Racing=Some Guys' Alternative to Match.com?

Just need to share this one: last weekend, I did a 4.5 mile race that started an hour after a half marathon event.  As I crossed the finish line and entered the tent with medals and refreshments, a half marathoner finisher stopped me to ask me about my time and training.  Only at a race could someone flirt like this:

Him: What are you training for next?

Me: A half marathon in April.  What about you?

Him: Well, I'm always training for Boston.  I have my qualifying time, but I'm going to Tucson to see if I can get a better qualifying time.  

This went on for awhile and included a funny mix of stereotypical flirty comments with runner-specific stuff like these lines.

I've had more guys come up to me after races than at bars, which I guess is funny.

Does racing ever feel like a singles' bar to you?  What kinds of running pick up lines have you heard?

 

Ice Ice Baby

On Sunday night, I went to sleep and had nightmares about pulling bones out of my heel.  That's how bad it hurt. I spent the night worried that I've been running for months on a stress fracture, but I really believe it's an achilles tendon issue: it doesn't hurt once it's warmed up.

When I woke up, I decided to spend a week trying to do everything I could to deal with the injury (without actually needing to take a week off from running). Here's what I've tried:

1. Foot strengthening exercises.  Seriously--a trainer told me my issue is caused by the fact that I have weak foot muscles.  I thought that was kind of silly until I tried doing the exercises.  Yes, I have very weak feet.
2. Stretching. I wait until I've warmed up the muscle and then do a few calf/achilles stretches, both before and after running.
3. Running :) but with much lower mileage than usual.  When I was training for my fall half marathon, my mileage was up to 40-48--it's much lower than that now, especially since my heel issues are exacerbated by longer, slower runs but not speedwork.
4. Rolling!  The foam roller is seriously one of the most amazing tools a runner can have.  
5. Ordering new shoes and an orthodic. I've been doing ALL of my running in Nike Frees, which I love, but I'm thinking having more cushioning for my very high arch during long runs will help.  
6. Icing.  15 minutes at a time, at least three times a day.
7. Taking anti-inflammatories twice a day.
8. Warm, salty foot soaks. I bought some bath salts, which seems a little decadent, but maybe it will help.
9. A massage scheduled for this morning. Ditto on the decadence, but it's for my health!
10. Lots of time barefoot.  
11. An x-ray scheduled for a week from today, in case I still have lingering pain.

I have woken up yesterday and today without the sharp pain I've been dealing with for months, and it looks like the swelling in my heel area has gone down a little, but it's hard to know if some of the pain's being masked by the Aleve I'm taking, or if it's gone. 

I'm hoping I feel good enough to have a strong run this weekend--I'm doing a 4.5 mile race while my boyfriend does a half marathon.  Until my injury peaked, I regretted signing up for the shorter race--now, I think it's just what the doctor (um, who I'm avoiding!) ordered.

Now I'm going to try to run four miles without having "Ice Ice baby" stuck in my head.

Race Results and a Week of Injury Recovery

I didn't quite hit my 20 minute target for the 5K on Saturday (my time was 20:56), but I was the overall female winner.  That's never happened before, in part because one of the local runners in my area is an ex-college athlete who regularly hits a 6:30 pace across MARATHON distances.  Naturally, she can go a lot faster than that for a 5K.

I achieved two of my goals, and I'm going to work on all of them again at a 4.5 mile race this weekend. I wanted to keep every mile under a 7-minute-mile pace, to practice leaning into the hills, and to "empty the tank." The first two were fine: I had been nervous about the downhill start, because I tend to brake myself during downhills, but the energy of the race helped me use it to my advantage.

Emptying the tank is hard, though. I have never finished a race thinking, "That was all I have," and this was no exception. Maybe the 5K distance makes that very difficult, but at the same time, I think I could have picked up my pace during the final mile.  It was psychologically difficult for me to do that, though, once I realized I was the first woman.  I know I need to dig into myself for motivation and to run my own race, but it's really challenging for me to push myself past self-created limits when there's not someone pulling me along.

I felt fine after the race, but the next night, I experienced horrible pain in my heel/achilles tendon. I've been dealing with inflammation and pain there for months, but on Sunday it was debilitating. I even had a dream about it.

Now, I'm spending the week trying to recover form the injury by icing it, taking anti-inflammatories, and getting a massage. I'm going back and forth about whether or not I need an x-ray.  It seems more like a tendon issue, but I don't want to make any mistakes and wind up needing to take months off from running.

How do others stay injury-free, and how do you respond to some of the nagging aches and pains that could turn into injuries?