Wake Up and Smell the Asphalt

I want my leg back.

This morning my husband and I drove with our bikes to a nice Florida-scrubby park with miles of paved car-free path. I rode 19 miles averaging 16.5 mph, and this included heading some brisk Gustav breezes, as well as a bit of sitting up and waiting for my husband to catch up with me. I pedaled and pedaled my own private time trial, passing skaters and other mtb-ers and even a few road bikers, and trying to hang with every road biker who passed me. On the last loop I listened and pedaled to music on the mp3 player (shame on me), and probably looked and sounded like a madwoman as I called out (too loudly, because of the headphones) on your left, thank you! After just under 1:10 I had a nice little heartrate going, and was dripping sweat. But

fuck

all

that

because

was not

running, and

cannot run, and don't know

when

will

ever

run again.

'Nuff said. Really.

more forward and backward

Here's how my xtraining week went:

M: AM 8mi pool - 7min wu, 2 x[8x90h/30e], 2min betw sets, 2min rest, 21:45 hard, 5min cd, 1:08 total. PM mtb 15mi (1:01)

T: AM 14.33mi mtb (1hr). PM 5mi pool - 5min wu, 9x[2:30h/30e], 7min w/o belt, 39min total

W: AM 9mi pool - 7min wu, 8x[5min h/1min e], 10x[45h/15e], 7min w/o belt, 5min cd, 1:17 total. PM 15.2mi mtb (1hr)

R: AM 14mi mtb (57:30). long workday, no PM workout

F: AM 7mi pool - 5min wu, 1h/1e, 2/1, 3/1, 4/1, 5/1, 5/1, 4/1, 3/1,2/1, 1/1, 8min w/o belt, 5min cd, 58min total. PM 18mi mtb (1:13)

Sa: AM 13.5mi pool, 1:55 total, did not go as hard as I thought I would. PM 10min mtb (41:48)

Su: AM 20mi mtb (1:17:31), 40min walk (2.56mi)

total: 42.5mi pool running, 106.6mi mtb, 2.56mi walking

Yeah, yesterday was my big day: I walked for 40 minutes. No limping, no pain on the bone, but the lower leg felt very tight, like it needed a bigger stretch than I could give it. I wore running shoes for the first time in 3 weeks and they felt so cushy, and I wanted so badly to run a little bit but I did not. Later my leg felt a little bit more sore than usual, and last night I woke up with pain for the first time in a while. This morning I'm sore just sitting here drinking coffee.

Why? Was it just the aftereffect of 40 minutes' walking? The 3-hour band practice yesterday afternoon? (I do that every week, so probably not.) Muscles complaining after disuse? Is it just plain not healed yet, even after 3 weeks of relative non-weightbearing? What? I've gone back through my training log and this blog to see at what point the other stress fracture became pain-free, but it must not have been important enough for me to mention, dammit. This is so frustrating: I'm doing all the right things (I think) and being absolutely patient and it is still not going away. Without a real medical diagnosis or treatment I'm just flailing around, churning up the water.

hi-diddly-i, neighbor!

Two ladies of very late middle-age with a very athletic Pekingese.

Redheaded woman with a schnauzer.

Woman I can't ever see clearly because it's always dark, with a well-behaved dog I also can't see clearly. They're friendly; she waves but never forces me to say anything.

Husband and wife with what look like 2 Jack Russells on stilts. The dogs are related somehow and one is named Diego. The husband sometimes rides his bike in circles and circles and circles around the neighborhood, just like me.

Tall willowy lady with a bullterrier mix and two huge blonde Bouviers (to me they're Patty and Selma, though that's not their real names) she rescued from somewhere. The woman drifts down the centers of streets, stops to talk to neighbors, stops when the dogs stop to lie down in the middle of the street, stops to stare up at the sky, stops for no reason at all. She stops and the dogs stop. The dogs stop and she stops. I've seen clouds move faster than this crew. They take up the entire street. She says she appreciates my "behind you on your right!" advance warnings. Good, I'm glad.

Guy around my age or a bit younger, used to have a nice Irish Setter until a few weeks ago, had to put her down, did the sensible thing and got a 4-month-old black puppy who's quite the handful. He knows my name and apparently follows local road racing, as he's congratulated me on a few races. Which is kinda disconcerting as I'm plodding on foot or whizzing by on the bike at 5:30 in the morning.

Blonde lady with schnauzer. She vaguely reminds me of my mother-in-law.

Middle-aged guy who smokes cigarettes and walks a tiny but fierce soul named Freddy. I have run or gallowalked or biked past this Chihuahua for nearly 7 years and every time, he growls and pulls and strains at the leash like he wants to kill me. I will sometimes taunt him (whisper: "heeeeyyy, freddeeeee....") but mostly ignore him. The guy has watched me suffer through speed workouts and long runs, and finally, a few months ago asked me "you must run those marathons, right?" For a few months the guy walked without the dog, and when I asked, told me Freddy was resting inside watching Good Morning America on TV.

