I Set a Walking PR Today

Today my “long walk” was 14 miles.  That’s the farthest I’ve ever walked without running any part of it.  I’m now past a half marathon and working my way up to a marathon.

I once again slathered Aquaphor on both heels to reduce the friction.  As I started walking, I noticed some pain from my blisters, but it wasn’t bad enough to make me alter my gait.  For the first time in four days I wasn’t going out of my way to avoid putting weight on my heels.  That enabled me to start at a faster pace.

After a few miles, I noticed some discomfort on the outside of my left foot.  I wondered if I was developing a new blister.  I was wearing a different pair of shoes today than the pair I wore for my last few “long walks.”  Previously, I had been wearing this pair mostly for shorter walks on the treadmill.  This pair is a newer version of the same model.  It’s possible that there are some differences in the fit that I never noticed before.

That’s one of the reasons I like to rotate between two pairs of shoes.  Sometimes you get pressure points in different places.  I’d rather develop blisters in two different places than keep getting new or larger blisters in the same place.  One of my friends calls that “rotating your blisters.”

Through seven miles, I was averaging 13:50 per mile.  That’s as fast as any of my other “long walks.”  After that, July heat combined with sunny skies to cause me to have a few lapses in concentration.  To maintain my pace, I needed to focus on both my effort and my form.  If I’m not paying attention, I slow down.

My pace in the second half was slightly erratic.  On average, I slowed down, but not by too much.  I was able to finish 14 miles in 3:14:24, for an average pace of 13:53.  Since I’ve never walked this far before, that’s a PR.

Some people are of the opinion that if you run (or walk) a distance that you’ve never run (or walked) before, it’s automatically a PR.  I don’t see it that way.  If I ran 26.1 miles at a pace that’s slower than my fastest marathon, I wouldn’t consider it a PR.  In my opinion, it’s not a PR unless it’s the fastest you’ve ever run (or walked) on that distance or farther.  Since I’ve never walked this far before, today’s walk meets that criterion.

13:53 is actually pretty slow compared to my walking PRs for shorter distances.  I’d like to bring that pace down, but for now, I’m happy with it.  It’s hard to build your distance without slowing down.   In 12 days, I’ve gone from 4 miles at a 17:09 pace to 14 miles at a 13:53 pace.

There were a lot of positives in today’s walk.  First, I set a PR.  At my age, I don’t get to say that very often.  Second, I met my training goal for today.  I’ve been ramping up aggressively, so I feel pretty good about that too.  Third, and probably most important, I may have turned a corner with my blisters.

After I finished, I checked my feet.  At first, it seemed like my blisters might be bigger now.  After soaking my feet in Epsom salt, I wasn’t as sure.  The one on the left heel looked bigger, but the one on the right heel didn’t.  Neither seemed to have any blood in it.

I haven’t decided if I’ll try to drain the blister on my left foot.  I’m going to take it easy tomorrow, so I may wait and see for another day.

I think the Aquaphor is helping, so I’m going to stick with it.  It’s harder to know if the Epsom salt is helping, but it’s not hurting, so I’ll stick with that too.  Eventually, I’d like these blisters to heal, but for now I’ll be happy if I can keep training without making them worse.

I also examined the outside of my left foot.  There wasn’t any blister there.  It may have been a “hot spot,” or it may be that achy feeling you get when your shoe is too tight.  Perhaps these shoes aren’t as wide in the forefoot as the older model.  For now, it’s not a big problem.  I’ll keep rotating my shoes.

About Those Blisters ...

In my last post, I mentioned having painful blisters on my heels after a long walk on Wednesday.  This is a follow-up post.

I seldom get blisters from running.  When I do, they’re usually on the tips of my toes or the side of my foot.  I puncture them and press the fluid out.  After that, they don’t bother me too much.  Within a week, they’re usually completely healed.

