Dobovedo's Journal of Journeys

On Saturday, Tanya and I did The Dam Run, a 5/10k run along the Little Tennessee River at the base of Fontana Dam. After the run, we went looking for a place to get some breakfast within the Fontana Villiage Resort. We walked into a gift shop/visitor’s center and asked the nice lady at the checkout counter where we might find a restaurant that was open on Saturday morning (because the whole place looked to be dead, more like a ghost town than a resort). She said “somthing something Bistro, up at the lodge”. I said… “OK, great. Where is the lodge?” She looked at me kind of funny, then realized that we weren’t actually resort guests, and gave us directions. I explained that we were just over here for the dam run. When she asked, “Oh… you did the run… did you win?”, Tanya gave her a rather odd look and said “No….” and something else I didn’t quite hear.

Because at the same time, I gave the lady a big smile and said, “EVERYBODY WINS!!!”

Read more on Everybody Wins!…

Once again weeks have gone by without any blogs, but this time I have a good reason. I haven’t done anything. It’s not just that I haven’t done anything worth writing about: that never stopped me before. I really haven’t done much “training” at all. Over the past three to four weeks, I have found myself dealing with worse and worse plantar fasciitis, and this time it’s in both feet. First it was a twinge in the left arch, which was minor and I was trying to nip it in the bud early, but then it came on in the right heel, and with a vengeance. Over compensating for the left foot maybe? I don’t know, but the more I tried to fix it, the more both of them got worse.

I have since found out that trying to recover in both feet is about ten times harder than recovering from just one or the other.

Read more on Cycling = Good; Running = Stupid; SOS = DNS…

Lately I haven’t been in much of a mood to write about running. Or riding. That’s what happens when the running, and the riding, results in pain. Over the past couple weeks, no matter what I do, how much, or how little, the result has been the same. Sour pain. Arches, heels, knees, hips, calves, quads, hamstrings… it all hurts. But that’s not what I want to write about.

I want to write about the Bele Chere 5k.

Read more on Bele Chere 5K…

On Wednesday I ran 8 miles at Deep Creek, when I probably only should have done 5, or 6 at the most. That left me a big question as to what to do on Friday. 8 isn’t really a long run; I had been up to 12 prior to my rest week, and I was still unsure about what’s going on with my ankles and heels. I decided to split the difference and do 10 miles. I also decided not to make it 100% trail run and split the distance into roughly equal road and trail. Mother nature decided to get in on the Split Distance theme as well – and proceeded to rain, and not rain, on me for roughly equal distances. I didn’t mind a  bit.

Until mile 9, when the extra weight of rain soaked shoes and socks started to take it’s toll on my legs.

Read more on Splitting Distance…

After Monday’s run, the first one after a week off to “rest” my potential PF injury, I was curious to see how my left foot would react. It reacted by hurting fairly bad an hour or so after the run. It then reacted by hurting much less Monday night, and pretty much not at all on Tuesday or Tuesday night. This reaction, or lack thereof, continued right on into Wednesday.

I found this to be quite ironic, and also very annoying.

Read more on Eight Is Enough…

Prior to this past week’s consecutive days of riding, I had been doing a lot more running, upping the miles as SOS gets closer. That had some positive, and unfortuntely… also some negative results. The positive: a great 12 mile trail run, followed by a pretty decent 5k road race, followed by a 2 mile run with Tanya.

And the negative: I woke up the next day after that last run with what appears to be a re-occurrence of Plantar Faciitis in my left foot.

Read more on Runnin’ Ups & Downs…

I had other plans this evening that kept me from doing my Friday night long run, so I moved it up a day and did my first double digit run of 2010. Ten miles even on the Linear Park in Piqua. The LP consists of a 5.5 mile more or less straight path that is built on an abandoned railway line, and another 5.5 mile loop around the city – following along two waterways. First, the Hydraulic, a man-made waterway that connects the cities reservoirs. And second, along the Greater Miami River on what used to be a canal tow-path.

Why I’m going into this much detail about where I ran I have no idea…

Read more on Friday Night A Day Early…

No.. not the band. I’m not even sure what the band Sixes Sevens and Nines is.. I’ve just heard of them. My sixes, sevens & nines refers to the run distances I’ve done recently. Except it’s in the wrong order. It’s more like Seven, Nine and Six. Except the last one was six  point two. and there was a one in there. and the one also had three miles of walking. Oh.. wait…there was a two in there also. So  maybe the title should be Sevens, Nines, Ones (plus threes), Twos and Sixes.

Nevermind. Basically I’ve been running a lot recently. Read more on Sixes, Sevens & Nines…

After a full week of running and riding, I was due for a day off. Monday was that day. No plans to ride or run. And I was fine with that. Until it got to be 90 degrees outside. For the second day in a row. And even with the A/C on high, the little window unit in my living room can’t get the temp inside any lower than 80 degrees. Too hot to do anything but lay around and whine. Too hot to do anything outside. All of a sudden my rest day that I wanted to take became a rest day that felt like it was taken only due to outside influences.

I hate it when that happens. Now it’s not restful.

Read more on When Is A Rest Day Not A Rest Day?…

To follow up my first real MTB ride on Friday evening, I did my first real trail run on Saturday morning, the Dupont Forest 12K. An odd distance, it is about 7.4 miles. A friend and fellow Ironman (he’s done six) who has lived in the area for quite a while turned me on to it and said it’s one of his favorite runs. I put off registering for it for quite a while but once I saw that five and six mile runs weren’t negatively affecting my PF recovery, decided to go ahead and do it. What the heck… it’s only 1.4 miles further, right? Well… I quickly found out that trail running is just a little bit more difficult than road running.

Did I say a little bit?

Read more on So This Is Trail Running, Huh?…

On Monday evening I had the first chance to take advantage of extra daylight on DST. No… Sunday doesn’t count – it ain’t a workday. So.. with nearly three full hours until full dark, what did I choose to do with the time?

Exactly… I went for a 10k run that took less than an hour.

Read more on Running “Easy” Again…

I spent all last week in Ohio, heading up primarily for personal reasons but then also for some face-to-face work sessions with co-workers. The beginning of March is traditionally Opening Week of the local group riding season, and regardless of the weather conditions, the first rides are attended by at least a few of the hardier riders. Those group rides have gone by the wayside a bit in recent years, but I always hold true to the idea that the first day of Spring is the first Monday, Wednesday or Friday of March. As such, I headed north with a hatchback loaded with bikes and bike gear. I did bring my trainer just in case the weather turned really bad, but one way or another, I was going to get some outdoor riding (and running) done.

As it turned out I began a five day Hell [Freezeth Over] Week on Tuesday, not Monday or Wednesday.

Read more on Hell [Freezeth Over] Week…