It's time to run...

Last weekend had more fun training involved! It started on Friday morning actually when I went for a nice run…again I’ll say it, in the morning! I miss running early and may have to figure a way to do it at least once a week. However, my training for the Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) officially began yesterday! Looking at my schedule it looks like the only day I can fit a morning run in would maybe be the Monday easy runs.

We had a bike ride planned for Saturday…however it was raining. So on the trainer my bike went and I put in a movie and set up a zone 2 workout for 1 hour and 39 minutes – the length of the movie. I should have added a 5 minute warm-up because it took me at least that long to get into zone. And of course I still need to work on staying in zone. I took two stretching breaks but all in all the ride went fairly well. The movie was one I’d seen before so it did not matter if I was not ‘watching’ the whole time. It had great music in it, too, which was nice.

Saturday afternoon I headed to ‘my’ house to do some more unpacking and such. I have had stuff packed from a year plus (between my mom’s apartment and junk of my dad’s and mine) that I never had any idea what I’d be looking at when I unwrapped things. It was fun to see some of the things and I still have more boxes to go. Then I can determine what if anything I am ready to get rid of – either via charity or the trash. Oh! I also headed to =PR= to get some new running shoes and a new Fuel Belt! This one fits so much better and has a couple of nicer features than my old one. And I got an extra pouch for it. NOW I’m ready for MCM training!

Sunday was a day of double, actually triple, fun. Shortly before 7AM I headed out for a 5.25 mile run. I went on a hilly-ish route that was pretty much a lollipop loop – 1-ish mile out, start the loop, 1-ish mile back. Until I move to ‘my’ house I will be doing this run at least once a week when the minimum distance is 5 miles. The hills will be good for building strong legs!

Once I returned from the run it was time to suit up! In my Splish! swim suit that is! The JCC Masters was holding an open water swim at Lake Barcroft. A teammate’s father lives on the lake and he had a pontoon boat that we went out a very short distance on when we jumped in the water and took off to one of the (I think they said there were five) beaches. There we regrouped and headed to another of the beaches. We regrouped again and went back to the first beach, then back to the second beach, then back to where we started when we jumped off the boat. We had the pontoon boat leading the way for the first swimmer and a canoe trailing the last swimmer. It was FUN! The only little problem…when I jumped off the boat I put my arms out. Well, I don’t think my left shoulder like that too much. I felt a tiny pull at that moment but my swim went just fine. Monday morning was another matter…more on that later.

After returning from the swim I uploaded my run then tracked my swim using MapMyRun. It did not seem to mind that I plotted the points in water on the map. It turned out I swim about 1.36 miles, though I’m not sure exactly how accurate that is. On the second leg of the swim I was wishing I’d put my Garmin in my cap like this guy does! Next time… So after a snack I changed for a visit to the pool. I am reading a new book and wanted to get a little color on my stomach. Through the SPF30 that is. I brought my fins, a cap, and goggles with me and after I got too warm did 500 meters swimming including some catch-up drills with the fins. My shoulder felt fine. Hmm…

I was only going to stay at the pool for an hour but between my book and my swim time passed quite quickly and I was there nearly two hours! I headed home to clean up and head out to the grocery store. We were going to ‘my’ house to cook and eat dinner that night. I had hoped to unpack some more boxes but kind of ran out of time. I will head over there later this week and spend more time there this weekend.

Now, back to my shoulder. Monday morning (yesterday) I woke up in pain. Ouch. My left shoulder was on fire – more my shoulder blade area. This was reminiscent of about early-April 2002. This is when it turns out (after a month or so of looking at different things) I had a herniated disk in my neck – C5, 6, or 7 – I can’t remember which. In April of 2003 I had cervical spinal fusion and all was well. However, the pain that I had in April and May of 2002 was very much like what I am going though right now. It woke me up twice last night. And it is burning. All down my left arm. And my left hand is tingling. And my shoulder is burning. Wait - I already said that. Now, it could just be I just irritated things in my shoulder area when I jumped out of the boat (I mentioned feeling ‘it’ when I jumped in) and I could have some swelling in there somewhere, which could be pinching a nerve. Or…by some fluke…I could have another herniated disk! Yikes!! So I am going to take a break from swimming today, even though I was up way early enough to get ready for it. I even packed my bag for it last night! I will reevaluate on Wednesday night for Thursday's practice. Luckily, I conveniently have a doctor's appointment tomorrow for a routine follow-up for my asthma and will discuss with him – especially if the pain is no better tomorrow, or (gulp) worse. I may beg for a referral to the doctor that did my neck surgery in 2003, just in case.

So, on a positive note, while I do have two triathlons left this season (a Sprint on 9/5 and an Oly on 9/12 – the Sprint on 10/3 is to be determined now…but I had not signed up yet anyway) my focus yesterday switched to the run as I prepare for the 35th MCM, which happens to be on Halloween this year! I ran it last time on Halloween, too, but did not do any kind of costume as many other runners did. This time I may do cat ears on my hat and put whiskers on my face. I think that would be all I could handle. We’ll see!

Happy and Healthy Training!!