Toe-Shoes Tina: Long run, how did I f*** you up? Let me count the ways

Distance:  13 miles
Pace:  9:40
Wine:  1.5 glasses of Blackstone Merlot to get me through trick or treating
Miles spent crying:  .6

Last night was Halloween.  Because my gym's demographic is young people (not me, of course, I would have been there), it is closed today.  Might as well do my long run!  It sucked.  It sucked so bad.  My knee hurt at 9.5 miles and got steadily worse.  My left foot felt bruised with every step from 10.5 miles on.  I'm really not lying when I say I cried for most of the last mile.  I just wanted to quit so bad and I was genuinely afraid I was going to blow out my knee or something.  Here's what I did wrong:

1.  I went too fast.  I didn't feel like I was going to fast because I wasn't breathing hard or exerting, but a survey of my marathoner friends revealed I should be doing long runs slower than my anticipated race pace instead of 20 seconds faster.

2.  My legs were overworked.  At yesterday's boxing class, Pirate was on crack.  His workout consisted of lots of sprinting, jumping, and squatting.  Oh yeah, and we pushed a full size pickup truck around the parking lot (when we weren't pushing, we were being pulled by resistance bands while we sprinted).  My legs were toast today.  It turns out I am not Super Woman and my muscles do require rest.

(This was our "cool down")

3.  My legs were cold.  Literally.  It was about 50 degrees when I ran today.  I wore a long sleeved shirt, but opted for shorts because I usually get hot.  My legs felt stiff, tight, and cold for the first hour of my run.  That did not help my knee, which I believe hurt because my IT bands were tight.  (Again, why do I need IT bands?  Can I have them amputated as elective surgery?  Just curious.)  I'm not crazy.  According to this blog, cold legs are stiff legs.

4.  My legs were not stretched.  I have slacked this week on stretching and rolling.  And then to make things worse, I didn't do any stretching this morning. Research shows that static stretching is not good before a run, but dynamic stretching is.  I did neither and just set out at 6:00 am on cold stiff legs.

5.  I was dehydrated.  Halloween was a hectic day.  I did not drink nearly enough water with all the craziness.  By the end of the day, my lips were getting dry and chapped from dehydration.  But I came home and fell asleep instead of guzzling water.  Then I didn't crack my water bottle this morning until mile 6.

6.  I wore the wrong shoes.  This is by far the most painful mistake for me to admit.  Ever since my 12 miles last week, my left foot has felt bruised on the bottom.  I was able to largely ignore it for my 7 mile tempo run.  But it resurfaced with a vengeance today.  To the point I was afraid of a stress fracture.  I have been in denial because I love my toe shoes soooo much.  They are part of my identity!  I so desperately wanted to run my marathon in my Vibrams.  And I know others do it.  But those people probably have a BMI under 15.  Yes, I am "all muscle," but my poor feet don't care if my abnormally heavy frame is filled with muscle or with fat -- they don't appreciate 150 lbs of weight falling on them with no cushioning on every stride for 13 miles.  Today I finally came to grips with the fact that I need to limit my Vibrams to runs under 10 miles.  I went and bought a pair of Brooks Pure Cadence (after trying on about 10 pairs of minimalist shoes).  They are minimalist, but not toe shoes, which is causing a bit of an identity crisis.  Slo Jo suggested I could now call myself Mostly Toe-Shoes Tina, but it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.  Oh well.  I guess I'll take it over a stress fracture.

(The guy at the running store said "You ran HOW FAR in Vibrams????")

Enough negativity.  On the plus side, I effectively used Gu to stave off post-run nausea.  And, as Dave Krupski (our ultramarathoner friend) told me, the runs you struggle through are the important runs.  I didn't quit at 10 because it got hard.  I finished all 13 and I should be happy about that.  I celebrated with an ice bath (pure torture, but also awesome for recovery) and am now enjoying glass of red wine.  Cheers!