So Sunday finally rolled around. Normally, in a perfect world, I would have been gearing up to do a 13 mile run with L Street Running Club. Unfortunately, the route that my training has taken has been a rough one. I am still struggling with these IT Band issues, so until it gets better I am going to have to abstain from these runs.
Since the long runs are the most important aspect of marathon training (this is based on what people tell me, not my personal experience), I made sure to get a long workout in. I got to the Y around 9 am and promptly took my position on my favorite elliptical. Since I basically equate 10 minutes of working out on the elliptical to 1 mile of running ... I was scheduled to complete 130 minutes worth of exercising. I have to say that I wasn't all that excited for this, but I new deep down inside that this is what I have to do to make sure I complete this marathon.
I hopped on the elliptical and the early part of the workout was a little rough. I have found that it always takes me 15-20 minutes to get into a workout on the elliptical. Since I knew that I was going to be on the machine forever, I didn't mix in that many "hills" early on in the workout. I kept a good pace through the first hour and was pretty happy with how it went. Since the elliptical only lets you go 60 minutes at a time, i took a quick 1-2 minute break and then hopped back on for the second hour. The first part of the 2nd hour was good, but as it went on I could feel the fatigue starting to set in. When I got to 1 hr 45 minutes I definitely felt tired. Despite the fatigue I pushed through and completed the 130 minutes worth cardio. In the end, this wasn't the most exciting workout by any means but I got through it. The frustrating part, is that suspect that I am going to have at least 3-4 more "long ellipticals" before I get back on the road.
The good news is that I start physical therapy tomorrow, so hopefully they will be able to solve this problem.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
More Elliptical
Nothing too crazy going on today. Knee was a little bit sore from the run yesterday but no where near as bad as it has been in the past. I have been making sure to stay on top of icing it 4-5 times per day, which I think is helping a lot. T-minus 3 days until I start physical therapy, which will hopefully initiate the road to a full recovery. I am hoping that after 3-4 weeks of physical therapy I will be back on the road and should be able to participate in the 20-22 mile L Street long run in late March.
As for today I rocked out about 52 minutes on the elliptical (see below), which I would basically equate to doing a 5 mile run outside. I am starting to notice that my legs are getting stronger from the elliptical which is a good thing. When I first started training on the elliptical I was working out with a baseline resistance of 7 and could go about 12 minutes before I felt tired / sore. Now, I increased my baseline resistance to 9 and can easily go for 50 minutes without problems. Hopefully that is a sign that both the strength in the legs and my cardiovascular endurance is improving.
Like most of my other workouts, I through in multiple "hills" which basically consisted of 4 minute sections in which I increase the resistance by 1 every minute. It definitely helps break up the boredom and helps me increase the intensity of the workouts. My other measure of the intensity of my workout is the heart rate monitor on the machine. I try to keep my heart rate in the 155-165 range (~80 % of my max) for the majority of the workout.
After the workout today, the knee was still a little sore. I think its probably because I have worked out three days in a row, one of which was a run that directly aggravated it. Tomorrow will be a rest / ice day and then it will be back on the elliptical for a "long run" on Sunday.
As for today I rocked out about 52 minutes on the elliptical (see below), which I would basically equate to doing a 5 mile run outside. I am starting to notice that my legs are getting stronger from the elliptical which is a good thing. When I first started training on the elliptical I was working out with a baseline resistance of 7 and could go about 12 minutes before I felt tired / sore. Now, I increased my baseline resistance to 9 and can easily go for 50 minutes without problems. Hopefully that is a sign that both the strength in the legs and my cardiovascular endurance is improving.
Like most of my other workouts, I through in multiple "hills" which basically consisted of 4 minute sections in which I increase the resistance by 1 every minute. It definitely helps break up the boredom and helps me increase the intensity of the workouts. My other measure of the intensity of my workout is the heart rate monitor on the machine. I try to keep my heart rate in the 155-165 range (~80 % of my max) for the majority of the workout.
