Intruder

C managed to lure me over to a marathon tapering seminar that her running club hosted. She successfully got me out of the door with the ever-enticing promise of free pizza.

This attendance-driving strategy harkens back to random lectures during college:
Lecture on Market Strategies for Widgets in Southern Missouri -- wow that sounds boring.
Lecture on Market Strategies for Widgets in Southern Missouri (Free Pizza and Refreshments Provided) -- AMAZING! Let me call all of my friends!

I agreed to go and we drove over to the event. Upon arrival, I immediately felt like an intruder.

Here were running folk for all to see: sweaty from after-work runs, wearing Saucony or Brooks clothing and undoubtedly talking about running.

And there I was, nervous-eating a heap of free pizza and downplaying the fact that I also "run." But I'm not going to brag about my 12-mile week while the old lady sitting next to me is doing an 8-mile taper run.

In a lot of ways, I think that running is a lonely sport but I can't help but compare myself to these marathoners. And, truly, there's no comparison at this point.

Here Come The Weekdays

I didn't go on one run this weekend.

On Fridays, I work from about noon to about 9 PM. The before work run fell apart because I wanted to get as much sleep as possible. I'm too burnt out after work to even contemplate doing anything physical so I scratched that day.

I went to Notre Dame on Saturday. My girlfriend's dad got football tickets on short notice and I was invited to go. I love going to Notre Dame games so I couldn't pass it up. But unfortunately, it's a full day affair. I left my house at 7:00 AM and returned at about 10:30 PM. Besides a halftime bathroom break at the stadium, I did not run this day.

I am currently going to school full-time at the local community college. So I hit the books all day today. I could've slipped a run in but because of my academic neuroticism and laziness, I opted to play NCAA Football on the 360 during study breaks instead of going for a run.

I'm slacking on the running front. Gotta get after it this week.

Gains

I finally feel like I'm starting to get physical and mental running gains.

Since the 5K, all of my runs have been at a faster pace than my latest race pace -- with one exception -- so I'm very happy with myself.

And I've also been able to steadily increase my mileage. I'm not longer wallowing around 1 or 1.5 mile runs. I'm up to 2.5 miles per run at a minimum. Two miles is starting to become cake, baby yeah!

Who knew after two months, I'd be in okay regular-person shape? I guess if you're at the very bottom, there's nowhere to go but up. Let's keep this going!

Plantar Nerve Pain

I've been getting a bit of plantar nerve pain on both feet lately. I quickly blamed it on my "worn-out" shoes because, hey, who among us wouldn't want an excuse to buy a fresh, new pair of kicks? (I've been eyeing those new Saucony Guide 3's for a while now...)

But alas, during my run today, it occurred to me that the nerve pain and muscle tightness might be due to excessive heel striking. So, although it was a quick run, I kept consciously trying to shorten my stride and work on keeping my knees above my feet on each step.

I'll need to test this hypothesis more to make sure that my overstriding's the real problem. In any case, the nerve pain went away. And even though I felt like my increased stride turnover was slowing me down, I still ran the 2.5 miles at a decent 7:41 pace. Rejoice!

Heard On the Run

While passing a mother and child, hanging around in their backyard:

The kid yells out, half-excited and half-terrified, "What is that?"

"It's nothing; don't worry about it," his mother responds with trepidation.

"Is it a dead squirrel?"

"It's... a dead stuffed squirrel. Don't touch it, sweetie."