Ten miles

Double digits! This week we ran ten miles. Whew. It was kind of a rough one for me this time. I had a bit of a stomach ache (possibly from eating too much sugar goop too soon) and a pain in my right hip by the time I was done. But I made it through, and recuperated just fine by the next day. Some runs are going to be harder than others. At least my right foot has stopped giving me trouble! Getting rid of the hard thingie on my shoe seems to have done the trick!

Last week I forgot to update! It was nine miles and it went very well. As I was passing the seven mile marker, it occurred to me that I used to think that it would be fun to run the Bay to Breakers, San Francisco's annual race/costume party/rite of spring, but that seven miles was just too far! And here I'd just passed seven miles and had two more miles to go. I could run a Bay to Breakers! It would probably be the world's slowest time, but hey! I could run it. Already thinking of plans for next year....

Eight miles

My expensive and high-tech running shoes with their swirls of leather, mesh, and plastic, glowy things and fiddly bits, fit my left foot perfectly. But the right shoe presses on the bone at the base of my little toe, making it very sore after a long run. I've tried loosening the laces on that shoe until the shoe practically falls off, and still it rubs that slightly protruding bone. And the longer our weekend runs have gotten, the worse the pain in my poor foot. After our latest run of eight(!) miles, I decided something must be done.

On the sides of my shoes are sewn four small vaguely arrowhead-shaped pieces of hard plastic stuff. What they're there for, I don't know, but one of them just happens to be right over the poor bone that's always getting smooshed. It has occurred to me that removing this hard thingie might relieve the pressure on the bone, but I've been reluctant to do it because, well, who knows what would happen? These are not mere shoes, they're exotic engineering marvels. My shoe might explode or fall suddenly to pieces or something. After all, that piece of plastic might have some vast unknown purpose, besides rubbing on my toe bone.

Still, whatever its purpose, if it's going to make my foot hurt, well, it has to go. So this morning I braved the unknown and cut the plastic thingie off my shoe. I haven't gone running in it yet, but I did try it on afterwards and it felt much better. And it didn't explode. So I'm hopeful that the shoe problem is solved.

Seven miles

Today is the San Francisco Chronicle Marathon. For once, I thought of the marathon not as something to be avoided because it ties up traffic and who are all these crazy people running 26 miles anyway, but as something I'm going to do myself one day.

It was also the reason I did my group run on Saturday this week instead of Sunday as usual. Since the Chronicle Marathon also runs in Golden Gate Park, and many of our coaches were running in it, we were encouraged to do our group run at another time or place. The Saturday group was quite lively, especially with its ranks swollen by the extra Sunday runners. Our route was through the park, up Martin Luther King Drive, around Stowe Lake, and back. We ran either seven, seven-and-a-half, or eight miles, depending on whom you believe. (An observer told us that a volunteer accidentally sent us around the lake twice, adding either half a mile or a mile to our scheduled seven-mile run.) Whatever our actual mileage, we had a great time on our run, cheering and encouraging everyone we passed, whether they were part of the AIDS Marathon Training or not. Some of them cheered back. Others were merely perplexed.

This week we were encouraged to bring some sort of food to eat along the way, since our runs are getting long enough that maintaining blood sugar and energy levels begins to be a problem. I ate a pack of GU, which is basically a jelly-like hit of pure sugar, with a bit of caffeine added for good measure. I was not anticipating enjoying the stuff, but I found it strangely satisfying under the circumstances.

Six miles

Today, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep. I got up at quarter to six, knowing there was no point in lying in bed awake any longer. I wasted as much time as I could getting ready, but I ended up leaving early and catching the Point Lobos bus instead of the Ocean Beach bus (which terminates about eight blocks closer to our gathering place in Golden Gate Park), and arriving at 48th Avenue and Point Lobos at 7:30 am—a full half hour early for the morning run.

Since I had some extra time, I decided to wander through the little park at the end of the bus line. Whoa! What from the back side looked like a pleasant little plot of grass and trees and trails, from the ocean side turned out to be a stunningly gorgeous cliff-top overlook of the ocean. I stood in the bright morning fresh air looking out on the breaking waves, thinking how lucky I was to stumble onto such a beautiful scene.

That delightful little spot, I discovered on my way out, is Sutro Heights Park. I'm very happy to have found it.

The run itself went really well today. We ran six miles—four and a half miles along the Great Highway, and then another mile and a half within the park along Martin Luther King Drive. Six miles! Another mile closer to the goal.