Bruised barefoot Ego and Race weekend

6/6 (8.0mi, 1h 8m, 8:30/mi) I ran twice on Monday, once at lunch around the Bridle Trails and then on the Treadmill after work. I'm estimating the lunch-time run distance based on prior runs as I left my Garmin watch at home. After work I had to stay a little bit late so I headed down to the basement gym to run on the treadmill and made it about 2 miles before getting called by work to fix something. So much for that.

6/7 (5.6mi, 45min, 8:02/mi) I was too busy at work to go for a run at lunch so I ran after work around home. I did the One Store loop plus a small detour up to Kopachuck and back. I wore my new Merrell Trail Gloves and was loving them until my left big toe started hurting half way through the run. The pain felt like it was being caused by the seam of the shoe pushing the base of my big toe. I stopped probably 4 times over the next mile to adjust and re-tie the shoe but nothing seemed to help. The joint was sore the rest of the day. I hope it's not the shoes.

6/8 (5.1mi, 39.5min, 7:44/mi) I ran down the hill next to Hwy 520 that goes into downtown Redmond. The plan was a short hill repeats workout. I jogged to the bottom of the hill and then alternated running up the hill for 1/4mi at a hard effort (5K equivalent) and then jogging easy back down for 1/10th of a mile of recovery. I kept it up until I got back to the top of the hill. It took 7 repeats to get back up. I cooled down with an easy jog around the block and back to work. It felt pretty good and I was holding 7:00 - 7:15 pace for the uphill repeats.

6/9 (5.6mi, 38min, 6:50/mi) I ran down to Grass Lawn park and took off my shoes for some barefoot running around the track. It's been a while since I've actually run barefoot. Now that I have the zero-drop Trail Gloves I haven't been bothering with barefoot running but I think I should get back into it now and then if I can be smart about it. I ran 2.7mi on the track at an increasing pace. My ego got the best of me and for the last mile on the track I tried to run a sub-6 min. mile. I was on a pretty good pace and only slowed down a little bit when my big toe and the side of my right foot started hurting. It wasn't that painful so I ran through it and finished the mile in 5:56 which was good, but as soon as I looked at my feet I saw that my efforts had earned me two quarter-sized blisters. On top of that joy was feeling the blisters as I ran back to the gym with my shoes on. My overall pace was pretty good for this run which surprised me. Not recognizing the blisters and shutting down was just stupid.

6/11 (1.2mi, 15min, 12.30/mi)  Sound to Narrows 2K race, run with my daughter. She's still interested in doing races and wants to run them when I ask, so I keep looking for short races for us to do together. I hope that it's something that she looks back on fondly in the future and that the idea of running won't seem so foreign when she's older. We left the house a little later than we should have to drive to the race in Tacoma. I knew where it was but as we were approaching we found the streets blocked. I quickly re-routed in search of another way to get close to the park where the race was being held. My efforts were in vain as all the streets near the park were closed and there was no street parking. I didn't know that the race was so popular. Using Google Maps on my phone I eventually found a nearby neighborhood and quickly parked the car about half a mile from the park. I grabbed my daughter and took off running. We had about 5 minutes before the race started and luckily I had parked uphill from the park. I ran down to the park carrying her and hurried across the park only to learn that the start line was on the other side of the park up a hill. I picked her up and continued running. As we arrived at the start line there were only a few officials standing around. Everyone in the 2K race had already started. The officials said that we weren't too late so off we went. When I run with my daughter I let her dictate the pace and walk when she walks, no point in pushing her to be competitive, I want her to like running. She took off at a nice steady pace (probably a 12 - 13 min. mile) and we trotted along for the first half mile before stopping to begin our run-walk strategy. We hit a downhill shortly which we jogged down and then we were faced with the last 6/10ths of a mile of the course which were mostly up a gentle incline. We stuck to the run-walk strategy until we got up near the park where the run finished. People were cheering us left and right which felt nice for me but I think she was in the red pushing to finish so she didn't acknowledge any of the cheers. We ran down the finishing straight and being that we were the last ones on the course got some attention from the race announcer as we crossed the line. Something like "Great job dad and daughter!" We started late and I didn't have my Garmin on so I don't know what our finishing time was. (nor do I care). After finishing, we walked over and partook in the freebies (fruit, juice, water) and then picked up her bib and T-shirt (we didn't have time to get them before the race started) along with her finishers ribbon. A quick play in the park and we were off to her swim lesson.

I didn't manage much running this week due to time off and blisters from my barefoot ego problem. I still managed a little over 25 miles which isn't terrible when I don't have any races lined up and I'm still trying to get through my Piriformis issues.