old. I felt the need to chase after them and defend the end zone which meant lots of sprinting and leaping and knocking boys to the ground. The old guys schooled the young guys, 10-6. And I'm paying for it. I really wish I had a Garmin today as my sore legs are a good measuring stick for pace effort. Oh well, it still felt good and I pushed as best I could, not knowing how fast I was actually going. My wife met me at the Y with my bag of clothes as work is across the street from the Y. Nice way to start the day. Doing 20 tomorrow with a sleepwalking 3:35 marathoner. She does the September 16th marathon that I'm doing, then 2 weeks later will do St. George, and almost like clockwork she'll run a 3:35 both times. I can only hope I hit that number in a few weeks.

Ran the first 20 miles of the marathon course and it was a great run. Ran it with my friend Emily and her 62 yr old Dad. He is a stud! Looks more like 47 and runs like it. He kept up just like one of the gang and we had a nice run into town. The marathon starts in the town of Molt, population very small. The only reason to go there is to have breakfast at the only store in town. They have live music from 8-12 on Saturday mornings. We saw lots of people driving out there. Between Molt & Billings there aren't too many people - maybe 10, and that's if they have a big family. The run goes out 1.5 miles then adds on some distance by going South for 1.25 miles then turning around and heading back to the main highway. Our hands were freezing! Thankfully I brought my thin knit gloves but even then I couldn't use my thumbs to apply my chapstick at 5 miles. I had to bite the lid off and use both hands to move it across my lips. Felt great though. 

The only interesting things about this run is that the pace was very honest. I guess I ran them faster than normal, and felt bad about that. I didn't mean to. The pace the first 15 was an 8:36 then slowed a bit as her Dad slowed, and finished at an 8:41. Still a very healthy pace. I felt nothing in the foot like I felt last week, but a couple times did feel a millisecond cramp in my right foot. Weird. Hope that doesn't spring up. My groin/lower abs felt pretty rough most of the way, and afterwards it hurt for a few hours. I took a nap and the pain woke me up as I couldn't get comfortable. It went away after a bit and hasn't come back so no damage done I think. Calves feel pretty sore the next day but nothing else. Why the calves? Weird. I don't recall having them sore after a training run.

Here's the splits, elevation, and HR: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/215510974. Bring on the marathon September 16th!