Training log - Week ending 3/30/14

This week was 50 miles of running and 10,000 yards of swimming  -- training log is here.  

Interesting week.  The weather continued to go up and down and sideways - my team's traditional Tuesday track workout was postponed a day to accommodate a snowstorm that then decided to be late. *sigh*.  I hate late people and late storms.  The result was a workout that was run gingerly and carefully on a track half-covered in snow and ice.  I now feel qualified to train up north, should I ever need to.

Thursday I went in for nerve testing (an "EMG/NCV test"), to confirm that my nerve/back problem is just a nerve being pressed, and not underlying damage.  Pretty interesting stuff actually - first they put a bunch of electrodes on me, and pulsed a current (sort of like "stim", but a stronger shock), while tracking how quickly my muscles responded. 

The second phase was to insert needles into certain muscles, and then have me tense those muscles while a machine tracked the nerve activity.  When I flexed my muscle, the machine would make a cool staticky noise.  As someone who is both a geek about medical/physiology stuff and an industrial music/power noise fan, I enjoyed the experience a lot more than the doctors thought I would. 

I never claimed to be normal.

I was a bit sore afterwards, so it was good that I had Friday scheduled as a recovery day.  Saturday I hopped into a low-key 5K - my first race since July, and my first road race since last June.  It went really well - despite being rusty, I managed to pace the race well, and finish very strong.  The course was longer than 5K, but whatever - a PR wasn't on the table anyway.  I was just there to race and see what happened, and it felt good to be back.  Damn good.

Sunday, it snowed again.  F'ing snow.

Dailies

Monday:   In the morning, felt horrible, so just slept.  Felt better in the afternoon, so did a yoga class and then some foam rolling at night.

Tuesday:  In the morning, injury rehab work and 8 miles easy running (7:59 pace), followed by 1250 yards of easy swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Wednesday:   Injury rehab work, 9 miles running, including a very cautious and icy track workout of 1600, 1200, 3x800 (split 6:42, 4:44, 3:05, 2:59, 3:00), followed by 2000 yards of easy swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Thursday:   In the morning, a yoga class and 10.5 miles of running, split as 4.5 miles before yoga (8:34 pace) and 6 miles after (7:58 pace), and then some foam rolling.  EMG/Nerve conduction testing in the afternoon.   

Friday:  Injury rehab work and 1750 yards of easy swimming in the morning.  Foam rolling in the afternoon.

Saturday:   In the morning, 8.5 miles, including a "5K" (actually about 3.2-ish miles) in 20:24, followed by 2750 yards of swimming.   Foam-rolling in the afternoon.

Sunday:   In the morning, injury rehab work, 14 miles easy (8:12 pace), and 2250 yards of swimming.  Yin yoga and foam rolling at night.

Race report: Runway 5K, March 29, 2014

I ran the Runway 5K today (actually a bit longer than 5K), finishing in a time of 20:24, which was good enough for the overall win in this women only race.

Damn, it's good to be back.   It's been about 9 months since I've raced, and it felt like it.  It's been a long journey back, and I'm still not quite at 100%.  But I needed (in that way that other runners understand) to get back on the horse.

I was entered in the Monument Avenue 10K in Richmond for today, but opted to stay local for a few reasons and eat the registration.  Part of the reasoning was that racing in Richmond would involve taking Friday off of work and paying for a hotel and dinner the night before, plus dealing with the drive each way.  I wouldn't mind most of these if I was in decent shape, but it didn't make sense to go to the effort and expense for my first race back - I'd rather do something low key and local.

Plus, I wasn't 100% sure that my back and other issues would hold up to the stress of racing, and I knew that if I invested the time and effort in going down to Richmond, I would find it very hard to drop out if something felt wrong.  Far better to do something low key, so that it would be easier to pull the plug if things started hurting.  Know your limitations and work with them.

So, I did some searching, and found several local low key 5Ks.  I decided on the "Runway 5K" based on the fact that it was on Hains Point, which meant flat and minimal turns.  Which is great for fast times, but more importantly fairly easy on the body.  The website for the race came across as a little disorganized, and I noted no mention of a certified course.  

(you may, if you like, highlight the previous sentence with dramatic foreshadowing - reader's discretion)

But I did enough research to reassure myself that the race would indeed happen, so I registered.  If it ended up being a total disaster, I could just run a 5K on Sunday instead.

