Listening

I'm trying to be slightly less of a jerk to my body.

With mixed results, as you shall see.

With Sunburn Solstice approaching like a freight train, it's finally time to take things down from peak mileage levels into a taper - while it's not actually my goal race for the year, it seems reasonable to try to rest my worn-out carcass a bit before trying to drag it 'round a 4km loop for more than 15 hours.

So, of course I took my rest day on Friday to relax..

By doing a full-body workout I've only done one other time this year.

I knew it would be a bad idea to get my paddleboard out, as we'd have to be up super early on Saturday...but the evening was so warm and lovely, I simply couldn't help myself. Tanker was happy to do some fishing on Puslinch Lake while I paddled, and I was filled with serene bliss at being out on the water again.

I did take a few minutes to just sit and relax, breathing in the calm of a perfect evening.

It as sunset when we got home, though, and much later than that before we finally rolled into bed. Up just after 6am, we hit the market (in the CAR!) and then jammed back home so I could send Tanker off to help the Happy Trails Racing team set up the full-service aid station at Conquer the Canuck before the race started at 8am.

Me? I hung back to make up a couple of breakfast bagels, which I then loaded into a pack...and then ran down to Shade's Mills Conservation Area to join in the fun.

It sounded good on paper.

I shouldn't have been surprised when my legs felt like crap - I'd had just over 6 hours of sleep (which is my usual amount during the week, but I do my best to get 8hrs on Friday & Saturday nights), and I knew one day of sort-of-rest wouldn't be enough to unwind the fatigue and soreness from almost 178km in the 13 days from Sulphur Springs to my lovely evening paddle. At the same time, I really could have done without the sun being quite so hot at 9am, the lack of shade subjecting me to its full blast, and the strong headwind I faced for most of the run down.

Most confoundingly on the ~3.5km span of Bishop Street from King to Franklin, which is almost all uphill.

I finally plodded my way down by around 10am, happy to finally find some shade along the park driveway...not to mention the thermos full of coffee Tanker had brought down with him.

Shade and caffeine are two of my favourite things.

From then until around 6pm, I tried to help as many people as I could achieve their goals at Conquer the Canuck. Filling bottles, chopping fruit, and offering up encouragement to the runners striving in the 8.33k (though most of those were finished by the time I arrived), 25k, 50k and 12-hour races - I was on my feet constantly, with only a few moments of down time here and there. I dodged out for half an hour or so in the evening to go pick up freshii for dinner for Tank and I, then headed out around 6:45pm to do a sweep lap of the course to see if there was any rubbish that needed picking up.

And just to enjoy the beauty of the trails.

That resulted in a grocery bag full of trash, and a total of almost 19km of running for me for the day. Once the 12-hour ended at 8pm, we scarfed our dinner, then headed over to the grocery store to get that chore out of the way. It was nearly 10pm by the time we got home, and I was absolutely shagged out. 

Sunday morning I kicked Tanker out of bed at 6:30am, and he got on his motorcycle to ride down to Shade's Mills for day 2 of volunteering - just the marathon event. I greedily tried to get back to sleep for a bit, but utterly failed to do so.

Though I did get to snuggle with these monsters, who graciously allowed me -just- enough space in bed.

I finally rolled out a little after 7am, made up a thermos of coffee and a couple of breakfast sandwiches, then got on my own bike and rolled on down.

Of course it was a cooler, overcast morning when I wasn't trying to run.

It was all about the runners again until around 1:30pm, when there were only a couple left on course. Then I got changed and headed out for another cleanup lap, happily coming back with much less trash this time!

But enjoying the trails just as much.

It was significantly hotter and more humid than the day before, and I suffered pretty badly even at the easy pace I was moving. I had originally thought I might try to get 2 laps in, but as fatigued and sore as I was, I only did one...well, plus the extra bit down to the beach and back for 9k. 

Let me tell you - I was completely spent after we got home. I was so happy we'd done our grocery shopping the day before, and I could just sit on the couch for awhile. This "taper" thing so far? Working about as well as taking 4 days off for a canoe trip. I had just enough energy left to take the kitties out for a sniff around the backyard..

Almost as lazy as I was.

I was dragging pretty badly at work on Monday and almost decided to nix my lunch run, but figured that's no way to behave, so went out anyway. It actually went better than expected, other than getting rained on...but afterward, my left foot was sore in a strange, new way. There'd been no incident on the run, but now it hurt to dorsiflex my foot or pull my toes up, and the pain was really odd; not like a sore muscle or bruise, but a weird feeling of weakness. Tendon? Nerve? I didn't know, but I hoped it would go away.

Tuesday morning it was still there. So, what did I do?

I'll give you 3 guesses.

It didn't hurt while running, or really at any time I had weight on the foot. It didn't seem to get worse, either, and seemed to have something to do with my 4th metatarsal. I could feel some connection to my 4th toe when I'd move it. I hoped that a couple of days of shorter mileage (just 6k-ish Monday & Tuesday) would sort it out.

It did not. It was as bad as ever on Wednesday morning, and something was sore at the outside of my knee - I wondered if I'd popped the fibula out of position, or knocked something else out of alignment. So, as I walked back to my office after seeing Tanker on his lunch break Wednesday afternoon, I popped into my chiropractor's office along the way to see if I could get an appointment for Monday or something. To my surprise, the receptionist said I could be seen right away! My chiro adjusted both of my feet: it was still feeling like I'd popped something out of place in my right foot on our Victoria Day trip, and he found my 1st metatarsal lifted a bit. He also found my left fibula out of place and adjusted it, plus did an adjustment on my back as he suspected my S1 was causing at least some of the trouble with my cranky left hamstrings. I wandered out 20mins later with high hopes, though the left foot didn't seem to have let up its grouchiness.

Eeeh, daisies.

Unfortunately, when I ran that evening (which was maybe not my best bet), my right foot actually felt somewhat worse and there seemed to be no change at all in my left foot.

A moment's peace in Cooksville Creek on Wednesday evening

So, I finally tried to get a little smarter. Hoping that this might just be a bit of extensor tendinitis brought on my tight calves, I resolved not to run yesterday. Having only 9 days to sort myself out before Sunburn Solstice, I gagged the voice in my head telling me I wouldn't be running Friday anyway, and took. A day. Off.

Well, not completely. I couldn't quite resign myself to just sitting on the couch, so I hit the pool for my first swim in almost 2 months.

Perhaps the universe decided to reward me for FINALLY GETTING A DAMN CLUE, because I awoke this morning with no pain in my left foot. Nothing. There's still some sensation there of stiffness in the 3rd and 4th toes, but I'm almost positive it's due to tight calves now - while I might have been able to resolve it without the extra day off, I'm actually perversely proud of myself for making the call not to run yesterday. 

Fionn the Fuzzy approves!

With any luck, these two days off will help the rest of the general fatigue and soreness resolve - while I have a run down to the market planned for tomorrow morning and a celebration run on Sunday, everything from here on out needs to be focused on getting me to the start line for 5:39am (blaaaaarrgh..) next Saturday as healthy as possible.

I'm even planning on taking TWO days off running next week. Mon dieu!

Perhaps I'm getting a little smarter about listening to my body? 

Nah, seems unlikely. Maybe I'll get my paddleboard out tomorrow..