I guess I'll ask this here since Monte is skyrocketing up the H&F jogger power ratings. Seems like the other joggers hang out here too.

I'm a mediocre jogger who runs like a donk (as loco would say, and not be wrong about). Only about 15 miles a week (all treadmill), but I get a moderate amount of blisters on my toes. What are your best picks for socks and shoes that are most likely to prevent this? Right now I wear some Balega ones that were on sale at Amazon. Shoes are Brooks Adrenaline GTS. They feel OK, but if the blisters keep piling up over time. It's not enough that it is painful or causing problems, but at the current trajectory thing may change at some point.

Only thing that may save me is a lower body injury that will keep me from running for a while. Of course, as an old, I'm always drawing very live to that.

3/19: Recovery W3D2
Recovery Run
5.0 mi - 49:19/9:52 pace/140 HR

3/20: Recovery W3D3
Recovery Run
5.0 mi - 48:42/9:44 pace/145 HR

HR is still a bit elevated on these easy runs; hopefully I'll settle into something a little closer to my previous baseline once some slightly harder work starts back up.

Very true, 40 year old me would be quite surprised by these developments. You are correct that it's now a habit; from time to time my wife certainly (quite rightly) bristles if I don't organize things so the impact on the family is minimized. I'm going to try to ramp up to 55 miles during the marathon prep for November (I'll be doing Pfitzinger's 18 week/55 mile plan), so I'll have to make sure I get up early enough to knock everything out in the mornings again.

You should sign up for a race, loco; I somehow now have four on the calendar, so there's now no choice but to train.

I used to have this problem, and the thing that saved me was anti-chafing foot cream: I didn't buy anti-blister socks until just before the marathon. I used to have bandaids over half my toes when I started and now I'm much better; with that said, I'm sure the combo of a) socks made of the correct material to wick away sweat and b) lubrication of the areas where you tend to blister is best. Getting fitted for the correct shoe for your gait and adjusting your stride to increase your running economy would probably address the root cause, but I can't be bothered to get that into it at this point.

Thanks. I don't use no fancy anti-chafing foot cream, but I do slather my feet in vaseline before putting on the antiblister socks for anything more than a few miles. Looks like I'm doing about as well as I can do. Seems like an unavoidable problem even with (barely) significant mileage.

3/21: Recovery W3D4
A
NG Pullups: +15 x8, x7, x6
RFESS: +30 x10, x9, x8

B
Bench: wu, 155 x10x2, x8
Facepulls: 4x15
Seated Calf: 3x15

C
Farmer's Carries (75 lb DBs): x~40 sec, x~35 sec, x~30 sec

D
Leg Extensions: x20, x16
Leg Curl: x20, x14

E
Incline Bench: 50s x12, x10, x7
DB Pullovers: 65 x13, x101 x8

E
Leg Adductor: 2x15
Leg Abductor: 2x15

F
Overhead Rope Tri: x16, x11, x10
DB Hammer: 25s x12, x11, x10

Standard.

Melk,

Maybe try those toe socks that look like Vibrams?

3/22: Recovery W3D5
General Aerobic Run + Strides
7.0 mi - 1:02:10.7/8:53 pace/147 HR

This definitely felt harder than it would have 8 weeks ago, but it was still pretty comfortable; my average HR was a bit higher than I would have hoped, but when I calculated my HR bands for this training (based on HRR), between 133 and 153 is the range I should be shooting for, so fine enough. I also did 8 rounds of 0:15 strides with 0:45 recovery, which added an extra mile at the end; felt good to get a little pace on my legs.

Well, I guess it couldn't hurt.

I'm feeling a bit less optimistic about these. It seems that their main utility is for blisters between the toes. I don't get those; mine are always at the tips of my toes.

Isn't this a too small shoe issue?

3/24: Recovery W3D7
General Aerobic Run
9.0 mi - 1:19:33/8:50 pace/147 HR

Pretty k. Going hiking with the wife and kids this afternoon, so I'll be getting my steps in.

