New Shoes and a New Sport

I went out for a 5 mile run on Monday night to try to get back in the groove. It was warm out for March (around 7°C) and I was so exhausted that I was hoping some fresh air would wake me up. My iPod has been injured for a little while, so I was pleased when I got it working without any static for my run. I got really inspired running to Selah's I Turn to You and felt like I was really starting to get on a roll. I kept up a sub-9:00 mile pace for the first 3 miles. Then everything hit the fan... the light ache in my knee turned into a world of hurt. My Achilles in my left ankle started screaming at me too. I limped home (doing my very pace to maintain a 4+ mph pace). Somehow after walking for over 2 miles, I still ended the session with an average pace of 11:30. My knee always gave me problems in the past, but it was on long (6+ mile) runs and as long as I kept my runs to a shorter distance, I never had an issue. This whole experience made me reconsider.

 

My new best friends?

On advice from a fellow blogger  , I bought a pair of Saucony Guide 5s, men's 10.5. While tying them up in the store, I had my doubts... they felt a little weird. It was only when I stood up and started trotting around the store that I was convinced to buy them. They felt light as air, especially compared to my Rides that currently have clunky orthotics in them. I'm a little worried about the toe box being too small, but Sauconys are definitely the best for width in that department. I guess my first run will tell. I plan to take them to the gym tonight for a short 1 mile warm-up and cool-down for a strength session. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, my injured self has been on a bit of a running diet. With Monday's run solidifying that things needed to change, I started focusing on strengthening my leg muscles (especially the non-running ones) and aiming to do a few more hot yoga classes. I made my way to spin class last night dreading the burning in my throat that I got last time. That problem was fixed pretty quickly. I realized that my resistance wheel thing had gotten stuck during my last spin. When I thought I had turned my resistance all the way down, it was still around 3 full rotations on. So when the instructor had everyone increase their resistance, my bike was a full 3 turns ahead. Spinning with the right resistance was ten times easier. It turns out that the burning in my throat was due to me working out too hard, but I had no idea just how hard it was. Thankfully, the class was manageable, I felt good, and I just bought a 30-class membership to my new cross-training activity. Hopefully if I combine it with hot yoga this summer I'll be in a nice position to do well.

Anne

Spinning Out

I'd been having something of a mental breakdown for the past few days which was really a reflection of the past few weeks/months. Aside from a fitness kick in Dominican Republic, I really haven't had much in the way of training since I came down a really crappy flu back in December. To be honest, I haven't felt like my normal fit self since last August, when I came crashing like the Kool-Aid man through a wall.

After sleeping lots and lots this weekend (and I mean lots), I decided it was time to drag my butt to the gym for a solid workout. That solid workout turned out to be an hour-long spin class of death. I'd gone spinning years ago when I lived in Toronto and it was always a decent workout, but when I moved back to Ottawa, I could never find the right class for me. I went to a place in Ottawa called Inner Soul after seeing that it was the only place in the city with a Sunday evening spin class. It started off well enough. The bikes had digital monitors which was a good feature (I started spinning in the stone age of spin technology, I guess). Things started to go downhill the minute we started going uphill. The music was pumping, the disco ball was turning, and I was feeling good… until I got the burning. It felt as if I’d swallowed a tube of Bengay. I was gasping for air and trying desperately to figure out where the burning was coming from. I know I have been getting over a cold for the past few weeks, but I wasn’t sure if this was even in my airway. This has happened to me twice in the past week and both times have been around 2 hours after I ate and then did vigorous exercise. I have a very slow digestion time… a lot of people can run/work out 1-2 hrs after eating. I need usually at least 3, if not more. I’m trying to figure out if this was exercise-induced heartburn, or if it is a respiratory thing. I’m really hoping it’s the former because I think I’d just punch someone in the face at this point if I had to be sidelined from exercise again.


Tonight is Day 2 of Week 1 of my Stew Smith workout plan. I’ve been doing this workout plan for the past 4 months and I’m still on Week 1. That’s how terrible my training has been going. Oh well, one day at a time…

Dallas Form Follows Fitness 5K Recap

The Dallas FFF 5K was a spur-of-the-moment decision for me. I had run two races this winter (both in not-so-great times) and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to run, but my husband was down in the DFW area for an appointment on a weekend and EWR-DFW loads were very, very good. It also helped that we had just gone through a cold snap in Ottawa and I was ready to get out of the frozen tundra. My original plan was to run the Cowtown 5K. Unfortunately for me, online registration closed on the Wednesday (when I hadn’t decided if I was going or not) and there was no race-day reg. The only time I could register would’ve been on Friday evening. I arrived at midnight on Friday night/Sat morning, so it was the FFF 5K for me. As a matter of interest, I dropped my 5K results from the FFF 5K into the Cowtown results and found out I would’ve placed 11 of 183 in my age group.

