Cycling Blog

Well, there is no good news. My leg and hip are still hurting, and I have not run even a tenth of a mile since the 16th, twelve days ago. On a good note, I have only taken one day of cross-training off in that time, and that was intentional, to see if it would improve anything. It didn't.

Since the last post, I have been hitting the bike as hard as my crotch will let me (cycling hurts). Tomorrow I'm getting a trainer so I won't have to wait for the sun to come up to get out on the bike, and I should be able to get in some longer rides in the days ahead.

So you're probably putting two and two together at this point in your reading, and wondering where I'm going with this. Talking about long bike rides, weeks on end with no running, and continuing pain...

I'm not running the marathon October 1.

I got an x-ray on my hip last Thursday, which confirmed nothing except the absence of bone cancer. There was no thin grey line, which is a good thing, but it wasn't helpful for making decisions. I talked with my PT and my doctor about possibly getting an MRI or a bone scan, but ultimately I came to understand that no matter what is causing the injury--a stress fracture, stress reaction, or a muscle strain--I will have to reduce the stress on the injury until I am pain free. Depending on what it turns out to be, that could be as little as a couple more weeks for a strain all the way up to a few months for a stress fracture.

Chances are, because the pain is so slight and so persistent, that my injury is a stress reaction, which is like a stress fracture that hasn't cracked. And chances are it wasn't caused by the TV incident, but rather by running two hard, long runs each of the three weeks preceeding the 5k race. Exhausting your muscles reduces their ability to absorb shock. Without enough recovery, the lack of basic muscle strength that I've talked about before, and with enough mileage and maybe a hard race peppered in there, I can see how I could have developed a problem.

Having a definitive diagnosis would be costly, about $250 out of pocket for an MRI after insurance, and having it show a stress reaction or fracture wouldn't change the advice I would be given, which would start at 'take eight weeks off.' for the least athletically inclined doctors to 'no running until you're pain free and then no pain when running' for those who are more understanding of a runner's needs.

It all comes down to needing to take time away from running. The timing is particularly bad, shooting down TCM and very possibly the Veteran's Day cross country race that I started my blog with a year ago. I'm not as disappointed with missing out on the marathon as I thought I might be. It was going to be my first marathon, and I trained for a long time with that in mind, but more importantly I had a goal. The goal I had for my first marathon since the day I decided I was going to run a marathon was to run it up to my potential. For me, based on my times at other distances, sub-2:35 was a reasonable debut goal, and sub-2:30 was what the training was designed to deliver.

I think three weeks ago, I was primed to run somewhere between the two. Now, even with cross-training going well, I can feel 2:40 slipping away. With just three weeks of potential training to go, even if I was able to run I would be concerned about the goal at this point. Being nowhere near even jogging a slow mile makes it an easy call. Following the theory that you only have so many marathons in your legs, I intend to make every one as good as it can be.

So where do I go from here? First order of business is to get pain free, which will involve cross-training for fitness and some targeted exercises for the pelvic area as well as for overall trunk stability and general leg strength. Later, I'll start using the expensive weight set and bench that we got several years ago and barely use to improve my overall strength, all the while reminding myself that the reason I was so durable in college had something to do with the weight program we were all doing. I saw a video the other day where Paula Radcliffe was doing squats with about 40 pounds more than her bodyweight. She's probably doing that for a reason.

I suspect that in 4-6 weeks I will be back to regular running, given that the pain was always moderate, and never severe. In that sense, being cautious paid off. I could have easily kept banging away, like a lot of runners do, and ended up with a real problem that could have taken months to heal. It doesn't look like I'm in that boat, so I'm happy about that. There's another marathon out there for me, but probably not until May 19, 2007, the Fargo Marathon. It's local, flat, and fast, and the only race in the next six or seven months that wouldn't require an extremely long drive or a plane ride to get to.

For now, this will become a cycling blog. Yeah, I'm sad about that, too. But there should be some nice pictures on the way, so look out for that. I'm going to do a ride in southern Wisconson next week, and I'll snap a few on the road for upload. I'll keep blogging through the rehab, and I'll try to post more often than weekly. That way I won't have to do long winded posts like this every Tuesday.

Thanks for reading. Cheers!

Repairs

Repairs

Busy in the pool and busy around the house. Busy, busy, busy. The picture is the former front porch of my house, now destined to become a library/study, albeit a very small one. It's only about 140 square feet, but it still took me over a year to make the time to strip it to the studs, reframe the windows and the entire north wall, wire the lights and outlets, insulate, wrap, and sheetrock the room. Actually, I finished everything but the sheetrock wayyyy back last year, and I have dragged my feet on that part of the room for many months. It is unbelieveably nice to have it done.