***

And yes, race morning was not without its share of snafus.  When I showed up to collect my bib, there was a lot of confusion on where to pick it up.  My friend Allison and I waited in one line, only to get to the front and learn that since we had registered within the past two weeks, we needed to go to another tent...  Luckily, both lines went fast.

There were other indications of trouble - for example, the bibs issued did indeed have chips on them, as promised.  But no timing mat to be seen.

More significantly, we were given pre-race instructions that we should turn "at the water tent" down on the tip of Hains Point.  I asked if there would be a cone or similar to mark the turning point - "at the water tent" sounded vague and open to interpretation, and runners halfway through a 5K aren't known for their clarity of thinking.  Yes, there would be.  Well, OK then.

***

We lined up (only 5 minutes late) and the race started.  I had already resolved to go out conservative, at a tempo like effort, before upping the effort.  Part of this was following my coach's eternal dictate of "start slow, finish fast."  But additionally, I had a hunch this course might end up long, and the air was pretty sticky - both things that would make it even harder to recover from going out too fast.  Better to be careful.

So when two other women sprinted off of the line (this was a women only race), I mentally took a deep breath and stuck to my plan.  I gave myself about 30 seconds to ramp up to tempo effort, and then started cruising, keeping an eye on the two figures ahead of me.  After about 3 minutes, one of them came back to me, while the other stayed ahead and continued to build, eventually getting to a 7 second lead over me.  I opted to keep an eye on her, but let her go - either she'd come back to me or she wouldn't.

And so we ran, down a very foggy Hains Point.  I didn't see the tip until we were close to it, but once we got there, I saw no water tent, so I figured we were running further.  We continued around the tip and back up the back side, still looking for the missing tent.  I felt a bit sorry for the leader - she had to worry about where the heck the tent was - I just had to worry about her.  And note how the gap between us was slowly closing.
 
Eventually the tent materialized, but no cone.  I could see the leader waiver, as if she was figuring out what to do, and then continued on.  I didn't want to run a shorter course than her, so I followed instead of turning at the tent.  She ran a bit past, and then someone flagged her down and told her she had gone too far and to turn.  So she did.

In turn, I noted the spot where she turned, and then ran a second or so further, and then turned, to make sure I didn't inadvertently cut the course on her.  I had a hunch I was going to be able to close the gap on her in the second half of the race, and I wanted to make sure I did it honestly.

So back we headed - I noted someone grabbing a cone as we passed back - I'm hoping they marked the turn for the later runners.  I continued to run, slowly building my pace, as she came back to me.  As we approached the tip of Hains Point again, I could see her running right at the inner edge of the turn, and also weaving a bit, which told me she was starting to struggle.  With more than a mile left, I was still feeling good, so I held my effort level, and just waited for her to come back.

I couldn't help but feel sorry for her, though.  She had led this race the whole time (hard), had to deal with the confusion about where to turn (hard), and now was having to push her way through some crowds (hard).  This was a decent size race, and the slowest runners and walkers had not been advised to stay on the right side of the road.  So as we ran back up the road, we were effectively weaving our way through a crowd.  Or rather, she was - I was running in the path she was clearing.

Eventually, I caught up to her, and passed her.  And then I was in the lead, with what was probably a bit less than a mile to go.  I felt bad - she had done all the work - but that's racing.

Being in the lead was strange.  I've been first woman in a race before, but I've never run a women only road race and so I've never not had someone ahead of me.  But now it was just me.  And a foggy road ahead.

I knew the finish line was up there somewhere, but I had no idea where - visibility wasn't great.  And with no mile markers, I really wasn't sure quite where I was, relative to the finish.  So I kept running at a hard but controlled effort, focusing on my form and posture.  This was feeling like the longest 5K ever, and I was really ready to be done.   Eventually, thankfully, the finish line appeared (complete with a red carpet they had rolled out - a cute touch), and I rolled in.

They handed me an envelope as I finished, which ended up being a $100 gift certificate to a local running store.  Not bad at all.  But the best part of the morning was getting out there, racing, and running a well executed race.

Since there were no mile markers, I have no splits.  Based on Garmins and comparing notes with others, I think we ran about 3.2 miles.  Which is the equivalent of a 19:5x 5k.  Which sounds about right.  Of course, I'll never know for sure - I'll just put it down as a good morning and move on.

