OK, pity party is over.  Now it’s time to talk about last week’s running, which helped fuel the pity party bonfire.

Toward the beginning of the week, things were chugging along and paces were getting recognizable again.  Tuesday I did a 5-miler averaging 8:36 with a couple 8:20 miles in there.  This was heartening and made me think I’d be back in a timely fashion or at least, Vegas wouldn’t be a big deal.

It was also notable because towards the end of that run, I got hit in the ear by a goose.  The odd thing was that there was a lady walking her dog a few feet away and I’m sure she heard me (one doesn’t get sideswiped by a flying goose without emitting a shocked noise that might include “oh, shit!”) but she didn’t even glance my way.  I would have appreciated an amused witness but No.

Starting Wednesday, things went wonky.  I developed a couple tweaks, one that didn’t worry me and one that did.  The worrisome one was a tender muscle in the left inner thigh, the area of my injury.  I took the next couple days very slowly, capping them at 4mi, but when it wasn’t better on Friday, I figured I should take both Saturday and Sunday off.

You already know what a ball of fun I was on Saturday so it wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you I considered cancelling Vegas.  Another thought was to give my bib (minus the chip) to our friend Jay who will be jumping in for a bit to run with the Half or Full crew, but the idea of spectating would be too depressing for words. I’d probably end up at the slot machines downing Mai Tais and blubbering over lost nickels.

On Sunday, however, perspective and common sense returned. I reminded myself that Matt, the friend I’ll be running with, will be in great pain from having done a marathon that morning so we’ll simply be better matched than I initially predicted, no reason to think I’ll be a drag on him.  I also decided that if those 2 rest days didn’t do the trick, I’d make an appointment with the ART lady.

Happiness and joy, today was the best run I’ve had since coming back. I was slow as hell and will continue to be all week (pace has no place coming back from injury, now I know. duh) but I ran 6 blissfully untweaked miles – the farthest I’ve gone so far. I only have a few days left to regain some distance and obviously, will be topping out appreciably under 13.1, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to complete the distance.  Pathetic, but a step up from teary drunken nickels.

Hairdo
I got my hair cut off yesterday in a pixie cut.  I did have some momentary Beiber concern while the hairdresser was blowdrying it, but luckily it was just a passing trick of the eye.  I love it, actually.  Plus now I get to play around with Product.

I love how the hairdressing industry has managed to make Product an encompassing name in its own right to describe all things bottles and jarred.  Why waste breath on that pesky “a” beforehand?  Let the dweebs use a product or even products…I use Product.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to cook Meal.  See ya later.

I’ve been dreading people asking me what I’m doing for Thanksgiving this year because I didn’t do anything or see anyone.  I did a pretty good job of emptying my Netflix queue, saw some crappy movies and a couple good ones.  I ran, but I’ll save that for my next post.

I fully intended to skip over the holiday completely and just talk about my week in running but there’ve been some rough days and I have this twisted need to spew it all.

First off, Thanksgiving week is the week my mother killed herself and this happens to be the 5-year anniversary.  It really fucks up the holidays, as you can imagine.  There are so many memories I could do without, like all of them.  Even the good ones are painful, but actually, because I have so much guilt at how our relationship evolved, I don’t even see the good ones. What I see are flashes of things that make me cringe, a strobe of unpleasantness.

I actually think of her as little as I can, which is really a shame because she had some amazing qualities but as her craziness became apparent (she wasn’t looney tunes, just paranoid schizo) I had a really hard time loving her.  I was angry from the first moment I witnessed her going “off” – I was probably around 20 and back home on vacation, we were in a grocery store and she was convinced someone was following her.

And while I never held back about her paranoid delusions – we talked freely about everything – she was no longer the same person to me and I struggled to be empathic.  Actually, I plain out failed.  If it was anyone else, I’d be understanding and kind but it was my mother and I couldn’t deal with it.

Now, I find myself adopting traits of hers.  The anti-social ones are worrisome (though I’m a party animal compared to her, so no major worries on that score) but even the innocuous things make me so sad because I wish to god I could apologize for having been so judgmental.  I just wanted her to be normal.

This week, I looked at all those great photos of feasts and togetherness on Facebook and I will tell you this straight up, I was not sad one bit for not having any of that.  But what does bother me and in a very deep way, is exactly that: the fact that I don’t want any of it, that I’d prefer to hide and be miserable alone than be among people, chitchatting and exchanging pleasantries.  I see my mother in me and I hate it.

