Training log - Week ending 9/15/13

This week was 25 miles of “real running” plus 26 “miles” pool running, and 6500 yards of swimming -- training log is here.  

Yup, rehabbing and coming back.  Rehabbing a soft tissue injury is a careful, tentative process - I have to put enough stress on the area to stimulate it to heal and remodel, but not so much that I set it back.  So run on it until I get that bit of tightness and pulling, then stop. Then assess how it feels over the next 24-48 hours, before running again.

As of the end of this week, I've worked up to 8.5 miles with no pain during the run.  Just some moderate soreness that appears an hour or two later, and is gone by the next morning.  That's a considerable improvement over where I was just a week ago, and tells me that I'm heading in the right direction.  So good.  

But this stuff is always an emotional roller coaster.  An an example, I ran on Friday morning.  A bit of pulling, but no pain in the foot.  And then I went in for dry needling.  I know that dry needling almost always makes things hurt much worse over the next 24-48 hours, before substantial improvement (makes sense, right?  Poke needles in something, and it's going to be sore).  But still, it was hard not to get depressed when my foot hurt like heck all Friday night and Saturday morning.

And then it felt great on Saturday night, and the best it's felt yet on Sunday during my run.   8.5 miles felt much better than 3.5 had seven days before.  One step back to take a step and a half forward.  That's the roller coaster of soft tissue injuries.

My sciatica is improving as well.  It got triggered again by the two weeks I spent pool-running exclusively.  I blamed it on lack of yoga, but my PT also noted another culprit - pool-running is an open chain exercise (i.e. my foot isn't pushing down on anything fixed), while running is closed chain (foot pushes against ground).    The thought is that doing exclusively open chain exercise is triggering the sciatica.

So, I have cut back on the pool-running (ironic for a pool-running blog, huh?) while amping the running and yoga back up,with positive results. I've also added in more swimming to substitute for the pool-running.

So yay for progress, and on with another week.  I wonder where the roller coaster will take me this time.

Dailies

Monday:   In the morning, just yoga.  Foam rolling at night.

Tuesday:  In the morning, 5 miles easy, and then "12 miles" in the pool, including a workout of 8x3:00 hard, 1:00 easy, followed by getting my foot dry needled..  Foam rolling at night.

Wednesday:   In the morning, 5 miles easy, followed by yoga.  Later did 1000 yards of swimming (took afternoon off from work).  Sports massage at night.

Thursday:   In the morning, 80 minutes easy pool-running for "8 miles" easy in the pool, followed by upper body, core, and injury prevention strengthwork.  Foam rolling at night.

Friday:  In the morning, 6.5 miles easy, and then "6 miles" in the pool, including a workout of 8x3:00 hard, 1:00 easy.  I followed this with 1500 yards of swimming and some injury prevention work and then an appointment for dry needling.

Saturday:   In the morning, some quick upper body weights and injury prevention work, and then 2000 yards of swimming.   Foam rolling at night.

Sunday:   In the morning, 8.5 miles easy (did as a split run of 4.5 and 4, with a yoga class between the two, since I started late). Then did 2000 yards of swimming.  Some foam rolling at night.