Other notes:

• Air was pretty thick - temps and DP were in the upper 50s (yuck).  No wind though - a rarity for Hains Point.   Fog was thick enough that you couldn't see across the Potomac.
• No asthma issues though, despite the humidity, which I am not used to.  Yay for my Dulera inhaler.
• Looking at my Garmin report, I can see where and when I turned, letting me figure out how I split the race.  Looks like I ran for 10:24 out, and then 10:00 back.  So yay for negative splitting.  
• Warmed up with 2.5 miles, and cooled down about the same.  Did some drills before the race, which felt strange -  I haven't done drills in a long time, it seems.
• It was really cool to experience being the overall leader of a race, without having a guy to tow me in - for that reason, I'm really glad I did this.
• Wore my PureConnects instead of my racing flats.  I haven't worn my flats in forever, and didn't see any point in taking the risk of wearing them here.   Plus the PureConnects are pretty light anyway - I think a lot of people would consider them a racing shoe.
• The results are up, and quite confusing.  They added another 20 seconds onto my time (?) and also have me as 40 (I'm not over that hill quite yet, just breathtakingly, tantalizingly close).

Training log - Week ending 3/23/14

This week was 56 miles of running and 10,000 yards of swimming  -- training log is here.  

Still focusing on my posture, with cautious workouts.  I'm in an interesting spot, where my aerobic fitness vastly outweighs the durability of my body, resulting in workouts that are not terribly taxing on my heart and lungs, but are also as hard as I am comfortable pushing my body right now.  Plenty of aches and pains that I'm carefully nursing as I learn how to run correctly.

The interesting thing is that the toughness of the workout, from my perspective, is determined not by pace or total volume, but how long I have to hold my form for.  7 miles easy is tougher than a 5K tempo.  Funny, that.

Dailies

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

Tuesday:  In the morning, injury rehab work and 8 miles running, including intervals of an unknown distance under the Whitehurst Freeway, followed by 2500 yards of easy swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Wednesday:   Injury rehab work, a yoga class and 10 miles easy running (split as 4.5 miles before at 8:38 pace, and 5.5 miles after at 8:08 pace).  Also did 2500 yards of swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Thursday:   In the morning, a yoga class and 8 miles of running, split as 3.5 miles before yoga (8:21 pace) and 3 miles after (7:57 pace).   Foam rolling at night.

Friday:  In the morning, injury rehab work and 9 miles running, including a cautious5K tempo workout (20:49, split as 6:45, 6:38, 6:37, 0:49) followed by 2500 yards of easy swimming.  Foam rolling in the afternoon.

Saturday:   In the morning, 7.5 miles easy (8:03 pace) and 1000 yards of swimming.   Foam-rolling in the afternoon.

Sunday:   In the morning, injury rehab work, 14 miles progressive, split as 8:28 for first 3 miles, 7:52 for next 7.5, and last 3.5 at 6:59, followed by 1500 yards of swimming.  Restorative yoga and foam rolling at night.

Training log - Week ending 3/16/14

This week was 56 miles of running and 10,000 yards of swimming  -- training log is here.  

First full week of focusing on my posture.  I *sort* of added in workouts this week, meaning that I did some faster running on the track.  However, my goal wasn’t to run a specific split or a specific effort level, but rather to practice holding my posture and form correctly while running faster.  

It definitely seems to be helping.  The hamstring was a bit “wonky” on Tuesday, then better on Friday and a total non issue on the weekend.  Things aren’t perfect yet (I still lose my gait at times, and when I do, then my foot starts hurting), but they’re getting there.

The interesting thing is how much MENTAL work the form change takes.  I particularly noted it while running with others.  I can hold my correct form when running by myself, but I tend to forget it when running and chatting with others.  And I can only hold it for a certain amount of time before getting mentally tired and needing to reset.

 All things to work on.

Dailies

Monday:   In the morning, a yoga class and 6 miles easy running (split as 3 before class at 8:39 pace, 3 after at 8:00 pace).  Foam rolling at night.

Tuesday:  In the morning, injury rehab work and 9 miles running, including a cautious workout of 400, 800, 1200, 1200, 800, 400 (splits were 1:40, 3:13, 4:53, 4:52, 3:06, 1:22), followed by 2000 yards of easy swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Wednesday:   Injury rehab work, 7.5 miles easy (8:41 pace), and a yoga class, followed by 2500 yards of swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Thursday:   In the morning, a yoga class and 7 miles of running, split as 4 miles before yoga (8:27 pace) and 3 miles after (8:12 pace).   Foam rolling at night.

