duh feet

yeah..so, i admited defeat (duh feet) after my last run and that i had actually injured myself and would need to take some time off to heal. dagnabbit. i've stayed home catching up on boring housework all week, resting my painful, probably, achilles tendonitis. housework = yuck

today i'm meeting friends to go walking for a few hours down by the river in bern. i'm looking forward to it, and if i can walk painfree, then i will recommence my running program next week. i'll probably start back a week or two on the program and work my way back up again.

i bought another pair of shoes yesterday. i stopped in a swiss sporting goods store and had someone help me pick out a pair of shoes to use on asphalt. (last week i ran on asphalt for 2 miles with my trail shoes. hmmm). the guy also said these shoes would be ok to use in the "grunewald" as well. i did the entire transaction in my best german (thanks to an intensive class i took last summer!) my german is no so good, but i actually understand most of what people say to me, especially if they speak standard german and not the berner-swiss version (an entirely different thing all together!). 119 swiss francs later, i have another pair of shoes. i'm going to try them out today!

by the way - we had snow this past week and the temps have dropped. hmmm. snow is not really my thing.

later same day: i met up with my friends and walked one hour with them at about a 5.5 mph pace. they were "nordic walking" and i was just walking. man! using those poles can really increase your speed! those girls took off and left me in the dust the last .25 mile. whew! i'm i impressed. i'm going to try the "nordic walking poles" tomorrow.

after the walk i did 2 miles on the treadmill, easy. took me 19.30 minutes. felt ok. only had the usual tenderness in my right heal/achilles area. the bad pain i'd given myself last weekend is all gone. super!

couldn't find my groove

did my workout today. it's in the upper 30s outside, breezy, dark. not too cold. definitely NOT snowing. there wasn't any ice out so the trails were easy to handle today. not especially muddy either. but...i just couldn't get into the groove. you know the one? when you start moving and everything is working right, you feel great, you get those happiness-bubbles, you feel like you could run all day? well, i didn't get that today.

what i got today was tight calves, achy ankles, heavy feeling legs. i felt like i was not in my own body- but the body of an old lady. ack! that can't be me! can it? dammit.

but i did my little program. this week - the 4th week of the couch-5k program: 5 minute walking warm up, 3 min. run, 90 sec walk, 5 minute run, 3 min. walk, 5 minute run, 2.5 minute walk cooldown. i made an effort to stay on flat dirt trails today, even if it meant i repeated back over the same terrain several times. if i came to a hill, i gave myself permission to walk up it. i wanted to take it easy on the old legs. cardiovascularly, i had an easy time. that was heartening. but the legs were telling me no, no, no!

oh well! today wasn't a good running day. but i'm psyched! that means that a really good one is in the future.