After the workout today, the knee was still a little sore. I think its probably because I have worked out three days in a row, one of which was a run that directly aggravated it. Tomorrow will be a rest / ice day and then it will be back on the elliptical for a "long run" on Sunday.
 |
| Elliptical overlooking the court at the Wang YMCA |
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Forgetfulness & Inpatience
My workout goal for today was going to be to rock out a solid 35 minutes on the elliptical with a focus on high intensity, high resistance intervals to try to mimic running a series of hills. Like every other day, I packed my gym back the night before with all the usual stuff - workout outfit, sweatpants + sweatshirt for after, gym lock, etc ... since the gym I go to is directly across the street from Tufts hospital which makes it really convenient to go to straight from work. For some reason, despite having my bag all packed and ready, I must have had a huge brain fart this morning because as I was able to leave work and go get my workout in ... I realized that I totally forgot my workout bag at home!
Again ... another decision point. In case you didn't read the last post I tend to lose motivation quickly when little things come up (waiting for a machine, forgot my stuff, etc). I decided to think through my options - 1) I leave work, go wait for the bus to bring me back to South Boston, grab my stuff, walk back to the bus stop, wait for the bus to bring me back downtown and then go to the YMCA for my ellipitical workout. In my head this was probably a 1 hour round trip undertaking! 2) Leave work, hop on the bus, head home and change into my running gear and do a quick 30 minute run outside. This option definitely had some benefits including less travel time, I got to run and increased motivation since it wasn't the elliptical and I actually looked forward to running. Of course, the downside was that there was a 90% chance that my IT Band would be sore after.
Being stubborn and inpatient, I elected to go for option #2. I got home, put on my running gear and headed outside for a run. This run was great because Renee was heading out at the same time so we decided to head out together knowing that I would likely peel off early if my knee started to ache. We headed down towards Castle Island and got to Sully's, which is really the point where you can turn around for a 3 mile run or commit to doing ~4-5. Since the knee felt good at this point I decided to push forward with Renee. We were making great time and ran the first 3 miles at ~ 9:20 pace.
To be honest, besides the ache on the outside of my left knee I felt great. Like my previous runs, my cardiovascular endurance felt great. This run also served as a good reminder of how far I have come in my training. I think I may have mentioned this in one of the very early posts, but when I first started training over the summer for the B.A.A Half Marathon I could only run 1-1.5 miles without stopping. This served as a little problem since Castle Island (see picture) is my favorite place to run in Boston. At the time it was difficult for me since it is ~ 0.8 miles from my house and is a 2.0 mile loop around ... making it a ~3.5 mile trip total. In order to do my training, I actually used to drive down to castle island, run the two mile loop (at first with multiple periods of walking), and then drive back. Today ... even with somewhat of a bad knee I was able to do a 4 mile run and didn't even feel tired when I was done. Just one of those feel good moments that help keep you training and gets you through these little bumps and bruises.
For the rest of tonight it will be ice, rest, ice, rest, ice, rest, ice to make sure the knee stays in good shape. Tomorrow ... its back to the elliptical. Monday ... I start physical therapy.
Again ... another decision point. In case you didn't read the last post I tend to lose motivation quickly when little things come up (waiting for a machine, forgot my stuff, etc). I decided to think through my options - 1) I leave work, go wait for the bus to bring me back to South Boston, grab my stuff, walk back to the bus stop, wait for the bus to bring me back downtown and then go to the YMCA for my ellipitical workout. In my head this was probably a 1 hour round trip undertaking! 2) Leave work, hop on the bus, head home and change into my running gear and do a quick 30 minute run outside. This option definitely had some benefits including less travel time, I got to run and increased motivation since it wasn't the elliptical and I actually looked forward to running. Of course, the downside was that there was a 90% chance that my IT Band would be sore after.
