Arrrgh
Ran a new route this morning. Started near my office at Powell and Jefferson, out past Aquatic Park, up the hill from the Municipal Pier into Fort Mason, down past the Marina Safeway and out the Marina Green to the entrance to Chrissy Field and back. It’s a beautiful day and running with Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge to look at is not a bad thing.
However, today was a miserable run. I don’t entirely know why. I was a “good boy” and kept my heartrate down to 155, except when I was going uphill when I let it go up as high as 165. For some of the run I was actually as low as 145, but for the most part I was around 155. My 4.4 mile run this morning took me 51:35 and felt like one of my most grueling runs. I think I’ve hurt my foot again (pain in the bone behind my big toe on my left foot) and I’m really discouraged.
I think that going so slowly is hurting me, but that sort of flies in the face of common sense. But it seems as though when I run a little faster, I can keep a smoother pace and let my feet fluidly push me along. If I run this slowly it seems like I’m just smashing my feet against the pavement and that all my energy is going to bludgeoning the ground. Perhaps better put, if I run faster my feet contact the pavement with a more diagonal (forward plus up-and down) force and less of a vertical (more up and down and less forward) impact. This theory is borne out by the frequency at which my iPod skips: the farther outside my “correct” heartrate zone I go, the more skips and resets I get.
[EDIT: I meant the farther outside my “correct” heartrate zone I go, the FEWER skips and resets I get.]
And don’t get me started on the fact that I paid a lot of money for an MP3 player that skips if it’s jostled too much.
Anyway, I think I’ll rest a couple of days and try running the same route faster and see if it feels better. Runs like this are downright discouraging though. If I hadn’t had some really enjoyable runs relatively recently I might give up on running altogether after a morning like this.
