I've now gone a week without doing any significant running and I have to say that I am starting to grow inpatient. I never thought I would every be upset that I couldn't go for a run outside on a cold January day, but the last week has been tough. I did that one short 3 mile run but other than that my training has been on hold to rehab the knee. The knee has felt great over the past week and I think the stretching and the exercises are starting to pay off (at least I hope so).
Today's workout was low impact to continue to give the knee time to improve. I ended up doing some lower body lifting to again help strengthen the quads / hamstrings. After that was done, my cardio workout came via the elliptical machine. As I have mentioned before, working out on the elliptical machine is almost as exciting as watching grass grow. It just gets so damn boring without any change in scenery. It really makes me appreciate how much I have grown to enjoy running, especially those group runs where other people are out there with you.
In total I ended up doing about 60 minutes on the elliptical and felt like I got a pretty good cardio workout. In hindsight, I think it also helped with the quads since I had the resistance cranked up for a decent portion of the workout. Most importantly, the knee didn't have even a twinge of discomfort. I guess as a complete back up plan I could always do all my training on the elliptical (just kidding, I would die of boredom).
So looking ahead, I am trying to plan out my workout schedule for the rest of the week. I think I am going to hit the elliptical again tomorrow for a little more cardio. Wednesday is going to be a tough day to fit in a workout since we are going to get another major snow storm and I am working 30 hours straight again since I picked up an extra shift in the ED. I think I would like to do a 2-3 mile run on Thurs, a 5-6 mile run on Friday and then gear up for a long run this Sunday with L Street. The long run is scheduled for 17 miles, but I think that is a little above me at this point in my training. My goal is going to be ~14-15 miles.
Hopefully the snow fall won't be as bad as they say. There's no room to shovel it too and it is going to make running outside really hard.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
"Feeler Bet"
So today was basically what you could call a "feeler bet". The term feeler bet is a poker term and basically describes a situation in a hand of poker where one player is trying to gauge the strength of his opponent's. In order to do it the player will make a small bet and see how the other person reacts. A raise from the opponent generally means they are strong, while a fold obvious means that their hand was weak.
So today was my feeler bet ... with my knee. I have been feeling great for last 48 hours. My activity has been back to normal and I was able to walk up / down stairs & down snowy streets without the least bit of discomfort in my knee. Now I know that I have been saying I am going to take a full 2 weeks to get better ... but ... I think like everyone who is training for a race this big I started getting inpatient with waiting around and letting time go by. So I decided to try a "feeler bet" ... which for me ended up being a short run to see how my knee would react.
I got geared up in my winter running gear and headed out. The weather wasn't that bad for the run. It was 23 degrees, clear and there was about a 10 mph wind. The problem was that last night we had a storm that dropped about 13 inches of snow on us. This made the run difficult since the snow piles in South Boston are getting pretty out of control. Since the sidewalks were a mess I did my run down the main roads in South Boston. I ran down East Broadway to the end of West Broadway and then back down 1st Street. The run started out great, I felt strong and attacked the first big hill on Broadway without any problem. After about the first mile and a half I felt the first twinge in my knee. It wasn't bad, didn't really alter my run but it was just enough to let me know that the knee wasn't as good as I thought it was.
In the end, this run ended up being more of a tempo run. I didn't do a long distance, only 2.5 miles, but I was able to do it at a pretty good pace. I ran the first 2 miles in 18 minutes, which is faster than my long run pace. Then the last 0.5 miles of the run I was able to speed up to a 7:45 min pace. In total, I was able to do 2.5 miles in just about 22 mins.
So my feeler bet didn't exactly work out as planned. I think the fact that my knee wasn't completely better let me know that it still has some healing to do. After the run, I iced down the knee and currently it feels fine. I will probably end up going back to my plan of trying to hold off on running until the first Sunday in February (if the knee was fine on this run I was going to do 5 on Saturday). I need to keep reminding myself that the goal of this process isn't to do a long run in Feb or March, but to complete the marathon in April. I think taking the time to heal now will pay dividends in the upcoming weeks.
