Another Run, and Continued Heel Pain

It has been two weeks since I did a run of more than two miles. Now that I am going to participate in the Shamrock Half Marathon in 14 weeks, I need to start running consistently. So this morning, I put on a few layers, gloves, a hat, and started running, going just over four miles. I did a run - walk combination, the same splits as last time. It seemed harder, maybe because it was cold and I had layers on instead of shorts and a tee. Or maybe, with as little running as I have done in the past year, it just is harder.

I generally stuck to my splits, but a few times, I seemed tired and out of breath, and walked a little longer. Another time, I ran a quarter mile around the track to see what my running pace is: 9:30 per mile. So I decided to do some math. My running speed of 9.5 minutes per mile means I average 9.26 feet per second. My walking speed of about 14.5 minutes per mile means I cover 6.07 feet per second walking. Given a run split of 1:05, I run 602 feet in that time, and my walk split of 1:30 means I walk 546 feet in that time. So I average 7.41 feet per second overall, which means an 11:53 overall pace per mile. That is if I strictly follow all my splits, which I didn't completely today. Today, my 4.1 miles took over 50 minutes, or a slower pace than 12 minute miles. So I have a long way to go.

The bummer is, my left heel has hurt all day. This plantar fasciitis has hung in there with a vengence for 7.5 months now, and it clearly means to bug me still. I should have iced it, but it didn't even cross my mind until this second.