Posts Tagged ‘return to running’

My leg took a turn for the better this week; I ran 5 consecutive days without deterioration – a major accomplishment.  It’s still not as lithe and free as the right leg, but nearly there.  Fitness is returning as well, but taking its time.

For the most part, I’m positive about the way things are going but still, I miss my Summer self.  I miss fluidity and ease.  I miss confidence.  I miss feeling like a good runner.

No doubt it’ll all come back in due time but at the moment I feel like a clunky farm animal.  Nevertheless, I’m happy to say that after 2 interminable months, it’s time to include this ole thing again…

‘Bout Fucking Time Week In Review
Mon: Vegas – off
Tues: Travel – off
Wed: 6
Thurs: 6
Friday: 9.42 (targeted 9 but got distracted and missed the turn-around)
Sat: 4
Sun: 10
Total: 35.42 mi – paces (per run) averaged 8:54 to 8:28

Note: The week prior was 40mi, but because Sunday’s Half was a big mileage jump for a single run, I played the following days conservatively.  This coming week, however, I’m back on track, so providing my leg stays happy, I’ll hit 48mi. Just wanted to explain that in case you think “35 to 48…Danger! Danger!”

The cow has everything under control.   Moo.

Life’s a trip.  I’ve gone from Boohoo Blue to Luckiest Lady in the span of a few short days.  Here are the highlights:

#1. Runners World has featured one of my Gifted Runner shirts in their Unique Christmas Gifts for Runners web slideshow.  Way cool surprise.

#2. Just when I think it’s a dead month for voiceovers, I get a flurry of bookings.  It’s already been a lucrative week and fun too, didn’t have to speak much Medical-ese, mostly plain English.

#3. I committed to something next September that’ll be way out of my comfort zone: Reach The Beach relay.  There are two teams (20+ people) comprised of RW forumites, though they hang out in a different sub-forum than the one I frequent, so I only know a few of them and that’s through Facebook.  This adds an extra level of unknown fun to the adventure – more imaginary friends becoming real ones.  I heart this.

#4. I found $20 on the floor at Target yesterday.

#5.  Running has been beautiful.  I bumped up a little sooner than I would have if not for the Half, but the rest days are keeping my legs in check.  I finally feel like I’ve come out the other side.  Whew!  The week, when done, will look like this: 6, 8, Rest, 8, 5, Rest/Travel, 13.1. The face already looks like this:

Viva Las Vegas!
When next I write, it’ll be from a hotel room in that man-made desert wonderland.  In the meantime, I want to send out early race wishes for all my friends racing CIM, Vegas or White Rock.  This weekend will be a race tracker’s paradise.

A special Good Luck goes to my brave pals doing both CIM and Vegas in one godawfully long day – Paul, Holly, James and Matt – along with Steve, who is doing his own freaky stunt: The Northface 50mi race on Saturday, then going to Sacramento to cheer the CIM crew, then the Full in Vegas. Needless to say, they’re all insane.

Also racing and hanging with me this weekend will be Carrie (finally, Girlfriend, we meet!) and sweet Kevin who are doing one marathon each and Jay who is doing Northface (not the 50miler, maybe the marathon) then will jump in the course for a bit at Vegas.  And this is just the core group, not including spouses and friends.

Lastly, there’ll also be a handful of forum/Facebook/blog friends doing Vegas, too.  Off the top of my head: Joe, Eric, Jeff and Deb.  To you guys, I’m gonna be at the Expo on Saturday probably around 4:30 or 5, so hopefully we can bump in to each other then if not during the race itself.

So that’s the story.  Next post comes from Vegas, Babies.  Till then…muah!

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.

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!