Update (It's A Big One!)

So it’s been more than a month since my last blog post, and you all, my loyal, doting fans, are probably wondering how my training’s been going. And I’m sorry to disappoint, but simply put, it hasn’t. I’m on my 6^th (!!) week of no running whatsoever, easily the longest I’ve ever gone since I’ve picked up running.

Motivated after a great race up in Yankee Springs, where I ran my first ever 1^st overall win, I jumped headfirst back into training. Despite not having any races within the next 2 months, I was spurred on by my recent success and ran 78 miles the week after the Yankee Springs Trail Marathon, the most mileage I’d logged in who knows how long. This included a 15-miler where I broke my official 13.1 PR, and 19-mile long run, followed by hill repeats, a la Ryan Hall. And in retrospect: I’m an idiot.

I decided to rest the day after that 19-miler, feeling pretty beat up the morning after. The day after that though, I struggled to complete an easy 40-minute run. The day after that was 30 minutes, and the day after that, I made it 15 minutes into a hill workout before calling it quits. Not only did I feel like butt, but my heel/arch had been acting up, swollen and painful to the touch, let alone running on it.

That’s when I got scared. I’d heard of plantar fasciitis, but never thought it could happen to me, a sprightly 20-something with healthy arches and an efficient gait. But after researching some of the symptoms, it hit me. Pain in the heel, radiating up to the arch? Check. Sore and tight calf muscles? Check. Increase in mileage and hill running? Check. Soreness upon waking? Check, and something that I’d been noticing for more than a month now. I had attributed it to lots of running / minimal shoes, but now that I’d thought about it, it made perfect sense.

So I quickly Googled the known treatments for plantar fasciitis, and found the number one form of treatment: not running. Woof. Fortunately, my training buddy Jordan had just returned to Glencoe with his own running injury, so we ramped up the biking hours together. While biking in no way compares to running, I’ve found that it can satisfy that itch that running provides, although requiring significantly more time. Averaging 12-14 hours per week on the bike this last month, I’ve discovered some new bike paths, experimented with some brutal workouts, and can definitely say that I’m in the best biking shape of my life. Now, whether any of that will translate to running potential, we’ll have to wait and see.

Also of note: while I’ve loved my time spent working at Running Away Multisport (and the swag that comes with it), a pretty life-changing opportunity came up that I couldn’t pass up. I’ll be leaving Glencoe, IL on July 29^th for Colorado Springs, CO to pursue a career as a high school French teacher. Living in Colorado has always been a dream of mine (at least, since spending a summer training in Boulder back in 2010), and to have the opportunity to live there while teaching French is a dream come true.

I’m hoping to start running again once I get out there, obviously easing back into training slowly (altitude should help keep that in check). Unfortunately, this also means that my August/September/October races back in Illinois are now going to be DNSs, but I should hopefully be able to find some much more interesting races out West!