Tuesday’s run: 4.46 miles
My plan was to go around 7 miles on Tuesday, but I had to cut the run short because of a severe acid reflux attack. I’ve been having off-and-on issues with this for a few weeks, but this is the first time it hit me during a run. It wasn’t so much a burning sensation, but more so an unpleasant feeling of something stuck in my esophagus. I had just eaten some sausage with lunch, so that may indeed have been part of the issue, but I’m not sure. I was able to walk the 2 miles to get back home, and the problem did eventually clear up after a couple of hours. I’m going to take it as a lesson not to eat a large meal so soon before running (and to properly chew my food). I also started a course of Prilosec OTC, which seems to be helping with the acid reflux.
Thursday’s run: 5 miles
I ran at UMBC on Thursday afternoon, during my final day of the year at the office. It wasn’t the best run, but I was happy to get out, it kept me on schedule, and I had no issues similar to Tuesday’s. I should add that I’ve been running with Tuli heel cups for the past couple of weeks, to help deal with what I believe is a mild case of bursitis in my left heel. They do help quite a bit, as does pretty much any kind of padding, but the nice thing about the Tulis is that they fit well in my Vibram V-Runs. I suspect I’ll be using these for the foreseeable future.
Today’s run: 8.01 miles
Today was my longest run in about 2 weeks, and it felt pretty good. I think I’ve been pressing a little bit too much at the beginning of my recent runs, which has led to “running out of gas” during the second half. I made a conscious effort to dial things back today, and had much better energy throughout the entire run. Ironically, I also ended up with a faster overall average pace (10:10/mile) than either of my past two runs. You’d think by now that I would just instinctively set an efficient pace for my runs, but it’s hard to overcome the tendency to try to press at the beginning of the run, when I have the most energy. I’ll figure it out eventually.
After running every other day since last Sunday, I think I’m going to give myself a couple of consecutive days off, so my next run likely will be Tuesday 12/26.