So today was my feeler bet ... with my knee. I have been feeling great for last 48 hours. My activity has been back to normal and I was able to walk up / down stairs & down snowy streets without the least bit of discomfort in my knee. Now I know that I have been saying I am going to take a full 2 weeks to get better ... but ... I think like everyone who is training for a race this big I started getting inpatient with waiting around and letting time go by. So I decided to try a "feeler bet" ... which for me ended up being a short run to see how my knee would react.
I got geared up in my winter running gear and headed out. The weather wasn't that bad for the run. It was 23 degrees, clear and there was about a 10 mph wind. The problem was that last night we had a storm that dropped about 13 inches of snow on us. This made the run difficult since the snow piles in South Boston are getting pretty out of control. Since the sidewalks were a mess I did my run down the main roads in South Boston. I ran down East Broadway to the end of West Broadway and then back down 1st Street. The run started out great, I felt strong and attacked the first big hill on Broadway without any problem. After about the first mile and a half I felt the first twinge in my knee. It wasn't bad, didn't really alter my run but it was just enough to let me know that the knee wasn't as good as I thought it was.
In the end, this run ended up being more of a tempo run. I didn't do a long distance, only 2.5 miles, but I was able to do it at a pretty good pace. I ran the first 2 miles in 18 minutes, which is faster than my long run pace. Then the last 0.5 miles of the run I was able to speed up to a 7:45 min pace. In total, I was able to do 2.5 miles in just about 22 mins.
So my feeler bet didn't exactly work out as planned. I think the fact that my knee wasn't completely better let me know that it still has some healing to do. After the run, I iced down the knee and currently it feels fine. I will probably end up going back to my plan of trying to hold off on running until the first Sunday in February (if the knee was fine on this run I was going to do 5 on Saturday). I need to keep reminding myself that the goal of this process isn't to do a long run in Feb or March, but to complete the marathon in April. I think taking the time to heal now will pay dividends in the upcoming weeks.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Road to Recovery
Nothing but good news today. As you know, I devoted this week to trying to rehab my knee since it flared up on me after my long run this past Sunday. I was pretty worried since I was having some pretty significant discomfort on the lateral side of my left knee on Monday. The pain was at its worst walking down stairs, and I had to go one step at a time. Ever since the knee starting acting up, I have been trying to figure out exactly what caused the injury. In hindsight, I have come up with a few things that likely contributed:
1 - Shoes - I think I made a mistake when I decided to go with my old shoes for my last two long runs. I did it to try to be proactive since the left shoe was starting to irritate the top of my foot. In hindsight, I think that this decision may have contributed to my knee problem since my old shoes don't quite have the support that the newer ones do.
2 - Weak Quads - As I mentioned before I think that the knee pain I am having is likely from patellofemoral syndrome. The etiology of this is likely from weak leg muscles. I think my mistake was that I was too focused on the running aspect of my training, and didn't devote enough time to strength training. As of this week, I have started some strength exercises to improve my quad & hamstring strength to hopefully those will help.
3 - Poor Flexibility - After doing some reading, I also found out that improper stretching may predispose you to knee injuries as well. I think that as my mileage has gone up, I have failed to devote appropriate time to stretching / warming up. Normally, I spend a quick 10 minutes before my run to do some quick and easy stretching. From this point on, I am going to be devoting more time to my warmups
The good news of today is that my knee is almost back to 100%. With some intense stretching & strength training over the past three days, my knee feels great. I am walking up and down stairs without difficulty and am looking forward to getting back on the road. I know that I said I was going to take 2 weeks off, but if I feel this good tomorrow I am probably going to try a short 2-3 mile run to test out the knee. I am glad that I have to work this Sunday because if I didn't I would probably try to do our long run again.
82 more days until April 18th ....
1 - Shoes - I think I made a mistake when I decided to go with my old shoes for my last two long runs. I did it to try to be proactive since the left shoe was starting to irritate the top of my foot. In hindsight, I think that this decision may have contributed to my knee problem since my old shoes don't quite have the support that the newer ones do.
2 - Weak Quads - As I mentioned before I think that the knee pain I am having is likely from patellofemoral syndrome. The etiology of this is likely from weak leg muscles. I think my mistake was that I was too focused on the running aspect of my training, and didn't devote enough time to strength training. As of this week, I have started some strength exercises to improve my quad & hamstring strength to hopefully those will help.
