A post wherein I whine a lot

So I haven't posted in over a week. Sue me. :)

Truth be told, I don't have much to say. I am at the point in training where the mileage is increasing, and combined with brutal August temperatures and humidity, I am pretty miserable. I wonder daily why I'm doing this to myself.

Also, I briefly injured myself over the weekend. I made the classic mistake of switching shoes mid-training. I bought a pair of Brooks Green Silence on a killer deal - marked down to $49 and I had like $21 reward dollars, so they were uber cheap. I was really excited about how they fit and felt, so much so that I laced them up the day after I bought them and took them out for 5 miles of speedwork. Friends, don't make the dumb mistakes that I do. These shoes are moderately minimal, with an 8mm heel to toe drop. The shoes I do most of my training in, the New Balance 890 and the Nike Pegasus, both have a 12mm drop (although I swear the New Balance shoes feel lower than that).

So cute. So dangerous.

I loved how light they were, and how the upper fit my bony, thin, narrow foot so well. I declared the run a huge success and packed them in my suitcase to head to an out-of-town wedding. Saturday morning I woke up in VA with a slight pain in my right foot, specifcially on the outside edge of my foot, almost directly below my ankle. It wasn't terrible, and anyone who runs a lot knows that little aches and pains are just part of the game. I am not a hypochondriac so I got up, laced up my shoes, and went for a quick 2 mile run before we had to hit the road again to get to the wedding site.

My foot got progressively more sore throughout the day, but I had cocktail attire to wear, and I was not going to show up to the wedding in flats. So I put on my very sensible 2.5" Easy Spirit peep toes (don't laugh, they are cute AND comfy) and partied the night away.

Who doesn't love a good wedding photobooth? Torture shoes not pictured

By the time we got back to our hotel room my foot hurt pretty bad. I got some ice and iced it for a while and went to sleep. I woke up at 5am and tried to get out of bed, forgetting about my foot, and doubled over in pain. From my awesome google skills, I determined that I angered some tendons in my foot:

The lower arrow marks the spot of OWWWWW

The peroneus brevis and/or the peroneus longus, to be exact. We spent almost all of Sunday driving (11 hours, FU thunderstorms!) back to MA. And I spent the day limping in and out of gas stations on the ball of my foot. I got cups of ice along the way and put my foot on ice for quite a lot of the ride. I got home and wrapped it up, kept it elevated, and took Aleve for the better part of 2 days. By day 4, 95% of my pain was gone. It was nothing short of miraculous.

RICE works, ya'll

So this all meant that I had to totally skip last weekend's long run - 18 miles. It also meant that I missed Tuesday's 7 miles as well. And now that I am able to play catch-up, it is hotter than an MFer outside and it's like 99% humidity. Not exactly ideal. Which makes me a super angry person. Oh, and did I mention that I'm supposed to do 20 miles this weekend? FML.

Marathon training in August sucks. Why am I doing this again?

On a not-complaining note: I have become an absolute Olympics junkie. I love all of it. Even synchronized swimming and table tennis. It also means that we've been staying up until midnight watching it, making it impossible to get up early to run. So I guess I'm to blame for most of my misery.

So the lesson here is apparently:

1) never switch shoes mid-training, and
2) stop staying up so damn late.

Learn from my mistakes!