Friday:  In the morning, injury rehab work and 8.5 miles running, including a cautious tempo workout of 3200 (13:26, split as 6:58/6:28) and then 1600 in 6:16, followed by 2000 yards of easy swimming.  Foam rolling in the afternoon.

Saturday:   In the morning, yoga, 4 miles easy (7:59 pace) and 2500 yards of swimming.   Foam-rolling in the afternoon.

Sunday:   In the morning, injury rehab work, 14 miles progressive, split as 9:01 for first 3 miles, 8:12 next 6, last 5 at 7:08, followed by yoga and 1000 yards of swimming.  Massage at night.

Training log - Week ending 3/09/2014

This week was 55 miles of running and 10,000 yards of swimming  -- training log is here.  

The week started out much the same as previous weeks – easy, careful running.  The 8 miles on Monday isn’t a typo, BTW – I got myself out to the Whitehurst freeway before the worst of the snowstorm hit (Brian thinks I’m crazy).

On Wednesday, I went to PT for a comprehensive “let’s find out exactly why Cris’s gait is funky.”  Huge thanks to Robert Gillanders of Sport and Spinal PT, who spent a ridiculous amount of time and effort trying to get to the bottom of this.  What did he find?  Well…

The physical exam showed that my left leg is weaker than the right.  Now, that’s been the case for years, despite all sorts of strengthening work.  Lunges are harder on that side, and my knee reflex is much weaker on that side.  In the past, it’s been diagnosed as a nerve issue somewhere – I’ve had lumbar MRIs (clean) and a cortisone shot near the sciatic nerve (helped some, but not completely, and may have contributed to my torn hamstring tendon).

But now the weakness is more pronounced.  For example, my left big toe is very weak when lifting against resistance.  Robert said that the various places where I was weak were all pointing to issues with the nerve roots in the lumbar area of the spine.

Then, we went on to the gait analysis.  And it’s subtle, but I’m off.  Basically my left leg is tensing up to protect itself since it’s weaker, with the result that my left knee doesn’t flex or swing through like the right does.  It’s hard to notice when you’re watching me run – all the rehab and core exercises have made me VERY good at compensating.   But slow me down on video, and it’s much more clear.

So, why is this happening?  Robert believes strongly that this comes from my swayback – when I let my back arch, the nerve roots are compressed and damaged.  He’s believed this about me for several years now – a few years back he told me to cut out any exercises that arched my lower back (i.e. wheel  or upwards facing dog in yoga).  And…looking back on it, when I was strict about avoiding back bends, I ran injury free for a LONG time.  I will fess up that I’ve gotten a bit slack about avoiding back bends in the past year (which just about matches this period of injury – oops).

Now that the weakness is more pronounced – the ties between back, gait, and injury are much clearer.  Crunch the nerves, left leg starts working worse, and then everything from right Achilles to left hamstring gets angry.

So… the prescription is:

-pare back my rehab routine substantially, and cut out all rehab exercises that could possibly encourage me to arch my back.  I can’t stretch or strength train my way out of a nerve issue – compensation is not correction.  And all those glute bridges and hamstring curls are opportunities to arch my back.

-focus very hard on correct posture when running.

-do a few exercises that either develop the habit of running with correct posture or loosen up the lumbar region.

A nerve problem is never good news, but at least I’m a bit closer to an answer. 

The silver lining?

I’ve run several times since, focusing on good posture and keeping the effort easy, and…it seems like I’m actually running much faster than before for the same level of effort.  Which makes sense, in a way.  If your left leg isn’t getting all the signals it should, then when the messages start going through, it functions better.  It’s like I’ve been running on a flat tire.

I’m pretty interested to see what the next few weeks will bring.

Dailies

Monday:   In the morning, injury rehab work and 8 miles easy running under the Whitehurst Freeway (assume 8:30 pace).  Foam rolling at night.

Tuesday:  In the morning, injury rehab work, 5 miles easy running under the Whitehurst Freeway (assume 8:30 pace) and 3500 yards in the pool, including a workout of 3 sets of 3x100 hard on 2:00, with 2x100 on 2:20 very easy between each set (splits for the hard were 1:39.96, 1:40.02, 1:40.61,1:40.20, 1:40.02, 1:39.03, 1:39.00, 1:39.74, 1:41.49), followed immediately by 12x50 on 1:00 (48.82, 50.11, 49.14, 49.55, 49.62, 49.82, 49.52, 49.92, 49.55, 50.97, 50.75, 49.50).  Foam rolling at night.

