Killed It

   So the end of the week rolled around and it was time for another workout.  Since I had gotten in my longer weekday workout on Wednesday, I was planning a shorter, higher intensity work out for Friday.  I got to the gym and immediately took my place on my elliptical.  I now call it "my elliptical" because I don't think that anyone else ever uses that machine.  Once I hopped on, I basically stepped on the gas.  I don't know why, but I was definitely tuned into the workout on this day and really took off right from the start. 
   The elliptical portion of the workout went great.  I was moving at about 160 rpm which translated into a 8:50 mile.  Thankfully, I was able to keep this pace for the entire 30 minutes which turned out to be 3.3 miles or so.  Like I have mentioned before, it always feels good to do things that I wasn't able to do when I first started my training.  Going back to early December, I recall one of my early workouts on the elliptical.  When I first got on I selected a 30 minute workout, set the resistance at 7 and basically kept my speed at 130 rpm.  After only about 12 minutes, I needed to slow it down and catch my breath.  I was able to get to the 30 minute mark but there were a few more times during the workout where I needed to slow down and recover.  This last workout .... I killed it (even the elliptical thought it was a great workout, see pic below).  I started the 30 minute workout with a resistance of 9, averaged 160 rpm, put in multiple "hills" and was able keep that pace for the entire 30 minutes.  Just another reminder about how far I have come.
    Once the cardio portion of the workout was complete, I started on the PT / rehab portion.  As I mentioned, the PT instructions have now moved from simple stretching to more intense exercises aimed at the hips / quads.  It took another 25 minutes but I went through my whole routine of stretching, stretching some more, running man squats, side lunges and dumbell pickup squats.  When I was done my legs were on fire, I can only hope that these exercises start to pay off.

Little bit more of the same ...

  Today's workout was pretty par for the course based on how my cardio conditioning has been since my IT Band flared up.  I was proud of myself though because I did a good job at planning ahead to make sure that I fit my workout in ... something I probably wouldn't have done if I wasn't training for this race.  I knew I had a phsyical therapy appoitnment early in the afternoon which meant that I wouldn't have enough time to sneak out of work and get to the Y like I have been doing for most of this week.  Furthermore, I knew that there was no way i would head back downtown after my PT appointment to fit in a workout.  Knowing these two things, I decided to get up early with Renee and get my workout in early in the morning before work started.
   The workout went well, although I seemed to get off to a slow start.  From past experiences, I know that I am not a morning person whatsoever when it comes to working out.  Without the adrenaline rush of a race or other people around it always seems like it takes me a while to get the legs moving.  Regardless, I was able to knock out 60 minutes on the elliptical without difficulty.  Afterward, i proceeded to do my simple stretches and hip strengthening exercises that were prescribed to me by my PT team. 
    The afternoon was filled with another physical therapy appointment.  Once again I was with Sophia since my main PT guy, Declan, is away on vacation this week.  The appointment started out as usual with some ultrasound therapy and then some deep tissue on the inflamed IT Band.  Afterward, we started on some new strengthening exercises.  Today seemed to be a turning point in my therapy where I am moving away from just simple stretching exercises to more practical strengthening exercises aimed at the hip girdle and the quads.  I was given some new homework, so now in addition to my normal hamstring / hip flexor stretches & my gluteus medius strengthening exercises I am supposed to incorporate some one legged squats, running man and side lunges in.  Hopefully the combo of continued stretching and these strengthening exercises will help me get back to where I need to be.  Lastly, I was also told to give running a try to see if the therapy this far has made a difference.  Not sure when I will do it, but I will try to fit a couple miles in soon.

Back at it ...

