Training log - Week ending 1/30/2022

This week was 60 miles of running, 1500 yards of swimming and 18 "miles" of pool-running -- training log is here.

On Thursday, I got an epidural injection of a corticosteroid in my back on each side of the L5 vertebra with the goal of trying to locate the source of my issues.  An MRI of my lumbar spine and pelvis doesn't show much of concern, just some slight narrowing/bulging, but MRIs are not always accurate.  So we tried the shot - if I noticed a big difference, then it would confirm that my issue was with the nerves in L5 or lower.

And I noticed a big difference within 24 hours.  To explain - running has become this thing where I am constantly worrying about balance/tripping/wobbling - I've been running on pavement or even running tracks with the same amount of focus as someone else who runs on trails with rocks and tree branches.  Just a ton of concentration and care.  

Part of it has just been that my legs felt like they just couldn't react quickly - if I caught a toe or a foot landed on a slightly uneven bit of pavement, I was going to fall because I wouldn't be able to react quickly enough to maintain my balance.  And my leg muscles weren't reliably listening to me.  My quads were like wet brakes - I would contract the quad slightly during my running gait, and it would just over-contract and lock up - sometimes, but not always.  Or alternately it wouldn't contract and just feel like it was going to collapse on me.

On Friday-Sunday, I was able to just run.  No worries about cracks and manhole covers and bumps on the road.  I ran in high stack shoes, I ran down hills, I ran on salted roads.  All without issue. 

I hadn't realized it before, but even my walking has been affected - in the days since the shot, I feel so much more secure and stable on wet pool decks, slushy sidewalks, etc.

So, it seems like I clearly have some answers - my problems are caused by inflammation of the nerves in my spine at L5 and below (of course, the outstanding question is: what is causing the inflammation?) .  I'll check back in with the doctor in mid-February to discuss next steps; in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy this.

Dailies:

Monday: 9 "miles" pool-running and streaming yoga   Foam rolling at night. 

Tuesday: 11 miles, including a track workout of 2000, 1200, 2x800, 400 in 8:48, 5:00, 3:16, 3:11, 91.  1 lap jogged recovery after each in between 3 and 4 minutes (way too long).  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling in evening.

Wednesday:  9 miles very easy on treadmill (9:44), streaming yoga and then 3 miles very easy outside (9:31), plus drills and strides.  Foam rolling in evening.

Thursday: 9 "miles" pool-running and then an epidural injection at L5.  ART session in afternoon.

Friday: 12 miles outside, including a 4 mile tempo on the road in 27:27 (6:54/6:57/6:49/6:47), 10 minutes jog, and then 6x200 (using marks on the road) in 46, 46, 45, 45, 45, and 52 (I believe the last one was long.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling in evening.

Saturday: 9.5 miles easy on treadmill (9:44), followed by upper body weights/core and 3 miles easy outside (9:06) plus drills and two strides.  Foam rolling at night.

Sunday: 12.5 miles on treadmill, including a workout of 8 repeats of 2 minutes strong at a 3.0 incline, 90 second jog, 30 second stride, and 60 second jog.  10 minutes jog, and then four 30 second strides with 2 minute jog between each.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.

Training log - week ending 1/23/2022

This week was 61 miles of running, ~1500 yards of swimming and 18 "miles" of pool-running -- training log is here.

I split my time between treadmill and outdoors this week - staying inside on the days with really dry and cold air, and outside on the others.

I played with holding my core stable this week while running - I do this by a) doing the Dicharry ""Chair of Death" exercise to get my core aligned properly, and then tape my torso so that the tape pulls at my skin whenever I lose the alignment.  And then I run.  

The stable core really seems to help - I noted significantly improved paces on many of my runs for the same effort - my Iwo Jima outside hill repeats were about 5-10 seconds faster per 500m rep than they were two months ago, and my indoor treadmill tempo paces were a bit faster as well.    So that's part of the puzzle.  

I saw the physiatrist on Thursday and finally got the results for my lumbar/pelvic MRIs from two weeks ago.  They're fairly good - a bit of narrowing where the nerves exit the spine, but nothing significantly changed from 18 months ago, and nothing that obviously explains my current issues.  However, the physiatrist offered to do an epidural at L5 - the idea is that if that improves things, then we've got some answers. 

I have that scheduled for Thursday morning but am going back and forth on whether to get it - mostly because I'm not a big fan of cortisone shots.  On the other hand, I don't have that many options here.  And it's certainly looking like my issue may be that nerves get irritated when I'm running, but not when I'm laying on my back with my spine in neutral.  In that case, the cortisone shot, if it works, would confirm that.