3 - Poor Flexibility - After doing some reading, I also found out that improper stretching may predispose you to knee injuries as well. I think that as my mileage has gone up, I have failed to devote appropriate time to stretching / warming up. Normally, I spend a quick 10 minutes before my run to do some quick and easy stretching. From this point on, I am going to be devoting more time to my warmups
The good news of today is that my knee is almost back to 100%. With some intense stretching & strength training over the past three days, my knee feels great. I am walking up and down stairs without difficulty and am looking forward to getting back on the road. I know that I said I was going to take 2 weeks off, but if I feel this good tomorrow I am probably going to try a short 2-3 mile run to test out the knee. I am glad that I have to work this Sunday because if I didn't I would probably try to do our long run again.
82 more days until April 18th ....
Monday, January 24, 2011
Rehab, Rehab, Rehab
So today I found out that my decision to do a double digit run yesterday may not have been the best idea I have ever come up with. Over the course of the night I was woken up a bunch of times by some knee pain when I was rolling over in bed. This morning, the knee was definitely not happy with my decision to run 10 miles yesterday as it was pretty painful. The pain is still located on the lateral leg, mostly on / under the knee cap and on the superior lateral portion of the tibia. The pain is at its worst walking down stairs, and I was actually breaking the two floor rule a lot today(the two floor rule is the rule where you shouldn't take the elevator to go less than two floors or less unless you have a medical condition that prevents it or you are carrying food or heavy objects). Overall, the pain at the start of the day was about a 5/10, but after some icing it got down to about a 3/10. Again, I think these symptoms point more towards a diagnosis of patellofemoral syndrome & some bursitis.
Most of my day today was spent in my office at work with bags of ice on my knee. I am lucky in the sense that my job gives me the time to ice my knee multiple times throughout the day. Today, I think I literally iced my knee for at least 4 hours, which is pretty good if you ask me. So with this minor set back, I need to come up with a game plan for my training. The race is 83 days away, which is basically 12 weeks. I think the next 10 days or so is going to be spent rehabbing my knee. Bascially, the treatment of patellofemoral syndrome is to strengthen the quadriceps to help prevent abnormal movement of the knee cap during running. In addition, icing + anti inflammatories should help cut the inflammation of the soft tissue that is causing the pain.
So, in sticking with my plan I did about 30 minutes of quad exercises when I got home from work today. After doing them, I think I can say without hesitation that my quads are definitely too weak!! My exercises basically consistent of a bunch of moves from the legs portion of P90X, namely squats, 80/20 squats, skating lunge, wall sits and some simple leg extensions. After a few sets of each of these, my quads were on fire and I could barely sand up from a sitting position.
Not quite sure how the legs are going to feel tomorrow, but my goal is to do these exercises daily or at least every other day to build up some strength in the legs! Hopefully the muscles will be stronger in 10-12 days, but I am not sure.
Most of my day today was spent in my office at work with bags of ice on my knee. I am lucky in the sense that my job gives me the time to ice my knee multiple times throughout the day. Today, I think I literally iced my knee for at least 4 hours, which is pretty good if you ask me. So with this minor set back, I need to come up with a game plan for my training. The race is 83 days away, which is basically 12 weeks. I think the next 10 days or so is going to be spent rehabbing my knee. Bascially, the treatment of patellofemoral syndrome is to strengthen the quadriceps to help prevent abnormal movement of the knee cap during running. In addition, icing + anti inflammatories should help cut the inflammation of the soft tissue that is causing the pain.
So, in sticking with my plan I did about 30 minutes of quad exercises when I got home from work today. After doing them, I think I can say without hesitation that my quads are definitely too weak!! My exercises basically consistent of a bunch of moves from the legs portion of P90X, namely squats, 80/20 squats, skating lunge, wall sits and some simple leg extensions. After a few sets of each of these, my quads were on fire and I could barely sand up from a sitting position.
Not quite sure how the legs are going to feel tomorrow, but my goal is to do these exercises daily or at least every other day to build up some strength in the legs! Hopefully the muscles will be stronger in 10-12 days, but I am not sure.
Too Soon
With my new found motivation from earlier this week, I had problems telling myself that I was going to sit out from this weeks long run. Although I had been having some knee issues all week, it had improved as the week progressed with ice, motrin and rest (a recipe for success with any orthopedic injury). As Sunday morning approached, the knee felt good. I was no longer in pain and could walk down stairs without difficulty. I decided that since my cardiovascular exercise this week had only consistent of trying not to die of boredom on an ellipitcal, that I would suit up for the L Street run.