When I discovered these blisters, there wasn’t enough fluid to drain them.  The skin around my heels looked thicker, but if it wasn’t for the pain, I wouldn’t have recognized them as blisters.  There wasn’t much I could do to treat them.

By the time I did my next long walk on Friday, I was having difficulty walking fast because of the pain.  I managed to suppress the pain, but to do it I had to walk with a great deal of intensity.  I managed to do that for 10.5 miles, but I knew I was making the blisters worse.

After Friday’s walk, the blisters were thicker.  Now there was enough fluid to drain them.  At a glance, they looked slightly dark.  I wondered if they were blood blisters, but it was hard to tell because the skin was so thick.

That’s what makes heel blisters difficult to treat.  Instead of forming near the surface, they’re deep.  They form underneath thick layers of dead calloused skin that builds up around my heels.

I sanitized a pin and used it to poke holes in each blister.  Then I pressed out as much of the fluid as I could.  It wasn’t easy, and it hurt like hell.  They were definitely blood blisters.

Normal blisters are filled with clear liquid.  It’s mostly water, but with traces of salts.  It’s similar to your sweat.  The fluid in blood blisters is mostly the same watery liquid, but with a small amount of blood mixed in, which makes it look red.  The fluid I was draining out of these blisters didn’t seem watery.  It was just blood.  I saturated a tissue with the blood from the two blisters.

Both of these long walks were outside, in the afternoon heat.  I was walking fast enough to work up a sweat.  Even still, it was nothing like the way I used to sweat on long training runs in summer heat.  The hot conditions alone didn’t explain why I was getting such bad blisters.

I’ve had heel blisters before, but only after a long race, like a 24-hour run.  In those races, I do a combination of running and walking.  Maybe that was the common denominator.  Perhaps when I get heel blisters it’s always from the walking.  When I’m trying to walk fast, I lengthen my stride.  Perhaps that’s causing my foot to make contact with the ground in a way that puts more pressure on the back of my heel than running does.

I’ve been doing my long walks in the same shoes I would normally use for running.  I alternate between two pairs of shoes, but both of these long walks were in the same pair of shoes.  I noticed a problem with those shoes.

I have a history of plantar fasciitis.  As a preventative measure, I have rigid orthotics that I wear in my running shoes.  To make room for the orthotics, I have to remove the insoles.  Then I cover the orthotics with Spenco replacement insoles.  They’re basically flat foamy insoles that give me a little bit of cushioning.

The insoles aren’t an exact match to my shoe size.  I have to buy insoles in a larger size and trim them to fit my shoes.  Despite my best efforts to trim them just enough to fit, I sometimes cut them too small.  That’s what happened with this pair.  When I looked into the shoes, I could see that the insoles had ridden forward in my shoes, exposing the back edge of the orthotic.

Here’s a picture.  The insole is green.  The orthotic is red.  You shouldn’t be able to see the orthotic.

This was creating a pressure point where my heel rested on the back edge of the insole.  It might not be the cause of my blisters, but it certainly wasn’t helping.  After lunch on Saturday, Deb and I went shopping for more replacement insoles.  As I trimmed them, I was careful to make them large enough that I could just barely fit them into the shoes.

I have a short-term problem and a long-term problem.  My short-term problem is finding a way to cope with the pain, so I can continue training.  My long-term problem is reducing the friction that’s causing my blisters.  Before they can heal, I have to stop making them worse.

For the pain, I’ve tried Bio Freeze gel and a roll-on painkiller that we bought at CVS.  Neither of them made any dent in the pain.  I eventually realized why topical painkillers won’t help.  I can only apply them to the thick layer of dead skin on the outside of the blisters.  The pain is coming from the inflamed skin underneath.  Without cutting away the dead skin, I can’t reach that layer.

Cutting away the skin is a last resort.  I’ve done that with heel blisters before, but the skin is so thick, it forms a crater.  Along the bottom edge of the crater, it creates a new pressure point that’s even worse than before.  If I did that, I’d have to take a few weeks off to heal before I’d be able to walk again.  I don’t have time for that.