Maybe I’m also having a delayed mid-life crisis.  I wish the simple things that make people happy would make me happy, too.  I love running and I love writing in this blog but that’s about it.  It’s like I’m waiting for something to happen only I’ve no clue what that could be.  Not to say I’m an unhappy person, I think I am a happy gal most of the time, but I guess this week being what it was, plus a little look in the mirror that reminded me I’m getting older…it’s a weird time.

Please, you sweeties, I’m posting this because it’s important to me to say, this blog is a chronicle, but here’s the deal: I don’t want to talk about it so please don’t send any emails or Facebook messages about this.  Also, Christmas is coming and I’m going to be spending it alone as well, but not in a depressed manner (no crappy memories for that holiday, I’m happy to say) so nobody feel inclined to invite me anywhere, it’ll just be awkward for me to say “thank you but no thank you”, which is what I’d do.

This is actually a relief to admit; now I don’t have to worry about hiding the fact later.  Funny how ashamed holidays can make a person.

Bottom line is I know I’m loved but for the most part, I’m glad to keep it at arms-length.  That’s weird and messed up and I hope it’s not always the case, but it is what it is.  Anyway, this was a strange post, huh?  I actually feel a lot better already.  Now the question is, will I press the Publish button?

Silly little blog.

It was a blast – lots of eating, drinking, screaming and cowbell clanging along with huge amounts of friend sweetness.  I did however, make two idiot moves:

1. The morning before my houseguests arrived, I prepared my usual hot cereal w/ peanut butter but forgot to add water before I nuked it.  Thus, the stagnant stench of burnt death was the aroma de weekend.  Neither open windows, air freshener or nuking lemons (a tip I read) would make that disappear.

2. I stupidly neglected to take photos of the apres-race gathering at my apartment.  I’ll blame it on the early morning Irish coffees and the mimosas after that.  Thus, there were a handful of other cool folks not pictured but present over the weekend.

These are my main forum crew of those visiting. Really hard to believe we all met online, we know each other so well now.

A gaggle of racing boys at Friday's dinner: Ron, Chris and Nick

The Cheering Squad: Stevi, Moi, Amy and Chris

Running!
My return to the road has been joyous, though on the 2nd day when I did my first continuous run, it was clear I’d lost fitness.  I did, however, enjoy a moment of smug satisfaction on that 3-miler when I passed another runner, leaving him in the dust.  Nevermind that he was 80 years old and wheezing heavily, I was on fire.  Or at least I was definitely faster than walking.

Saturday was my slowest of the three days with 9:30s.  I was a little creaky from DOMS but it was beautiful out and knowing I’d be off the next day, I went wild and ran 4 whole miles.

I’ll be going 4mi today, too.  Hopefully, I’ll find that old man so I can ruthlessly pass him again and show him what a real jogger is.  Barring that, I’ll harass a walker or two.  If I can catch ‘em.

It was
scary
thrilling
joyous
a little odd
fuckin’ amazing

4 x (5min run/ 2min walk).   Much to my surprise, I didn’t feel clumsy, creaky or slow and aside from the huge novelty factor of “OMG, I’m running!”, I felt like me.  I stopped to stretch the quad out during the walk portions (I feel like I should still baby those muscles) but it was amazing to run without a wince in sight.  It’d been so long.

What was really interesting is that yesterday I checked out Daniels’ Running Formula to get a hint of how much I could expect my paces to have deteriorated.  The great Doc has a handy chart of factors by which to multiply your pre-layoff VDOT to get your ballpark current VDOT.  It’s based on the amount of time you took off, whether you cross-trained, even weight gain if that’s an issue.  For my situation, the multiplier is .931 which brings my VDOT from 49.6 down to 46.17.

In layman terms: before the layoff I was in 1:32:10 Half shape, now I’m in 1:38:10 shape.  That comes out to about a 30sec/mi hit.  I always run by effort anyway, but it was fascinating to see how close it was, around 9min/mi.  I would have expected it to be more like 9:30-10:00 so this was a sweet surprise.

As for the next few days, tomorrow I’ll do a continuous run of 3 miles and if that feels good, I’ll repeat it on Saturday, then Sunday will be a day of rest.  This works out perfectly because I have quite a weekend ahead.  It’s the Philadelphia Marathon and a group of dear internet friends will be here, some to race and some to cheer.

