Miles Per Week

Can you tell when the puppy arrived?  Am I headed for TMTS (Too Much, Too Soon)?  I'm doing 2/3 of this in my marshmallow sandals, I can feel my heels regressing a bit, getting sore and not allowing a proper walking gait in minimal shoes.  I'm back to a forefoot strike in the mocs to compensate.  My knees bother me while I'm wearing the sandals, but I seem OK afterwards.  I'm doing a half mile a day in my moccasins and still feeling strong doing that.

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March Progress Report

Not much new to report.  I've resoled my moccasins, and the weather has been warm enough that I have not had to wear warmer/drier shoes much.  The resoling job was not perfect, next time I will apply a full sole instead of patches.  Ground feel is significantly reduced, after wearing them for a week I'm more senstive to the texture of the dri-deck tiles at my alma mater's pool.

Speaking of the pool, we started a membership at my alma mater's activity center last month, and it's going well.  When I go up I usually do 800m on the indoor track, then goof around in the pool and the hot tub to relax afterwards.  Hubby and I go together, which is nice.  He runs faster than I, but he can lap me and give an encouraging word as he goes by.  Trying to walk together on streets and trails we just get frustrated by each other's speeds.

I'm finding that I just can not work with training tapes, music, or even encouraging running partners.  I just end up trying to go too fast and breaking down.  If I listen to my body and run when it's ready to run, I can run 1/3-1/2 of my 800 m, and feel well enough after to do it again the next day.

I have a new running partner, Erin, a 9 month old Great Dane puppy.  She's on the small size for a Great Dane, but that's still 87 lbs and a lot of leg.  She requires about a mile and a half of walking each day, so I'm trying to ramp up quickly.  Unfortunately my arches are not up to that yet, so I'm doing 2/3 of that walking in my sandals which have some padding and arch support.  They bother my knees, but not enough to force me to quit.  Before I conceeded to the sandals my arches were slowing me down to a speed that was not keeping the puppy engaged.  I'm trying to keep up a half mile a day with the moccasins, but sometimes my schedule does not allow the luxury of dividing the walk into two sessions.  Erin is very good about going whatever speed I pick for us to go, so she's a great running partner.  I occasionally even have to ask her to speed up when there's too many tempting things to sniff or bark at on the way.  My run is a slow trot for her.

I am overall feeling better.  Last month my hip was occasionally twingy and worrying me about the experiment failing, but this month it has been well behaved.  I do have fatigue, and some muscle tension after working out, but it mostly goes away after a good night's rest.  (Unfortunately the new pup does not always allow us a good night's rest.)

My New Running Partner

Meet Erin:

She's a nine month old red brindle merle Great Dane.  She is a bit small for a dane, but may have a bit of growing to do.  She's very muscular for her age.  We bought her from a breeder, as another of her dogs was picking fights with her.  We'll spay her when her bones are done growing if other circumstances allow us to delay that long.  So far she's been an absolute sweetie pie, but we'll see if she has another side when she adjusts to living with us.  She was a bit sad on the trip, but we've started to see the tail come out occasionally, and all night long she woke me up every two hours for snuggles and a quick outing.  (I think we'll be able to cut that down to one outing a night shortly.)

Resoling Moccasins

I knew when I made thin deerskin moccasins that they would wear out over time.  Despite thinking I was keeping an eye on it, I found a dime sized hole right after sprinting across the parking lot.  (I'm pretty sure there was no hole an hour before when I was putting my insoles in for the potentially slushy walk out of work.)

Fortunately I had equipped myself ahead of time with a supply of shoe goo, and still had plenty of scraps.  A little bit of cutting and gluing made them well enough for walking again.

Things to try differently:

• Use a marking pencil to trace the patches onto the sole, so I know exactly where to spread the glue without putting sticky pieces together.
• Do this at a table covered with paper.
• Make sure the patches are covering the entire weight-bearing part of each foot pad they are under, so I don't feel the edges.
• Use a knife to taper the patch edges slightly.