Being stubborn and inpatient, I elected to go for option #2. I got home, put on my running gear and headed outside for a run. This run was great because Renee was heading out at the same time so we decided to head out together knowing that I would likely peel off early if my knee started to ache. We headed down towards Castle Island and got to Sully's, which is really the point where you can turn around for a 3 mile run or commit to doing ~4-5. Since the knee felt good at this point I decided to push forward with Renee. We were making great time and ran the first 3 miles at ~ 9:20 pace.
To be honest, besides the ache on the outside of my left knee I felt great. Like my previous runs, my cardiovascular endurance felt great. This run also served as a good reminder of how far I have come in my training. I think I may have mentioned this in one of the very early posts, but when I first started training over the summer for the B.A.A Half Marathon I could only run 1-1.5 miles without stopping. This served as a little problem since Castle Island (see picture) is my favorite place to run in Boston. At the time it was difficult for me since it is ~ 0.8 miles from my house and is a 2.0 mile loop around ... making it a ~3.5 mile trip total. In order to do my training, I actually used to drive down to castle island, run the two mile loop (at first with multiple periods of walking), and then drive back. Today ... even with somewhat of a bad knee I was able to do a 4 mile run and didn't even feel tired when I was done. Just one of those feel good moments that help keep you training and gets you through these little bumps and bruises.
For the rest of tonight it will be ice, rest, ice, rest, ice, rest, ice to make sure the knee stays in good shape. Tomorrow ... its back to the elliptical. Monday ... I start physical therapy.
 |
| Me in my winter running gear, about to start my 4 mile run. |
 |
| Picture of Castle Island, my favorite place to run. You can see the loop around the water, like I said above its a two mile loop and has a great view of the Boston Skyline when you get out to the far side. |
Pure Boredom
As the marathon continues to creep up, I am still pretty bummed about the fact that I am essentially sidelined from pounding the pavement for the next couple of weeks due to this IT Band issue. In order to maintain my cardiovascular fitness I am continuing to utilize the elliptical at the YMCA across from the hospital. Unfortunately, the YMCA, unlike a Gold's Gym or BAC, doesn't have a ton of cardio equipment and seems to be built more for after school activities for kids than a solid work out facility. As such, there are only about 2-3 good ellipticals in the whole entire place.
Since I had a late meeting at work, I ended up getting to the gym during prime time .... 5 pm. The place was pretty crowded and of course all of the elliptical machines were taken. I did my 15 - 20 minutes of stretching / leg strengthening and when I checked back on the machines, there were still no openings. Now, this was a crucial decision point for me. Although it may not seem like that big of a deal, its really easy to lose motivation while wasting time waiting for a machine to open up (trust me on this one, I once drove to the Gold's Gym in South Boston, couldn't find a parking spot and decided just to come home without working out).
Despite my rapidly dissolving motivation to work out, deep down I realized that this was something that I had to do no matter how long I waited for a machine. After about 15 more minutes of waiting, two of the girls finished their workout and I finally got my elliptical. What was even more frustrating was that the girls were essentially using the elliptical as a social thing to catch up because after 40 minutes of being on it neither one of them had broken a sweat.
Anyway, after my long wait I decided to hit the elliptical pretty hard. I made up a series of "hills" early on in my workout to get my heart rate up and tried to keep it there for the rest of the workout. After about 30 minutes I had to slow down for a minute or two because my toes went numb (a consequence of being on my forefoot with high resistance I am sure), and then I kicked it back in gear. In total, I did 60 minutes on the elliptical. While I was able to watch some pick up basketball games between a group of 12-14 yo Boston kids, it was still mind numbingly boring. But ... since this is all I have I will continue to stick it out.
Since I had a late meeting at work, I ended up getting to the gym during prime time .... 5 pm. The place was pretty crowded and of course all of the elliptical machines were taken. I did my 15 - 20 minutes of stretching / leg strengthening and when I checked back on the machines, there were still no openings. Now, this was a crucial decision point for me. Although it may not seem like that big of a deal, its really easy to lose motivation while wasting time waiting for a machine to open up (trust me on this one, I once drove to the Gold's Gym in South Boston, couldn't find a parking spot and decided just to come home without working out).
