Checking In

Wow, that last post got found by the spambots. I was going to delete them all, but got bored.

Moving on. I finished the Timberline Marathon – what, nine months ago now? Yikes, time flies. During the race I was doing okay, jogging along, and then I tripped and landed awkwardly on my right leg. Nothing popped or broke, but I got a shooting pain in my knee/IT area. I hobbled along to the finish and took a long time off running. I needed a break. I'm now considering the Autumn Leaves 50K in October. No firm plans, but I'd like to try and get my act together to train for it. If I do get a schedule in place again, I'll start updating more. In the mean time, here's me getting cozy with my medal.

Tomorrow's the big day

I'm leaving work at noon today to head up to Timothy Lake. I'm camping with a bunch of friends up there tonight, and running the marathon tomorrow! I'm supremely lucky to have such a great group of friends, who'll tramp up and down Oregon to watch me race. :-)

I'm not really nervous about the run. I went up two weeks ago and did the whole thing, to see if I could make the time cut-off. I did! And it really wasn't too bad. (If I was running, I would never do the whole course just two weeks before the real deal, but since I'm run-walk-shuffling, and it's on trails, I figured it wouldn't be too hard on my body.) I felt good even after driving the ninety minutes home, and the day after the dry run I was barely stiff at all. One interesting thing I tried on the practice run was to listen to music. I did about half the course without it, and then pulled out my iPod. It helped pass the time, for sure. I'd love to find another slowpoke to talk to during the race, but if I don't I will be plugging in ye olde ear phones.

I'm looking forward to knocking this one out and then taking a few months off to let my Achilles get all better. It's definitely on the road to better right now, but it's been flaring up now and then. Once this race is over I'm going to baby the hell out of it until the new year.

Update

I'm going to try some light jogging on the treadmill after work today. Fingers crossed, toes crossed, eyes crossed, etc. that my tendon cooperates. I'm actually quite nervous. I've been RICE-ing the thing religiously and haven't run in nine days. (ACK!) If it isn't feeling better today it will definitely be time to visit Dr. Awesome, aka my chiropractor. I emailed my GP (aka Dr. Useless) last week and he was (one guess) useless. I'm trying very hard to keep perspective and not freak out about skipping all these runs, but man it's hard.

I had been semi-planning on doing the Autumn Leaves 50k after Timberline. If I can start running easy again after today I might stick to that plan. But if not it seems wise to take it off the table. In any case I'll be planning a hiatus from racing for a while after this fall. (Famous last words, right?) I enjoy running, but I hate feeling nervous and fail-y when I have to skip runs, even for a good reason. It's extra stress I really don't need in my life. It's nice to have a running goal, but when it starts causing more misery than motivation its time to reevaluate.

GODDAMIT

I have some mild tendonitis in my right Achilles. Sigh. Whatever was bothering my calf has migrated south. I have a feeling it was the addition of speedwork into my routine, but regardless of the reason it both sucks and blows. God bless the internets for allowing me to do some dubious scientific research and figure out that the worst thing to do would be to run on it. So I gritted my teeth and skipped yesterday's run. Instead I rode the stationary bike at the gym for an hour and was rewarded with a terribly sore ass this morning.

Now I have to figure out what to do with myself tomorrow. Here’s the thing:
I need I'm supposed to run 20 this weekend. I know that it won't kill me to not run twenty. In fact, in the grand scheme of things I know that never being able to run again wouldn’t kill me (though it might make me get fat, which is, of course, a fate worse than death). I know that I have to be smart here, and not aggravate the tendonitis and make it a true problem. I'd like to try running, but I'm afraid I'd have to stop right away, meaning I don't want to drive all the way down to Champoeg only to turn right around. But I don't want to try and run on like, asphalt either – not real forgiving. I could always run on the track, but can you imagine? 80 laps?? Good lord. But sadly, that might be the best option. It's close to home, flat, and forgiving. Of course, really…really I should probably not run at all. (AAAAARRRRRGGGHHHHNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO) The tendon is feeling a lot better, a lot less tender to the pinch test. But still tender. Really, I should take the weekend off. I should. Really. Just not run this weekend. Just not run. I shouldn't run.


...My god, I'm a total addict.

That flushing sound is my training going down the toilet

Yeah. Yikes. I never skipped a single run during my first round of marathon training last year. I moved some around, combined some, etc. But I hit my mileage every week. This time? Not so much. That calf pain I mentioned last week has stuck around. On Saturday I was scheduled to run 13 miles but only made 9, then skipped Sunday's run all together. I was really hoping that giving it a rest day would fix everything, but Monday's run was hard too. And yesterday I barely hung on for four miles. Five minutes browsing around the interwebs leads me to believe there is something going on with my Soleus muscle. But regardless of what oddly named muscle is bugging me, the prescription is the same: rest. I have my longest training run planned for this Saturday, 22 miles. If I can have a good final long run I'll be fine. So with that in mind I'm skipping the other two runs planned this week. My inner couch potato is ecstatic, but most of me is pissed. I'm definitely getting my hands on Run Less, Run Faster for Timberline.