   After my disappointing day on the elliptical yesterday I felt like I needed to bounce right back at it.  Unfortunately, I was working overnight Tuesday which meant that I was heading into a 30 hour shift which always tends to throw a wrench into my workout plans because the day is so busy and then I am absolutely exhausted the day after the shift.   Thankfully, I was able to duck out of work in the early afternoon and head to the Y to get my workout in. 
    I decided that I would go for a speed workout since after nearly 2 hours on the ellptical the day before, i couldn't even stomach the thought of being on there for another hour.  I decided to bust out 30 minutes as hard as I could.  Thankfully, this was one of the best workouts I have had in a while and got me back on track after a shitty day on Monday.  I was able to do 3.2 miles in just under 30 minutes which is a great pace for me.  As I mentioned before, normally on my long workouts I average 1 mile in ellptical difference in ~ 11 mins.  During this workout I was able to do 3.2 miles at ~9 min pace which was solid.
    At the recommendation of my physical therapist I also decided to do a quick workout on the rowing machine.  Sophia thought it would be best for my rehab if I try to do multiple different exercises during my workout to try and strengthen all the different muscles of my hips / legs.  She was concerned that if I only focused on the elliptical it would give me the balanced strengthening that I need in my legs. So, to make sure that I followed orders I did 12 minutes on the rowing machine.  I think during my next workout I will try to add in some time on the stair stepper. 
     Officially under 2 months until the marathon, hopefully this physical therapy will start to pay off and I can get back on the road by mid March to finish my training strong.

Struggled ...

    So I am a few entries behind in my blogging due to a busy work schedule.  So Monday rolled around and like I had planned all week I decided that this was going to be the day that I did my long workout for the week.  I know that my endurance would probably take a hit from my recent illness ... and ... unfortunately thats exactly what happened.  I had hoped to do a total of 2 hrs 30 minutes on the elliptical which I would have equated to ~ 15 mile run (150 mins / 10 min/mile = 15 miles).  Again, I am not exactly sure that this equation will really balance out to anything when I get back on the road but I have to hope its pretty close.
    So I hopped on the elliptical with high hopes.  The first hour went by pretty well although it was a little bit harder than I thought it would be but I was able to push through.  Unfortunately, the second hour was when I think the recent cold I had just gotten over came back to bite me.  I started to struggle at around 1 hr 20 minutes and had to slow my pace a little bit.  I was able to pick it back up but it took everything I had to get to 1 hr 45 minutes.  It was hear that I through in the towel for the day.  Unfortunately, I just had nothing left in the gas tank.  I came up short of my goal of 2 hr 30 minutes, but on that day I just really had nothing more to give.
       Later that day, I had my second PT appointment.  Unfortunately, my normal physical therapist, Declan, is away on vacation so I had my appointment with a different PT specialist named Sophia.  The PT appointment went just like the last one.  Sophia was great, the appointment started with some stretching aimed at the hips / hamstrings, progressed to some ultrasound and then went to massage therapy.  Now, for those of you who haven't had ITB issues, massage therapy isn't as cool as it sounds.  They basically isolate the IT band on the outside of your leg and really knead it out.  The goal is to try to stretch / extend the band because the real issues develop when it is to tight.  The problem is, when the band is inflamed, as mine is, a deep tissue massage absolute kills!  At the end of the appointment, I got a couple more stretches to add on to my routine (see pic below) and a follow up appointment for later this week.

  

This week "Flu" by ....

   Well after one of the best workouts I had in the last few weeks my hopes were high that my week would continue in good fashion.  Unfortunately, just before that workout on Tuesday I developed this dry nagging cough.  It didn't seem like much at first and I thought it would just be something that would works its way out in a day or two.  Contrary to what I had hoped, over the next 24-48 hours this little nagging cough turned into a full blown ILI (influenza like illness).  Wed and Thurs were pretty miserable since I had off and on headaches, sinus congestion, cough and slept miserable for those two nights.  When Friday morning rolled around I thought I had turned the corner, but to my dismay I was hit with a GI component and again felt miserable for the whole day. 
   Thankfully, now that it is Sunday I think I am over the worst of it and back on the mend.   I think all that is left over is a cough from way down deep which is probably just from a bronchitis that will take some time to resolve.  This latest illness just served as another minor set back in my training since I wasn't able to hit the elliptical as much as I had wanted.  The good news is that I have been continuing to do my PT exercises so hopefully my hips / thighs are getting stronger and my IT Band issues will be resolving soon. 
    I guess the only good news that would come out of this whole situation is that because I was scheduled to moonlight on Sunday I was planning on doing my long workout on Monday (which is a hospital holiday at Tufts, giving me the day off!).  While I am not sure how much endurance I lost with this little illness, I think I should be able to hit the elliptical pretty hard tomorrow.   In addition, I also have my second physical therapy appointment tomorrow afternoon so hopefully I should get some good treatment on the IT Band.  Again, the goal is to be running (at least the long runs) by the second week in March and then finish strong at the end of the month and into early April.  So far the road has been a bumpy one, but I am trying to keep my head up.  