The racers will be Chris (my pal who just moved to the area) along with Ron, Mere and Nick (he’s the only one I haven’t met yet, can’t wait).  Then Amy, Stevi and Chris will be my houseguests/fellow drunkards/cheering partners.  So expect some fun photos when next I post.

Have a great weekend everybody, thank you so much for all the support during my whiny time, and to everyone else running Philly (I know there’s a bunch of you), Good Luck!

Thursday’s it! Just 4 more days till I’m back on the road after (what will be) 29 days sans running.  I’m being rebellious as all get-out by resuming one day earlier than planned because:

A) my park interludes are now brisk 5+ mile walks.  Pfitzinger’s “return after stress fracture plan” says you first need to be able to walk briskly pain-free for an hour which I’ve been doing, and more, for a week (and I didn’t even have a stress fracture).

B) seeing as how that MRI report two weeks ago said my femur was normal, starting one day earlier ain’t gonna kill me.

My doctor allotted me 25% of my previous mileage for the first week back, which means 22.5 miles.  I’m not sure I’ll do that much, I have a soft plan in mind that ends up being more like 17 the first week but it’s nice to know I can do more if I feel good.

I was looking at Jack Daniels’ plan for getting back after a layoff which is too aggressive for me, but interesting.  He has you come back in the same amount of time you were off.  For a 29-day layoff, he splits it into thirds; the first 9 days would be 33% of your previous load, then the next 10 days would be 50%, then the last 10 days 75%, et Voila! 29 days and you’re back to full volume.

What I’m going to do is simply add 10% of volume per week like my doctor suggested which means 8 weeks will get me to 86mi.  That’ll put me in the 2nd week of January; with racing season around here starting in March, that’s perfect.  Of course, at that point the weather might suck sufficiently that I won’t want to go that high anyway, but I’m itching to try.

Meanwhile, I don’t have any follow-up doctor appointments or PT in store – even the muscle adhesions I mentioned (which feel to me like massaging an exceptionally durable Nestle’s Crunch or Kit Kat bar) seem to have been worked out.   So in a few days, I can consider this whole thing done.

I am so incredibly excited to get back to pain-free, worryless running.  I checked back in my log and the first mention of this was on Sept. 12 (though by then, it’d been about a week from the first sign).  I wrote “Not liking my quad.”  What a harbinger of crap to come.

SFX in 3D – A cool link
As you know, I spent many hours reading about stress fractures, stress reactions, MRIs, personal accounts of sfx patients, medical studies, etc.  Through all that, I acquired a good collection of cool links on the subject.

One of my favorites is this page. If you scroll down, you’ll see some excellent 3D models of fractured bone along with their matching MRIs – the 3D models illustrate what stress fractures look like better than any words or medical tests can describe.  Even if you ignore the MRI images, I think it’s good to understand this stuff and see what it actually is, for curiosity’s sake if nothing else.

Spring Destination Race!
Thursday, my friend Jackie from San Diego called (recall, she and Louis were my wonderful hosts for last January’s Carlsbad Half) to tell me the Carlsbad 5000 would be on sale the next day for $19 and would I like to come and do that race? I thought about it for a 10th of a nanosecond and said Hell Yes!  Not only do I savor any chance to hang with my beloved SoCal friends, but this particular race has been on my radar for a while.

The Carlsbad 5000 is billed as the “fastest 5k in the world” though not for the course (which isn’t as flat as the website would have you believe, Carlsbad rollers and all) but for the competition.  It’s a major event!

The deal is, it’s not a single race; it’s a morning’s worth of 5ks starting with the Male Masters, then the Female Masters, then Wheelchair, then separate Male and Female 30-39, a walk, mixed Open and finally at 12:15, separate Men’s and Women’s Elites.  So you’re only racing against your peers! How cool is that?!

Doubly cool is that once I decided to do this race, my Spring season emerged. I’m going to skip doing a Half and really focus on 5ks – finally take a proper stab at sub 20.  I’ll likely also fit in a 10k, maybe a 5-miler and probably the Broad St. Run (10-miler).  Then next Fall will be for something longer.

This is cool because I get to resume where I left off pre-injury, experimenting with a heavy race season with the added benefit of having more time to get into it.  Also, taking what I learned from this past year’s base-building, I’ll add strides and fartlek earlier so speed will be closer when the dedicated workouts start.