The planned run was ~15 miles, but I knew ahead of time that I likely wouldn't be able t complete the whole thing (nor did I want to as I knew my knee would be sore after that given the fact that it had only been a week). As 6:45 am rolled around Sunday morning, the alarm went off. I got up, showered and got the winter running gear on. Once Renee & I had suited up, we headed out to meet our friend Lauren to start our run. This was probably one of the coldest days that I have attempted to run outside. It was a clear day, the temperature at the start of our run was 11 degrees, with the windchill it was 0 to -5 degrees. Even with this cold, after the first 0.5 miles I warmed up and never had as much of a chill from that point on.
As we set out on the run, I wasn't sure how much i was going to be able to do. I figured I would start running and play it by year based on how my knee felt. This weeks course took us down into Milton. We started running and the knee felt great. The first two or three miles went by without so much as a twinge in the knee. After a while we hit our first water stop which was at mile 3.7. It was at this point when Lauren wasn't feeling well and decided to head back. I figured that since the planned run took us further from South Boston, that I would head back too that way if the knee started acting up I would be closer to home and could just walk back.
So Lauren and I set off back towards Southie. I figured at the worst if I ran back to the house I would have completed about 8 miles. The run continued to go well until I got to about the 7 mile mark. It was there that I started to feel some pain on the outside of my left knee & knee cap. As it wasn't that bad, i decided to push through and ultimately did ~10 miles ... which isn't bad considering I almost didn't go for the run. The frustrating part of this run was that when I stopped I felt great from a cardiovascular standpoint. I definitely would have been able to rock out a bunch more if the knee didn't flare up.
I spent the rest of the day icing the knee. Still to this point I am not sure what is causing the knee pain. I think its a combination of patellofemoral syndrome as well as a possible bursitis. Regardless, i think my plan of action for this week is going to be rest and rehab. The race is still far enough away that I can take some time off to heal without compromising my training that much. Hopefully the knee gets better or else its going to make for a long 26.2!!!
The planned run was ~15 miles, but I knew ahead of time that I likely wouldn't be able t complete the whole thing (nor did I want to as I knew my knee would be sore after that given the fact that it had only been a week). As 6:45 am rolled around Sunday morning, the alarm went off. I got up, showered and got the winter running gear on. Once Renee & I had suited up, we headed out to meet our friend Lauren to start our run. This was probably one of the coldest days that I have attempted to run outside. It was a clear day, the temperature at the start of our run was 11 degrees, with the windchill it was 0 to -5 degrees. Even with this cold, after the first 0.5 miles I warmed up and never had as much of a chill from that point on.
As we set out on the run, I wasn't sure how much i was going to be able to do. I figured I would start running and play it by year based on how my knee felt. This weeks course took us down into Milton. We started running and the knee felt great. The first two or three miles went by without so much as a twinge in the knee. After a while we hit our first water stop which was at mile 3.7. It was at this point when Lauren wasn't feeling well and decided to head back. I figured that since the planned run took us further from South Boston, that I would head back too that way if the knee started acting up I would be closer to home and could just walk back.
So Lauren and I set off back towards Southie. I figured at the worst if I ran back to the house I would have completed about 8 miles. The run continued to go well until I got to about the 7 mile mark. It was there that I started to feel some pain on the outside of my left knee & knee cap. As it wasn't that bad, i decided to push through and ultimately did ~10 miles ... which isn't bad considering I almost didn't go for the run. The frustrating part of this run was that when I stopped I felt great from a cardiovascular standpoint. I definitely would have been able to rock out a bunch more if the knee didn't flare up.
I spent the rest of the day icing the knee. Still to this point I am not sure what is causing the knee pain. I think its a combination of patellofemoral syndrome as well as a possible bursitis. Regardless, i think my plan of action for this week is going to be rest and rehab. The race is still far enough away that I can take some time off to heal without compromising my training that much. Hopefully the knee gets better or else its going to make for a long 26.2!!!
