Times 2

I may have mentioned a time or TWO that my heel has been bothering me when I run. I may not have stressed how excruciatingly painful it can be on runs over 10 miles. Take any type of pain you've had (childbirth, perhaps??) and multiple that by TWO and that's how bad my heel hurts. Tuesday I went for what I hoped would be a long run and WHAM, my heel started screaming and I had to walk TWO miles home. On my toes. Not fun.

UGH. Frustrating is an understatement. This has been going on since before Boston, and exacerbated when I ran Boston. Running a marathon on a bum heel maybe wasn't the best thing. Oh well.

Whoa...I have a marathon in SF in 5 weeks. Yep, just look at that snazzy little countdown calendar off to the side there, kids!! And I haven't been able to train at all for it like I should be. A heel problem will do that, paralyze your training plans. My goal for SF was never to race this marathon, but to use it as a stepping stone, a training run with some great friends, in prep for THE marathon I want to do well this fall. Still, I don't want to die, ya know, like I almost did in Boston. I hoped to be further along with my training at this point...but I'm not. And doubts of running SF are running high. As of the other day, I pretty much went to plan TWO: Survival mode! This genius here finally had a new thought: new shoes. Oh, I've tried different shoes but have always gone straight for the stabilizing shoes, which were what I was told I needed. Stabilizing shoes like to push your foot to the outside. Like to the outside where my heel exactly hurts. I know last blog's little geology lesson probably had you thinking I was some super brainiac...but I hate to report sometimes's that is not entirely true.

So I went and bought TWO new pairs of running shoes, which are cushioned (aka: squishy) and not stability shoes. Why two? Hey, I'm desperate here!!! If one pair doesn't work, try try again. Here's a lovely pic of my beautiful feet in shoes #1. I love how the periwinkle is so sparkly. So me! Yes, that's my hardwood floor. And look, I have TWO feet!

Time for a test run. I already can tell, just walking on them, the squish factor has risen by at least TWO! A good sign. Also, in yet another brainstorm idea (I know, TWO in one day!!), I decided concrete running is probably not ideal for my heel (who'd have thought!) therefore it was trails or treadmill for my little shoe testing. Anything over 66 degrees and I get pretty whiney...it was 82 degrees when I wanted to go for a run to test the shoes so the treadmill it was. I may be the only human, aside from my friend, Garbo, who doesn't mind the treadmill from time to time. I like how the surface is softer, the temp in the room isn't a thousand degrees, and it keeps my pace at a constant. I go to the gym cuz they have super sweet treadmills; I can wear my ipod and watch the little television embedded into this machine....all at once! TWO things to help distract the task at hand are better than none, especially on a treadmill.

I have no idea how far I'm going to run, I just know I haven't been able to run over 13 miles since my return from Boston, TWO months ago. So if I could go 13, great. I keep the pace slow (9:13) and every half mile I do a quarter mile hill at 4%. Not super steep, but enough to make my HR climb. I get to mile 7 and I gotta pee. Hop off, take care of business, look in my bag and see what I have inside to help me. GU! Well, it's actually Hammer Gel, cuz my stomach revolts with GU product. And Cytomax. Perfect. Ingest products, refill water bottle and on I continue. Here's a little fact: I rarely watch television, I just can't sit down and watch anything because I always find a million, or TWO, things which are screaming at me to do instead. I do have it on in the background but it's pretty rare I will ever do more than listen. So you'd think I'd be all over the 99 channels the gym TV's have to offer. Well, I am here to say there is nothing but stupid crap on at noon on a Thursday. Honestly. I was constantly flipping through the channels. At one point I thought I'd brush up on my Spanish, there's a lotta Spanish shows in Colorado.... but I quickly learned I only know TWO Spanish words anymore and was instantly lost and gave up. I'm starting to get a little anxiety building as I'm approaching 9 miles. Let's recap: the heel starts to hurt around mile 10 ..... and I'm soon there. I just keep running and try to not think about it (hahahahaha. Right!). Mile 10. Mile 11....14....no heel pain. NONE! I can feel it like there's a little stick or something irritating it but it doesn't hurt!! I do TWO more miles, for a total of 16, and I am feeling excellent! I'm not tired, I'm not sore, I'm not in heel agony!

