Pants

There’s nothing quite like trying to slip into last summer’s capris to motivate a girl to run.  I blame Christmas.  And Easter.  And Nutella.  It could, of course, be my complete inability to exercise any kind of self control regarding food, but then it would be my fault, and that’s less fun for me.

So I got the boys into bed last night and I hit the treadmill for an interval run while I caught up on Survivor.  And yes, it was a crying shame to be running on the treadmill when the day had been so incredibly beautiful, but in my defence the grader had been by just that afternoon and when the road is freshly graded it is something like running on marbles.  Which, if you’re wondering, is not fun, and feels a lot like hard work.

So I ran on the treadmill and tried to redeem the crapshoot of a long run that I’d had on Saturday, which was 9 miles of stopping to stretch my hip and generally feeling like crap.  And after, there was a lovely purple toenail to greet me.  Same one that fell off last year after the half marathon.  Great.

Seems to me that 8 miles is my breaking point.  Up to 8 miles and I’m pretty much fine.  Over 8 miles and I start to fall apart.  The toenail gets bruised, I find chafing in weird spots, and I start to really need the ice bath.

My hip is still bothering me, which was mostly why the long run sucked so much.  My PT did some work on my IT band last week and we discussed the benefits of maybe using a foam roller.  She doubted that I would be able to tolerate the roller, since I would be resting my body weight on it.  She was doing the same thing to me, not even close to the pressure that I would feel with the roller, and I was nearly hitting the ceiling.

But a friend of mine picked one up for me in the city and brought it out, and I used it for the first time on Sunday.  I started at my hip and started rolling it toward my knee thinking “hey, this isn’t that bad…” and then I hit The Spot just above my knee and thought I might cry.  So yes, it is as painful as people say it is.

However, I used it again last night before my run and my hip did not bother me until the last half mile!  Very psyched about that.  If I can combine the roller with the exercises the PT has given me, I may be on my way to some kind of success.

So this week I am hoping to get my mileage in with little to no hip issues, and I’m sincerely hoping that my friend Lisa has her weekend plans fall through so that she will be around and we can run a 10miler together.  Yeah, I’m a good person like that – I hope things don’t work out for others so that they do work out for me.

*grin*