Planes, Trains, and Running Shoes

1. Foot Update  - My little brother (who is not so little) is in college studying to be an Athletic Trainer and he coaches wrestling at a middle school. He just learned all about Plantar Fascitis in school and read my blog post on Tuesday and called me up to give me the digs on my latest ailment. He's pretty sure that that's what it is. Thanks to his advice, my foot has been feeling better over the last 2 days. I taped it up with some KT Tape Pro (seriously, buy the Pro the regular is absolutely useless and I was hesitant to spend the extra $8 but it's worth it), have been regularly icing and was rolling it out with a tennis ball (key word: was) over the last few days and I'm slowly getting there. I'm still not running but looking to get on the treadmill for some easy miles tomorrow to see how I'm feeling. I'm taking this ailment one day at a time and focusing on cross-training and resting until I can get back on my feet (literally).

Little Brother!

This is why I was rolling my foot out on a tennis ball. Peyton ate it. See that face? No remorse. Sigh.

2. The Races - I feel like all of the races I have coming up are hinging on something. Ally is coming to town next Thursday and I'm supposed to pace her through the  DC Rock & Roll Half. I ran the Full last year and absolutely loved it and really don't want to not run it this year. The following weekend is the Marine Corps 17.75k which I need to run to secure my guaranteed entry into the Marine Corps Marathon and two weeks after that is the Cherry Blossom. If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you'll know that I had plans to run Cherry Blossom in 2011 and 2012 and wasn't able. This year, I will run the Cherry Blossom. As far as the marathon goes? I'm not even worried about it right now. I haven't even registered for it yet. It's a small enough race that I'm confident it won't sell out and I had already paid for Eugene so I'm holding off. So we'll see what happens.

via

3. Runners' World Guide to a Fitter, Faster You: March - As you know, I've been following this handy guide that Runners' World put out at the beginning of the year. The plan has you focus on different aspects of running month by month to make you a better runner. January was to plan out your race year. February was to commit to cooking and March? Build an Injury Proof body...which is kind of funny given that I'm dealing with some kind of ailment right now. It includes different stretches to build strength in your core, glutes and hips. I haven't done any of them yet, but yesterday after a not so sweaty session on the elliptical, I spent some time with the weight machines. If I am injured, I'm at least going to go about this the right way and work to build up strength end endurance so that I can get back into training without missing a beat.

This was a bit of a run-heavy post considering I'm not running at the moment, but there you have it!