I didn't do it myself. That would be something like hauling around a 250 pound TV. In the last few weeks I came to know a fellow runner who also hangs sheetrock, and he was able to finish the entire room in the time it took me to hang one sheet. Literally. With the hard part out of the way, I am looking forward to taping, texturing, painting, flooring, and trimming the rest of the room. After the marathon.

Speaking of the marathon, I'm still in the pool. Today is day seven, which I would normally be really excited about due to its proximity to day ten, which is when I planned on starting to fold in some running. Unfortunately, the leg isn't coming around. I did about ten strides at nine minute pace yesterday, and the limp is still there. It has improved to the point where there is no pain when walking or up and down stairs, and I can even do one-leg squats. Weight bearing is still causing some pain though.

I went back to the athletic trainers at my alma mater for treatments yesterday, and finally found a therapist, an attitude, and a plan that works for me. Or at least it puts me back into things mentally. The PT there was able to identify the painful spots, and do some interesting treatments on the muscles to relax them. The really brutal one is Neuroprobe. In any other context, this is a torture device. I'm pretty sure Saddam had a couple of dozen of these things laying around his palaces.

The 'concept' is to stimulate points in the muscle with electricity, which has the effect of interrupting the spasm/pain cycle, relaxing the spasm, and relieving the pain. A ground pad is attached to your stomach, and a wetted Q-tip is placed into the wand that distributes the pain. My plain talking therapist told me, "Neuroprobe hurts. A lot." What it really does is inject three-inch-long, red-hot needles directly into your muscles and wiggles them around for fifteen seconds. You quickly forget how bad the muscles hurt before and focus on the new pain. I call it childbirth for men.

My wife disagrees.

It's a good kind of pain, though, and I can visualize it helping, which is part of the cure. I have been flipping through the Kevin Beck-edited Run Strong, and seeing a lot of things I will need to start paying attention to in my old age. I've stopped almost all of the weight training and stretching that made me so durable in college, and so far it's paid off in two extended injury time outs. Over the winter, I will be much more focused on durability than I have been in the past several years. There is no point to training this hard if injuries stop me from doing it consistently.

Here's my pool/x-training from the past six days:

8/16: 25m elliptical, 60m pool run
8/17: 25m elliptical, 35m pool run
8/18: 25m elliptical, 45m pool run
8/19: 15m warmup, 6x5m hard w/ 5m jog recovery, 10m cooldown. 1:28 total (pool).
8/20: 1:30 medium effort (pool)
8/21: 30m elliptical, 35m pool run

Hopefully I'm feeling much better today. I'll find out if the repairs are working in a couple of days.

Seven week itch

Seven week itch,
originally uploaded by esondag.

Check it out...my 'new' old Trek 2300. I just got it today from my friend Mike (not that Mike or Canada Mike, or Fatboy...geez, too many Mikes.) Anyway, it goes way too fast way too easily, and so far is a lot of fun. I'll get some good cross training this winter and next season, I'm sure.

My leg is still giving me problems, so it's off to the pool again tomorrow. I'll spare everyone the histrionics and drama, slip quietly into the cool, chlorinated water, put my head down and get the work done. It worked pretty well before, and I should be back out on the roads with 5+ weeks to go. Plenty of time to put the finishing touches on my fitness. Later!

Technical Difficulties

I'm not running right now. The leg did not improve after a zero and a 1.5 mile day, so I have been hitting the bike. Yesterday was 45 minutes of something like a fartlek run. Definitely some high aerobic/low anaerobic work in there. And this morning was 55 minutes at what I would call an easy effort. Not laying back, but not cranking hard either. I also threw in a couple of parking ramp laps, just for fun.

My ass hurts the whole time, and I'm kind of jumpy about traffic, so I can't wait to get off the bike. That and I'd like to get back to training during the most important six weeks of my race preparation. I figure this will take five to seven days to clear up, and just like with the earlier episode in the pool, I expect to come out the other side stronger, so although I am pissed off about this, I won't waste too much time thinking about it. I just have to get through the week and move on.

I'm going to become a believer in cross-training in the future. Not a lot of cross-training, but just enough to stay balanced. I'm starting to feel like Dick Beardsley with all of these injuries.

Oh, Puke!