I learned so much this year, from taking that 2-week burnout break, to running without workouts which lifted the mental pressure which led to the mileage build and now I’ve got doubles to explore…  It’s like being at an amusement park with a roll of free tickets but without the inbred carnys.  Tons of fun ahead!

The first 2 weeks of this thing, I sat. Really didn’t do much more aside from limping strolls to the store or post office.  A week ago last Sunday, all the ouch was gone and I could walk normally…well, normal but feeling mental about it: taking fragile, measured steps, hyper-aware of how each foot-fall felt.  What a headtrip.  Of course, it could have had an actual physical basis, maybe limping around for a couple weeks leaves a vestige of instability, but I suspect it was partly me being kooky in the head.

Last Wednesday’s stroll to the MRI was the farthest I’d walked in 2 weeks, the hospital being 2.75 miles roundtrip. I made the trip 3 days in-a-row thanks to picking up the disc and then the next day, the results.  The mental thing (or what I perceived to be mental) dissipated more each day and by Friday, my legs were mine again. (probably helped by knowing where I stood finally after the doctor visit)

The doc said I could walk as long as it didn’t hurt, so every day I’ve been enjoying a stroll in the park.  This has made the waiting game about a trillion times better, getting to enjoy the fall colors and sneaking in some people-watching.  It’s a pretty great consolation prize.

I’ve been going for 3-4 miles (4 takes me around an hour or so) which is also taking the edge off me becoming a porker from inactivity.  The food thing isn’t too bad, I’ve gained a couple pounds and this included two junk-food I’m-a-pathetic-loser-sniff-sniff days.

Back to the walks…  It’s funny that while there’s a perfectly good sidewalk on the way to the park, I always stroll on the road between the parked cars and the bike lane, because that’s my running trajectory.  And my wrist has only just lost its magnetic quality that makes me want to look at it whenever I pass a mile marker.  I can still feel the Garmin pull, but somehow manage not to follow through.  Makes me smile, though.

As far as interactions, yesterday, a grizzled character from the park with whom I’ve exchanged nods and smiles for over 2 years, though have never spoken a word to (white-haired shirtless kerchief guy for my local friends, the bigger one [because we have 2 in our park]), was stretching as I walked by.  Took him a sec to realize it was me, then he asked how I was doing and we had a short but friendly conversation.  It’s wild how you can pass people for that long and they become “real” in an instant just by having a voice and a few facial expressions.

Today, I was downright beggarly.  I’m not recognized easily with my hair down and in civilian clothes, walking, so when I passed this one walker who always exchanges Hi’s with me, I pretty much had to yell across the path “HEY THERE” just to get a hello.  Lol.  I was kinda needy this morning.

The Next 9 Days
I’m finally gonna start doing my Pilates DVD today, shame on me for waiting but I haven’t felt like rolling around on the floor.  I don’t have any time to lose though, need to shore up my muscles before I get out there again.

The other thing is that the muscle adhesions the ART lady worked on, in the area where this whole thing started, are still there.  After my tennis-ball self-mauling groin incident, I’ve been really nervous about doing any self PT and laid off completely for a week.  I just resumed but in a much lighter way, no more vigorous “get thee demons out of my body!”, more like a gentle coaxing.

I’m also using the regular foam roller for the main deal, the trigger-point one only sparingly.  If I feel like there’s still crunchy stuff when I start back to running, I’ll go to the ART lady again for one more session.

An Annoying Thing
…is looking up race results from the races I missed while injured.  This’ll sound assholey (woulda coulda shoulda) but I would have won first AG in all of them, even that major Bridge 10k race last weekend.  I’m not seriously bummed but it would have been a fun streak.

If I did want to get bummed, I’d add up the race fees I paid of the all those DNSs, but I’m not gonna.  It’s all funny anyway, no matter how aggravating this period has been, I can’t not see the humor in it.

A Supremely Sweet Thing
An online friend whose posts I’ve always enjoyed (he’s got that funny/smart thing going on) but whom I don’t even know that well, did something that totally blew me away; he sent me an iTunes gift certificate so I’d have some new tunes when I get back on the road.  It made me tear up when I received it, so unexpected and touching.  Thanks again G, that was a super-dude move.

And that’s it for now.  Lots and lots of words to describe how nothing’s going on.  How does she do it?    Have a great day, folks.