I am a bit gity about this week. First of all, my injury concerns are subsiding with each run. And, I got a lot of good work done -- some vertical, a trail run, a hard long run, and a tempo run. And frankly, I think I am as fit as I was before the Vegas marathon in December. The trick now is to stay with the plan, which is a balance of rest, physical therapy, stretching, cross training, and quality training. I have started a regimine of squats to go with my hill climbing work. My goal is to have quads built to take lots of hard descending on race day. In case you cannot tell, I am riding another high right now.
Maybe the one lowlight is that I am dealing with a couple of blisters. In an effort to do damage control after the fact, I tore one toenail completely off. The sudden change in temperatures or mixing in new shoes are possible culprits, but I have not traditionally had much trouble with either. Or maybe it is the thinner socks I have been trying out?
Since I am on vacation the first half of this week, I will likely shift my running schedule. This will allow me to take Thursday off after a late night arriving home.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." -- Marianne Williamson
I thought long and hard about commentary I'd like to add to this video. And, honestly, there isn't much to add. Just enjoy it and remember to let your light shine for others to see.
Finally a good week! I was able to incorporate all kinds of workouts this week -- hills, recovery, GA, and a 50K long run. The Saturday 50K was my third longest run ever by distance and 4th longest ever by time.
One of the things I love about doing these Fat Ass Events is meeting new people. I am now going to run the Grand Canyon because I saw Sherpa John's post and responded. Crazy how life unfolds from the tiniest of decisions. And the two Fat Ass events I participated in turned out to be highlights in my winter training. Both gave me great training heading into the Spring (lots of miles and lots of vertical gain). I will definitely continue to do more events this Spring.
I'd be lying if I said my ankle is 100%, but I am able to keep training at this point, and that is a start. Caution is still the name of the game moving forward. I will continue to take extra rest after hard/long workouts. And I continue to do PT and contrast therapy. What's more, I plan to increase my strength training and x-training to try and balance out my body a bit. The good news is that I twisted/rolled my ankle a few times on my Saturday long run and it responded fine. One day at a time still.
Whew, what an interesting week! First of all, I was traveling most of the week to see my clients in San Francisco. The weather was phenomenal and I enjoyed the whole city very much. And, of course, it is a running community much like Boulder. Thus, I had to get out and enjoy some of it. And finally, I started getting some clarity on my injury situation. After more than a week of putting it off, I saw a doctor on Friday. My injury is a minor case of post-tib. The good news is that everything else in my foot was in perfect working order. The doctor gave me a cortisone shot which has helped with the pain in less than 24 hours. While I could probably hit the pavement hard again if I wanted to, I think I will take a week or so and ease back into my training.
The positives this week:
Some clarity on my injury and treatment
A slight pick up in mileage (10 more over last week)
A quality MLR (sub-8:00 pace with 850 feet of climbing)
A solid LR on Saturday with my running group
The negatives this week:
I am still about 15 miles shy of a normal/maintenance week
Another week of spotty training
Not much elevation gain
On the whole, the positives outweigh negatives by quite a bit. I am happy with the positive step forward.
I am going to have to re-evaluate my training strategy for the next couple of weeks. I want to get onto my LT100 plan and keep the miles relatively low for a while. But I also want to get in some long runs to give me a punchers chance at a decent run on May 6th.
My road to recovery continues. Unfortunately, that road is very vague at the moment. What I know is that I can run in controlled situations (level, well groomed paths) with minimal pain. The ice and ibuprofen treatment seems to have made only a minimal difference, but I keep doing most of it anyway. Rest days seem to helping and I took an extra one this week. With a little web search, I managed to find some PT exercises that also help a little. Playing Internet Doctor for a few days this week, I came up with two potential diagnosis: Posterior Tibial Tendonitis ("post-tib") and a Sprained Ankle. A fellow blogger has dealt with a case of post-tib and we exchanged a few emails this week. I can say definitively that our symptoms are not the same and the pain he described is not even close to my pain level. Reading the examination steps on-line does not lead me to believe that my injury post-tib, or at least anything more than a very mild case. That leaves me with a plain old case of inflammation or a sprained ankle. After several conversations with my friend (and PT) Jen (and some reading on-line), it is most likely a very mild form of either. That means I should be able to continue to run as long as I am smart and don't push through pain or obvious signs that it is getting worse. The tough part is the unknown recovery time. The next step is to continue with decreased mileage and make an appointment with a foot and ankle specialist to ensure my self-diagnosis is a good one and rule out more severe injuries.
I love to laugh at this situation by watching this video. While he is not addressing running specifically, he accurately captures some of the emotions that a runner goes through -- particularly thinking about age and the balancing act to get healthy. And, he also captures how absurd people find taking such high levels of Ibuprofen. I find that bit particularly funny because I about fell over the first time it was recommended to me. And hey, if we can't laugh at ourselves...
The toughest part of being injured is the mental games you play with yourself (and others). One day I feel optimistic and that I have a plan to manage through it. The next day I get frustrated and want to just throw in the towel. The truth is that I don't even know what I am doing each day. The relatively low level of pain that I am experiencing makes me feel like a wuss. Many runners would probably just push through this without even thinking twice about. But I am so used to running injury free that it is kind of foreign to me. What's more, the spot that it landed in training leaves me unsure about whether it is smarter to shut down or push through. If it were close to my goal race, I think the answer would be more obvious. It was also be more obvious if the pain level were higher.
The highlight of the week was a "long run" with my wife on Saturday. First of all, the day was GORGEOUS, the first obvious sign of Spring. Secondly, the flat trail we ran was easy on my ankle and I was able to complete the run without trouble. And, of course, it is kind of fun to impart all the running wisdom (ha, I wish!) on my wife and help her training stay on track. The low light of the week was the continued decrease in mileage.
I will attempt to start following my LT100 training plan, which begins this week. While I hoped to exceed the relatively minimal mileage in the first six weeks, the lower bar does provide me some time to train and heal. Any kind of good performance at the Colorado Marathon seems to be slipping away with each lost training day. That certainly doesn't make me happy, but it's not the worst thing either. Honestly, an injury with my goal race 6 months away isn't so bad -- much better than smack in the middle of training.
