Training log - Week ending 12/29/13

This week was 26 miles of running, 3:30 on the arc-trainer, and 12,000 yards of swimming -- training log is here.  

I tested my left hammy some this week: on Thursday I ran on a moderately hilly route; on Saturday I ran 10 miles for the first time, with some faster miles included.  So far so good.  I was stiff afterwards, but no pain during or after. 

I've been sticking with running every other day so far, but I'm going to shift to two days on/one day off this coming week.  Plus some more moderate hills and a bit more faster running.  My biggest concern right now remains making sure that I use the left leg correctly - I have a tendency to protect that hamstring, which is amplified by the fact that my left leg is noticeably weaker.  So that's my focus.

So running was happy this week, but the week was otherwise fairly sucky.    

To explain, we put Fezzik to sleep this week.  Fezzik was technically a 17 year old neutered male cat, but Brian always described him as a force of nature, and that term is more apt. 

Fezzik was best described as affectionately malevolent.  His high force headbutts were both gestures of affection and physical challenge - it was important to Fezzik to show his standing.  

In a similar vein, when Brian and I first started dating, I was warned that Fezzik would go after me at some point.  And sure enough he got me one day while I was patting him - not badly, but he drew a little blood.  That was the only time he went after me - having established our relative roles, we were now friends. 

This is one of my favorite pictures.
Fezzik, utterly entranced by Olympic dressage. 
The punchline is that there was a mouse in the next room.

[Brian told me later that this was a stamp of approval - Fezzik didn't go after people who were crazy or weird.  I like to think that the fact that it didn't bother me at all also endeared me to Brian.]

One of Fez's favorite games was to lie down in the kitchen as Brian and I were putzing around, and then to subtly maneuver his tail where one was certain to step on it.  As soon as your foot grazed his fur, he'd yowl violently and glare.  It was, after all, your fault.  :)  But Fezzik would then let the insult pass - he was a forgiving master.  

As dominant as Fezzik was, cancer was stronger.  He was diagnosed in early December, which fortunately, horribly gave us time to say good bye while waiting for Fez to say when.  

On December 24th, Fezzik said it was time.  It was Christmas Eve, but Fezzik overruled any human calendar.  So one last trip to the cat clinic, where the lead vet technician (a friend) kindly altered her vacation schedule to stay late so that she could help him a final time.

And now he's gone and it hurts.   It's such a painful convenience - no more tripping over feed bowls or litter boxes.  No more dodging tails.  There's no mound of fur to hurdle during 2:00 am bathroom runs.  

There's a hole in my heart right now, and it weighs 17 pounds and likes drinking out of dripping faucets.  

But as sad as this whole week has been, it's happy too.  Very few animals get what Fezzik had: a long, comfortable, and well-loved life, followed by a peaceful passing.  Not bad for an office park stray.  I wish more cats were so lucky.

All stories have to end.  But those that end gently, with love, are my favorites. 

Dailies

Monday:   In the morning, injury rehab work, 60 minutes on the arc-trainer, and 1500 yards of swimming.   Foam rolling at night.

Tuesday:  8 miles easy (8:01) plus 3000 yards of swimming, including 6x100 on 2:00 (1:42.25, 1:41.62, 1:45.08, 1:43.15, 1:43.76, 1:43.11) and 6x50 on 70:00 ( 48.80, 48.23, 48.99, 49.02, 49.65, 47.57) in the morning; foam rolling at night.

Wednesday:   In the morning, injury rehab work and 1750 yards of swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Thursday:   In the morning, injury rehab work, 8 miles running (7:55 pace), 30 minutes on the arc-trainer and 1250 yards of swimming.   Sports massage at night.

Friday:  In the morning, injury rehab work, 30 minutes on the arc-trainer, and 1500 yards of swimming.   Foam rolling at night.

Saturday:   In the morning, 10 miles (7:57 pace overall, but included about 3 miles at ~7:00 pace) followed by 45 minutes on the arc-trainer and injury rehab work.  Foam-rolling  in the afternoon.

Sunday:   In the morning, injury rehab work, 45 minutes on the arc-trainer, and 3000 yards of swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Training log - Week ending 12/22/13

This week was 20 miles running, 14,000 yards of swimming, and 90 minutes on the arc-trainer mimicking easy pace running -- training log is here.  

After some debate, I opted to get a second set of PRP injections this week.  I wasn't sure I needed them, but I decided I'd rather be on the safe side.  So, a great 9 mile pain-free run in the morning was followed by an injection and crutches in the afternoon. The irony wasn't lost on me.

