Crunch Time

Training over the last couple weeks hasn't exactly gone as planned. I ended up getting a couple 7 mile runs in without my toe injury coming back in full force, which was a heartening sign. I tried to run with short strides and a high cadence. I also ran with holes cut in my insoles around the large big toe joint on the bottom of my foot to take pressure off of it. It seems to have worked. Just when I was feeling like I might be able to get on course to get a few long runs in before the marathon, I got sick. I just woke up one day and had a mild headache, that turned into a pounding headache the next day. I attribuited it to allergies, but the next day I had a fever that continued for almost a week. The fever has finally disappeared in the last couple days and I feel pretty much normal, but I missed a good week of activity of any kind. I'm also not sure if I'm 100% in the health department yet, since flu/colds which I'm assuming this is tend to linger for a while. At any rate, I hope to start get some workouts in this weekend, and maybe try a half or longer next weekend. There's only 3 weeks left before the race, so I don't have much time to work up to it now. It seems like the race will be a huge struggle this time around, but for some reason, I'm feeling optimistic.

In other news I received my Vibram Five Finger shoes in the mail last week, and they seem pretty fun, although I haven't gotten to use them much yet. I also read the book "Born to Run," last weekend, It was definitely worth the read. Its nice to read a running book where the writer isn't a super runner that makes you feel like a total newbie--he might be surrounded by super runners half the time, but he writes from the perspective of an average Joe runner. I liked it a lot better than the other running books I've read: "Ultramarathonman," and "Once a Runner."