Ordinarily, I might consider taking ibuprofen.  It wouldn’t eliminate the pain, but it might make it slightly more tolerable.  There are two reasons why I don’t want to do that.  First, my long walks are getting close to three hours, and I’m doing them in summer heat.  I could easily get dehydrated.  Ibuprofen is hard on your kidneys to begin with.  It’s especially bad for your kidneys if you’re also dehydrated.

The second reason has to do with a discussion I had with the neurosurgery nurse at my follow-up appointment.  When I asked him about walking marathons, he said I needed to listen to my pain.  He gave me a few guidelines.  If walking causes discomfort in my back, I should stop.  If walking causes my back to feel fatigued at the end of the day, that means I’m overdoing it.  Finally, if I’m unable to wean myself off painkillers, that also might mean I’m overdoing it.

I stopped taking prescription painkillers that same day.  Since then, I’ve gradually weaned myself off ibuprofen.  Until the blisters, I wasn’t experiencing any discomfort.  I realize he wasn’t talking about blister pain, but if I’m taking ibuprofen for the blisters, it impairs my ability to gauge whether I’m having discomfort in other areas.  For now, I have to do without it.

Finally, I’ve tried soaking my feet in an Epsom salt solution.  Some people say that can relieve pain, while other says it reduces swelling.  There doesn’t seem to be any scientific evidence to support either of claims, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.  I’m not sure if it will do any good in the long run, but I’ll stick with it for a few days.  If nothing else, it feels soothing while my feet are soaking.

Finding a way to cope with the pain is important, because it’s starting to hold back my training.  On Saturday, when I tried to do a fast workout on the treadmill, I couldn’t bring myself to put weight on the back of my heels.  I had to shorten my stride until I was walking on the balls of my feet.  That felt too awkward, so I stopped after only a mile.  My pace for that workout was two minutes slower than the 10.5 mile walk I did on Friday.  My other walks that day were all casual walks outside.  I had to take small steps, resulting in a ridiculously slow pace.

On Sunday, I did another long walk.  This time I increased the distance to 12.25 miles.  I felt better than I did on Saturday, but my stride was still a bit shorter than before.  I did the best I could, but the shorter stride resulted in a slower pace.  I averaged 14:12 per mile.  That’s not awful, but it was disappointing compared to the 13:50 pace that I averaged for 10.5 miles on Friday.  In addition to building up to a marathon, I need to keep bringing my pace down.

One of the most obvious things I can do to keep the blisters from getting worse is to keep draining them.  The more they swell, the more it results in extra pressure.  On Saturday, there was good news and bad news.  The good news is that the fluid wasn’t as bloody.  There was a little blood, but mostly it was clear liquid.  The bad news is that I couldn’t get it all out.  No matter where I poked holes and where I applied pressure, some of the fluid wouldn’t come out.

I’ve had that problem with heel blisters before.  New blisters form underneath the old ones, creating layers of blisters.  The newest blisters are filled with fluid, while the ones on top are filled with air.  It’s hard to tell if you’re poking into the right compartment.  Even if you are, it can be tough to get the fluid out.  Sometimes it just moves from one compartment to another.

After my long walk yesterday, it seemed like there was only clear fluid, but I didn’t even try to get it out.  It was no longer worth inflaming the whole area just to get 10% of the fluid out.

Some people will protect their skin by applying bandages.  I have trouble getting anything to stick to my feet when they start getting sweaty.  Over the years, I’ve tried Band-Aids, sports tape, duct tape and expensive ortholetic tape.  Everything comes loose.  Sometimes tape will come loose as soon as I think about exercising.  That’s how much my feet sweat.