Elliptical & PT

   So yesterday I was back to the cardio training.  Again, the training was done on the elliptical.  Originally I was going to try to do a 70 minute (my equivalent of 7 miles) workout but as the day went on I could feel myself developing a cold.  In the morning I had a dry nagging cough and by the afternoon the cough had gotten a little bit worse, I had a slight headache and just felt run down.  I decided that I would still go to the gym because any training I could get in is better than nothing.  After I got there, I decided that I would save my long workout for tomorrow and instead I would really push it and try to power out 40-45 minutes working as hard as I can.
    The workout started great in that my legs felt strong and I had a really good pace going.  Normally, 1 mile of elliptical distance (the one that the machine displays) takes me about 11:30 to complete.  During this workout though I was powering through a mile in ~ 10 min.  I didn't know how long I would be able to keep this pace up since I was really working pretty hard, but I decided to take it 5 minutes at a time.  I through in some "hills' to help pass the time and then next thing I knew I had finished 4.2 miles of elliptical distance in 40 minutes.  It wasn't the 70 minute workout I had hoped for, but it was by far the most intense 40 min workout I have had yet.  Again, it helps to solidify the fact that my cardiovascular endurance and leg strength is continuing to improve despite the fact that I am not out on the road running.  In the end, the big question will be if the leg strength / cardio I am gaining by working out on the elliptical will carry over to actual running on pavement ... I hope so.
     In addition to the cardio component of my workout, I also had homework from physical therapy.  Yep, that's right, a list of 6 exercises and stretches that I have to do 2 times per day.  Like I mentioned earlier they are aimed at increasing the flexibility / strength of the hip and gluts.  I was able to do them twice yesterday, and despite how easy the pictures look a couple of them are actually pretty hard.  I thought to myself that if I were doing these for any other reason I probably wouldn't be compliant with them, kind of like how people wont be as dedicated to running if they don't have something to train for.  Regardless, I need to get them done twice a day so hopefully I can take on more intense ones next week at my follow up PT appointment.

Physical Therapy - Day 1

   Today was my first official visit to the physical therapist.  Since this IT issue has been going on for at least 3 weeks and didn't improve with rest / ice / simple stretching, I made the move to get into an official physical therapy program.  Thankfully, I had a good referral from Renee since she is well know to the PT crew at the BAC.  After her ankle injury a few years ago she went to physical therapy at the BAC 2-3x / week for about 4 months.  Somehow, her health insurance at the time didn't have a copay for physical therapy and since she had already met her deductible from her surgery ... it was essentially free.
    So I got to the physical therapy place and found it to be a tiny hole in the wall, a small room off the upstairs gym of the BAC in South Boston.  My physical therapist is named Declan and is a younger guy in his early to mid thirties.  He did his initial assessment which basically consisted of measuring how flexible my ankles, knees and hips were.  I have to say, that I am not flexible at all!  After we did that, we did some basic strength testing and then proceeded to get into the therapy portion of the visit.  I ended up getting ultrasound treatment on the IT Band since this is supposed to increase blood flow to the area which will promote healing. 
     Lastly, I was given a list of "homework" that basically consistent of 6 stretches / exercises that i have to do twice a day until my next appointment in ~ 5-6 days.  In addition to these exercises I need to continue to "roll" my IT Band with a foam roller, ice multiple times a day and avoid running for the time being.  As of now, my cardio is going to continue to consist solely of the elliptical since that seems to be the only thing I can do now without reaggravating the IT Band. 
    The good news is that Delcan felt confident that I have plenty of time to get over these IT Band issues and finish my training for the marathon.  I just need to continue to put the time in on the elliptical until I can get back onto the road.

Physical Therapy at the BAC