Alright, a quick recap of DC. First run: I got lost, ended up running 14.85 miles (didn't realize it was this far at the time). Second run: Met up with the Georgetown Running Company Racing Team. Great group of guys. Did a long (16 miles) run with them, over hills; the last 5-6 miles was done at a faster clip with a guy named Paul. Had breakfast with them. Again, fun to run with them.
So now that you're caught up, I'll give you a little more of an update about the rest of the trip. First off, after what was essentially two days of long runs in a row, I did one more run of about 9.5 miles. After this, my right ankle began to feel a little funky (a la last fall, when I had my stress reaction... although it was presenting a little differently; specifically, I didn't get the hollow feeling that I did before, and there was soreness in my calf/Achilles, but the pain was mostly localized to the same area). While I don't think that having two long runs in a row was exactly helpful for the condition, I don't think it was the direct cause. More likely, it was the excessive walking in crappy dress shoes. Take note: DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, book a hotel a mile away from where you need to be most of the time, especially if you have to walk back and forth from it several times one your ankle is already sore. While I could blame this situation on my roommate for EB (a guy named John, from the Medical College or Georgia, or whatever it's called now), who was responsible for booking the room (he said that the hotel looked a lot closer on the map), I also can blame EB for even suggesting a hotel that was so far away from the events... and I should take a little blame myself, because I had a chance to speak up and change the reservations well ahead of time if I so chose. But I didn't. Lesson learned, moving on.
With the sore ankle, I was a little spooked/paranoid, because the last serious injury had presented itself in such a way. So I decided to take the next few days off. Which would have been okay had I just decided that this was what I was going to do, but it can drive you crazy going back and forth in your head about whether you should run or not. Between the indecisiveness and sore ankle, I started to get in a bad mood the last day and a half of the meeting (although, as I'll discuss in part III, the scientific/social aspect of the meeting was awesome). This added stress made me do something that I am not proud of and is not awesome: I lapsed on my Lenten sugar goal. :( This was quite a disappointment to myself, especially because the lapse wasn't for something that was a special occasion or anything like that. You see, the hotel gave me a chocolate chip cookie when I checked into the room. Instead of throwing it out, giving it away, or telling the clerk "no thanks," I held onto the cookie (I had hoped that my roommate would eat it; I also had planned to give it away to someone else if he wouldn't eat it). But the cookie sat in my room. For three days. Untouched. Finally, do mainly to the stress of worrying that something serious was wrong with my foot, I lapsed and consumed the cookie. So major fail. This lapse will not go without punishment, however. While I plan to likely indulge on Easter, the fast will continue for another week as a consequence of my actions...
Sorry Scott, that wasn't exactly about training. If you're still reading, here's the rest that is training related: after taking two days off, I have gotten back into the rhythm of things, and training has been going well. My foot, while not a 100%, is moving back in that direction. I missed a few workouts, and feel like I'm slightly behind, but nothing that a few weeks of training won't take care of. My weight was slightly elevated after DC, which was not a surprise given the cookie (just kidding; but I did eat a lot of good food in DC, which I'll probably talk about in part III), but it has steadily declined back to normal levels after a week. Finally, I will be running at the EMU twilight this Friday, hoping to set a PR in the 5k (and drop below 15, if everything goes according to plan), so wish me luck.
Note to others: Scott, my roommate, is mentioned several times in this blog. If you are wondering, he doesn't care about a lot of the "fluff" that I put into this blog, and is more interested into an insight into my training/racing/thoughts about training (maybe I'm giving myself too much credit by suggesting that Scott actually cares about my thoughts). Anyways, that is what several of the comments are about. :) Oh, and blaze on!
P.S. Sorry about any typos/writing errors in this post. I don't really feel like proofreading at this time, although I'll probably come back to fix tehm ltaer, if me gots thi chants...
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