Despite my rapidly dissolving motivation to work out, deep down I realized that this was something that I had to do no matter how long I waited for a machine. After about 15 more minutes of waiting, two of the girls finished their workout and I finally got my elliptical. What was even more frustrating was that the girls were essentially using the elliptical as a social thing to catch up because after 40 minutes of being on it neither one of them had broken a sweat.
Anyway, after my long wait I decided to hit the elliptical pretty hard. I made up a series of "hills" early on in my workout to get my heart rate up and tried to keep it there for the rest of the workout. After about 30 minutes I had to slow down for a minute or two because my toes went numb (a consequence of being on my forefoot with high resistance I am sure), and then I kicked it back in gear. In total, I did 60 minutes on the elliptical. While I was able to watch some pick up basketball games between a group of 12-14 yo Boston kids, it was still mind numbingly boring. But ... since this is all I have I will continue to stick it out.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
5 & Out
To all my devoted blog followers, of which I think there are only 1 or 2, I apologize to my lack of posts over the last week or so. The internet connection hasn't been working at our apartment so I haven't had access to the blog since Friday.
So we had another minor setback in my training this past week. After my week or two of rest, stretching and strengthening I decided to go for a test run this past Friday to make sure that I would be physically capable of completing the weekly long run with L Street on Sunday. I decided to head out and planned to do a 5 mile test run to see how the knee would hold up. The run started out great as my pace was good ( ~ 9:15 min / mile), felt strong, the knee wasn't bothering me and the New England weather finally gave us a day without snow. I ran down my normal 5 mile route of East to West Broadway, wrapping around towards the convention center, down to south station and back through the seaport. About 2-3 miles into the run I could feel my knee acting up again. This time, the pain was much more localized to the outside aspect of my knee than before. I would occasionally stop and walk for about 15-30 seconds to given the knee a break and then was able to get back into stride. After about a quarter mile though the knee started to hurt again. It wasn't a bad pain at first and I decided to try to run through it ... as if it were a cramp and it would get better if I could just work it out (even though I knew better). I kept on course although the knee slowly grew more painful as the distance increased. In the end, I finished 5 miles in about 49 minutes (pretty good considering I had to walk due to my knee).
Overall, my cardiovascular conditioning felt great. I easily could have had this run be a 9 or 10 miler since I felt great at the end of the 5 miles. Unfortunately, my knee thought otherwise. Like I said above, this was the first time that the pain seemed to localized to a specific part of the knee. I could actually press on the part that was tender / inflammed and it was on the lateral aspect of my knee just just at the distal part of my femur. It was then that I knew exactly what I was dealing with. Its not patellofemoral syndrome like I first suspected. Instead, its an inflamed IT Band ... which has been the thorn in the side of many distance runners. It commonly becomes inflamed in the area that it traverses the lateral femoral condyle and can cause inflammation of the tissue and bursa (see picture I attached). Occasionally it can cause pain up the leg towards the hip, but thankfully I don't have those symptoms yet.
So this was a major setback in my training since I knew I would be missing another long run this week, and likely would be out from running for another 1 ... 2 ... or even 3 weeks if I am going to get this better. I have to say I was pretty depressed over the weekend thinking about being away from running and missing out on another couple weeks of training (never thought I would say that, but I guess I am slowly developing a runner's mindset). I gave myself a day or two of being down and then finally decided that I can either pack it in and be upset that I cant run, or I can do something about it, continue my training even though its under less ideal circumstances and accomplish my goal of completing this marathon no matter what.
It reminded me of something one of my friends said to me back in my early days of med school. I was having a down week in medical school and during one of my rants my friend said "If it were easy, then everyone would do it". This quote once again rang true about my current situation. I guess in a way I was naive to think that my training would go 100% according to plan with me able to rack up 20 ... 30 ... 40 miles per week without any injury or speedbump along the way. Instead, I am at a point now where I need to deviate somewhat from my original training schedule and find a way to get it done. In order to do it, this is what I have come up with ...