I bought some blister pads at CVS.  I was skeptical, but they’re supposed to be waterproof, and they seemed pretty sticky.  Yesterday morning, I put one on each heel before going for a one mile walk with Deb.  They stayed on for a short walk, so I was cautiously optimistic they might stay on through my long walk.  If they did, it would give me an extra layer to protect the skin underneath from friction.

After my walk, I took off my socks, and the pads weren’t there anymore.  They were sticking to the inside of my socks.  I’m not sure how long they stayed in place.

The latest thing I’ve tried is to lubricate my heels.  Some people apply Vaseline to areas that are prone to blistering.  I decided to use Aquaphor.  It’s designed as an ointment to sooth dry or irritated skin, but I use it like Vaseline to prevent chafing.  I’m applying it to each heel before putting my socks on.  So far, I’ve used it for two short walks on the treadmill.  I was able to walk fast, but I’m still altering my stride to minimize pressure on my heels.  I’ll use it again for my long walk tomorrow.

If I can keep from making the blisters worse, maybe they’ll eventually heal.  If I can’t, I’m going to have a hard time walking my summer marathons within the time limits.  Ideally, I should take a break to let my feet heal, but now isn’t a good time.

I'm Making Progress on My Walking, but ...

It’s been 10 days since my sutures were removed.  At the time, I mentioned I had hopes of possibly walking the first race of the Prairie Series.  At the time, my longest walk since my back surgery was four miles, and I was increasing that by only a quarter mile each day.  The race was only 17 days away.  Do the math.  I wasn’t going to get there unless I ramped up my walking at a ridiculous rate.

Then Deb reminded me there was also a half marathon.  I was registered for the marathon, but I could always switch to the half.  I originally registered for that race so I could make progress toward my long-term goal of doing every marathon in Minnesota.  Doing the half marathon wouldn’t help with that goal, but it would still be an important stepping stone toward walking the Helsinki City Marathon four weeks later.  Ramping up to a half marathon was still an ambitious goal, but it was much more realistic.

There’s a reason this blog is named, “Goal-Oriented Runner.”  Everything I do is goal-oriented.  Having goals gives me a sense of purpose.  I don’t just have goals for races.  I have goals for each workout.  Being able to associate a workout with how it will help me in my next race sometimes makes the individual workouts almost as exciting as the races.

For now, I can’t run at all.  I can only do one form of exercise: walking.  I’m walking with zeal because it gives me a sense of purpose.  I can’t understate how important that is to my psyche right now.  For most people, their identity is tied closely to their careers.  That’s never been the case for me.  I’m retired now, but even when I was working, I hated my job.  It’s what I was good at, but it was never what I enjoyed.  My identity has always been defined by my running.  Now that I can’t run, it’s identified by my walking.  It’s all I have.

With the half marathon in mind, I started increasing the length of my daily “long walks” by a half mile.  Then I start increasing them by a mile.  Ideally, I wanted to do the half marathon distance on my own before I did it in the race.

Because I was ramping up my “long walks” so quickly, I didn’t do as many short walks.  I didn’t want my total daily mileage to increase too quickly.  As a result, my “long walks” made up a larger proportion of my total mileage.  Here’s a bar graph of my daily mileage in the three weeks after surgery.  The blue portion of the bars represents my longest walk of each day.

At first, I was doing all my “long walks” on a treadmill.  That allowed me to be disciplined about my pacing.  I always did the entire walk at the same pace.  I started at 3.0 miles per hour (20:00 per mile).  A few days later, I picked it up to 3.1 mph.  If the pace felt too easy one day, I would nudge it up again the next day.

On Monday, I walked seven miles at a 16:13 pace.  Then on Tuesday, I decided to do my “long walk” outside.  I assumed that would make the miles less monotonous.  By now my “long walks” were taking about two hours.  That’s a long time to walk on a treadmill.  I also assumed I would have to go at a slower pace.  I thought walking on the treadmill was making it easier to maintain my pace.  My first assumption was correct.  My second assumption was wrong.  The treadmill was actually holding me back.

