11 months and counting

Last Wednesday marked 11 months since I missed a day of running, the longest streak I have put together for sometime. There has not been a day when I did not want to go out and had to talk myself into it. When I had my back problem in late October it was difficult to get out there and run, but I wanted to get out there and do it.
My plan is to keep update this blog a bit more often.

Stubbed toe

I got back from Bosnia early this morning and in my haste to get out and run I stubbed my toe on the bottom of a cabinet while only wearing socks. You know how it really hurts for a few seconds and then feels better, well it was still a little sore when I went out for my run, but got better as I went on. However when I took my sock off to go for a shower the tip of the middle toe on my left foot was purple, but not swollen. Already this morning ( after 24 hours ) it is much better and I do not anticipate any major problems running. By the way my streak is at 320 days and will hit 11 months in a couple of weeks time.

300

I have been feeling a few flu like symptoms the last few days and this morning was no exception. Mainly my head felt a little cloudy, but when I went out for my run I felt a spring in my step. This was actually my 300th straight day of running and a few days away from 10 months without missing a day. This is the longest streak I have put together for a few years.

Update

Well I went to Belgrade for the 12 hour race. On the way there I developed a cold, which just before the race start included a very runny nose. There no idea of me not running so I began the run at midnight.For the first few hours I felt good though my nose was running a lot and I was also sweating a lot, then I went through a period where my energy was quite low, but I was able to keep moving.During this time I wondered if I would achieve any decent mileage, but told myself to just make it to sunrise. I made it to sunrise and things improved, I ended up with 42 miles ( 68 Km ), which I was quite happy with and also finished 3rd in my age group. In the past when I am in decent shape I can run around 50 miles ( 80 Km ), well at this age anyway.

Saturday run

This morning a few of us went out to the track and I, along with another runner are planning to go to Belgrade next week for a 12 hour race. So this was a chance to kind of see where we are. I ran over to the track about 2 km and then did 27 laps which gave me another 10.8 km. I tried to keep a pretty even pace and did the run in 75 minutes. I had some minor twinges which came and went away and in general was happy with the 13 km for the morning. The temperature was quite nice and cool to start getting a little warm near the end.

Experience

My meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy would have been 80 years old yesterday. Among the many thing he taught me was that life is about experience and from this experience we learn to move forward in our lives. This morning when I went out to run I had a quite strong pain in my left hip and a couple of times it wanted to spasm. I started by walking about 50 meters and then try to jog, but it didn't want to let me. ordinarily my mind would have said don't run go home and rest the problem. I have been running multiday races for about 25 years now and have learned a few things. So I continued to walk and focus on relaxing the muscles in my hip area. After a few more minutes I tried again to jog. This time the pain had subsided and I could run, by the time my run was finished I was running comfortably. Of course if the pain had increased that would have been a different matter, but experience has taught me to not give up after just a few steps.

A little help

For the last year or so I have been experiencing some lower back tightness from time to time. It does not really bother me when I run so I kept putting off doing something about it. As is often the case I finally got the inspiration to do something and decided to add what I call box situps after my run. This is a variation of an Egoscue situp. Right now I do just 20 after my run each day and after only 2 days things have improved.Also my digestion seemed to have improved and also my energy levels. Go figure!