This time, the recovery was much quicker than before.  I was told to take it very easy for 48 hours (the platelets apparently need to settle, so the less I move, the better), and then to resume my normal activity (including running), but to take it easy.

So that's what I did.  Got the shots on Thursday at 2:00 pm, and then camped out on the couch until Saturday at 2:00 pm.  I got a whole bunch of paperwork done, caught up on my X-Men comic book backlog, and read This Town and Slow Getting Up.   

The latter was darkly amusing to me, as part of the book was focused on the author's injuries and treatments in the NFL.   As he described stuff like icing injuries, ART, e-stim, physical therapy, and PRP, he made them sound like the most barbaric things in the world.  Obviously, I disagree, as I'm guessing most of my runner friends do.  Heck, seems like most people I know enjoy stim.  

All I could think of as I read his narrative was "dude - you didn't even need to pay for this stuff - that's the part that really hurts."

I also watched Blackfish, which I really strongly recommend.

It is absolutely a hatchet job on Seaworld, and has to be watched with that in mind.  But it also outlines the many issues with keeping orcas in captivity.  I really don't feel good about the human race as a species after watching that movie.  At least with regard to killer whales, due to our complete misunderstanding of their social structure and nature, we've done something very wrong.

Anyhoo, having served out my 48 hours of stall rest, I did a gentle 15 minutes on the arc-trainer on Saturday afternoon, followed by some swimming.  Everything felt OK, so I did a careful 5 miles on Sunday.  I'll continue to ramp up the running this week.


Dailies

Monday:   In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work and 3000 yards of swimming, including a set of 600 yards swum as 75 easy/25 hard, and then 4x100 yards on 2:00 (1:42.67, 1:40.61, 1:40.81, 1:40.34).  Foam rolling at night.

Tuesday:  In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 6 miles outside (8:17 pace) followed by 30 minutes on the arc-trainer. Foam rolling at night.

Wednesday:   In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 30 minutes on the arc-trainer, and 4000 yards of swimming, including a 300 yard time trial (5:09.77) and 12x100 yards on 2:00 (splits were 1:45.75, 1:47.12, 1:46.04, 1:44.05, 1:45.00, 1:46.79, 1:46.07, 1:46.59, 1:46.52, 1:45.27, 1:46.70, 1:43.07). Foam rolling at night.

Thursday:   In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 9 miles outside (7:58 pace) and then 1250 yards swimming.  Foam-rolling mid-day; PRP injection in the afternoon.

Friday:  Couch potato.

Saturday:    In the morning, more couch potato.  In the afternoon, did injury prevention/rehab work, 15 minutes on the arc-trainer and 1750 yards swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Sunday:   In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 5 miles running (8:22 pace), 15 minutes on the arc-trainer, and then 4000 yards swimming -  including 1000 yards straight (18:04, split as 9:07/8:57), 600 yards swum as 75 easy/25 hard, and 6x50 yards on 1:10 (48.70, 48.52, 48.91, 47.61, 46.93, 46.70). Foam rolled at night.

Training log - Week ending 12/15/13

This week was 24 miles running, 10,000 yards of swimming, and 3 hours on the arc-trainer mimicking easy pace running -- training log is here. 

More of the same.  Running (progressing the distance), swimming (doing more intervals but reducing the overall distance), arc-trainer ('cuz why not), and injury rehab (not optional).  The swimming's going well - I'm in that wonderful newbie place where pretty much anything I do will improve my swimming and knock large amounts of time off (i.e. cutting 45 seconds off of my 1000 yard time in a week).  And that's fun.  But it ain't running.  The fact that I'm running outside, for up to an hour, is the real highlight.  

The running is going well, but not as well as I would like.  My left leg is still stiff and achy at times, and I have to really concentrate on using it correctly.  

I've been debating whether to get a second round of PRP (the doctor told me initially that he thought I'd need at least two rounds), and I've decided to go for the second set.  It's not cheap at all, but I don't want to be training in January and wishing that I had gotten it done.  

According to the doctor, this time I won't need to take much time off post PRP - two days on the couch, another two days easy, and then back to where I was before.   So, I'll get the shots Thursday morning, and then camp out on the couch Thursday and Friday (I've cashed in vacation time at work).  I've already loaded up my Kindle for the occasion.

Dailies

Monday:   In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 3.5 miles easy on the treadmill (8:36 pace), followed by 30 minutes on the arc-trainer.  Foam rolling at night.

Tuesday:  In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 30 minutes on the arc-trainer and then 4000 yards of swimming, including intervals of 3x300 yards+100 yards on the 2:00 based (5:22.2, 5:17.2, 5:13.6, 1:39.3) and 6x50 yards on 1:10, split as 48.0, 46.7, 46.7, 47.1, 46.9, 46.0. Foam rolling at night.

