Gotta live with it

I have personally never liked using genetics as an "excuse" for why one person is able to run significantly faster than another. As the old saying goes, hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work. The East Africans that become champions work very hard indeed, often over a period of many years. Mo Farah was mediocre on the world level until he switched up his training after joining Alberto Salazar (I hope it's really only strength training that resulted in such dramatic improvements). However, I cannot disregard the fact that genetic potential is a reality; if I started training tomorrow to become a sprinter and run equivalent performances to my longer distance PBs, I believe it unlikely if not impossible that I would achieve such a goal. 


When I stop and think about it, my body spends a lot of time and effort suggesting that I am not built to be a runner at all. Overuse injuries aside, I have some peculiar issues that make running less than ideal. 

For starters, I don't seem to be built for any particular climate, hot or cold. In the winter I have to layer up my extremities more than would seem logical, wearing thick mittens on my hands, with the material from the arms of my long sleeve pulled up as far over my wrists as they will stretch. I tuck the bottoms of my tights into my socks in order to prevent inevitable frost bite if I leave my ankles exposed below zero. In running with many groups over the years I have learned that neither of these levels of protection is necessary for most of the general running population. Despite my efforts, the skin on the front of my ankles often still darkens from exposure over the course of the winter and I often lose feeling in my wrists and hands by the end of runs on particularly cold days. 

In warmer temperatures, I sweat excessive amounts in comparison to just about anyone I've ever run with. I would love to be tested just to see what my perspiration rate is, because I can almost guarantee if would be several standard deviations above the normal level measured. One of the more daunting prospects of running a marathon is my expected fluid loss, and by extension how much liquid I will have to consume to keep within the range that does not result in diminishing performance.


It seems I'm more aptly built for sweating competitions they have on gameshows in Japan than for running. But I enjoy it enough, so I guess I'll just keep running. 

This past week was a good one from a mileage standpoint. I'll be interested to see how the Boxing Day 10 Miler goes and if there's any residual lead in my legs. 

A bite from the cold

A large portion of North America has been experiencing below average temperatures for December. Southern Ontario hasn't avoided this trend, and I had my first instance of frozen elbows since the previous winter on Thursday. 

The undefined problem around my 2nd and 3rd metatarsals of my left foot seems to have disappeared with the help of a few days off. Needless to say I didn't end up running a whole bunch this week, but got a faster effort in on Thursday and a long run on Saturday, so it wasn't a complete wash. 

Results and Analysis

I won't beat around the bush- here's what went down with my experiment: 

My 5th metatarsal on my left foot didn't worsen after I adjusted to landing more on my forefeet. In fact it started feeling quite a bit better as the week progressed. 

But...the 5th metatarsal on my right foot started to hurt in what I believe was a result of more forefoot running. I took a day off to be sure it didn't worsen, and once that initial concern was over with I was back in the game. I ran for 2 hours on Saturday feeling alright, though my left foot was again a bit sore more towards my 2nd and 3rd metatarsals, probably because my shoe was a bit loose during the run and allowed the metatarsal pad to shift. 

On Sunday I felt an intense pain in my left foot within the 10 minutes of running, and though I eventually found a suitable placement for the pad that allowed me to hobble home, the damage appeared to be done. 

So what did I learn? 

Well, despite the setbacks that did occur, none of what I experienced was a worsening of pain in my 5th metatarsal on my left foot. I proved that running through that issue isn't complete stupidity...BUT...I need to be careful how changing my foot strike can impact the rest of my body, especially my right foot (this really should be obvious I suppose). As for this new pain on my left foot, it's more localized in the 2nd and 3rd metatarsals as I mentioned...in fact closer to the original issue I was having with my foot back when it all started in 2010. 

This is a scheduled down week, so I can let this new problem resolve itself...I'm hoping it's nothing exciting. 

Experimentation for the future

I might be embarking on the road to injury, via Stupidity Way. As I've chronicled a bit in this blog, I've been burdened with issues with my left foot for a little over 3 years now. Originally the pain was focused around the metatarsals of my 2nd and 3rd toes, but from using a metatarsal pad to take pressure off this area, flare ups in my 5th metatarsal are more common now. Last January at the start of the track season the pain was intense enough that I thought I had a stress fracture, but a re-adjustment of the pad and some days off had me rolling again in a few days. During my half-marathon build up this fall, I experienced another flare-up. This time I added another layer to the metatarsal pad (after experimenting with other solutions) and found it helped immensely. 

This past week I've been experiencing pain again, and against my better judgment I'm going to push through. My logic is this: if I want to run a decent marathon, I need to be able to handle the training load, which includes a heavy dose of high mileage. If I can't handle consistent weeks of high mileage in the base phase, I'll crumble when I add in workouts with a specific purpose. So this week will be an experiment. I could injure myself, thereby learning that pushing through the flare-up will get me no where, or I could learn something else about my limits. This will probably end badly...but I'm treating it as an experiment for the future.