August 20, 2008

lies I've been telling myself

1. a periosteal reaction suggests a healing stress fracture.

2. spending a lot of time pool-running and biking doesn't just maintain fitness, it increases fitness.

3. spending a lot of time pool-running and biking doesn't just increase fitness, it helps heal stress fractures.

4. it is possible for a soon-to-be-45-year-old woman to regain enough fitness to be a mediocre runner once again.

5. my mouth doesn't hurt when I chew.

6. it really doesn't matter that I've spent about $700 this year on airfare that I ended up not being able to use.

7. spending upwards of $2200 to attend an ART (active release therapy) workshop the weekend of the Akron marathon is not throwing good money after bad.

8. I really, really, really enjoy doing massage when it hurts to put weight on my leg and move around on it.

9. I really didn't want to meet Salty, mrp, and peanut anyway. Hell with 'em.

I'll post more whoppers as I think of 'em. As in...

10. riding a mountain bike on the road at 14-15mph is equivalent to running around 8:30 pace.

11. riding won't give me huge hunky thighs that will be a nuisance to haul around once I start running again.

Posted by joe positive at 12:25 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

August 17, 2008

a name that does not start with a number

The two Olympic events I was most interested in - swimming and the women's marathon - are over, and I am sort of glad. We were on the point of starting a drinking game based on Dara Torres (every time she's referred to as 41-year-old Dara Torres, take a drink) except I'd sworn off hard liquor until after Akron. Well, watching Paula Radcliffe's race last night changed all that. She has a stress fracture; she xtrained like a demon; she emerged from her 9-hour pool and antigravity-treadmill sessions to toe the line in Beijing. And for what? From the look on her face as she limped that last 400m, I'll wager her leg's pretty badly fucked up. She won't be called a quitter this time, but she's bought herself another stretch of time in the pool. Anyway, if the best runner in the world can't pull off a marathon purely on xtraining, a midpacker like 44-year-old joe positive sure as hell can't, either. Somebody buy me drink over here.

On the other hand, this blog is all about me, so here is my xtraining week:

M: 52min pool running, easy
T: AM mtb 45min (10.34mi), PM 55min pool running, easy
W: AM pool running track workout: warmup, 4x400, 1200, 3x400, 800,
mile, cooldown, ~8mi total. PM mtb 1hr (12.4mi)
R: mtb 1hr (14.72mi)
F: AM 43min pool running ladder workout: wu, 1/1 --> 5/1 --> 1/1
(hard/easy), cd, ~5mi total
Sa: AM 2:05:00 pool running: 34min easy, 29 hard, 10 easy, 15 harder,
30 kinda hard, 5 cd, I'm calling it 16 miles. PM: mtb 55min (15.1mi)
Su: mtb 61min (15mi)

total: 40.5mi pool running, 66.5mi mtb

Much thanks to my friend Ray for letting me come over just after dawn Saturday morning to spend 2 hours thrashing around in his pool.

Continuing the theme of my last entry: I still don't know what I'm doing, though I'm a little more sure I'm not actually training for an imminent marathon. My leg is still sore even after a week off (land) running, and though it feels better, I can make it worse just by staying on my feet 5-10 hours at a time (i.e., a typical workday). While it's healing, I can either sit on my ass or do a lot of xtraining, so I might as well try to stay aerobically fit. In this article about pool running Pfitzinger explains that steady pool running just doesn't equal steady road running, and he recommends doing a lot of interval stuff in the pool to get the heart rate up (and keep from going nuts too). So I've started going a bit harder in the pool, and on the bike too. We'll see if this helps. It certainly can't hurt.

Posted by joe positive at 5:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 13, 2008

I don't know what I'm doing

And I hate it. I haven't run a step on the road since Sunday, but I've run lots of steps in the pool, and I've done a little time on the bike as well. I'm trying to stick with the spirit, if not the letter, of the marathon-training schedule, which means coming up with creative ways to get workouts without actually running them. Still, I don't know if I'm

training;
maintaining;
something even less than maintaining.

I still don't know what's wrong with my leg, and I don't know if what I'm doing is the best thing for it, or even a good thing at all. That's a lot of "I don't know"s, which is very frustrating. I've heard story after feel-good story about people training almost exclusively in the pool, then lacing up to run some incredible (or at least completely adequate) marathon. I figure those people were pretty gifted anyway, but in the back of my mind I'm thinking "maybe, just maybe..." Then again, I stress about marathons even when I'm healthy, so the idea of training (and running) injured only looks like a whole lot more stress, not worth the mediocre result.

If I were not training for anything, I'd certainly stay in the pool the rest of the week, maybe longer. Then I'd slowly start trading pool and bike miles for road miles, and even more slowly trade pool workouts for road workouts. But that's if I were not training for anything; right now I don't know what I'm doing, and I hate it.