Woman of late middle age with two tiny dogs on retractable leashes that she never, ever, retracts. She's on one side of the street and the dogs are on the other, and the leashes are stretched taut in between. She thinks it's really funny when someone's coming and she has to reel in the dogs just in time, or maybe not quite in time, oops, my my.

Vaguely South-Asian-looking guy with a one-ear-up, one-ear down shepherd mix like mine. Gallowalks lately. Dog has never liked me, just like mine.

Guy with older Weimaraner, half-grown husky and now a white spitzlike dog, all walking together, pretty well-behaved bunch but can be a handful when a cat's around.

Late-middle-aged woman with cancer who lets her shitty pom-yorkie mix and larger retriever-type mix run around her front yard, her side yard, everyone else's yards, her street, everyone else's streets. The woman has a fenced back yard but prefers to let her dogs out the front door instead. The dogs run barking and snarling at anyone, even when they're blocks away from home with no territory to defend. Everyone in the neighborhood cuts the woman slack because she has cancer, but she's been letting the dogs run loose since before she had cancer and she just doesn't give a shit. When confronted by passers-by (well-meaning or angry), she'll swear she didn't know how the dogs got out, didn't know the dogs run at people, didn't know that people ever do walk or run or ride by her house, she's just taking care of the dogs for some poor soul who's having a hard time. She just lies or makes shit up. Having cancer doesn't make it ok to lie or make shit up.

Lady with cute black pug.

Elderly husband and wife, used to walk together every morning. I don't see them much anymore, hope they're ok.

Pre-elderly husband and wife, man smokes cigars and carries a little transistor radio.

Ragpickers: people in mostly falling-apart trucks coming round on trash day.

Ragpicker, Jr: old guy on a motorized scooter, picking through peoples' recycling bins for aluminum cans. He goes out early, sometimes before dawn, and doesn't seem to care if people walking or running or riding or driving by can see well enough to avoid hitting him. In his mind, he's the only one there.

Lady with bulldog who doesn't like anything, including the sight of a small person walking or running or biking toward him. When confronted with this, he plants his butt on the ground, much to the dismay of the person walking him.

There are others, and if I can think of any worth mentioning, I'll mention them here.

joe positive, human eggbeater

It's been two and a half weeks since I last ran on land, and the motherfucker still hurts. There are good days and bad days, and good times on bad days and bad times on good days, but the damn thing is still sore. Sometimes it's the tendons of the two peroneal muscles; sometimes it's the extensor muscles in front of the peroneals; very rarely it's the little spot on the fibula that started the whole thing. But I am starting to wonder if I'll ever get any better, and this is downright depressing.

Yesterday I finally emailed the Akron people telling them I wouldn't be running. Not the end of the world for anyone, I know, but it's final now. Ugh. I still have to cancel the hotel stay and wrangle with hotwire over the airfare, but I'll save that for later this week.

And still I churn up the water in the pool, and spin around the neighborhood on the mountain bike every day, because I don't know what else to do. In the pool I do all speedwork, all the time, because, well, Pfitzinger recommends it, and because I can get away with that kind of effort since there's no pounding involved, and because it helps pass the time. And hey, maybe I'll end up with the most awesome cardiovascular system ever. But if I can't use it to run with my own two legs, on land, so what?

Anyway, here's a look at last week, for anyone who's interested:

M: AM 1:05 pool, incl 2x[7x[90s v hard, 30s v easy]], 22min hard,
wu/cd, call it 8mi. PM 1hr mtb, 14.6mi

T: AM 1hr mtb, 14.6mi. PM 1:08 pool, incl 8x[5h/1e], 10x[45h/15e], wu/cd, call it 8mi

W: AM 1:10 pool, incl 1hr steady (1min hard each 3-4min), wu/cd, call it 8mi. PM 1hr mtb, 15.2mi

R: AM 45min mtb, 10.8mi. long workday, no PM workout

F: AM 42min pool, incl ladder workout 1h/1e up to 5/1 and back, wu/cd, call it 5mi. PM 50min mtb, 12mi

Sa: 2:48 pool, incl 59min easy (1-3min hard every 5), 53min hard
(3-5min hard ea 5), 56min kinda hard (2-4min hard ea 5).

Su: 1:01 mtb, 15 miles

total: pool running 50mi, mtb 82.2mtb

This week will probably end up with 44mi in the pool and 105mi on the bike. Will it help? Someone, please tell me it will. And I promise to write about happier stuff tomorrow. 'Cos there is some, actually.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

somehow I knew it couldn't last

sore leg. aaarrrrggggh. It's been bothering me almost 2 weeks, getting a little worse every few days. It doesn't make me limp or alter my gait, but it does hurt some and I am terrified it will become a stress fracture, and when I worry it hurts even more. Saturday I was supposed to run 17 - 10 easy + 7@MP. But I felt that leg every step, and I ended up running only 5 of the 7 MP miles at MP. The fact that I miscalculated and ran almost 2.5 miles extra didn't help any, either.