I hop off, I don't want to press my luck. I really want the long run, though....so after reading a lot of MarathonMaiden's blog, the queen of 2-a-day runs (and recently a 3-a-day - holy moly!!) I decide I'll go home and rest up (after a much-needed shower. 16 on a treadmill and I was soaked!) and if I felt ok, I'd try for a few miles later that day. So home I went and according to MM, I should take 4 hours off between runs and I should make sure to refuel properly, and try to keep off my feet. I make a protein shake, baked potato and lay on my bed for awhile (feet are UP) and do some writing. I have no idea where my kids are or what they're doing....this is about me today - ha! 8:00 that evening, 6 hours after I finished my 16er, I pop on my treadmill in the basement. No posh gym TV planted 10" in front of my face, but I do have an old clunker TV about 3', this will have to suffice...and trust me, there's some good HGTV on!! I start running. My left hip flexor is tight and my legs a little stiff so I stop and stretch for TWO minutes (stretch?? What's that???) and pop back on. I'm feeling good. I'm feeling great, actually and up the pace to 8:56 - still slow but definitely in my long-run base pace range. 5.5 miles later, I did a TWO-a-day long run and finished with 21.5 miles and ZERO heel problems!!

I'm excited!! TWO exclamation points worth!! Cautiously excited, but I finally feel like there's hope. The entire time I was running, the one thing I kept noticing, whenever I would think about it, was how my heel was not hitting the outside of my shoe when it landed but rather was hitting on the inside, directly opposite of the point of pain. And that, apparently, is keeping the pressure off of whatever is causing the pain. Yay. DOUBLE YAY!!!!

I know I can't make up for the training I've lost, and that's okay...as I said this race isn't about any certain finish line time, it's for training purposes only, but I'm cautiously optimistic that just maybe I can work hard the next few week I have left and at least get a little stronger. The TWO things I can control in my life: my running and my eating, are what's going to fuel my run in a few weeks. And I'm finally excited!!

And just for fun, here's a little TWO facts in Jill world:

- I have twin boys. As most of you know. They look nothing alike and have totally different personalities (yet they have a very special bond). You'd never even know they were related if you saw them.

- I almost always eat two bananas everyday. I love them best when they are slightly green, so I go to the grocery store to get fresh ones at least every TWO days.
- I got TWO speeding tickets last year, one in Tucson when I was there for the marathon. My daughter was there with me and we went to dinner the night before the race. Well, in true A.D.D. form, I forgot my wallet (I hate it when it jumps out of my purse) so I tried to make a "quick" trip back to the hotel to retrieve it. That dinner cost me $150. Totally not my fault!

- I am on week TWO of my summer hiatus. Just sayin...

- Did I ever mention I can't cook? I can't even follow a recipe, apparently. Thursday night, we were taking my daughter's boyfriend out to dinner for his birthday. She wanted to make him a carrot cake, his favorite. I spent a great deal of time finding what looked like a de-lis recipe online and her and I, the TWO of us :), began our cake-making journey. Cake in oven about 20 minutes when I smell smoke. Open the oven and holy crap, the entire bottom of the oven is on fire. Apparently, I filled the pans too full and the cake batter ran over the sides of the pan and landed on the heating element at the bottom of the oven, causing major flames. Thank goodness we have a fire extinguisher is all I can say about that.
Clean oven, open all windows since our entire house smells like smoke and 30 minutes later, take TWO - start the entire birthday cake process over. Set timer for 50 minutes and periodically check it (I never open the door, I swear!!) and all looks good. Timer goes off, the daughter takes the cake out, and it's as flat as a pancake. Argh!!! Apparently this recipe is not conducive to 6000' altitude. Which, if I baked more often I would know this. Teach me for not eating cake everyday! Again, totally not my fault!

45 minutes 'til the boyfriend makes his birthday debut at our house and I have no cake. Rush to Whole Foods and I'm in sugar heaven... decisions, decisions:

Thankfully the boyfriend is late in his arrival so we had just enough time to get the cake out and remove all labels which indicated it was store bought, and the daughter and the boyfriend, the TWO of them, are happy campers. Well, at least for that day!

Awwww, aren't they so cute??? Even Mr.Balloon is happy.

- Finally, cuz I'm really tired and you're bored out of your skull, my last TWOSIE is that I just won TWO cookies from Rad Runner Girl's blog. She was having a cookie give-away and I'm all over anything sugar related and since I never win anything, I enter (makes perfect sense. Hush). Who knew I'd actually WIN. But I did. These cookies are from "Alternative Baking Company", which is totally vegan, and I have to admit, even though I'm trying not to eat sugar until after SF, I devoured the entire lemon poppy seed cookie ... and it was heaven! Hey, it was pure cane sugar - not processed, refined, white sugar. That makes it legal to eat before SF. Really! I checked the rule book. Besides, how could I let her know if they were good or not without my tasting? I mean, that's extremely poor manners, and I was brought up better than that. It was my duty to test them out. Thanks, Rad Runner Girl, those are really very tasty! YUM! And btw, she has a totally fun (and rad!) blog, you gotta check her out, clink on her purple link above.

So there ya go. Hope everyone enjoys their TWO day weekend!! Oh man, I'm just so clever sometimes I scare myself TWO death. Bahahaha. It's waaaay past my bedtime!