The half marathon is this Sunday. Five days away. I think I may have broken something in my foot. Great. It started bothering me after my 12.5 mile training run, and now it aches all the time (except when I run?!). It especially hurts when I carry the dog, or put any extra weight on it, like standing on the toes of that foot. Why would I stand on one foot anyway? But you know what I mean. If I turn quickly and put more weight on that foot I know it’s hurting. At night just lying in bed it hurts. I need to get it looked at, but the thing is, if I do that I’m pretty sure I’m going to be told not to do the race Sunday. So I’m thinking about making an appointment for after the weekend. How stupid is that?

This morning I did the last long training run before the Brooksie half marathon (13.1 miles) which is a week from tomorrow. Today’s run was only 4 miles, so I elected to do it here at home rather than drive somewhere. I just had too much stuff to do around here to spend time (and gas) driving somewhere else to run. I could do a sort of flat (nothing around here is really flat) 4 miler that is two miles out and two miles back, or do my favorite, but very hilly four mile loop. Since the beginning of each of them heads out in the same direction I figured I’d let my feet decide which route when I got to the deciding corner. Turns out my feet wanted to do flat. So I did the run on a curving mostly paved course, but it had lots of traffic which is never very fun.

Mile one was mostly downhill. As I passed a local lake I could hear, but not see Canadian geese honking as they flew. The lake was shrouded in mist, with the morning sun trying to peek through. It was a pretty cool, literally, as it was only in the upper 50’s this morning. I did this mile in 4/1’s, running 4 minutes then walking a minute, then repeating.

Mile two was mostly uphill. It was on the part of the road that is paved, and more heavily traveled. I ran 3/1’s here, and spent a great deal of time on the gravel shoulder getting out of the way of traffic. On one curve I ended up getting even further from the road as a truck approaching not only wasn’t moving over, it was drifting toward the shoulder. As it got near me it’s right tire dropped down off the pavement onto the gravel and I scrambled for the hill. I saw the driver sort of grin at me as he went by, and I used a not politically correct term to describe him as I moved back onto the pavement after he was gone. As I was reaching the end of mile two, getting ready to turn around at the junction of another road I saw eight bicyclists coming toward me out of the fog. They whirred by and disappeared in the next bank of fog almost silently. As I turned around I realized there were four golfers on a green very near me. I hadn’t seen them as I was running. The fog made everything more silent, and things seemed to move almost in slow motion. I realized, however, that my white shirt and black shorts probably didn’t make me very visible in the fog, so I started mile three more vigilant. Maybe that grin on the truck driver’s face wasn’t really malicious, maybe it was shock and fear when he saw me. Might as well give him the benefit of the doubt.

Mile three was the reverse of mile 2, going downhill now, so I was back to 4/1’s. I still stayed mostly on the shoulder because I couldn’t see whether there were cars coming toward me. As I headed up the hill to the freeway overpass I saw three runners coming out of the fog toward me. They were running three abreast, talking and laughing, not paying attention. I waved, they waved back. I hope they had a safe run.

Mile four was totally uphill, so I did a 4/1, then a 3/1 and then a few minutes to complete the mile. I was almost home, about four houses away when a big dog leaped off of his porch and bounded toward me, growling and snarling. Fearful, I stopped running. Usually that gets them to stop, but not this one. He was circling me with his head down, still barking when I asked him rather loudly where the H&%* his people were. Turns out his person was about five feet away from me at the mailbox. She hadn’t noticed me, nor me her. She said SORRY about a hundred times, but GEEZE…she didn’t notice when her dog left the porch barking viciously? She couldn’t have called him off before I began to fear for my knees? Must have been something really interesting in the newspaper she was reading.

So anyway, the four miles are done. I’m worried about doing 13.1 next weekend. My right arch hurts. My left knee hurts. But it was a pretty good run, one of my best ones so far this comeback year. Guess it really does help to keep training. And to run in cool weather. But next time I’m running where there are no cars and no dogs. Fog is OK though.

I’ve been “running” (and I put running in quotes for a good reason) the Crim 10 mile race in Flint for about 20 years. Each August, the last Saturday before the Labor Day weekend I and 10,000 of my closest friends crowd into Flint Michigan to enjoy their festival of races. Besides the 10 miler there is an 8K (about 5 miles) and a 5K (about 3.1 miles), a fun 1 miler for the kids and a family 5K walk. Mostly I’ve done the 10 miles, though I think once I did the 8K. There isn’t as much satisfaction in completing 5 miles, but that’s what I should have done this morning instead of struggle through 10 hot humid hilly miles.

I have been training with a group of people for an October 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles) and the Crim was just another training run. Right. The group has been running for 2 minutes and walking a minute, but that seemed too slow for the race, so I ran the way I used to run, to the mile marker, walk through the water table area, and run to the next mile marker. I did that for a whopping 2 miles, not much, but still more than I’ve run in a really long time. Did I mention it was HOT? During miles 3-5 I ran 3 minutes and walked a minute…sort of. You see in mile 5 are the BRADLEY HILLS! The dreaded Bradley Hills are a series of 3 hills, one after the other. And when you get done with them there are more rolling hills (though not as steep) the rest of the course. By mile 5 I had a new strategy. Run the downhills. Crawl up the uphills. By mile 7 the strategy became; run the downhills if there is shade, and by mile 8 it was pretty much just walk and hope I survive to the finish.

I’m not even sure what my time was, it doesn’t matter. As we turned onto the final road and could see the finish line 4 blocks (downhill) I began to run again. But two blocks into that final push I wanted to stop. What the heck. Just walk. It doesn’t matter. A young lady running next to me said “Don’t stop now, you’re almost there!” and I smiled at her as I was slowing to a stop. She said “NO REALLY! DON’T STOP!” and I kept on running, ran with her the rest of the way in. She said “Congratulations!” and I said “THANK YOU!” and that was the end of my race. I ended it with a run because a complete stranger didn’t give up on me and wouldn’t let me give up on me either. That’s the way it is on the Crim course. It’s a great race, even if it is always hot and humid!

The thing I learned from this is that I am going to have to get more serious about these final training weeks before the half marathon in October. Because if I had had to run 3.1 more miles today I don’t think I would have finished. But today I got my finisher’s medal!