Week in the Rearview Mirror: April 22 - April 28, 2012

This was a pretty good week of running overall. I did have some pain issues with the top of my left ankle where it attaches to the foot on Wednesday. It would grow increasingly painful over the course of 5 or 6 strides, then ease off back to a painless state in 3 or 4 strides. During Wednesday's run, that occurred like clockwork every mile. I took Thursday off, and on Friday it only happened twice on the run. I also did a half-marathon on Sunday where it only happened once. I believe that the tendon there was being aggravated by the shoe lacing constricting it somewhat (although who knows why it is just now happening after all these months of running). I've adjusted that lacing, and it seems to be getting better each day.

Personally, I just think its my body messing with me. Its sort of a sick game, where it causes an injury to occur in an area that has been previously unscathed, then when that resolves it moves on to yet another area. Such fun.

I also topped off the month of April with a lifetime personal best, with my highest monthly training mileage finishing out at 129.6 miles. Not a great deal by the standards of many, but it is significantly higher than my previous best ever (116.6 miles, more than 25 years ago, right before I was hit by the car), and my personal best since my comeback from being overweight and out of shape (114.08 miles in February). I attribute this largely to just being healthy and not having any long runs or hard efforts that required down days for recuperation. In fact, all of my April runs were less than 14 miles, so it was mainly just having the opportunity to be more consistent. At any rate, it is nice to be able to just run and enjoy it more regularly.

 Here is what last week looked like...

Day	Activity	Distance (in miles)	Avg. Heart Rate	Max Heart Rate
Sunday	Cycling	21.16	122	143
	Running	3.21	138	169
Monday	Running	6.28	144	163
	Walking	2.30	---	---
Tuesday	Running	6.21	153	224
Wednesday	Running	6.12	157	197
Thursday	Rest Day	----	---	---
Friday	Running	6.64	145	185
Saturday	Rest Day	----	---	---

These are my time and distance totals for the week:

Activity	Time Total	Distance Total (in miles)
Running	4:09:42	28.46
Walking	0:34:15	2.30
Cycling	1:22:17	21.16
--------------	--------------	--------------
Overall Total	6:06:14	51.92

I didn't do a great deal of cross-training during this week. I had one day of pushups where I did 25 sets of 10 with a 45 second rest interval, and two days of pullups [one where I did 6 sets of 10 with a 5 minute rest interval, and one where I did 3 sets of 10 with a 3 minute rest interval].

Other than that, it was sort of a "cross training down week" for me, so I'll need to get back on the wagon next week. The 100x challenge this month is 400 dips, so that will add some variety into the mix. Perhaps I can alternate pushup days with dip days.

Happy Running Everyone !!!