Motivation
This past week Renee & I were lucky enough to be invited to a motivational talk put on by our friend Tom. As I mentioned earlier in the blog, Renee & I became really close friends with Tom and Lyn while on vacation and try to meet up every few weeks for dinner to catch up on things. This past week, Tom invited us up to a talk that he was hosting for his financial clients. He had a friend of his, Dave McGillivray, all lined up to do the talk.
For those of you who aren't familiar who Dave McGillivray is (god knows I was before I met Tom & Lyn), he is actually the race director for the Boston Marathon. He grew up locally in Medford, and as I found out during his motivational talk he has completed some extraordinary athletic feats in his life. His talk basically started out about how he was always limited in his early years by his short stature. He was picked last for sports and at times didn't make the team. He went on to say how this served as motivation when he found his true calling in running. From his teenage years on, he was big into running and attempted to run his first marathon at age 17 with minimal preparation. Unfortunately, he didn't finish but learned a lesson from that failure when his grandfather told him that you don't get something for nothing, and you need to put the work in to achieve things. Ultimately he went on to run the marathon, and has done it every year for the past 39 years.
In addition he also talked about some of his other athletic achievements: Countless marathons, 8 iron mans, a run from Medford, OR to Medford, MA in 80 days (he averaged 40-50 miles a day without taking a day off) and being able to run his age in miles every year on his birthday since he was 13 (yep, he is now 56 and just ran 56 miles this past August). By all measures, he is a super athlete ... even a freak of nature. Being a physician, it amazes me that anyone can run the amount he described without injury but he seems to have done it.
In the end, his talk had some key points that didn't revolve around any of his athletic accomplishments. In fact, he didn't seem to think much of any of them although to me they appeared to be superhuman. While he made tons of great points, the ones that I took away from the talk were these:
1 - You don't get something for nothing. If you want something, you have to put the time / training in to get it as its not going to be handed to you.
2 - One of the best quotes I have heard in a while, "The people who say 'it can't be done', shouldn't get in the way of the people who are doing it'". I don't know why but that quote really seemed to mean a lot to me. I think deep down, I can relate to this quote because for the longest time I was one of those people that believed running a marathon was impossible. Now, I am actively training to do it and have come farther already than I had ever expected. I remember when I ran my first 10k about 5 years ago. When I crossed the finish line in Holyoke, I can remember thinking to myself that I was so exhausted that I would never be able to run more than this distance. Now, 6 miles is just a maintenance run for me. I guess this quote helps me remember how far I have come, and that the goal is achievable.
3- Use the abilities to help others. One of the most impressive parts of Dave's talk was that he didn't do these superhuman athletic feats for fame or glory, but rather to raise money for charities. It really helps ground us and helps us remember that there are people much less fortunate than we are.
Overall, I thought the talk was fantastic an really help sharpen my focus. I appreciate the invite and was extremely happy to spend time with Tom, Lyn and family.
For those of you who aren't familiar who Dave McGillivray is (god knows I was before I met Tom & Lyn), he is actually the race director for the Boston Marathon. He grew up locally in Medford, and as I found out during his motivational talk he has completed some extraordinary athletic feats in his life. His talk basically started out about how he was always limited in his early years by his short stature. He was picked last for sports and at times didn't make the team. He went on to say how this served as motivation when he found his true calling in running. From his teenage years on, he was big into running and attempted to run his first marathon at age 17 with minimal preparation. Unfortunately, he didn't finish but learned a lesson from that failure when his grandfather told him that you don't get something for nothing, and you need to put the work in to achieve things. Ultimately he went on to run the marathon, and has done it every year for the past 39 years.
In addition he also talked about some of his other athletic achievements: Countless marathons, 8 iron mans, a run from Medford, OR to Medford, MA in 80 days (he averaged 40-50 miles a day without taking a day off) and being able to run his age in miles every year on his birthday since he was 13 (yep, he is now 56 and just ran 56 miles this past August). By all measures, he is a super athlete ... even a freak of nature. Being a physician, it amazes me that anyone can run the amount he described without injury but he seems to have done it.
In the end, his talk had some key points that didn't revolve around any of his athletic accomplishments. In fact, he didn't seem to think much of any of them although to me they appeared to be superhuman. While he made tons of great points, the ones that I took away from the talk were these:
1 - You don't get something for nothing. If you want something, you have to put the time / training in to get it as its not going to be handed to you.