1 - I already made a physical therapy appointment to help with figuring out what is causing my IT band to flare up. Although I need to get the inflammation down which thankfully is easy to do with icing at this point, the more important issue is to figure out what is causing it. Injuries like this don't happen unless something is out of balance ... muscles not being strong enough, not being flexible enough, etc. Hopefully a couple weeks of intensive PT will help get me back on track.
2 - Get rid of the inflammation thats already there. This is going to involve avoiding running on the road for a little bit. I have been icing the knee for 3-4 times per day for as long as I can bear it. Having real ice on the area is tough to handle for more than 20-30 minutes at a time.
3 - Continue my cardiovascular conditioning. This is going to suck, but I am going to end up doing the next few weeks on the elliptical. While its not ideal by any means, I am going to plan to substitute all my runs with these workouts from the time being. Each mile that I would have run will likely turn out to be 10 minutes on the elliptical. Thus, a 5 mile run is going to be a 50 minute ellipitcal workout. 4 - Keep my head up. Like I said, it was depressing to have this type of set back in my training. In the end, I need to keep the eye on the prize and that's getting to Boylston on April 18th 2011 no matter what. From this point on, this one won't be an issue.
So we had another minor setback in my training this past week. After my week or two of rest, stretching and strengthening I decided to go for a test run this past Friday to make sure that I would be physically capable of completing the weekly long run with L Street on Sunday. I decided to head out and planned to do a 5 mile test run to see how the knee would hold up. The run started out great as my pace was good ( ~ 9:15 min / mile), felt strong, the knee wasn't bothering me and the New England weather finally gave us a day without snow. I ran down my normal 5 mile route of East to West Broadway, wrapping around towards the convention center, down to south station and back through the seaport. About 2-3 miles into the run I could feel my knee acting up again. This time, the pain was much more localized to the outside aspect of my knee than before. I would occasionally stop and walk for about 15-30 seconds to given the knee a break and then was able to get back into stride. After about a quarter mile though the knee started to hurt again. It wasn't a bad pain at first and I decided to try to run through it ... as if it were a cramp and it would get better if I could just work it out (even though I knew better). I kept on course although the knee slowly grew more painful as the distance increased. In the end, I finished 5 miles in about 49 minutes (pretty good considering I had to walk due to my knee).
Overall, my cardiovascular conditioning felt great. I easily could have had this run be a 9 or 10 miler since I felt great at the end of the 5 miles. Unfortunately, my knee thought otherwise. Like I said above, this was the first time that the pain seemed to localized to a specific part of the knee. I could actually press on the part that was tender / inflammed and it was on the lateral aspect of my knee just just at the distal part of my femur. It was then that I knew exactly what I was dealing with. Its not patellofemoral syndrome like I first suspected. Instead, its an inflamed IT Band ... which has been the thorn in the side of many distance runners. It commonly becomes inflamed in the area that it traverses the lateral femoral condyle and can cause inflammation of the tissue and bursa (see picture I attached). Occasionally it can cause pain up the leg towards the hip, but thankfully I don't have those symptoms yet.
So this was a major setback in my training since I knew I would be missing another long run this week, and likely would be out from running for another 1 ... 2 ... or even 3 weeks if I am going to get this better. I have to say I was pretty depressed over the weekend thinking about being away from running and missing out on another couple weeks of training (never thought I would say that, but I guess I am slowly developing a runner's mindset). I gave myself a day or two of being down and then finally decided that I can either pack it in and be upset that I cant run, or I can do something about it, continue my training even though its under less ideal circumstances and accomplish my goal of completing this marathon no matter what.
It reminded me of something one of my friends said to me back in my early days of med school. I was having a down week in medical school and during one of my rants my friend said "If it were easy, then everyone would do it". This quote once again rang true about my current situation. I guess in a way I was naive to think that my training would go 100% according to plan with me able to rack up 20 ... 30 ... 40 miles per week without any injury or speedbump along the way. Instead, I am at a point now where I need to deviate somewhat from my original training schedule and find a way to get it done. In order to do it, this is what I have come up with ...
