bluekat's Journeys

Saturday: 20 miles on Saturday. A quick, easy ride with the club around Peterson's Butte. Came home early for Civil War. Sunday: 2 mile hike at McDowell Creek Monday: 2.3 mile run in Merrills pace gloves. Calves didn't start to bother me until a couple blocks from home. Things are looking up. Used the new headphones with the MP3. I like them, they do the job well enough. That's all I ask.

I haven't been blogging much lately. Just a little break, but I wanted to record tonight's run/walk. Rain, well storms really have been keeping us off the road/trail/what have you. A lame excuse I know, but you know how it is...The time of year that if you wait 5 minutes the weather will change. It's easy to say "tomorrow" would be better. Oh well. Good things are happening too. Daylight's saving time has started-Yahoo! Temps are a little warmer, even though it's still very wet, but that's Oregon. Rod and Raylene have come up with a silly notion to do an unofficial half-marathon in May. They promised to include a 5k and 10k option. Ron is even excited about this. Tonight we went to Cheadle lake for a run/walk. Ron rode the trainer tonight, so he walked with Cookie (and ran a little). I ran out and back. I took a few short breaks on the way out, but ran the whole length back. My first long run! Okay, quit laughing it was LONG TO ME. I wore the Merrills ...

I went for a short run this evening with the Merrells: Walker to 7th, to the high school track for 2 laps, J street and then home along 2nd street. My calves weren't quite recovered from Saturday, but over all it felt good to run. I alternated running and walking about a 2/3 (run), 1/3 (walk). Eventually my calves tightened up, and the balls of my foot (left foot mostly), started to feel a little achy. I walked for a bit, then ran a little more one last time. Feet and legs seemed to recover and enjoyed the short run, so I'm hopeful that I just need to build strength and endurance.

Happy feet?  Went for a short run with the sketchers today. They're the best option I have of a shoe with less padding, short of barefoot running or using aqua socks. The sketchers are purely a fashion shoe. while it has lttle padding compared to a running shoe, it still had a heel that wanted to get in the way. Running shoes make it hard to land on my forefoot. Flat foot is about as good as it gets, and it's tiring to try and run that way. After a while I find myself clomping along, landing on my heel. Sketchers I ran my usual "I think I'll start running again" workout, about a 50/50 mix of jogging and walking. Run a few steps, walk a few steps, repeat until home. Below is what I noticed. My quads don't  feel too bad. I didn't feel the need to stretch them when I got home (I did stretch). They simply didn't feel like they'd worked out. Where usually it's the quads that are screaming for a stretch after a run, today it was the calves. They wer...