Posted by joe positive at 11:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 10, 2008

don't mention it

Every time I start talking or thinking about the Akron marathon, my leg gets sore or I have a bad run (or both), so I'm just going to stop talking or thinking about it.

A week ago I successfully gallowalked 5 miles, so I declared myself cured and started back on my regular schedule, for the most part. I shaved one MP mile off Monday's task list, and I did Wednesday's track workout in the pool, and I skipped one easy 4-miler and actually rested on the rest day Dror keeps putting on the schedule (and which I regularly ignore).

My leg felt sore a couple of times during the week, but I chalked it up to working, or driving, or anything but running. Yesterday I ran 9 miles much, much faster than I'd planned, and it felt great. This morning I went out for 20-22 easy, and I managed 18.5, and it sucked. There are some valid reasons for the suckiness, but there's no denying my leg's sore again, sore enough that the thought of a workout tomorrow is somewhat off-putting.

The race is, what, 7 weeks away, and I'm starting to feel like I'm running out of time.

I've never been invited to a marathon before, and I would hate to go there and just suck.

Posted by joe positive at 4:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 2, 2008

vibes and mojo and curly braces. please.

This week I (mostly) obeyed my coach and tried diligently to do nothing weightbearing so that my leg might heal. It hasn't, at least not all the way. It has (mostly) felt a tiny bit better each day, but I'm not sure if that's because it's healing or just because I'm (mostly) not running on it. I don't know if a good run will crank it back down again. I also don't know if it's a really tight peroneus longus or extensor digitorum longus, or a fibular stress fracture. And alas, my xray vision and MRI eyes are on the fritz.

This week I've biked about 70 miles, and done all my workouts (track and tempo) in the pool. Coach said to wait on running until Monday, but this morning after the ride I couldn't resist. Today happened to be the first day in a while that I woke up kinda sore, so maybe I just wanted to immerse myself in misery. Anyway, I did about 20 minutes gallowalking: 4w/1r, 3/1, 2/1, 1/2, 2/3. And I felt pain with every running step; it was bearable, but I definitely felt it. And it was annoyingly sore all morning as I hauled my dog off to dog PT (she gets to go on an underwater treadmill, lucky dog) and did other errands. And then, at some point, the pain faded with no warning.

So the upshot is I still don't know where I'm at, don't know if I can resume training on Monday, nor whether this week of (relative) inactivity has trashed the marathon for me anyway. Don't know whether to shut it down and pick a later fall marathon, or a winter one, or a spring one, or stop spending $$$ altogether on plane fares I'll never get to use.

Posted by joe positive at 6:40 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

July 28, 2008

box full of bones

This morning I visited my friend's pool for a bit of reduced-gravity running. I brought the mp3 player/mini speakers I'd bought for my wildly imploding massage business, and was pleasantly surprised that at the volume and quality. As Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians' "Heaven" blared from the 2" speakers, I strapped on the aqua-jogger and lowered myself into the warm water, feeling a bit like Olivia Newton-John. All I needed was a pair of leg-warmers.

I wanted to approximate the scheduled road workout (4 easy, 3@7:15). Of course I can't begin to guess pace in a pool, so I decided on 34min easy, then 22min hard, which is about as accurate as I could get using an analog clock. All went fairly well, except the random function on the mp3 player was sometimes anything but (for some reason Donner Party's "Box Full of Bones" played 3 times in a row, right at the start of the fast running, and it's not a particularly good song for faster running). I never listen to music while running, so maybe this is something everyone has to put up with. Anyway, I don't think my heart rate ever got really high, but my legs felt like jello when I was done, so I guess it was good for something.

I spent the rest of the day doing chores and errands: dentistry, laundry, dog rehab. I also got a really vicious massage from someone I work with. And asked myself, all day long: does my leg hurt? More? Less? Worse? I don't know. I mean, I think it might feel better. But I don't really know. Could I run on it? Pass the hop test? I guess, but I just don't know.

Tomorrow: 1:26 in the pool, approximating 10 easy miles.

Posted by joe positive at 6:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 27, 2008

back on the bike

And back in the pool. I can't deny it any longer. My left leg feels a lot like my right leg did four years ago when I had a stress fracture of the fibula. Four years ago I had much less experience with running injuries, so I ran and ran and ran on it until I couldn't take the pain any longer. Four years ago I also had a regular job and health insurance, so I had a sports doc order xrays and an MRI to confirm what we already suspected.

At the moment I have neither a good job nor insurance, but I do have a little more experience, or at least the sense not to run until my leg falls clean off. I'm going to take the next week off road running and try to do it all (regular runs and workouts) on the bike or in the pool. At this point I'm ok enough with my training and fitness to sacrifice a week to the running-injury gods. Hopefully a week is all they'll require.

Posted by joe positive at 4:55 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)