Yesterday I decided to play it smart and bag the 5mi recovery run entirely. But this morning my leg still hurt, and once again I didn't quite make the planned workout. It was supposed to be 5 easy + 2 in 13:40, but once again the leg was manageably sore throughout the easy miles and I worried about the faster stuff to come. At 5 miles I picked it up, and after a half-mile noticed that the leg no longer hurt (!) but I just couldn't hold the pace. I ended up with 6:59 and 7:05 for the last 2 miles. arrrggggghhhhh.

today the clock stopped

Today for the second time we observe the sad anniversary - the day our best friend killed himself, not in the manner of a rockstar but in that of a desperate human being. Like some religious observances this thing lasts two days: the 17th, which is the day he ended his heartache, and the 18th, which is the day we found out and our heartaches began. Today we resolved not to do anything special. No memorial show, no trip to the grave, no luv-ya comment on the myspace page, no black armband. No cocktail. No cigarettes, even. Today I worked a long day and was booked solid, and everybody got great massages because I was not thinking of myself or how I was doing or whether I was effective or too this or not enough that. Instead I was a million miles away, or 35 miles away, on the bridge yelling "look at me!" or in the car driving somewhere to go have a drink or dinner or see a band play, or home cooking dinner for the three of us so we could eat during The Sopranos. I was hardly in the room at all, but I looked at the clock every so often because I was, after all, booked solid and the people needed their massages. Although I was far from bored, time really seemed to drag. One time I saw the second hand actually move backward and I thought I'd lost my mind completely, but then I realized the battery was dying and that's how I managed to lose a half-hour over the course of the morning. I couldn't find another battery so I stole a clock from another room and put the dying clock out to die. Today it rained for like the 5th day in a row. This is very rare for Florida. If it had been raining two years ago, he might not have driven out there. He might have looked at me, or my husband, or anyone else who loved him, instead of looking into the sun.

something of a roll

Of course, the minute I blog about it, it'll dissipate, poof!

Over the past ten days or so, something's changed a little with my training, or rather the way I think about whatever it is Dror has me doing on a given day. Or, rather, the way I don't think about it so much. I have finally gotten used to the across-the-board drop in easy pace, and can settle into 8:30 or 8:29 without much thought or effort. Compare this to "gah! omg omg omg 8:30 at the slowest!!!! how can I do that on an easy run?" which was the way I started out every non-workout a couple weeks ago. I'm not even dreading the workouts as much as I had been; I know that unless I'm having an outright miserable day, I'm capable of whatever Dror put on the schedule, and the number - whatever it is - is nothing to be afraid of. ("Hi, I'm a small chunk of marathon-pace at the end of an easy run. I'm here to help."). Something about this training seems to agree with me. I just hope the mileage is enough.

numerica

tallies, totals, etc.

M: 9mi (6 easy, then 7:14, 7:28, 7:37, watch me faaaade)
T: 8mi (8:28), 5x strides 8th mile
W: AM 6.14mi incl track workout, PM 6mi (8:29)
R: 5mi (8:41), 5x strides 5th mile
F: 7mi (8:30), little hills
Sa: 15mi (7:51)
Su: 5mi (8:28)

total = 61.14 miles

Yes, my mileage is decidedly lower than last year. For the moment, I'm ok with this.

Wednesday's track workout was actually fun. There was nothing special about it; it was just fun rather than a discomfort-filled terrorfest. We ran 800/400/1200/1200/400/800, with a minute's rest per lap (1mi for 400, 2min for 800, etc). Goals were 93/3:10/4:45 and we went 3:08, 91, 4:36, 4:36, 88, 3:01, which was still easy enough that I could keep my head and concentrate on tactical stuff like stalking, surging, finishing kick, etc. Many of our track workouts include an "optional" mile, which I opted not to do this week but which coach goaded me into ("cmon, you're training for a marathon, you can do a mile, cmon"). He said a 7:15 mile would feel like jogging and I didn't believe him, but I ended up with 6:41, which felt like jogging, weird. Must be that cushy rubberized track.

Saturday's non-long run had a bunch of planned pace changes, which kept it interesting. I ran 6@8:08, 4@7:35, 2@7:02, and 3@8:12. I had company for the first 6 miles but the rest was solo, which was harder mentally than physically (though it was pretty brisk physically, too). I can definitely see where this kind of workout will help me, but I just hope I'm getting enough endurance training too. I don't have another >20-miler until the end of this month.