Ugly Toes

My foam roller is in Washington (state), but should be here on Monday. I like having things delivered by UPS because our deliveryman shows up like clockwork. I swear, every single package he has ever brought us comes at 4:50 PM. It makes it really easy to plan around, if you know the day a package is scheduled to arrive.

Thanks for the article, Jon. I'm going to have to read it a couple of more times to figure out the Walt Special, but you're right about there being a lot of good stuff in there. I will try to add those in at some point. I've got a decent list going of things to work on. Two key things I need to work on this spring are my hamstrings and glutes. I don't know if I mentioned this, but the Clinic sports doc told me that sometimes ITB issues can stem from weak glutes. That was especially interesting to me because I was having that strange hamstring/glute issue over the fall. I think that was a precursor to the current ITB stuff. So maybe strengthening those weak areas will help me out.

Thanks for the "props" Richard. It sounds kind of weird, but in some ways running on the treadmill is almost easier than going outside for my long run. I get to be entertained by the TV, I have easy access to gel/water, the bathroom is nearby, the Engineer is upstairs if I need help, and if I run into trouble I don't have to worry about getting back home. If I didn't have the TV, though, there is no way I'd be able to survive the monotony! That being said, however, I am looking forward to running outside again once winter passes. The sidewalks are still sheets of ice, and the high is supposed to be a whole negative one tomorrow. Woo! I'm so excited that I get to escape to TX next month. (Just for kicks - currently here: -6F, feels like -29. Austin: 49F, feels like 47).

I was able to run again yesterday without problems; I think the XT day was a good call. I've been stretching some at work during the day which probably helps. I've also been really good about icing after running. (It's a good thing I bought an extra bag of peas, so I can ice both legs). I ran 6 yesterday, and 5 today. I thought about waking up early both days to run in the morning, but didn't go to bed early enough for that to be a good idea. So instead I ran after work, and got a little over 8 hours of sleep. Extra sleep is always a good thing.

I watched a couple different things the last two days. While cross-training, I watched a VH1 special "The 40 most awesomely bad videos." Normally, I hate the stupid countdowns that VH1 has started airing (hottest hotties? who cares?) instead of videos, but this one was pretty entertaining. I disagreed with their choice of "The Macarena" for #1, though. That song is just bad, there is nothing awesome about it. Yesterday, I watched "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and tried to watch the new Straight Girl version. The guy version was pretty good for running, as the segments were pretty long. (I like shows with commercial breaks, even though I skip them, because they help me break my run into segments. Most of my shows have .5 mile segments, but there was one segment of QE that was 1.25 miles). The girl version was kind of crappy, and I ended up switching over to videos or the music channel for the last bit. It was nice to change things up from the daytime and primetime standbys.

Wednesday:
treadmill | 6 miles | 56:00 | 9:20/mi.

Thursday:
treadmill | 5 miles | 46:28 | 9:18/mi.
walk CD | 0.29 miles | 5:00