boston marathon training Archives

Guess what? I ran 3 miles this morning without any foot pain! Woo hoo! On the road to recovery and Boston Bound! Positive thoughts here today. 🙂 To celebrate, I wanted to share some of my favorite hill drills with you because hopefully I’ll be running them again soon. Honestly, I miss running hills! Hill training has been a decent part of my training plan this training cycle to make me stronger, and when I think of Boston, I think of “Heartbreak Hill” so this is a good mental training exercise for me as well. There is something so satisfying about finishing a hard hill workout.

Visiting Heartbreak Hill Running Company over Christmas vacation in Bostno

Visiting Heartbreak Hill Running Company over Christmas vacation in Boston! Of course I bought a t-shirt and then drove the hill.

No matter what race or distance you’re training for, running hills is a great way to change it up and become a well-rounded runner. There are also many benefits including stronger quads, hammys, glutes, calves, hip flexors, increased lung capacity, mental toughness…you get the picture. If you’re having a tough time deciding which hill workout to try, Competitor Group posted an informative article that can help you decide how to incorporate hills into your training plan. Just remember to keep good form and run tall! I have a tendency to collapse as I’m running…not good form. I need to work on that. My coach, Beth Gerdes, has given me a variety of hill workouts that are very sweaty and satisfying, and here are a few of them.

Short Hill Workout/”Sprints”
Duration: 1 hour
Type of hill needed: Very steep incline (7-10+%)
Workout: Easy 2-3 mile warm-up. Complete 10-12 x 30 second hill SPRINTS. Rest 1 to 2 minutes between each ascent with easy jogging. Complete your run with cool down miles up to 1 hr.

Long Hill Workout
Duration: 1:15
Type of hill needed: Challenging grade (pick your pain), and long. (San Diegans, I like to do this one up Torrey Pines – inside track at 8%! Outside is 5.5%.)
Workout: Easy 2-3 mile warm-up. Complete 5 x 5 minute hills with 2-3 minute recoveries (jog down hill). Effort level should be high, but HR should stay at 88% or below of max HR. Cool down easy jogging 20 minutes.

View from Torrey Pines during a gorgeous sunset. Almost makes the hills hurt less.

Treadmill Workout: “Gradual Incline Hills”
Duration: 1 hour
Type of hill needed: None. Just a treadmill! Perfect when you don’t have a hill nearby.
Workout: Easy 2 mile warmup (treadmill at .5% or 1% incline). Complete 3x 7-minute “hills” – beginning at 1% grade. Each minute, increase the grade by 1% until you run the last minute at 7%. Do not change speed! Rest 5 min between hills at the same speed, but incline is down to 0%. Cool down to 1 hour at incline .5% to 1%.
Note: This workout can be changed to outside if necessary: Run 3×7 minute hills of 3 to 5% grade or 2×11 minute hills

Driving towards the finish line of Boston Marathon! No more hills here. 🙂

What’s your favorite hill workout?

~~I think~~ I have a foot injury. There. I said it. I started developing pain on the inside of my right foot above my arch on Saturday, January 25th. On Sunday January 26th I did a long run anyway, and didn’t mention a word about the gradually increasing foot pain that developed towards the end of my run. Then, on Monday morning January 27th I woke-up to a visible bruise on the spot of the pain. Shit. And this is how my foot injury developed.

See that bruise on the top of my foot there? Yeah. That.

I haven’t said a peep on here since Christmas. At first it was because I was so busy loving and living life! I didn’t make the time to sit down and blog about Boston Marathon training, working with a new coach, living life as a fiancée, or wedding planning. I still want to blog about all the joyous things in my life, but I’m going to save that for another day. Today, I’m ready to admit I have a problem. A foot problem.

Week 1: Denial. Inner monologue: Oh just a bruise from my new custom orthotics. I ran really hard and fast on Saturday, and I probably got a bruise from all the pressure I was putting on my orthotics which weren’t allowing my feet to collapse like they wanted to. A bruise is no big deal. At least it’s not a REAL injury like last year.

My coach told me to take 3 days off from running and then reassess because taking 3 days off is better than taking 3 weeks off…

Week 2: Worried…but I only skipped certain runs. I still did a 10k. I just ran through the pain the last half because it “wasn’t that bad”. Sound familiar? (I’m an idiot.)

Cardiff Kook 10k

Week 3: Panic. I finally decided to call it an injury and I’m not running until the pain goes away. I got my foot looked at by a professional, and have been rolling it on a frozen water bottle and popping pills to reduce the inflammation. I’m RICE’ing, spinning, ellipticalling, aqua jogging, strength training, massaging, stretching, and resting. I’m also stewing. Whyyyy is this happening to me, again?

Foot pain isn’t new to me. If I think back to my very first marathon in 2011, I remember experiencing foot pain a couple of weeks before the race. Luckily it wasn’t serious enough to keep me from the start and finish line. Then in 2012 when I was training for what turned out to be 1 full marathon, and 2 Ironmans, my foot pain got serious. Luckily I had a coach to keep me on track and I filled my time with other workouts and ART sessions. 2013 guess what? Foot pain resurfaced, but I still managed to train through it and PR at Eugene and achieve a Boston qualifying time, even though my coach cautioned me that I would probably hurt myself. Yep. I was in 1 million pieces once I crossed the finish line, bawling my eyes out, and I could barely walk for several days after that. (Whatever. I PR’d!!) Late 2013 I finally invested in pricey custom orthotics (thanks mom!) after much persuasion. In 2014, orthotics caused me to develop new foot pain. Different spot. Different foot. WTF? My feet hate me. (Long story short, my feet are hyper-mobile and kinda cray cray.)

So now what?

First of all, I’m updating my custom orthotics because those clearly aren’t working for me. I’m training without any orthotics in the meantime, and I can tell it’s making a difference. Definitely less of that “bruised” feeling.

Mentally, I’m going back and forth between optimism (I can still break 3:30 and PR at Boston! All this rest is good for me!) and severe pessimism (I’m not even going to be able to finish Boston because of severe foot pain at mile XX.) Physically, I have no idea if I’m doing enough to nurse my foot back to health (RICE, stopping running) while simultaneously trying to train for my first ever Boston Marathon which is now only a short 2 months away. Looking at the BIG picture, if I don’t PR, it won’t be the end of the world. If I can’t even make it to the starting line due to an injury, however, well that will be an entirely different story, so I’d prefer not to think about that.

If you’ve ever suffered an ongoing injury, I’m sure you can empathize with me right now. It feels like taking time off from running is the worst thing in the world. But when I start to get down, I try to fill my head with positive thoughts to put things into perspective. (I’m getting married this year! I already qualified for Boston, and I get to run it this year! Life is good!!)

Thanks for listening to me get honest and admit that I have a foot injury. Same story. Different year. Different foot. Training with a chronic injury is a real problem that so many runners face, even though I really wish it wasn’t. So what have I learned this time around?

Don’t push through the pain, no matter how insignificant you think it may be.

Back to my RICE, and hopefully, the road to recovery!

What do you do to keep yourself sane while sidelined from running due to an injury?