Wednesday:   In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 5.5 miles running (8:10 pace), 20 minutes on the arc-trainer, and 1000 yards swimming. Massage at night.

Thursday:   In the morning,  injury prevention/rehab work and 45 minutes on the arc-trainer.  Foam rolling at night.

Friday:  In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 7 miles easy outside (8:05 pace) and 1000 yards of swimming. Foam rolling at night.

Saturday:    In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 45 minutes on the arc-trainer and 3000 yards swimming, including a 1000 yard time trial (17:47.10, split as 8:51.75/8:55.35) and 6x50 yards on 1:10 (49.60, 48.49, 47.36, 47.72, 48.46, 47.14).  Foam rolling at night.

Sunday:   In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 8 miles easy outside (8:19), 10 minutes on the arc-trainer and 1000 yards swimming.  Foam rolled at night.

Training log - Week ending 12/8/13

This week was 16 miles running,  15,000 yards of swimming, and 90 minutes on the arc-trainer mimicking easy pace running -- training log is here.  

Short version is more running, less swimming (but with more focus).  I'm building up the running, which means the swimming gets cut back. Which I'm happy with - swimming is fun, but there's no doubt that running is my preference.  I'm not experiencing any pain when I'm running, but a fair amount of stiffness and weakness in that hamstring, and I really have to concentrate on using the muscle correctly when I run.  Which is what rehab is all about.

For the running build-up/return, I'm going with 1-2 days "on" then a day "off".  The "on" days are 45 minutes of combined running/arc-trainer, with 30 minutes of arc-trainer on the "off" days.  Next week, the 45 minutes will be upped to 60 minutes.

As for swiming, I've been reading up more on technique, and practicing that along with intervals.  This is all familiar to me - horseback riding is also very technique based, so there's some mental similarity. 

Of course, the details of each sport are exactly opposite.  For example, the most basic tenet of riding is"eyes up/heels down," while in swimming, I need to be consistently looking down, with my feet pointed.   My toes were supposed to be pointed out at a 45 degree angle in riding, in swimming I try to pigeon-toe.   There's butt clenching in swimming (I guess the polite term is "glute engagement during kicking") - clenching your butt on a very sensitive/hot horse can get you dumped.

But despite those differences, one armed drills make me strangely nostalgic for all the time spent trotting without stirrups as a kid.

Dailies

Monday:   In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work and some walking.  Foam rolling at night.

Tuesday:  In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 4 miles very easy outside (9:05 pace) and then 2500 yards of swimming, including 1000 yards straight (18:37.96, split as 9:26.06/9:11.90), followed by 5x100yards on 2:00, split as 1:46.03, 1:44.66, 1:42.56, 1:42.71, 1:40.31. Foam rolling at night.

Wednesday:   In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 3 miles running (8:20 pace), 20 minutes on the arc-trainer, and 2000 yards swimming. Foam rolling at night.

Thursday:   In the morning,  injury prevention/rehab work, 30 minutes on the arc-trainer and then 3000 yards of swimming, including 5x200 yards on 4:00 (splits were 3:31.75, 3:33.97, 3:32.80, 3:27.87, 3:29.62).  Foam rolling at night.

Friday:  In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 4 miles easy outside (8:32 pace), 10 minutes on the arc-trainer,  1000 yards of swimming. Foam rolling at night.

Saturday:    In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 5 miles outside (8:22 pace) and 2000 yards swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Sunday:   In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 4500 yards swimming - including 1000 yards straight (18:32, split as 9:16/9:16), 5x100 on 2:00 (1:49.49, 1:48.37, 1:48.80, 1:47.05, 1:44.26), and 6x50 on 1:00 (47.42, 51.45, 53.57, 53.38, 52.41, 51.90 - I'm sure the first was a mistake).  Then did 30 minutes on the arc-trainer.  Foam rolled at night.

Training log - Week ending 12/1/2013

This week was 19,000 yards of swimming, 2 hours 40 minutes on the arc-trainer mimicking easy pace running, and about 7-8 miles easy running (interspersed with walk breaks) -- training log is here.  

And...we're making more progress.  I gradually built up the running this week, lengthening the intervals, increasing the pace, and eventually moving from the treadmill to outside.  The high point was 2.5 miles jogged non-stop on the track at 8:50 pace.  With no pain.  Just a lot of fatigue in the left leg.

Doesn't sound like much, does it?  But it's a big improvement from where I was a week ago.