The weekend started out promising. I got on a flight from Ottawa to Newark that was supposed to have no seats on it and still managed to score the exit row. I had packed half-thinking I wasn’t going to make it but I’m glad I threw my running gear in there. There had been weather all over the place and every flight from Ottawa to Washington and Chicago had been cancelled, so I’m surprised I made it on a plane at all. I was a bit panicked once I got on the Newark flight, but some Red Mango tart frozen yogurt at the airport helped that! Man, I love fro yo. I got into DFW around 12:30 am, stopped at Whataburger, checked into the Sheraton downtown with the hubby, and passed the f--- out! I’d been having trouble sleeping all week and I was stressed that the ~5 hrs of sleep pre-race coupled with all the insomnia was going to wreak havoc on my race (not to mention my stomach had been sketchy all night and Whataburger wasn’t going to help).

I woke up, grabbed a coffee, and headed to the race. Note to self: Make SURE you have cash before going to a race-day reg! I tried pulling cash out from an ATM at the airport when I landed and when I was at the hotel, but both were out of service. I ended up having to run all over downtown trying to find an ATM. All the office buildings are closed at 8 am on a Saturday so I was grateful that there was a Chase ATM just around the corner from the race. I literally had just enough time to pay, stick on my number, and go.

I started middle of the pack since it was chip-timed and I didn’t really care where I was positionally. Apparently a lot of people had this mentality… there were way too many walkers ahead of me and I spent the first mile dodging people left, right, and centre. I think this took a bit off my time, which is a shame. I settled into a good pace (around 8:30) and appreciated a nice downhill section after the first mile. At around 1.6 miles I started to realize that my time was on PR pace and I had strong legs.

Running strong at around mile 2

I had a good pace going towards the end of the second mile, but saw a hill (which was more of an on/off ramp) ahead and tried to slow down my pace. I saw a ton of people sprinting up this hill and I thought to myself “man, they’re going to be tired”. Turns out they were just smart and looked at the course map before running the race. The finish line was literally RIGHT after this hill. I only realized this when I rounded the crest and saw some pylons funnelling everyone into the finish line chute.

Some more evidence of my really messed-up stride.

I gave it my all when I saw the clock ticking towards 27:00. I completely forgot the race was chip-timed and got an extra 30 seconds on top of that. I finished in around 26:50 clock time, and had an official chip PR of 26:22. I managed to come in 6th in my age group (of 43) and 50th women overall of 450.

This was right before I ran into the photog. Who stands in the middle of the finishing chute??!

Props to my husband for sitting in the cold for a half hour waiting for me. It was a very chilly morning and not what I expected for Texas (it hovered around freezing). I’m glad I had my gloves. Speaking of clothes, isn't my Lululemon getup adorable? I got ribbed tremendously for wearing my bright neon orange jacket to work, but it did a great job of keeping me warm, yet cool in the right spots, during the race.

$40 entry fees should always mean free beer

The race felt really good and, if I had known the hill was near the finish line, I would’ve gotten a few extra seconds. Combine that with the slowpokes up front slowing me down for the first mile and I think I would’ve been well into the 25:00 range. I also ran on no sleep, had Whataburger the night before and just a coffee morning-of, and I hadn’t been training too hard since I had dealt with the bronch/injuries right up until February. It really is mental! Sub-25:00, here I come!

And she comes crawling back...

So I came back to this blog yesterday because I somehow managed to catch a cold around the same time I had bronchitis last year, and I wanted to see how slow my progress was back then. Believe it or not, how I was feeling March 5, 2012 was almost exactly how I felt March 4, 2013. After a bit of convincing from my husband, I decided to come back and blog again. He's promised me the readership of at least one (him), so I guess that's good enough -- though I have so many injury that I'm sure I'll be a great hit for all those Google searches. So to recap my race season so far:

I PR'ed in the Dallas Form Follows Fitness 5K on February 22! Yay! Race blog will be posted tonight/tomorrow.

Everything else has been shit, shit, shit. Well, that's not true... I managed to do a few nice sub-8:00 miles and I'm pretty sure I held a 7:45 pace in the 5K for a bit (before they made us run up an on-ramp in the final quarter mile stretch... WHO DOES THAT?!), but these injuries have got me going ballistic.

