Heat, Toe Nails, and Negative Splits!

It's been a few weeks since I've posted but really, not a whole lot has been going on. I'm still training, in fact I just finished week 10! Only about 11 weeks left until the half marathon! That really doesn't seem that far away now that I think about it. Since my last post I've had two weekend runs of 5 miles both of which I ended up doing on the treadmill because it was so stinking hot. Today the heat index is about 105*F... Don't mind me, I'm turning my house into a nudist colony!

If you're familiar with running then you'll understand what I'm about to describe but if not then I'll enlighten you. Toe nails... I'm like most other girls and love to paint my toes and have them be all pretty. Well since I started running this doesn't happen anymore. It's important to keep toe nails clipped short to prevent them from banging into the toe box of the shoe and becoming bruised and fall off. Even though I've kept them short I finally got my first bruised nail. After that long 8 mile run I had noticed that my second toe on my left foot was really sore, very sensitive to touch but didn't have a visible bruise underneath it. My big toe on the same nail did have a bit of bruising but wasn't sore at all. Anyways, after a couple of days I finally decided that I'd try clipping it and see if it would help at all, come to find out there was actually a blister underneath the nail. Yeah, found that out when I popped the stupid thing. After some more investigation it was clear the entire nail had lifted from the bed. While it was gross (yet cool at the same time, I mean come on, I work with blood, poop, and other bodily fluids for a living) my toe felt so much better. Now I've just had to refrain from pulling the rest of the nail off, from what I've read and heard from other runners the best thing is to leave it along, a new nail will grow in and push the old one off. So much for getting any more pedicures... And because I'm going to print this blog out after I've run the Disney races I have to include pictures for posterity. So quickly scroll if you need to! Here's a picture of my poor toe, but after talking and looking and some people's toes, this is nothing...

Quickly here's a run down of my training runs for the last few weeks.

*Week 8--The week after my first 8 mile run I started increasing my running interval. My Saturday run was four miles plus a magic mile. I did the MM around my neighborhood and then did the rest on the treadmill. It was hot and I got started late. I did 2.5 miles of the 4 with run intervals and then walked the last 1.5. I've found this normally happens when I do the MMs because I exhaust myself trying to run that mile faster. Total mileage for week 8 was 12.23 miles.

*Week 9--This week I discovered that I started my training plan a few weeks ahead of schedule so I decided I'd repeat some of the longer training runs in the middle. Monday and Wednesday I did a hill/endurance workout on my treadmill. Tuesday I ran 4 miles (52:20) using a :40/1:00 interval, on Thursday I did 4.25 miles (58.05) using the same intervals. For my long run on Saturday I did 8 miles again since last time it was extremely difficult and I wanted to make sure I was comfortable with that distance before I moved up. It went really well, I did it in 1:52:47, faster than last time and I also PR'd my 1 mile and 5K times. I noticed that I started slowing down about mile 4/5 which showed in my times. My intervals were 0:35/1:00. Total mileage for week 9 was 21.95 miles. Here's some pictures from my run. I saw a beautiful heron but my phone doesn't zoom so great... and then I saw my friend Mr. Turtle. By this time I was getting tired and I felt like he could probably beat me home!

*Week 10--This last week has been a struggle. The kids started school for the year and getting up at 5:30 has really kicked my butt! I've taken advantage of an empty house and gone back to bed, probably more then I should have, I'm just not a morning person! The perk about them being back in school is that I can now move my weekly training runs outside. Tuesday I ran 3.14 miles (47:36), I tried doing a 0:40/1:00 interval but that didn't last long. I forgot that I needed to readjust my intervals from my treadmill times. I ended up walking a lot. Thursday, I ran 3.81 miles (55:37) and felt a lot better about my run. I ran 0:30/1:00 intervals. On my outside route the last mile is uphill so that one is always a struggle but I ran all of my intervals and it wasn't that bad! Today was another magic mile plus 4 miles. It's over a 100 degrees here to I ran inside on the treadmill. I ran the mile in intervals but then walked the 4 miles, even in my garage with a fan blowing on my it was brutal. But I finished. Totals this week: 11.95 miles.

One thing that I have to boast about is that on Thursday for the first time I got negative splits! What are negative splits you ask? Negative splits occur when you run the second half of your distance in a faster time then you did the first half, or you can look at each individual mile. My last mile was 6 seconds faster then my first, not much but I'll take it. I'm pretty sure it would have been much more but like I said before, the last mile home is up hill and I had to dart off the road quite a bit for oncoming traffic. The perks of running on a country road with no sidewalk/shoulder!  I read this quote on Thursday morning before I left for my run and it is exactly what I needed to see.

What's in store for next week? Nine and a half miles for my long run! I'm going to start hydrating now!