2 - One of the best quotes I have heard in a while, "The people who say 'it can't be done', shouldn't get in the way of the people who are doing it'". I don't know why but that quote really seemed to mean a lot to me. I think deep down, I can relate to this quote because for the longest time I was one of those people that believed running a marathon was impossible. Now, I am actively training to do it and have come farther already than I had ever expected. I remember when I ran my first 10k about 5 years ago. When I crossed the finish line in Holyoke, I can remember thinking to myself that I was so exhausted that I would never be able to run more than this distance. Now, 6 miles is just a maintenance run for me. I guess this quote helps me remember how far I have come, and that the goal is achievable.
3- Use the abilities to help others. One of the most impressive parts of Dave's talk was that he didn't do these superhuman athletic feats for fame or glory, but rather to raise money for charities. It really helps ground us and helps us remember that there are people much less fortunate than we are.
Overall, I thought the talk was fantastic an really help sharpen my focus. I appreciate the invite and was extremely happy to spend time with Tom, Lyn and family.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Tough Week
So this week didn't go as well as I had hoped. After the long run this past Sunday, I felt great ... mentally. I was elated with the fact that I had accomplished a couple huge goals - 1) I was able to run on one of L Street long runs with their running club, 2) I ran the distance of a half marathon. Unfortunately, what I originally thought was just normal post-run soreness turned out to be a little bit more. Like I said in one of my last posts, I has having some pain in my left knee. After doing a little bit of thinking, I realized that I likely was suffering from patellofemoral ... an overuse syndrome that leads to inflammation in the tissue below the knee cap. Its normally due to the quadriceps not being strong enough during the runs which leads to movement of the knee cap.
I thought that the discomfort would go to way after a night of icing, but unfortunately it didn't. I decided to take Monday off and didn't try to exercise again until Tuesday when I went to the gym. As there was a big snow storm on on Tuesday, I was planning on doing a 3-4 mile run on the treadmill. I did my stretching and hopped on the treadmill. I started slow by walking 1/4 mile before I took off on a medium pace jog. Within 30 seconds of running, I started having pretty bad pain on the outside of the knee cap. I tried to run through it but it continued to hurt. I decided to play it safe and not push it. Instead I hopped on the elliptical and was able to rock out 30 good minutes on that. For the rest of the day, I was barely able to walk down stairs because the pain in my knee was that bad.
Since that point I have been pretty conservative with the knee. I decided to rest it up for the remainder of the week. I have been icing the knee ~3 times per day for 30-40 minutes each time, taking Motrin 2-3 times per day to cut the inflammation and just resting it. It seems to have worked as the knee feels great right now. The plan from here is to try to do another run tomorrow morning with L Street. Unfortunately, I don't want to try to do the full 14 mile course since I know it will flare up the knee again. Instead, I am going to try to do a 7 mile run. In addition to the running, I am also going to need to hit the P90 workouts this week as well to try to strengthen my quads to prevent the knee issues from continuing.
I thought that the discomfort would go to way after a night of icing, but unfortunately it didn't. I decided to take Monday off and didn't try to exercise again until Tuesday when I went to the gym. As there was a big snow storm on on Tuesday, I was planning on doing a 3-4 mile run on the treadmill. I did my stretching and hopped on the treadmill. I started slow by walking 1/4 mile before I took off on a medium pace jog. Within 30 seconds of running, I started having pretty bad pain on the outside of the knee cap. I tried to run through it but it continued to hurt. I decided to play it safe and not push it. Instead I hopped on the elliptical and was able to rock out 30 good minutes on that. For the rest of the day, I was barely able to walk down stairs because the pain in my knee was that bad.
Since that point I have been pretty conservative with the knee. I decided to rest it up for the remainder of the week. I have been icing the knee ~3 times per day for 30-40 minutes each time, taking Motrin 2-3 times per day to cut the inflammation and just resting it. It seems to have worked as the knee feels great right now. The plan from here is to try to do another run tomorrow morning with L Street. Unfortunately, I don't want to try to do the full 14 mile course since I know it will flare up the knee again. Instead, I am going to try to do a 7 mile run. In addition to the running, I am also going to need to hit the P90 workouts this week as well to try to strengthen my quads to prevent the knee issues from continuing.
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