I noticed after a nice long illness/bronchitis spell at Christmas/New Years that my foot got numb when I ran. I noticed this even more with a pair of new shoes (I am attempting to "recreate the magic" I felt with my original Saucony Rides... so far the men's Ride 5 is a lesser equal). I was running in the women's version - which has a small toe box - and my foot just went straight-up numb. Couple this with the fact I was running on a 300m indoor track at my university and I felt like crap... the constant turning aggravated my knee injuries. I went sulking home with a numb foot and a busted knee.

I got back into things a little more and kept running with my too-worn Rides. I'm having a different type of buyer's remorse.... not buying enough! Should've bought the store out of those shoes when I had the chance. Anyway... the numbness issue continued, but to a lesser degree, so I kept the runs going. I know that I have the "sweet spot" of 6 miles before my left knee starts to give me shit, so I decided to finally do something about it. My wonky race pics didn't help. I might be flying like the wind, but I look like I'm taking fartleking to a whole new level:


WTF is wrong with my leg??!?

See how my knee caves inwards?


And there goes the ankle kicking out...

Yes, that picture was on uglyracepics.com ... My husband always says he never worries about me picking up guys at the gym because I'm just really not that hot when I workout. I think I have to agree.

Basically, my biomechanics are f***ed. You can even notice on the above photo that the left foot that is on the ground has a weird angle to it... instead of my toes pointing straight forward, they're almost turned to a 350-degree heading.

I finally picked up the orthotics that are at least supposed to help with part of this last week. I did my first "run" with them tonight but my feet were soooo sore. I kept getting pain on the outside of my foot. I'm not sure if it's because they're not broken in, my foot is just used to no support, or what... but I really hope it goes away.

On top of that, the numbness is coming back and I got diagnosed with Morton's Neuroma in that foot, so now I'm on the hunt for a shoe with a bigger toe box to stop the pinching.
On top of that, I'm hesitant to go for a neutral shoe (was going to try the Saucony Kinvara). I am somewhat considering a stability shoe and ditching the orthotics.
On top of that, my gait is so screwy that I'm doing two physio sessions a week to try to correct all this wonkiness.
And on top of aaaallll that, I need to lose 15 lbs in the next 2 months to be at my goal race weight for the summer (150 lbs).

Phew. There's a lot of nonsense going on and a lot of decisions to make. I don't even want to begin thinking about the amount of money I spend on running. Between races, shoes that may or may not fit, orthotics, physio, Lululemon.... Oh dear.

So here's my plan:

1. Keep going to physio.
2. Research physio places in Ottawa that might specialize in runners. I want to walk into an office and go "Fix me!" and they hook me up to a ton of machines, make me run, make me fast, etc.
3. Research shoes and get some opinions on stability vs. neutral. Neutral accommodates orthotics... stability might be nice to run in without orthotics, but in years past they gave me nasty-ass blisters.
4. Get my food shiz together and get a proper workout plan in place by next week (this cold is still lingering). Thankfully I have some great workouts provided to me on a weekly basis so I have the framework, I just need to not get sick or injured for once!
5. Get a new iPod.

Umm, I think that's it?

Oh and I should start getting more sleep. So that's what I will do! I will do my best to blog the Dallas race tomorrow!

Good to be back! Lots of thoughts from tonight's run and I'm glad I can get them down somewhere again. Sorry if this one sounded so frazzled... to document every injury/thought/plan from the past year-ish into one blog was hard.

Anne

This is Gonna Be Huge

First and foremost, Happy New Year to my 4 subscribers and random readers who accidentally get a twenty-something's blog about running instead of what they were actually searching for.

2012 was a big year for me...

• I set a new "PR" (23:55 in the "5K" in Manassas.. which was short by 0.3 miles) 
• And I set a new PR (26:52 in the Canada Day Road Races -- this is the race I'm ACTUALLY counting as my PR).  
• I got a competitive spark by winning my age group in a race (yes, I actually got 1st.. of SEVEN. Not like 1 of 1...) 
• And I managed to throw it all out after racing a bit too hard on back to back days on back to back weekends. 
• My summer ended with me getting a concussion while wakeboarding and spending the following months recuperating, only to be taken down by something else (ITB pain! Knee pain! Kidney infection! 3-week long flu!). 
• I rediscovered how much I hate swimming after years of competitive swimming and waterpolo 
• I got a running coach that was, how shall we say, not the right fit
• And I got the best coach I could hope for... the guy that got me into running and fitness 10 years ago (Stew Smith)!

It was all a very interesting time for me.

Well, time to move on, so here we go... my big goal of 2013:

RUN A SUB-25:00 5K (for real -- no short courses)

2013 has been the year of 2-milers so far. I've done three 2 mile-ish runs this week and they've all been horrible in their own fashion. My first one was not too bad. I'm recovering from a flu that has staying in my throat/chest for the past few weeks and, given my lessons learned with my bronchitis last year, I opted to take it easy. I did 15 min of walking, then a walk/jog combination 'til my 30 min was up (which equaled a little over two miles).

