With my mind set on attempting a 10K this morning in Alpharetta, GA, I was stretching in my blowup bed when suddenly, SNAP SNAP SNAP!, I pinched a nerve in my neck!
I had flashbacks to the night I was petsitting at an apartment when SNAP! happened in the middle of the night, almost completely incapacitating me in bed next to a pit bull. Fortunately, today’s pinched nerve was not nearly as bad because I could move. I believe this nerve was the late result of carrying a heavy bag on my shoulder in the airport (awkwardly, at that), coupled with the strange support an air mattress provides. Oh yeah, and that stretch I did.
I popped a couple ibuprofen and put a cold pack on my neck and rested on it for about 20 minutes. Then, I resolved to head out. Tricked that it was cool out, I got outside and it most definitely was not. It was a silent heat comparable to yesterday. After I finished what turned out to be 6.35 miles, I found out the heat index was 91. Boy did it feel like that. The actual temperature was 84 degrees with about 74% humidity. Plus little shade and loooooong hills. Here are the details from this morning’s run:
The most notable feature of today’s run was that I stopped around the mile 4 marker to retie my shoes. I was getting really uncomfortable tingling sensations in my feet, presumably from having tied them too tightly. (As my brother explained, the Wave Precision 11 design features fewer overlays, meaning fewer things stitched to the outside to block in your foot. With a freer foot, I may have overcompensated in my tying. Of note, my brother seemed to have tingling in his feet in the same shoe yesterday, so maybe there’s something to tying too tightly.)
Also of note was that my lower legs were sore. This soreness was more prominent in the first 1-2 miles. It was more in my left ankle area than my lower right leg. To deal with it, instead of thinking of it as a possible injury to be easy on, I used marathon logic and tried to distract myself from the pain. It seemed to work. It’s tough to say if ibuprofen also had something to do with the maintenance because of its anti-inflammatory properties.
As for time, I did 6.35 miles in 54:19. Doing 8:33s is not fast, but one must consider the heat, the intense sun, as well as the extended hills. If you look on the elevation graphs after clicking View Details above, I climbed (I think) about 150 feet over the course of a mile on the way back, not to mention some of the other climbs I had. It would be a great place to train for hills. Up that big hill, my pace dropped to more than 10:00s which surprised me a bit. Once I mounted the hill, I was doing sub-10:00s but I thought I was doing faster than the 9:30s or so I was seeing on my Garmin.
On my way back, I added a little intersection (rather than backtracking over the parking lot shortcut we used yesterday) in order to do at least a 10K. It worked. When I finished, I was relieved to have gotten in this run in this heat. I hope today’s training in difficult conditions shows up in my training this week in NYC.