I considered that, but my toes have plenty of room. Or at least it feels like that when when they're in the shoes.

Maybe heel lock the laces? Maybe your feet are sliding back and forth while you're running or something.

Never heard of that before, but just checked out some vids. I could see that helping. I'll give it a try.

I've never had this issue in running shoes but have had it with boots and if the boot wasn't too small, what Monte suggested would fix it.

Blisters are caused by friction which means the tip of your toe has to rub against something. And it isn't your sock that it is rubbing against.

3/25: Recovery W4D1
A
NG Pullups: x11, x9, x7
Walking Lunges: 25s x10, x9, x8

B
OHP: wu, 85 x10, x9, x8
HLRs: 3x8
Seated Calf: 3x15

C
Leg Ext: x20, x16
Leg Curl: x20, x16

D
Low Incline DB Bench: wu, 60s x10x2, x8
Facepulls: 4x15
Pallofs: 3x8

E
Adductor Machine: x15x2
Abductor Machine: x15x2

F
DB LTEs: 25s x16, x13, x10
DB Seated Incline Curl: 20s x10x3

Ramping the old man routine back up; still going to try to fit in three sessions a week after I get back from our little spring break trip.

On another note, there's a nice YMCA gym about a quarter mile from my office that I've rarely used because I've been lifting with my buddies at one nearer to my house. One of them is going to keep lifting because I've pretty much ingrained the habit into him (he's lost 40 lbs) and the other one stopped, so I've switched my routine up and just leave the house early, lift, and then go to work. It's legitimately saved me 45 minutes to an hour every morning in terms of commute time back and forth and the random tasks I end up doing at time after I get back but before I leave. The other plus is that the gym is nicer, so it's kind of dumb of me not to have done this sooner.

3/26: Recovery W4D2
General Aerobic Run
7.0 mi - 1:02:13/8:53 pace/148 HR

Kind of meh; legs were heavy and I had a pretty significant headwind for the majority of the time.

3/27: Recovery W4D3
Recovery Run
5.0 mi - 48:58/9:47 pace/139 HR

3/28: Recovery W4D4
A
Single Leg Press: +70 x10, x9, x8
Seated Calf: 3x15

B
Incline Bench: wu, 125 x10x3
Facepulls: 4x15
Back Extensions: 3x8

C
Leg Extensions: x20, x17
Seated Leg Curl: x20, x17

D
Seated DB OHP : 40s x10x3
DB Incline Row: 55s x12, x11, x10

E
Abductor Machine: 2x15
Adductor Machine: 2x15

F
Supinated Single Arm Cable Tri: x14, x13, x12
Bayesian Curl: x14, x13, x12
Lateral Cable Raise: x14, x13, x12

Off-site folks have been in this week so I had a bit too much to drink Tuesday, but still managed to get my run in. Lifting session today was fine. Last night was a bit of an adventure because I sliced my forehead open on a shelf in the pantry, but lucky just needed five butterfly stitches, which we did at home.

Heading out to Washington DC with the wife and for a Spring Break trip; probably not going to get any lifting in, but should be able to gin up some time to run.

How do you do an incline dumbbell row?

Lazy man's seal row, basically - set up the bench like you're doing incline dumbbell bench, lay face down, row the dumbbells from the floor. I used to do one arm rows from the bench, but it tended to irritate my SI because I'd twist too much; I'm not sure how effective these actually are, but I feel them like a standard row and they don't irritate my lower back, so I'll take it. There's another variation I haven't tried where you stand facing the end of an inclined bench (opposite the seat) and brace your chest against that and row; I've never done it, but I'd imagine you'd need to either strap up or do less weight since I'd assume most can't pull from the floor using that setup.

ok, makes sense if it's an injury get around. My lower back tweaks if I do barbell bent over rows, but I don't get it (shudder....yet) if I do bent over DB rows

of all the body parts though, I kind of think that back is the one that responds best to machine based exercises....or there's the least 'loss of value' by not using free weights. With the exception of Deadlift, which IDK, I always think of as a lower body exercise more than a back one

I tend to rotate horizontal pulls reasonably frequently, but yes, I probably use machines most frequently for those. I should probably add in some lat pulldowns on the one day in my rotation that doesn't have chin-ups.