My second run of the year was terrible. I was on my university campus and my class had ended early (I'm taking evening classes to finish my degree). Since I'd paid for parking and I really wanted to check out the Carleton track, I headed over. I got into the women's locker room with my gym bag to discover that I'd forgotten jeans. I practically live in yoga pants and the one day I decided to wear jeans was the day I needed my yoga pants! With the urge to run at peak levels, I headed to the university bookstore and grabbed a pair of Carleton basketball shorts. It was only when I got back to my gym bag that I realized I'd also forgotten socks (and the thermal ones I was wearing with my boots were NOT going to work). I figured my running socks are thin, so running without socks can't be that different -- right? Well... the first mile was okay. By the time I started to work on my second mile, my arches were KILLING me. The blisters that I suffered years ago were back in place on my arches. Owwww! I cut the run short after 2 miles (despite being able to go longer) due to the pain. And you can't push through blister pain.

My run tonight was a little better, and a little worse. I did 20 min of elliptical before heading onto the treadmill. I did my first mile at a comfortable 6.0-6.5 mph pyramid that felt pretty decent cardio-wise. I was determined to run more than 2 miles tonight, so I decided to up the speed to get the run done faster as the blisters were really hurting (even through the bandaids on my feet). I managed a nice 7:55 mile somewhere in there but I was gasping. I don't know if it was the lack of any real cardio in the past month or so, or the leftovers from the flu, or both, but I was puffing and wheezing by my second mile.

It was tonight that I realized that dreaming about sub-25:00 5Ks and winning age groups and all that was all well and good, but it's just that: a dream. I want to be able to do this stuff this year and I know I can, but going "oh yeah, I can run a 7:30 mile right now" and going and doing it are two very different things. I realized that I need to take my health seriously, and that includes easing back into things. Not only did the breathing feel crappy, but my left knee started to hurt 2 miles in... this is something that used to happen about 6 miles into a run. I'm not sure if it was indicative of my loss of protective muscle, or bad form, or both, but in that moment I just felt completed deflated. I get so caught up in my own competitive streaks that I sacrifice the one person I'm trying to please the most: me.

I'm planning to attend hot yoga a bit more this year, especially in the next few weeks. The main reasons are:
1) It won't bug the blisters and give them a chance to heal
2) It won't bug the throat/chest and it'll give that a chance to heal
3) It's a 90 min sweatfast
4) My Greco Yoga prepaid classes are about to expire

Yoga really boosted my fitness last year. I'm hoping that my runs, coupled with Stew's workouts, and some yoga thrown in there will really give me the jolt I need to meet my goals.

Here we go!

Long Time, No Run!

Ah, holy crap! I knew the wheels would fall off this blog sooner or later. Really, it was my wheels that had fallen off. Let’s see, what has happened lately…

Well, I:

1. Got a concussion.
2. Got an Achilles tendonitis flare-up
3. Got a kidney infection
4. Got another concussion
5. Got a really bad cold

I think that accounts for the really terrible statistics I’ve had running-wise in the past few months. I’ve been well enough to start a new program, only to get a week into it and have something happen. My weight “ballooned” up to 165 lbs a couple weeks ago before I had to give myself a mental note that I can’t eat like a runner when I’m not running. Everything still fits, but I’m just a bit… soft.

Right now I’m still battling a cold, but I am planning to start back up on Week 1 of my Stew Smith workout plan. For those who don’t know (and I’m sure I’ve mentioned this about a hundred times), Stew Smith is the #1 reason I even consider myself a “runner” today. Around 10 years ago I was a chubby kid who really liked sports but just couldn’t get the whole diet and exercise thing in sync. With a bit of help from StewSmith.com, I started to run on a treadmill every night with my dad at the local rec centre. I was obsessed with the military (I was in air cadets at the time and had this huge dream of being a fighter pilot), so I knew I had to be fit to pass my PFT. I ended up aiming for the USAF fitness requirements despite being a Canadian. Once I “beat” the required times for that, I went on to the Navy, then the Army, then the Marines, then the US Army Rangers. Before I knew it, I was running 7:30 miles.

When my training season was left dead in the water after I pushed it way too hard racing, I wanted a coach. I first tried an Ottawa coach (whose name I will withhold) who was absolutely terrible. I had little online support, my run instructions were “Run 45 min”, “Run 30 min easy, then go harder”, “Run 60 min”. This worked for about a few weeks before my injuries flared up. I get some serious tendon pain after 6 miles, so the 60-75 min runs left me hobbling home. With an ice pack on my knee, I contacted Stew. I knew he did personal training and I could never bring myself to pay for it, but his articles had helped me so much and the training program was perfect for an injury-prone klutz like me. He’s been fantastic and very patient with me as I’ve had to battle things non-stop since the summer. I’m hoping for a turnaround after this holiday season.