I set out to walk eight miles.  At first, I was going slower than my indoor walks, but I gradually accelerated.  I was doing multiple loops, and each one was faster than the one before.  I ended up walking eight miles in 2:70:30.  That’s an average of 15:56 per mile.

On Wednesday, I walked outside again.  This time, my goal was nine miles.  Emboldened by Monday’s walk, I started much faster.  Through the first seven miles, my pace was fairly uniform.  My time after seven miles was more than 13 minutes faster than it was on Tuesday.  It occurred to me that if I could speed up just a bit more, I might be able to finish nine miles in less time than it took me to walk eight miles the day before.

In my eighth mile, I lit a fire under myself to walk faster, if I could.  Up until now, in all of my walks, I had been simply walking at a fast pace.  As I told myself to go faster, I found myself occasionally slipping into race-walking.  It’s a different gait, which includes noticeable rotation of the pelvis.  It felt much more fluid than my previous gait.

I walked that mile in 13:36.  I had one more mile to go.  Realizing I could beat my eight mile time from Tuesday, I continued to lift my effort.  I did that last mile in 12:59.  My total time for nine miles was 2:06:17.  My average pace was 14:02!  I wasn’t expecting to get that fast so soon.

Some of my friends were understandably concerned that I was race-walking.  Knowing I’m recovering from back surgery, they cautioned that I shouldn’t be rotating my pelvis, because it would cause my back to twist.  I’m supposed to avoid bending or twisting my back.  That’s the reason I’ve been careful to keep my shoulders square and avoid excessive arm swing.

The next time I walked on the treadmill, I briefly experimented with a race-walk gait, so I could watch my belly.  I could see the side-to-side movement.  If my belly was moving, my lower back was moving.  After that I avoided race-walking.

After my fast nine mile walk on Wednesday, I noticed painful blisters on the heels of each foot.  It was a hot, humid day, and I was working up a sweat.  The blisters were painful, and they forced me to take it easy on Thursday.  I only walked seven miles that day, and my longest walk was only four miles.  It was the first time since my surgery that I didn’t increase the length of my “long walk.”  It was more important to give myself an easy day, in hopes that my blisters wouldn’t be as painful on Friday.

On Friday, I found that I could walk without pain if I kept the pace casual.  Anything faster than a 20:00 pace would hurt.  For my “long walk,” I went outside again.  My goal was 10.5 miles.  I didn’t want to do the whole thing at a casual pace, but I quickly realized that anything faster would hurt.  The faster I walked, the more it would hurt.

Under the right circumstances, I can suppress a great deal of pain.  There are two ways to do it.  The first is physiological; the second is psychological.  The physiological method is to exert yourself hard enough to produce endorphins.  Endorphins are natural painkillers.  The psychological method is to distract yourself.  For example, if I was focused completely on my effort and my mechanics, I would stop noticing the pain.  Either way, I had to walk fast.

I started out at a fast enough pace that I could tune out the pain.  Almost from the start, I had a race-walk gait.  I looked down at by belly.  I could barely notice the movement.  Then I reached behind me and touched my lower back. My hand was right at the bottom of my lumbar spine.  I could feel the movement.

Next, I moved my hand up an inch or two.  Now the movement was barely noticeable.  Finally, I moved my hand up to the middle of my back, so it was just a few inches below my incision.  I couldn’t feel any movement at all.  That was a relief.

If I had a lumbar surgery, any movement in my lower back would have been alarming.  My surgery was on the upper back.  My upper back wasn’t moving at all.

At this point, I had a choice.  To tolerate the blister pain, I had to walk at a fast pace, but there are only two ways to increase your pace.  You can increase your stride length, or you can increase your stride frequency (i.e. your cadence).