[obligatory note - cortisone shots are, as of 2022, banned by USADA if they are too close to competition.  Depending on what is injected, you need to have either 3 or 10 days between the shot and the start of competition.  Since I'm not planning on racing in the next few weeks, I'm in compliance.  But no more getting a cortisone shot so you can race 48 hours later like I did for Richmond Marathon a few years back.]

The physiatrist also reviewed my previous MRI of brain/spine and REALLY thinks I need a second neurology opinion.  Which is consistent with my experience that EVERYONE except the neurologist thinks this is neurological.

Dailies:

Monday: Upper body weights/core and 9 "miles" of pool-running.   Foam rolling at night. 

Tuesday: 12 miles, including 8 Iwo Jima hills (essentially 2 minutes uphill, 80 second jog, 40 second downhill stride, and 60 second jog to bottom.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling in evening.

Wednesday: Streaming yoga and then 10 miles very easy (9:25), plus drills and strides.  Sports massage in evening.

Thursday: 9 "miles" pool-running and upper body weights/core.

Friday: 12 miles on the treadmill, including a tempo workout of four cruise intervals of 7:30 duration, with 90 second jog after each.  Each of the cruise intervals was 6:58 pace.  Full recovery and then four 30 second turnover reps at between 9.5 and 10 MPH, with 90 second jog.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling in evening.

Saturday: 9 miles very easy on treadmill (9:31), followed by upper body weights/core and 3 miles very easy outside (9:29) plus drills.  Foam rolling at night.

Sunday: 15 miles progressive, split as first 5 miles averaging 9:18 pace, next 5 miles averaging 8:08 pace, next 5 miles averaging 7:16 pace.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 meters recovery swimming.

Training log - Week ending 1/16/2022

This week was 60 miles of running, 1000 yards of swimming and 18 "miles" of pool-running -- training log is here.

I spent a fair amount of time on the treadmill this week due to very cold and dry air outside. Generally, when the dew point is lower than 10F, my asthma gets aggravated - I've learned that if I force hard running in that situation it takes me a few days to recover.

I got my quads/glutes/it band dry needled on Tuesday - wow did they need it. My quads spasmed a LOT during the needling. And felt looser the next day.

I also had a bit of a revelation, prompted by a friend's observation during my Friday track workout that I had no hip extension. Lack of hip extension can be due to lack of hip flexibility (not my issue) but can also be due to core instability. 

So I decided to try Jay DiCharry's "Chair of Death" exercise (look it up - not that scary), and noted that I was arching my back whenever I fired my glutes. It's not a core weakness thing - I've got a very strong core. It's just a muscle habit thing.

So I aligned my core properly and then applied KT tape to my front torso before all my runs this weekend - the idea is that the KT tape pulls any time I start arching my back, and reminds me to keep stuff pulled in.

And both my weekend runs were considerably improved - my leg felt much more powerful and responsive. My hunch is that when my back arches, things get pinched, and that causes my issues.

Hopefully I'll be able to do a track workout on Tuesday, and test out how the taped core works there.

Dailies:

Monday: 9 "miles" pool-running and upper body weights/core.   Foam rolling at night. 

Tuesday: 11 miles on treadmill, including a workout of eight repeats of 2 minutes strong at a 3.0 incline, 90 second jog, 30 second stride, and 60 second jog.  Followed with leg strengthwork.  Dry needling in evening.

Wednesday:  8 miles very easy on treadmill (9:51), streaming yoga and then 4 miles very easy outside (9:48), plus drills and strides.  Foam rolling in evening.

Thursday: 9 "miles" pool-running and upper body weights/core.  ART session in afternoon.

Friday: 11 miles on the track, including 4800m at tempo effort (21:07, split as 7:09/7:01/6:57), about 5 minutes recovery, and then 2x400, 4x200 with equal distance recovery in 95, 96, 48, 47, 47, 47.   Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling in evening.

Saturday: 9 miles easy on treadmill (9:39), followed by streaming yoga and 3 miles very easy outside (9:25) plus drills and strides.  Foam rolling at night.

Sunday: 12 miles on the treadmill, including a tempo workout of four cruise intervals of 7:30 duration, with 90 second jog after each.  Paces for the cruise intervals were 7:04 for the first two, and 7:01 for the second two.  After full recovery, did 4x40 seconds at between 9.1 and 9.8 mph, with 80 second jog.  Later did another two miles very easy with the Lever Runner set at 36 pounds of lift (9:05).  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.

