Last night in karate class as we were doing warm ups, we were circling our arms. Nothing unusual or even strenuous. Just loosening up. But I felt some discomfort in my left shoulder. I continued with the warm ups, just taking it easy. When I went down to do my first push up, I had a sharp pain in my left shoulder, and immediately stopped. The rest of the evening I felt a slight discomfort in left shoulder and even a slight pain if I moved it in certain ways. Someone suggested it might be a rotator cuff injury. The whole thing is weird because I wasn’t doing anything the least bit strenuous, or likely to result in an injury at the time.
This morning I still feel the pain. It is uncomfortable if I try to lift my arm above my head. I took some Ibuprofen. I called the doctor’s office, but he out for a few days. She said she had an opening in a week. I asked if if there was anything sooner. The other doctors are booked. The receptionist suggested I call back tomorrow or friday morning to see if there are any cancellations.
I am supposed to compete in a karate tournament in a week and a half. Not sure if that is going to happen now. I may still be able to do kata. But I don’t know about sparring or weapons. I can still work as a judge.
The shoulder pain didn’t slow down my 5 mile run this morning though.
Ten Million Steps: The Incredible Journey of Paul Reese, Who Ran Across America-A Marathon a Day for 124 Days-At Age 73 by Paul Reese
SUMMARY: Awe inspiring! That anyone could run 26 miles a day for 124 days, let along a 73 year old man! Wow!
I have been reading pretty much every running related autobiography I can get my hands on. I was surprised to learn that people have actually run across the United States. This book was written from the log kept by Paul Reese as he ran across the United States. Reese ran an average of 26 miles a day for 124 days, and at age 73! Most people have a hard enough time running 26 miles alone. And here this 73 year old man was doing it day after day! Just incredible. I enjoyed his writing. It was fascinating reading about various problems he encountered, such as trying to get a larger pair of the New Balance shoes he liked. It was also interesting reading about the various people he encountered along the way. While I have no desire to run across the America, it did inspire me to consider riding my bike across the state.
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I only started running at the end of July. I know this, because I bought our treadmill on July 20th. And then I didn’t start running on it right away. I walked some and just goofed around. But then I decided that it might be useful in training to climb Mt Rainier next year. It wasn’t probably until sometime in late August that it popped into my head to run a marathon. And even then I was thinking that I could more or less walk/jog it in maybe 6 or 7 hours. Originally I thought I would do the Boston Marathon because that was a big one. But then I found out you have to QUALIFY for that one. I wasn’t going to be running a marathon in 3 hours and 20 minutes anytime soon. But then I decided to run the Las Vegas Marathon. I had enough time to train for it, and I could also visit my dad who lives out there.
Into the picture come Phil Maffetone. I found one of his books and bought it. I live the idea of training with a heart monitor, so I bought one. Then I bought another book on heart monitor training by John L Parker. It had some great ideas. I kind of took a little from both of these books and started running using a schedule from Parker’s book. Then I found a book at the library by Hal Higdon. It was full of schedules. I found a schedule in there that I liked better. The days meshed better with my martial arts class days. But then I bought a book by Jeff Galloway. He said I could take walk breaks. I had been taking walk breaks already, but he gave me permission to take walk breaks, and gave me systems to do them. With these guy’s help, my running and endurance has been improving. I am confident I will finish the Las Vegas Marathon without any problems. I wont be setting any speed records (except personal ones), but I will finish.
Of course, if the marathon all falls apart, it will all their fault. 
Today’s run was scheduled to be 18 miles. This would be my longest run ever. And considering that I was still kind of feeling fatigued and sore from yesterday’s off-road duathlon race, I wasn’t sure how I would do. The Hal Higdon training schedule that I have been following said to run the long run easy. Maybe 1 to 2 minutes per miles slower than marathon pace. I wanted to keep my heart rate in the aerobic zone (about 70% Karvonen method or less the 150bpm). I decided to run at a 12:00 minute per mile pace, and walk every 5th minute at a 15:00 minute per mile pace (ala Jeff Galloway). It took a long time, but I finished the 18 miles with less difficulty than I was expecting. It just took a long time.
I got a little bit of a rest following the run, before I had to head off to karate class. Next week is a cut-back week so I am scheduled to run only 13 miles on Sunday (and 8 miles on Saturday I think).
Running the 26.2 marathon miles is looking more and more doable all the time. I don’t know how fast I’ll be able to run the 26.2 miles, but it will be fun. I am sure I will run them faster on the course than on the treadmill!
I bought these Nike Air Max Assail II trail running shoes a few weeks knowing that I was going to be racing in an off-road duathlon. I wore them a few times for training runs on the treadmill to get them broken in. Well yesterday was the duathlon. They were very comfortable. There was plenty of cushion in the shoes which is one of the things that attracted me to them. They had pretty good traction considering the muddy messy trails we were running on. There were various roots, and rocks along the way, but I did not hurt my feet when stepping on them. The bottom of the shoe says “Stone Shield” which apparently is some sort of thing to prevent damage from sharp stones. There weren’t a lot sharp stones where I running though. I am very happy with the shoes. Looking at prices for the shoe online, I think I may have overpaid for them. Oh well, that’s my fault. I will just not shop at that store again. They are still good shoes.