I also built up the arc-trainer quite a bit.  What has been nice to note is that I've retained a fair amount of aerobic fitness - it's just that my legs are weak.  Makes sense - I've been swimming.  And this contrasts with my experience during my broken foot, when I did nothing but pool-running - then I returned to running with decent leg strength, but lacking in aerobic capacity.

So, if you can somehow do both pool-running and swimming, you can stay pretty fit for running.  Of course, the arc-trainer's a better way to accomplish both aerobic fitness and leg strength, since you hit both at the same time.  But arc-trainer wasn't an option until recently.

As for swimming, I added in intervals this week, following the helpful advice of many on how to structure them.  I'm enjoying them.  The time goes much faster when you do intervals, and I also like the mental aspects of them.  From a mental standpoint, the 6th rep of 10x100 yards feels much like the 6th rep of 8x800m on the track - the whole mental dialogue of "can't I just quit now" followed by "hell no!"  Doing these will make it easier to return to fast running, both mentally and physically.

I also set a PB in distance swum on Sunday.  Victoria invited me to join her and some friends for 100x100.  No way I could swim that far - my previous distance best is 4000m.  But I figured I could go at least part way.   End result was that I made it 5500 yards (yes, some of that was kick board) for a new distance best.  I called it at that point not because I couldn't go any further, but because I am a bit worried about my shoulders and elbows (shoulders get muscularly sore during swimming, elbows don't hurt to move, but are very sensitive to the touch).  I really don't want to cross-train into injury.

Added benefit was that I got a good stroke tip from Victoria after she watched me swim (I'll admit that part of the reason I showed was that I hoped she'd check out my stroke).  Basically, when I swing my arm forward, I extend it all the way before slapping the arm into the water.  Not the best.  Instead, I need to let my hand enter a bit earlier, and skim the surface from underneath before starting to pull back. 

So that's what I'll be working on next.  Besides increasing my running.  Goals and things to work towards make me happy.

Dailies

Monday:   In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, a test run on the treadmill (ran for 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, and 3:30 with 1:00 breaks, peaking at 6 MPH), followed by 2500 yards swimming.   For the swimming, did two sets of 4x100 yards on 2:10; splits were:
Set 1: 1:50, 1:49.9, 1:46.4, 1:45.8 
Set 2: 1:47.4, 1:47.4, 1:45.4, 1:44.6  
Also got some ART and Graston done.  Foam rolling at night.

Tuesday:  In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, a test run on the treadmill (5:00, 6:00, 6:00 peaking at 7 mph, with 1:00 break) and then 40 minutes on the arc-trainer.   Foam rolling at night.

Wednesday:   In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 50 minutes on the arc-trainer, and 2500 yards swimming, including 5x100 yards on 2:00 - splits were 1:51.1, 1:49.9, 1:47.5, 1:48.6, 1:45.7.  Sports massage at night.

Thursday:   In the morning,  injury prevention/rehab work, a test jog of 7:00 and then 10:00 on the treadmill (1:30 walking, pace of 5.5 mph) and then 4000 yards of swimming, including 5x200 yards on 4:00, and then 5x100 yards on 2:00.  Splits were 3:47.63, 3:47.46, 3:46.48, 3:43.76, 3:40.13 for the first set, and 1:54.36, 1:55.68, 1:52.78, 1:51.11, 1:48.61 for the second set.   Then ate a whole lotta turkey.  Foam rolling at night.

Friday:  In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 3 miles very easy on the treadmill (split into 10 minute jog intervals), followed by 3000 yards of swimming.  Swimming included 3x300yards on 6:00 plus 100 yards; splits were 5:45.73, 5:34.91, 5:27.34 and then 1:43.56. Foam rolling at night.

Saturday:    In the morning, injury prevention/rehab work, 70 minutes on the arc-trainer, and 1500 yards swimming.

Sunday:   In the morning, 2.5 miles easy on the track (8:50 pace), and then I joined Victoria for my "budget version" of the 100x100 swimfest.  I cranked out 5500 yards, including two sets of 10x100 yards on 2:00 and one set of 3x300 yards on 6:00 plus 100 yards.  Splits were:
Set 1: 1:49.58, 1:51.38, 1:53-ish, 1:52.23, 1:50.96, 1:52.33, 1:53:31, 1:49.35, 1:48.01, 1:49.16;
Set 2: 1:51.76, 1:54.76, 1:52.56, 1:51.19, 1:53.51, 1:53.21, 1:53.00, 1:50.93, 1:50.16, 1:49.76;
Set 3: 5:43.03, 5:35.78, 5:29.18, 1:43.81

And then I ate more turkey, followed by injury rehab work.  And then I ate more turkey and then did foam rolling.