Bring on the pains

With 15 and 16 mile long runs the past two Mondays I've found my new weak point that will need to be addressed before the marathon, my butt hurts. I've been stretching a bunch or at least a bunch compared to the none I had been doing. I've figured out how to loosen up my hips/glutes, but I'm not sure the cause of the problem. I'm hoping it is related to bad form after I had blistered a toe on vacation and will pass. If it isn't that then I suspect I shorten my stride too much when holding my pace down so I can get the miles in. On the up side even with the pain I finished the 16 miles confident I'll be ready for 26.2 next month. I estimated my finish time at 4:15 on the registration form and am on target for that. I'd like to finish in under 4 hours but will need everything to go right for it to happen.

Looking beyond the marathon Jen and I have the Urban Assault Ride to prep for but before then I'm eyeballing a 75 mile mountain bike race. Could be a long day, could need a new bike, could forget about it in a month.

Last fall I wrote about the Vibram Five Finger shoe like things I had purchased. The running in them was brief due to my poor judgment of the time to toughen up my feet. So now that it is warm again I dug them out just to wear around. I'll run I'm them again but not until after the marathon. We did hike out at Blue Mounds Sunday and they worked well at least taking the edge off the sharp rocks, trail running on anything but dirt would hurt. If you want footwear that gets everyone's attention the Five Fingers will do it. I've never owned anything that got that many question or comments. Could be the blue camouflage in size 45 wasn't the stealth choice.