A Little Pain, Some Gain

After a week of rain and running indoors at the gym, I hit the trails today. It was surprisingly dry out there under the tree cover. The deer were out and about, ran into four, and ran with two for quite some time until they found a place to hop the fence.

I plugged all my 2024 races into Garmin Connect and am having the watch build my training plan day by day. Last night, I went to bed with a threshold run scheduled, had a bad night's sleep, and the watch changed it to be a 54-minute base run with a goal heart rate of 135. Good call, little Garmin watch.

It was cool and still in the woods, which helped keep my heart rate down. My legs felt strong, and my feet were about average. I experienced a little pain in my right heel and my left post-tib. I experienced some pain in the cuboid bones of each foot. I hope this is due to the inflammation from doing my foot exercises earlier today.

This was my first training day for my A Race, a half marathon in November. The goal for November’s race is to shave one minute and 52 seconds off my last half for a 1:35.

This half, plus the various 5k and 10k races I’ll do this year, will prepare me to try for a Boston Qualifier (3:20 marathon) mid-2025 or early 2026. Here’s to staying healthy and building strong!