We're a big bunch of masochistic weirdos

I had to jog 50 feet to catch the bus this morning and my legs complained. Boo. It's ironic that I run so much in training that I can't actually run in real life when I need to.

Yesterday was typical spring weather – dreary, with rain showers all day. So I was at the gym come five to bang out six miles. The gym crowds have thinned since January but wet weather can still bring them inside in droves (course I'm part of the herd too - moo). I try to avoid doing more than four miles on the treadmill after work because once I cross the mystical thirty minute barrier I become a target for gymsters on the hunt for a cardio machine. Personally, I'd rather wait five minutes than interrupt someone else's workout. But life has taught me that not everyone feels the same. And I do start to feel guilty when someone is waiting and my workout time starts creeping up toward 50 minutes. Not guilty enough to get off the treadmill, but you know - a little twinge.

I started off easy and worked out the kinks I still have from whatever it was I did to myself two weeks ago. I did four miles at about 6.6, then bumped up to 6.8, and for the last mile put the pace back up to 7.2. I hit more kinks as I increased the pace, but once I'd been running for a few minutes they melted away. Happiness. Something momentarily horrifying happened right afterward though. I was walking toward the cool-down area and stopped to pick up an exercise mat on the floor. As I stood up I stumbled and somehow jammed my foot in a way that caused EXCRUCIATING pain to engulf the top of my left foot. I yelped and nearly fell over (in my usual graceful fashion). It hurt the whole time I was stretching, anytime I bent the foot, and while I gimped back to the lockers. I was, of course, panicked, and ready to call my chiropractor post-haste.

Once I got other shoes on though, it nearly vanished. And this morning, even wearing my running shoes, it was barely a whisper. Apparently it was just random ghostly agonizing pain. Goody!

Here's hoping

I completed my 15 miles on Saturday. It was hard. I thought ten miles in the rain was bad, then I went fifteen in the sleet & hail. In all honesty it wasn't coming down the entire length of the run. But it stung my face and hands and made the path slippery. The last three miles I increased my pace: one) to see if I could; and two) because I just wanted to be done. I was tired, and that night I went to bed at 7:45. Last week was my first 30-mile week, and it took it out of me. I think/hope I'm still wrestling with a cold, because I could easily go to bed at 8 every night, and I refuse to let this training take over my life.

Today it was sunny and completely beautiful in Portland. An extremely rare day for us this time of year, and I jumped at the chance to run outside on my lunch break. It is runs like the one I enjoyed today that remind me of why I like running in the first place. I was going along the Springwater Corridor at a perfectly comfortable pace, my legs felt good, my breathing was perfect, the sun and wind were on my back, the river was sparkling. I felt a great amount of joy, and it was remarkable to think that this is something that I would seek out – that I would consider running to be a… relaxation activity. It's hard to explain, but I think anyone who feels the need to coerce themselves into exercising knows what I'm trying to get at. Today's run was like a break, like a mini-vacation in the middle of the workday. There is nothing that I could have done that I would have enjoyed more than running four miles in the beautiful sunshine.

That feeling has been missing these last few weeks – this great run came at the perfect time. I've been feeling worn down, and the lingering hip thing has cast a pall over running the past 6 weeks or so. Running was a chore, something to get out of the way so that I could spend the rest of my free time doing "fun" things. But today running was a fun thing. I need to capture that spirit and bottle it so that this weekend, when the rain and snow are due back, I can face my long run with a smile and not a grimace.

Hoping 15 miles on Saturday won't kill me

My seven miles last night was a mixed bag. On the positive side, my hip didn't hurt at all. Excellent. My toe hurt a few times, but mildly. Good. On the negative said, my right leg hurt last night. WTF? Assuredly not good. I'm just praying that it was getting sick of compensating for a weak left leg, and that now I'm working on the left leg the right will stop complaining. Either that or I'm taking up swimming. Seriously. I pretty much told myself that I would train as long as it was fun and I wasn't hurting myself. I had and have every intention of finishing the marathon, but not at the risk of doing long-term damage to poor little legs. They're trying hard, but I have to respect that they might have limits under 26.2 miles. I don't want to...but if it comes to that I will swallow my pride and throw in the towel. Of course that will be my absolute, dead-last resort, because I have a feeling that my legs are a lot less sensitive than my ego.

Oh left leg, why can't you be more like right leg?

I went to see a chiropractor this morning, for the first time ever. The pain I've had in my left hip has not been getting better, and I figured better nip it in the bud now before it becomes really severe. Dr. Awesome (as I'll be calling him) was great. He's a runner too, so he had some ideas right away about what could be causing it.

It's his opinion that the hip pain is actually caused by my foot and how it strikes the ground. Because of a weak arch it's twisting too much and causing the rest of the leg to sort of swirl counter-clockwise, which ends up putting a lot of torsion on the hip. And that leads to "ow." I have a bunch of exercises to do, every 3-4 hours (not quite sure how I'm going to do them at work…), to strengthen the foot, ankle, and thigh. Fingers crossed, they'll strengthen the weak muscles, thus taking stress off the hip.

