Tuesday, May 30, 2017

My legs are tired from running in my dreams all night



So I had a strange dream last night and since there was no blogger for Ma (and some encouragement from Tanya), I decided I would share.

So it all started at Boston Pizza with several runners from PRC eating spaghetti, there were 4 or 5 different tables filled with us. That’s as much as I remember of that part. 

Next it flashes to myself and Tanya driving to the USR race with her youngest son Noah in the back, still covered in spaghetti and sauce from the night before.  Noah was apparently running the 10k with Tanya. I thought that was really cool that he was running 10 whole kilometres at such a young age!
Then I remember us running in the URS: Myself, Tanya, Janice, Tonia, and Noah. I started calling Noah Arron for some reason, saying I was going to stick with him for my first 10k and then boot it on my last 11 so Tanya didn’t have to worry about him and could try to PB. Tonia kept laughing at me and whispering to Janice because I was calling him Arron instead of Noah.  Then I got embarrassed and ran in front of Tonia and she put her hand on my shoulder to console me, I then said “hey your hand is warm, you got to keep running like that” So Tonia put her other hand on my other shoulder and we ran like that for a while with Janice beside her.  Eventually she asked if she could let go and I said yes and her and Janice went off and were out of site in seconds. 

Looking back now I’m not sure what happened to Tanya and Noah but hopefully they made out ok.  So I continued to run, and I noticed that my shoes were on the wrong feet, when I changed them I noticed that I was wearing the wrong pair of sneakers, I was wearing my white pair which weren’t my last pair but my pair before that. Then Andrew Power caught up to me (apparently I’m pretty fast in my dreams) and I told him I wore the wrong shoes, he said I just saw you change them and I said no they were on the wrong feet and I passed him. Then I noticed that the shoe laces weren’t right at all so I stopped and fixed them and Andrew Power caught back up. I complained about my shoes again and we started to run together. Then I looked at my watch and noticed I never had the displays set up correctly. Andrew told me that we were at 1:08 so it looked good for us to get a sub 2 hours if we kept going at this pace (again much fast in my dreams) and then I woke up.

So while this dream was really weird, it was also telling me something. I told the dream to my wife this morning and she said (sarcastically) “I don’t know why but something tells me that you’re nervous about your half coming up”. And it’s very true. I am terrified about it.  For one I don’t have a good track records with halfs, my first one was the Huffin Puffin in 2015 and I started off great but by the second half I was struggling and due to auto pause on my watch and a bathroom break I missed reaching a goal, not because I didn’t have it in my but because I thought I had some extra time than I did so I didn’t start sprinting when I should have, that was the most disappointing, I didn’t reach it because I was being lazy.  My second half was supposed to be November 2015 in Disney world but due to a lighting storm that turned out to be 11k.  I was bitter towards halfs after that and haven’t done once since. 

Second thing that’s making me nervous is my training. I decided to do the USR because 1. I haven’t done any of the USR before and 2. To get me back into the running routine as I was struggling getting back into it since mom passed. So while it worked to a degree I still didn’t get in as many runs as I wanted to. After I completed the Mundy Pond 5k, I said ok I really need to buckle down and train now, so I looked at the training program and went “oh we are in week 5 of 12, well this should kick my butt”, and it certainly has. Since starting in week 5 I’ve been doing ok with it but have missed some runs due to work and life, usually it wouldn’t be a big deal, but I missed for 4 weeks of regular training before that, so I’m not in the condition I would have liked to be in. 

 Third thing and probably freaking me out the most is my injury. I have been having trouble with my leg after running. I have no problem usually during the run but after I cool down I start limping. I’ve been trying stretching and the foam roller with little affect. I’ve been having this issue for a while but it’s only now that I’m finding it annoying. I was trying to think when it started but I’m not sure, I know it’s been at least since I put my orthotics in so I thought that removing them might work. However, either I misplaced or threw out the pair of soles that belonged with the shoes. Thursday night I tried my insoles from my last pair and while I still had some problems afterwards it didn’t seem like it was as bad. So for my long run Sunday I thought I’d try the in soles from my older pair of shoes (the white ones, probably why I dreamt of them). I was thinking that since I haven’t wore them in a while maybe the cushion would have gone back up in them. Long story short I was wrong and I now have a blister on the back of my foot, my legs were also terrible after the run, so it’s back to the orthotics. The run on Sunday was also daunting, I went to do 18km, and I ended up only doing 16k. I couldn’t get my speed up at all and when I got to 14k my legs were really tight. When we got to 16k, I was I was good to stop because I felt if I made the wrong move for the last two k that my muscle would just go *ping* and I would have been in way worse shape.

However there is some hope. I asked for suggestion and coach Kiley came through! He recommended some compression socks to wear after running, so Friday night I went out and got a pair. They certainly have increased recovery. On Sunday I went from a couple of days of limping to a couple of hours after I put them on. I am going to try to wear them on a run this week. I thought about it Sunday but didn’t want to risk it for the first time on such a long run. Hopefully that will help. I also have a massage booked next week so I am optimistic that’ll at least make it more bearable, where foam rolling will work. 

All in all I just want to finish the USR half, I am going to be smart about this one and listen to my body. If I need to walk I’m going to walk but the main thing is to finish. After that we’ll see what’s going on and assess the next challenge from there. But whatever happens I’m going to do my best to enjoy the race, because what’s the since of doing it, if you don’t enjoy it!

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