1 - I already made a physical therapy appointment to help with figuring out what is causing my IT band to flare up. Although I need to get the inflammation down which thankfully is easy to do with icing at this point, the more important issue is to figure out what is causing it. Injuries like this don't happen unless something is out of balance ... muscles not being strong enough, not being flexible enough, etc. Hopefully a couple weeks of intensive PT will help get me back on track.
2 - Get rid of the inflammation thats already there. This is going to involve avoiding running on the road for a little bit. I have been icing the knee for 3-4 times per day for as long as I can bear it. Having real ice on the area is tough to handle for more than 20-30 minutes at a time.
3 - Continue my cardiovascular conditioning. This is going to suck, but I am going to end up doing the next few weeks on the elliptical. While its not ideal by any means, I am going to plan to substitute all my runs with these workouts from the time being. Each mile that I would have run will likely turn out to be 10 minutes on the elliptical. Thus, a 5 mile run is going to be a 50 minute ellipitcal workout. 4 - Keep my head up. Like I said, it was depressing to have this type of set back in my training. In the end, I need to keep the eye on the prize and that's getting to Boylston on April 18th 2011 no matter what. From this point on, this one won't be an issue.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Another Boring Day in The Gym
Well my 10-12 days without running is almost over. In order to keep with my schedule of trying to give my knee a little bit of time to get better, I haven't gone for a significant run since January 23rd when I ran ~10 miles. In order to keep the cardio up, I went to the Y again and did another workout on the elliptical. In order to prevent myself from dying of boredom I decided to do intervals on the elliptical. I ended up doing 5 minute intervals with increasing resistance to try to mimic running up hills. In total, I did about 35 minutes worth on the machine which came out to be about 6 intervals. I am sure it isn't quite the same as running up a hill, but closest I could get.
In the meantime, I have been continuing to do my leg strengthening exercises. Hopefully they will start to pay dividends in the upcoming weeks. My guess is that this knee this is going to be the thorn in my side during the next ten weeks of training. Ideally I had hoped to run 4 times per week in preparation for the race, but if the knee keeps acting up I am guessing that I will only be able to run 2-3 times per week. Just something I will have to adapt to so that I can get to Boylston on April 18th.
In other news, Renee and I just signed up for our volunteer activity for the B.A.A. We signed up for packet stuffing, which is where we stuff all the gift bags that race participants get on race day. Its normally full of some advertisements, running products, T shirt, etc. Its nice because it gets us involved with some people as the race draws close, its run by our friends Tom and Lyn so we can see them and its cool because we get a volunteer jacket. I am going to try to attach a picture from last year, not sure if it will work.
Anyway, long run this Sunday is planned for 17. Not sure if I will be able to do the whole 17, but I will go as far as I can. I am figuring for minimum of 14 but would love to do the complete run. Guess we will see!
In the meantime, I have been continuing to do my leg strengthening exercises. Hopefully they will start to pay dividends in the upcoming weeks. My guess is that this knee this is going to be the thorn in my side during the next ten weeks of training. Ideally I had hoped to run 4 times per week in preparation for the race, but if the knee keeps acting up I am guessing that I will only be able to run 2-3 times per week. Just something I will have to adapt to so that I can get to Boylston on April 18th.
In other news, Renee and I just signed up for our volunteer activity for the B.A.A. We signed up for packet stuffing, which is where we stuff all the gift bags that race participants get on race day. Its normally full of some advertisements, running products, T shirt, etc. Its nice because it gets us involved with some people as the race draws close, its run by our friends Tom and Lyn so we can see them and its cool because we get a volunteer jacket. I am going to try to attach a picture from last year, not sure if it will work.
Anyway, long run this Sunday is planned for 17. Not sure if I will be able to do the whole 17, but I will go as far as I can. I am figuring for minimum of 14 but would love to do the complete run. Guess we will see!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)