The week started a little, on shall we say a sour note. My right foot where the Tailor’s Bunionette is acted a bit wonky on Sunday and wasn’t quite where I wanted it to be on Monday, so I did not run. Nothing serious, but I wanted to make sure that it was fine and the more I thought about it, it was time to take a rest week and not worry about mileage at all.

I ended up taking off Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday as well.

Let’s just say that I did a bunch of reflecting and looking at my running log and figured out that I had been overdoing it by quite a bit. When I looked at my “leg miles” (combination walking and running), I was doing waaaayyyy too many miles for what I am attempting to accomplish. You can read about it here.

After looking at all that mileage I was doing, the results of that post are making me re-think and looking at a few things to see if I can reduce my overall mileage to a more reasonable amount – at least until the old body adapts to my summer routines.

So it has been a successful week of relaxing, taking some time off running – to the point that by Thursday, I was wanting to go for that run! It is amazing what taking just four days off of running will do for your body and brain.

I am starting to pay more attention to the number of steps that I do in the course of a day, they give me an idea of my activity level more than tracking running and walking miles. It seems that I do a lot more stuff on my feet during the day now that it is summer (mowing, weed wacking, clearing brush, etc.) – especially since we are still not going much of anywhere yet.

Running Shoes

I primarily have been running in my New Balance Beacon v1s and enjoying them quite a bit. They are not the complete answer, but I can run comfortably in them for the distances I am running right now, but still need a long/recovery run type of shoe to rotate in with them.

Actually, I run my faster paced stuff better in them than I do in either the 1400 v6s or Razor 3s. I like the extra cushion and seem to be able to maintain my form in them more easily. I never expected that.

Razor 3 – Since whatever happened to my right foot last week, the Razor 3s feel completely different on that foot. It is like the right toe is being pushed into the toe beside it more than they were before, which is distracting and gets to being uncomfortable just walking in the shoe, so I have not attempted to run in them. I have put them out in the back of the garage for a while to see if the foot calms down or if the angle of the forefoot is just a little too much in the size 8.0s. If so I have a pair of 8.5s sitting in the closet to check out.

New Balance Propel – As a change of pace I took the Propels out of the back of the garage to see how they did. I put them back there because they were bothering my ankles and wanted to give them another chance. From the start of my run I could feel the rubbing on my lower right ankle and by the time I got in 4.0 miles there was the start of a bad blister. Shoes that blister are a no go, so they will disappear the next time we do a give-away run.

New Balance 890v7 – I put them away last year due to the weave and when I wore them the other day as walking shoes, they were so firm that they hurt my feet while walking in them. I complained about them being too firm last summer and they haven’t changed any, so they will go away too.

Thinning out the herd a bit more.

The reality is that

My right foot is doing fine as evidence by the number of steps taken this week and I am doing a bit more of the prehab/rehab stuff that I should have been doing right along. So that is good news.

Also I was wandering around YouTube and came across a video on dealing with hamstring issues and have been doing it for a few days. It is uncomfortable – sitting on a lacrosse ball and then attempting to extend my leg. When I get the ball on a certain section of my upper hamstring, I can feel it pulling and then extending the leg becomes “interesting”.

Doing this seems to be helping with the hamstring issues that I have had for a long time. Only time will tell if it is a part of the solution.

A good week.