When you run, you’re airborne until your lead foot strikes the ground.  You can increase your stride length by “flying” farther.  When you walk, you always have at least one foot on the ground.  You can only increase your stride length by rotating your pelvis to reach farther forward with your lead foot.  That’s what I was doing.  It’s a big part of the distinction between a conventional walking gait and a race-walk gait.

The other way to increase your pace is in increase your stride frequency.  You have to get your legs to turn over faster.  When I was 30 years old, I flirted briefly with race-walking.  I went so far as to attend a clinic held by a member of the US Olympic team.  One of the drills was to try walking without moving your arms.  We tried and tried, but nobody could do it.  That was the point.  When you move one leg forward, you move the arm on the same side backward.  You have to do that to maintain your balance.  Picture a toddler taking his or her first steps.  They’re wobbly, because they’re still learning how to keep their balance while moving forward.  Before long, it becomes second nature.  You can’t not do it.

Then she taught us a mental trick.  Sometimes, the easiest way to move your legs faster is to focus instead on moving your arms faster.  If your arms move faster, your legs will move faster too.  You can’t not do it.  That’s the mental trick that enabled me to walk a mile in 8:43 and 5K in 29:38 with only three months of training.  I could walk fast, but I had a vicious arm swing.

I had three choices.  First, I could rotate my pelvis, knowing it would cause some rotation in the lowest part of my back.  Second, I could have a vigorous arm swing, knowing it would cause rotation of my upper back.  Finally, I could do neither, which would limit me to walking no faster than 15:00 per mile.  I could live with that, but that in turn would probably make it impossible for me to ignore the blister pain.  Then I’d be limited to a pace of 20:00 per mile or slower for a really long time.  Given those choices, I opted for a small amount of movement in my lower back.

I was again doing multiple loops of a route through our neighborhood.  I started at a pace that was noticeably faster than my last “long walk.”  I was going noticeably faster than 14:00 per mile.  That effort proved to be unsustainable.  I slowed down a bit in the second half, but still managed an average pace of 13:50.

The Helsinki City Marathon has a time limit of six hours.  That’s an average of 13:44 per mile.  I’m already getting close, and that race is still five weeks away.

After my walk on Friday, the blisters on my heels were worse.  Going forward, that may be my biggest obstacle.  Today was another easy day.  I’m not sure if I can do another long walk tomorrow.  I have to figure out how to cope with the blisters.

Why am I pushing so hard to walk farther?  Why am I pushing so hard to walk faster?

Running marathons is my whole life.  It’s who I am.  It’s what I am.  When I was told I couldn’t run for 12 weeks, it just about killed me.  I’m clinging to walking as a substitute.

I knew I couldn’t run the Bighorn Trail 100.  That was my most important race of the year, but I accepted that.  I knew I had to cancel the Firecracker Quadzilla.  I love those races, but I accepted that.  The Prairie Series doesn’t have time limits.  That means those races are walkable.  Ideally, I’d like to walk at least one of those marathons.  I’ve willing to settle for walking one of the half marathons.

Looking farther out, I’m scheduled to fly to Europe in August to do the Helsinki City Marathon in Finland and the Solidarity Marathon in Poland.  The Helsinki City Marathon has a time limit of six hours.  That’s possible, but it will take some work.  The Solidarity Marathon has a time limit of five and a half hours.  That’s a real stretch.  Ideally, I’d like to walk them both.  I’d settle for walking one of them.

I’m scheduled to do the Moose Mountain Marathon in early September.  By then, I should be able to run again, but I won’t have any training.  It’s a rugged trail marathon that might be as difficult as any marathon I’ve done.  I won’t be in shape to run it, and it’s not a race I can walk.  Even if I could, it probably wouldn’t be wise.  For the time being, I shouldn’t do anything that rugged.  I can accept that.

I have another marathon scheduled in late September and two more in October.  I won’t be in shape to run the whole way, but if I’m in shape to walk a marathon, it wouldn’t take much running to be able to beat the time limits.  Do you see why the walking is so important to me?