My four miles yesterday (on the treadmill) weren't pretty. I felt like I was unconsciously favoring my right leg over my left (which I know is bad), then trying to consciously stop. It was excessively awkward. Plus I'm still feeling a bit worn, so I wasn't able to go as fast as I've gone recently. On the positive side, I decided to turn it into a kind of half-assed hill workout and cranked the incline to 5 for a few minutes at a time. That made the time pass relatively quickly, and by the end I was pretty much pain-free. We'll see how things go tonight - I'm hopeful.

Pardon my French…

...but there is no way to express how truly awful my run was on Saturday except through cursing: it was a fucking nightmare. Seriously, from start to finish it was a total CF. I came thisclose to scrapping the whole thing after two miles, but managed to convince myself to use it as a pre-marathon test to see just how much pain and misery I can endure. Which is a lot, apparently. What was so horrible about it? 1) I think I had a fever; 2) My throat hurt and my body ached even before I laced up; 3) it rained on me again; 4) I had a kink in my right calf that never really went away; 5) I brought a Strawberry-Banana Power Gel with me and it was so vile I nearly gagged; and 6) MY IDIOT TOE HURT. I don’t know why my stupid left big toe hurt but OH DEAR GOD I never knew a toe could cause so much pain. That was the killer. Every other step I contemplated stopping. I did stop once to take my shoe off and make sure the damn thing wasn't broken. Jeez, I'm still all jittery and strung-out about it. After I hit the 10-mile mark I practically had to crawl the half-mile back to my car. On Sunday I was so feverish & tired that I passed the majority of the day on the couch watching football (okay, in all honesty I probably would have done that anyway)(go Giants!). Ugh. I feel better today (doped up on Dayquil).

I'm truly concerned about the toe thing – even though it isn't broken (I don't think) it still hurts, though not as badly. I'm going to take it easy again today, and hopefully my run tomorrow won't be another exercise in masochism. Shudder.

My body is cashing checks my ego can't...wait...what?

I started lifting weights last year for a variety of reasons but mainly because I was developing under-arm jiggle and it scared me. I built up to a 3-days a week weight-lifting routine, which I actually enjoyed. I find lifting weights very satisfying for some reason. Anyway, now that I am running so much I've cut back to just once a week. Normally I lift weights on Sunday, so that I have Monday (a rest day) to recover. Since I ran on Sunday, I lifted on Monday, giving me no day to recover between lifting weights and running. And just to clarify, I don't do the wimpy girly weight-training where you do like 30 reps of a 10-pound weight. I do a reasonably comprehensive set of exercises at pretty much the max weight that I can, so I tend to have muscle fatigue the day after. Generally I kind of like the feeling, as it isn't painful at all, just a noticeable kind of tiredness. Makes me feel virtuous. But add that to my still-tender little legs and you get a BAD RUN. BAD BAD BAD. Did I mention my run yesterday was BAD? Ugh. I almost called it quits at mile 2, and my left hip still hurts. I'm trying to decide whether to attempt my five miles after work today or skip it as a precaution and ride the exercise bike instead. I think I will warm-up and see how I feel. I have a tendency to obsess about things - right now I'm having a very strident internal dialogue about whether skipping one little mid-week run will derail my entire dream of running a marathon. (It couldn’t, its just five miles in a training program of hundreds of miles) (Are you sure?!) (Yes. No. Yes. Well, maybe.) (What if it did?) (Well, what if I do run and I aggravate my hip and I can't train for weeks?) What if, what if, what if? Sigh. My internal self needs a good slap across the face.

Someone has a case of the Mondays...

Actually that's not true, I feel fine (I mean, for a Monday). I got plenty of sleep last night, I was out the door on time, and I feel really vibrant and excited about this whole endeavor. I got "The Competitive Runner's Guide" out of the library and read the first few chapters on Sunday. Very informative, especially the stretching chapter. I'm definitely going to incorporate some speedwork into my training, although I'll have to plan carefully given the dearth of running tracks in this town. I told two more friends about my plan...it's getting to the point of no return!

I had a slight scare this weekend. I did a good five miles at the gym on Friday, then up Mount Tabor on Saturday morning (~3+ miles, straight up and down). I felt fine, a little bit of fatigue in the legs but I think I could've gone further if it was in the plan. Anyway, I did my cool-down and stretches and then got in the shower. I'm feeling all happy, singing to myself, and then BAM! I brought my knee down really, really, motherfucking hard against the soap holder in the shower. It hurt like hell, and when I tried to put my weight on it my whole leg was like "uh-uh, no way." I was terrified that I'd done some damage to it and iced that sucker for about an hour after I limped out of the shower. It hurt for the rest of Saturday and was sore on Sunday as well, but seems to be a lot better today, fingers crossed. It's a rest day today, but I'm going to go to the gym at lunch and take a leisurely pedal on the bike. Nothing hard, just enough to get my heart up a little. I'm sort of combining my approaches here, we'll see.

For my cross training on Sunday I lifted weights for about half an hour, then walked around downtown running errands for two hours. I got two new sports bras at Title 9, wohoo! I can't wait to try them out.