Training log - Week ending 1/9/2022

This week was 65 miles of running, 500 yards of swimming and 9 "miles" of pool-running -- training log is here.

Snow and ice meant that all of my weekday runs plus the first Saturday run were on the treadmill (default incline of 0.5).  I've been having some balance/stability issues on the treadmill that ease when I am running on a steeper incline.  For that reason, a version of the Iwo Jima hill workout that alternated 2 minutes running hard uphill and a 30 second flat stride worked really well on Tuesday - the 2 minutes hard uphill let me get my heart rate up, and then the 30 second stride let me experiment with running faster on the flat.

Thursday, I had my first session with an ART (Active Release Technique) therapist.  I've had people do ART on me before as part of a chiro session, but this was the first time I've had a long session (45 minutes+) that was entirely ART.  

The ART guy's theory was that my psoas muscles on both sides have gotten inflamed and tight - when they do that, they can pull on various vertebrae and irritate the nerves that are there.  An inflamed psoas can also compress the femoral nerve in the front of the thigh.  

I have to admit, this theory is making a lot of sense to me.  It certainly explains why I feel so off balance and clumsy at first, but improve with exercise (because the exercise eventually stretches out the psoas, relieving any compression or pulling on nerves).

Dailies:

Monday: 4 miles very easy on treadmill (10:05) and streaming yoga   Foam rolling at night. 

Tuesday: 10 miles on treadmill, including a workout of eight repeats of 2 minutes strong at a 3.0 incline, 90 second jog, 30 second stride, and 60 second jog.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling in evening.

Wednesday:  8 miles very easy on treadmill (9:58), streaming yoga and then 4 miles very easy on treadmill (9:43), plus drills, flat strides, and downhill strides.  Foam rolling in evening.

Thursday: 9 "miles" pool-running and upper body weights/core.  ART session in afternoon.

Friday: 11 miles on the treadmill, including a tempo workout of four cruise intervals of 7:30 duration, with 90 second jog after each.  Paces for the cruise intervals were 7:26, 7:23, 7:23, and 7:19.  Followed with leg strengthwork.  Foam rolling in evening.

Saturday: 7 miles easy on treadmill (9:55), followed by streaming yoga and 5 miles very easy outside (9:45) plus drills and four strides.  Foam rolling at night.

Sunday: 15 miles progressive, split as first 5 miles averaging 9:31 pace, next 5 miles averaging 8:21 pace, next 5 miles averaging 7:30 pace, and then a mile cooldown.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.

Training log - Week ending 1/2/2022

This week was 62 miles of running, 1500 ~yards of swimming and 18 "miles" of pool-running -- training log is here.

The week started off rough, but improved as the week progressed.  I got a sports massage on Wednesday - the first true deep tissue massage I've gotten since the pandemic hit.  Wow - I had no idea how tight my shoulders and back were - perhaps the cause of some of my issues?

Friday and Sunday's runs echoed the trend of modest and gradual improvement.  Sunday's run was particularly great not because it was significantly faster than previous runs, but just because I felt stable - no parts of the run where I felt like I might fall.  Heck, I even managed to run over a bridge that I used to have to walk (because I couldn't handle the decline).

Let's hope the trend continues.

Dailies:

Monday: 8 "miles" pool-running and upper body weights/core.   Foam rolling at night. 

Tuesday: 11.5 miles, including a track workout of 1600, 4x800 in 7:05, 3:22, 3:20, 3:16, 3:16.  5:30 recovery after the 1600; recoveries of 2:33 to 3:07 after the 800s.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling in evening.

Wednesday:  Streaming yoga, 8 miles very easy (9:30) and then 4 miles very easy (9:29), plus drills, flat strides, and downhill strides.  Sports massage in evening.

Thursday: 10 "miles" pool-running and upper body weights/core.  Foam rolling at night.

Friday: 11 miles, including a tempo workout of 4800m in 27:39 (6:59/7:00/6:57/6:43 - with a short pause in the middle to fix shoes).  Then leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling in evening.

Saturday: 9 miles very easy (9:39) plus drills, flat strides and downhill strides, followed by upper body weights/core and 3 miles very easy (9:36).  Foam rolling at night.

Sunday: 14.5 miles progressive, split as first 5 miles averaging 9:42 pace, next 4.5 miles averaging 8:23 pace, next 5 miles averaging 7:23 pace.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.