Wednesday:   Injury rehab work and 8 miles easy (8:24 pace).  Later had a gait analysis done, where I ran another 2 miles on the treadmill.   Yoga at night.

Thursday:   In the morning, injury rehab work, 4 miles easy (8:04 pace) and 2250 yards of swimming, including a workout of 250,200,150,100,50 on a 2:00 base, followed by 6x50 on 1:00. Added an extra 50 between the 250 and the 200, due to being interrupted (splits were 4:15.87, 48.62, 3:28.71, 2:33.39, 1:39.95, 48.51, and then  48.20, 48.37, 48.45, 48.52, 47.52, 48.89).   Foam rolling at night.

Friday:  In the morning, 10 miles easy (7:49 pace).   Yoga and foam rolling in the afternoon.

Saturday:   In the morning, injury rehab work, 3 miles easy (8:04 pace) and 2750 yards of swimming.   Foam-rolling in the afternoon.

Sunday:   In the morning, injury rehab work, 15 miles (8:06 pace) and 1500 yards of swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Training log - week ending 3/2/14

This week was 48 miles of running and 8,000 yards of swimming  -- training log is here.  

Still in runningbutnottraining mode.  Which is frustrating, but it could be worse.  The good news is - I think I'm making more progress towards figuring out exactly what is "off" with me. 

It's all deceptively simple.  Lets say, hypothetically, that you have a tight hamstring.  So, logically you focus your rehab efforts, your stretching and foamrolling and ART, on that hamstring.  And in doing so, you forget about other things.  More time foamrolling the hamstrings and calves means less or no time spent on the front - the quads and hip flexors and shins.

But...if you think about it, when the muscles on the front side (hip flexors and shins) get tighter and shorter, that means that the muscles on the back side (hamstrings, calves) are working against resistance.  It's no wonder that those same muscles then keep getting tired and strained and sore.

And of course, you just focus more and more attention on the backside, while ignoring the front, and the issue gets worse.

In totally related news, getting my hip flexors and quads treated with dry needling and ART has done a lot of good for the hammy.  And working on my shins seems to make my feet a bit happier.  Whoda thunk it?

It's not a total answer.  But it's part of it.  I have a running gait analysis scheduled for this week - hopefully that will untangle more of the mystery of why my gait is so off.

In other news, I had a work trip to Tampa this week.  Normally, I HATE traveling for work.  But this past week, I was OK with it.  There are worse things than an easy 10 miler on a sidewalk next to a beach in 48 degree weather.  And the hotel fitness room even had foam rollers - SCORE.

From Google Earth.  This was my Friday morning run.  Only difference was that I got to watch the sunrise.

Dailies

Monday:   In the morning, injury rehab work, 3 miles easy (8:16 pace), and 3000 yards swimming.   Swimming workout was 3 sets of 3x100y on 2:00 at hard effort, with each set divided by a set of 3x100y on 2:20 at “as slow as you can go with good form” effort; followed by 6x50y on 70.  Splits for the fast stuff were 1:38.04, 1:38.25, 1:38.54;  1:37.40, 1:37.87, 1:37.86; 1:37.10, 1:37.90, 1:37.69, and then  47.92, 48.96, 48.00, 48.42, 48.14, 47.54.  Foam rolling at night.

Tuesday:  In the morning, injury rehab work and 9 miles easy  (8:12).  Foam rolling at night.

Wednesday:   Injury rehab work, 5 miles easy outside (8:26 pace) and a yoga class.  Also dragged luggage around airport and did a bit of foam rolling at the hotel.

Thursday:   In the morning, injury rehab work, 8.5 miles easy outside (8:29 pace), followed by some foam rolling and upper body strengthwork.

Friday:  In the morning, injury rehab work, 10.5 miles running easy outside (8:05), followed by some foam rolling.  Also dragged luggage around airport.

Saturday:   In the morning, injury rehab work and 3000 yards of swimming, including intervals of 250/200/150/100/50 at cruising effort on the 2:00 base (splits were ?, 4:35.48, 3:35.96, 2:37.01, 1:44.90, 52.77).  Foam-rolling  in the afternoon.

Sunday:   In the morning, injury rehab work, 12 miles outside (8:08 pace), a yoga class, and 2000 yards of swimming.  Massage at night.