Last Saturday, I ran that 5k and followed it up with a nice, easy six mile cooldown. Everything felt great. Then I helped my neighbor move a 36-inch television. He had asked me about helping him move it way back before we went to San Diego at the beginning of June, so at nearly the beginning of August, I thought I would (should) inquire just so I didn't seem like I was pretending not to remember. I was secretly hoping it had already been taken care of, but it had not.

It can't be that heavy.

Yes, it can. Just a quick glance around the 36-inchers at Amazon shows me a weight of 225-250 pounds for one of these things. It was every ounce of that. My neighbor is a slight guy, like me, and is in his late 60s, so once my wife and I saw the size of this tv, we were concerned. He insisted on moving it, though, so we did.

The next day, I didn't feel up to my normal 22 miler, so I just did 14 at an easy pace. My right leg felt odd. No power. I attributed it to the race and the hills. Then on Monday, just a seven miler, still not feeling good overall, and the right leg a little bit sore now and still a sense of no power when landing and pushing off.

Tuesday I did a good stretch and warm up, started off with a very slight limp for about a quarter mile, then everything was pretty good. The sensation of power was there for the most part, and even got to the point where everything felt 100% for the last four miles.

Later on Tuesday, my hamstring and inner thigh started to hurt and tighten up. Stretching briefly made it feel better, but the slight pain and general weakness continued.

Waking up Wednesday morning, it was just as bad as the day before, so I decided to take a day off. No sense pushing a minor injury this late in the game. I went for a walk Wednesday evening, and it was about the same.

This morning the leg was feeling slightly better, so I opted for a bike ride at high RPMs. The ride felt fine, but I wasn't able to get my heart rate up very well. Pretty much hovering in the 110s.

I'm not too concerned about missing a couple of days right now. It won't make the log look good, but if I can heal up in time for the quality workouts or at least minimize the impact on the quality workouts, missing a couple of recovery runs is immaterial. All in all, this should be pretty quick to fix. Just a simple hamstring and adductor strain.

One thing that will be key to my next build up is strength training. Whether it's plyo, weights, hills, or whatever, I obviously have developed a durability problem in my old age. F@$%ing irritating, but it is what it is. Next time around it won't be a problem.

Solitude

Up and out the door a bit earlier today. I wanted to get a longer run in, but I haven't been feeling up to it since the race on Saturday. I woke up at 3:30, had a small bowl of Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch, a swig of Gatorade, and was out the door by 4:00 for my warmup, which I have been doing ever since the calf problems. I usually just walk about a quarter mile, then stretch whatever feels tight. It's been working, so I don't mess with it.

At 4:25, I hit the road. I'm almost embarrassed to mention this given everyone else's weather situation, but it was fifty-two degrees and calm, perfect for a run. I had wanted to get in 18 to 20, but needed to be home by 6:00, so I decided to go for 15, making the somewhat ambitious assumtion that I could pull off six minute miles for an hour and a half.

I was out just thirty minutes earlier than I usually run, but it was absolutely dark and quiet this morning. I was able to hear and analyse every breath for the first hour of the run, and it was, at times, mentally draining. These workouts are tough in a way that transcends the physical, step-after-step discomfort. The mental aspect is one that I was unprepared for, coming from a 10k and under background. The legs seem to be willing to do whatever the mind tells them, but the mind is unrelenting, in a constant subconscious versus conscious battle to do less.

I ran past my house at ten miles in an effort to mess with my own head, and in a further effort to show myself who my daddy is, I did the last five miles over what is usually the beginning 2.5 miles of my longer, faster efforts. The effect was as intended, and I had to work my brain a little to adapt to the fact that I wasn't stopping, and I wasn't just getting started either.

A really good run overall. Fifteen miles in 1:29:22 with an average heart rate of 150. Mile-by-mile (with average heart rate) was 6:43(128), 6:12(143), 6:05(144), 6:03(146), 5:57(148), 5:47(152), 5:56(155), 5:55(151), 5:54(153), 5:57(155), 5:53(156), 5:46(157), 5:47(159), 5:38(161), 5:37(159). The heart rate and pace information is very encouraging. I actually started feeling smoother and breathing better with four miles to go, once I hit the 5:40s and near 160. Not sure why this would be, but the last four miles felt much better than any other four miles that I could have picked out of this run.

Now it will be interesting to see what kind of recovery I need before I'm ready for the next one. Hopefully just two days, but I don't necessarily make that decision. The committee of the whole will be giving me lots of feedback over the next day or two, and we'll see what the legs, lungs, mitochondria, and brain decide. Cheers.