Back when I was exclusively lifting, my motto was always "you can never do too much back", which is probably still true but less relevant now that I'm an old cardiobunny that barely lifts anymore. The volume of chin-ups I used to do was pretty significant, looking back; luckily my elbows didn't explode.

3/29: Recovery W4D5
General Aerobic Run
8.11 mi - 1:12:30/8:56 pace/144 HR

Squeezed this in on a hotel treadmill; fine enough.

3/31: Recovery W4D7
General Aerobic Run
10.0 mi - 1:27:59/8:48 pace/147 HR

Did a few loops around the Mall; pretty sweet scenery. Harder than it should have been, but I did walk 11+ miles yesterday, so not too surprising.

4/2: Recovery W5D2
General Aerobic Run
7.0 mi - 1:02:04/8:52 pace/152 HR

Squeezed this in after a day of sight seeing where I'd already walked 15k steps; were I less stubborn I'd have dialed down the pace, especially considering there was a fair bit of elevation gain where I ran, but alas.

4/4: Recovery W5D4
A
Bench: wu, 165 x9, x7x2
NG Pullups: +15 x9, x8, x7
RFESS: +30 x10x3
Seated Calf: 3x15

B
Farmer's Carries (75 lb DBs): x~40 sec, x~35 sec, x~30 sec

C
Leg Extensions: x20, x18
Leg Curl: x20, x18

D
Incline Bench: 55s x10, x9, x7
DB Pullovers: 70 x11, x8, x6

E
Leg Adductor: 2x15
Leg Abductor: 2x15

E
Facepulls: 4x15
Overhead Rope Tri: x16, x13, x11
DB Hammer: 25s x12x2, x10

Pretty k; need to fit in a recovery run this evening and an easy run tomorrow, so we'll see how I manage to get on.

I caught norovirus from one of my kids the day after I got back from DC; for about two and a half days I was in pretty bad shape with all the normal symptoms, and I ended up losing 7 or so pounds when all was said and done. I took most of last week off - I think I did four miles Tuesday and it was pretty tiring, so I figured some discretion was warranted.

I'd signed up for a 5k with a buddy a few weeks back; it's right by my house on a road that's part of my normal route, so no reason not to do it. I went into it not planning on racing it, but my buddy wanted to try for sub-22, so I paced him for that for the first mile (~7:08) until he fell off, then ran with his neighbor for a bit until I pulled away from him towards the end of the second mile. Obviously I couldn't let him catch me, so I came in at 21:45 per the chip, with a pretty decent negative split. I'm obviously nowhere close to peak fitness, but I was pretty happy with this. Long term goal is to get to sub-20 (maybe next year at this race?).

I did 3 miles of recovery yesterday, but my legs were pretty heavy and I was pretty fatigued so I cut it there. Per my watch and just how I feel I'm pretty obviously dealing with some sort of post-viral recovery, but I'm just going to push through things and autoregulate based on fatigue.

4/15
A
NG Pullups: x12, x10, x8
Walking Lunges: 25s x10x3

B
OHP: wu, 85x10x2, x7
HLRs: 3x8
Seated Calf: 3x15

C
Leg Ext: x20, x17
Leg Curl: x20, x18

D
Low Incline DB Bench: wu, 60s x10, x9, x7
Facepulls: 4x15
Pallofs: 3x8

E
Adductor Machine: x15x2
Abductor Machine: x15x2

F
DB LTEs: 25s x17, x12, x10
DB Seated Incline Curl: 20s x10x3

Average HR was higher than normal for this session and this took a few minutes longer than I normally take (this was about 63 minutes vs 58-60 minutes normally), so I'm definitely not all the way back. Going to try to get back into the 3x/wk gym cadence since my marathon training doesn't start in earnest until July.

nice 5k!