That’s it for the update right now. I’m back to Week 1 of my 12 week program. I took some “Before” pics and I’m hoping for some good “After”s. My goals with Stew are: sub-25:00 5K in 2013 and a sub-20:00 5K one day. It will happen!

The Other "Wall"

When I've been overtraining, I often hit "the wall", as many people do. It's a certain point where you step on the treadmill, or get on a bike, or hit the road and within a few minutes, you know it's just not going to work out. Easy things feel laboured and not in a good way. Your body is just screaming at you that it wants to lie down and rest, even if you got hours of sleep the night before. There's nothing you can do at this point. You've hit the wall.

For me, I feel like I've hit the wall on the other side of the room. The inactivity wall. The undertraining wall. It's a strange concept, but I know many people who understand this. For me, my appetite drops a lot. I assume this is due in part to me burning fewer calories and therefore my body craving fewer calories, but it feels like when I eat a meal and don't have a run to send it through the digestive system, everything just kinda hangs out and I feel full all day. I start to feel the backs of my legs go first. The once-tight hamstrings are just a little softer. My glutes get a weird burning feeling if I've been sitting down too long. I get moodier. I get more anxious. I get lazier with everything (schoolwork, cleaning up the house, etc). It's really the wrong wall for me to hit, and I feel like I finally hit it.

Last Friday, I woke up in the middle of the night with a horrible dry coughing fit. I had done a few gym sessions that week and I began to worry that I maybe overdid it (even if it was only 3 easy gym sessions). I used that as an excuse to slack for the rest of the weekend. It's obviously not slacking in the normal sense of the word as I did have a legit reason, and lungs are one of those things you don't mess with, but I feel like I'm ready to go. Tonight was the first night where I felt I should've ran, and I didn't.

I'd like to add an excerpt from a post I put on a running forum. In my downtime and being removed from my "2 more seconds til I run a sub-8:00 mile" or "I need that long run on Saturday" mindset, I was contemplating the goals of running. What do I want to get out of running? This is what it led me to:

In my downtime, I've had some time to reflect. I had a massive plan laid out for me to do my half marathon "right" the second time around and I had training days, paces, goals, etc. The half is still a little over two months away and I haven't lost all of my fitness, but I've come to terms with the fact that I probably won't run it in the time I intended to. I was thinking that even training for it, my injury-prone body may not be able to keep up with a spike in mileage now that I've lost that extra month to build up.

What my thoughts eventually led me to was why I even bother to race... why don't I just go for runs for fitness? I'm not fast, but I'm competitive -- generally with myself. I guess that's what drives me to do races. But sometimes that leads me to overtraining, injuries, etc. and, while I love my runs, the "pressure" of beating a PR or a race looming ahead can sometimes take the fun out of running and make it more of a chore than my fitness activity.

I do still plan to run my half marathon in May, but I'm wondering how I should approach the goal of racing. I have my whole life to get better, and I get very caught up in plans. My life revolves around little numbers on a calendar. Some of my best runs were when I was tracking my mileage without any set goals. I felt confident enough in that training "plan" to go out and race. I'm wondering if it would be worth just running for the sake of running, keeping a mileage goal for the week, and maybe increasing it over time, and just letting my legs do the running -- not my mind. Should I focus on one goal that maybe isn't race-related? I would like to hit the 7:00 mile mark and I've found a very good basic outline from Stew Smith - one of the people who got me into running 9 years ago - that doesn't demand a set amount of miles on certain days. It'd be a good plan.

To be honest, I find it very hard to imagine myself doing workouts without some sort of end goal. It's that fine line between keeping running and fitness as your recreational hobby that keeps you active, and a chore. I want to feel okay about it if I decide to skip a workout. I want to feel like there's no pressure to work out all the time, but at the same time, when I do work out, I feel 100x better about myself and that competitive instinct kicks in and I end up in that racing mindset yet again.

I've considered my limitations on mileage for a while now and I know that long distance probably isn't in my future. I do plan to keep my longest runs at 5-7 miles. Do I step on a treadmill every day without a plan and do what I do? Live for that day? Do I live in the past, and count up miles from days before to make sure I hit my mileage for that week? Or do I live in the future and set a goal for the week? Even if the goal is the same (hit 20 mpw every week)/

My legs need to start running so my brain stops.