week in review; july 21–27

Monday, July 21: 1.52 miles

Tuesday, July 22: 3.56 miles + 1 mile walk

Wednesday, July 23: 1.15 miles

Thursday, July 24: Esprit de She 10K (60th and Final Day of my running streak)

Friday, July 25: 15 minute walk

Saturday, July 26: rest day

Sunday, July 27: 3.02 miles

I made a very tough decision this week, which was to end my running streak. I didn't think it would be as difficult as it was. Originally, I had only planned on running the 40 that the Runner's World Challenge had set up, but it was such a great motivator, I kept it up for 60 days. I figured 60 was a great number, and that in order to prevent burnout and injury, it would be best to stop and have some rest days, especially since Dopey training will get more difficult as the weeks go on. I definitely don't want to hurt myself now and halt my training, which is more important than a streak. Still, not going for a run on Friday made me a little sad... just ask my husband haha. 

Anyway, I've been having a bit of arch pain this past week, which I think is plantar fasciitis. I ordered some heel seats today, which I've heard from a few people have helped alleviate most of the pain. On my run yesterday, I used KT Tape, which worked well on my right foot, but my left was still in pain (perhaps I applied it more accurately on my right than left). The website also has a lot of videos on how to stretch the area out, which I'll be giving a try.

On Thursday night, I ran the Esprit de She 10K, which was a lot of fun. The weather was PERFECT (which is a rare thing for me to say about weather at the end of July). I'll have a recap up at some point, but it was well organized and a great female-based race.

Due to a very late night Thursday (I didn't get home till after midnight), the rest of my week/end was a bit lazy, as I was exhausted and dealing with arch pains. Saturday I was out of the house the entire day and all night, standing for quite a few hours (which I'm sure didn't help my arches), but other than that there wasn't any type of exercising.

Even with Friday and Saturday being lazy/rest days, I did get all of my training runs in, though I cut the run short by 10 minutes Sunday due to my arch pains. The plan was for 2-45 minute runs and a 5.5 mile long run on the weekend. Since I had the 10K Thursday, I switched the Saturday run to Thursday, and the original Thursday to Sunday. The runs went well, and I felt really good during the 10K (minus a small bit of knee pangs).

After Sunday's run, my husband and I decided to go out for some hair of the dog ;) Not to say we were hungover, but it was a nice afternoon, and we wanted to be out of the house, despite the number of chores we were supposed get done. Sometimes, it's more important to spend time together when the chance is there. We also watched 'The Shining' with Jack Nicholson. Anyone ever see this? I was expecting to be horrified and have nightmares, as I had heard it was quite the scary movie, but I mostly just laughed or rolled my eyes, annoyed with some of the acting/story line. We had both just read the book, and found the movie disappointing. While I thoroughly enjoyed Nicholson's performance (he's awesome), that's about all I enjoyed. We're going to watch the miniseries version and see if it's any better (which I am hoping it is, since it was written by Stephen King himself, it may be more accurate to the book, which I found more thrilling than the movie). I know it can be hard to depict certain things in tv/movies, but I just couldn't get on board with the Stanley Kubrick adaptation. Oh well.

Scenes from the week.

I was hoping to get in some strength training this week, but I didn't find the time or energy, but I WILL get two days in this week. I have my first Pure Barre class this week as well, and I am going to try a spin class on Thursday if I can get there on time. Quite the week planned, and this weekend I have a 3-day pass to Lollapalooza. That will certainly include a LOT of walking, as it's a mile from the north end to the south end, and I imagine I'll be doing a lot of running back and forth in order to catch the bands I want to see at the various stages.

It's weird to have two weekends in a row without races, but after the past two weeks having two weekday races and then back-to-back at Rock 'n' Roll the other weekend, it's a nice change of pace, especially since I'm so busy with other things.

What's on your calendar for this week/end? Do you ever have arch pains? What do you do to help alleviate the pain?