Posts in Category: Injuries
Solo turkey trot
The “Do-I-have-an-injury-or-not” question has been running through my head like crazy this week. After a visit to my chiropractor and a couple of more days off, I headed out for a run today to see how I felt.
I thought about doing a turkey trot at my in-laws in Ohio, but would spending $20 make sense if my knee hurt? No need to risk a DNF and the possibility of further being mad at myself.
My wife and I headed to a nearby paved trail so she could also do a run/walk and I could just see how I felt. My general plan was to run easy for a half mile, then push it for a couple of miles.
I ended up pushing it for a 5k. My time was 25:08; had I been paying closer attention to my watch, I probably would have pushed it to under 25 minutes.
I felt sluggish and slow, which if that’s the case two weeks after the marathon following minor knee issues and still get in a good pace, then you won’t hear me complain.
I felt a little discomfort in my knee, but it wasn’t like before. There’s some work to be done, but I’m not as paranoid or as scared about it as a few days ago.
Forced patience
After my other 3 marathons, I’ve been generally content to sit back and not do much. Each of those marathons have all had different stories, but all have left me with the desire for a break.
This time around though, with yet another different story to tell, I have a desire to keep running. Maybe the lackluster day has a lot to do with that — despite a bad day, I still came away feeling good.
After taking 5 days off last week — my longest break since being injured 2 years ago — I went out for a very easy few miles. Things felt pretty good, but ended with some soreness in my left knee.
Not bad … just sore. Kind of nagging.
I went ahead and took the weekend off from running. I hit the bike in my apartment’s gym on Saturday for about 20 minutes and felt fine. I really just wanted to run though.
Today I headed out for another easy run, was feeling good and then near the end, that nagging feeling came back again.
While some of it may be my body still recovering from the Richmond Marathon, there’s no doubt that I’m concerned. Immediately following my run, I made an appointment with my chiropractor to talk about this discomfort.
My chiropractor does ART - active release technique. Simply put, it’s a manipulation that hurts to make things feel better. Got it?
He pulled and stretched and pushed … and basically told me that there doesn’t seem to be anything that should cause long-term problems. If things continue to bother me after a few days, we’ll do it all again.
I know I’ve been harboring a secret here on the blog about another marathon, but I can’t avoid talking about it any longer.
I have an opportunity to run the Disney Marathon through a Richmond-based nonprofit. I’ll provide more details on that later, but my chiropractor told me that he didn’t see any reason I shouldn’t be able to run it.
Simply put, I’ve banked a lot of fitness, a couple of down weeks won’t impact me all that much and I can train hard in December and still get to that start line healthy.
I know from my previous experiences that running through pain will be me nowhere. In each of these two runs since the marathon I’ve stopped as soon as it hit.
But unlike 2 years ago, or previous injuries, I’m being much more proactive. In addition to today’s treatment and likely future treatments, I know that I have to do more strength work and core work in these last several weeks of the year.
I admittedly slacked off in the final month of marathon training with that and that’s all on my shoulders. Not only will it be helpful to get to Disney healthy, it will also help me get to other goals in 2013.
For now, I just have to be patient, which is something I haven’t had to do with running in a while.
The Lost Files, Vol. III
Vol. II of the lost running blogs left me at a crossroads — I was well into my first running injury a few weeks away from the Virginia 10 Miler, a race I’ll be doing again at the end of this month, and I was determined to fight through it.
I was willing to do just about anything to run that race, including popping Advil, something I would likely advise against now as a way to push through a race.
It’s a good post for me to reflect on to see where I’ve been and think about how I reacted a few years later with my second ITB injury. In some ways, it was like I didn’t learn anything, but in other ways I can see how far I’ve come.
So here is Vol. III of my series leading up to my first double-digit race, only before seen by a few friends on myspace 6 years ago. This was originally posted Sept. 10, 2006, and titled “Advil … who knew?”
* * *
During my group meet at Riverside Runners the other day, we had a 2-mile time trial. We also did this back in June.
My time in June was 17:31, which I thought was good considering I had gotten out of shape a little bit. When this past Thursday rolled around, I was kind of scared to just go all out for two miles with the way my knee has been.
Well, to my own surprise, I hauled ass and finished in 14:38, nearly a 3-minute improvement. I was totally thrilled.
So this takes me to my knee pain … I have discovered how awesome ice is for treating injuries. It’s kind of one of those things I knew before, but never had to use it, so I didn’t think much of it and didn’t use it when the pain initially started.
Then I was talking to a woman the other night who told me at the beginning of the training she was having shoulder and knee pain and her doctor told her to take three Advil a day. She said she hasn’t experienced any pain since.
So me being the self-diagnostic person that I am, bought some Advil. (The real deal, not the generic Wal-profen.)
Yesterday I had my long run for the week, and although not 100 percent pain free, it was 10 times better than the week before. I could actually walk after this run.
So with less than a week to go before the 10 Miler, the plan is to take it fairly easy with short, yet intense runs, ice my knee down every day no matter what and pop those Advils like it’s my job to take Advil three times a day.
I haven’t made a decision on the marathon yet. That might wait a year, but I’m waiting to see how next week goes. That was, afterall, my goal for the summer.
The Lost Files, Vol. II
As promised from a couple of weeks ago, I’m republishing some myspace blogs from well before this blog started.
Following my first half marathon from that post, I started dealing with a lot of right knee pain. It was my first serious injury in nearly three years of running.
This post was titled “A tale of the worst day ever and the best day ever” and was published Sunday, Sept. 3, 2006.
* * *
It’s looking more and more likely that my body might not be able to handle running a marathon this year. I’m not giving up hope that it won’t happen, but I’ve been having some knee pain when I run and yesterday was the worst.
Fortunately, my training for the 10 Miler is set up in a way to get a lot of rest in the next two weeks. It’s set up perfect for what I need to do to have a good time in the race.
Anyway, yesterday I went out to run 10 miles and at mile 9 I just had to stop. When I stopped, I could hardly walk because my knee hurt so bad. I took a couple of minutes to just rest and then walked the last mile.
When I got home, I couldn’t hardly walk up the stairs. It’s hard to put into words the frustration of that happening. And I don’t need a doctor to tell me that it’s from over-use from the extended miles.
It’s something I have to deal with by running longer distances. I knew that coming into the whole thing.
So that was the start of the worst day ever. Christina made me an egg and cheese sandwich and when I sat down to eat, I dropped the sandwich on the floor and the egg quickly gathered dog hair. (Surprisingly, Duke was too occupied with his treat to immediately grab it.)
That was it I thought — it was just the worst day ever. After making yet another sandwich, I finally ate breakfast and then decided to sleep for a couple of hours.
When I woke up from my nap, I was craving a cheeseburger. Not a fast-food cheeseburger — the thought of McDonald’s or Wendy’s makes me nearly puke these days. I wanted a good one.
So we headed over to the Phil-a-Deli since they have good ones, plus we really like that place. Well, they closed early for the holiday weekend. The worst day ever continued …
This all being said, I have forgotten to mention that we were driving the Malibu, with the thought of maybe looking for a new car. I’ve hated the Malibu since day one when I got it six years ago. I think I’ve disliked that car more than my baby blue 1990 Ford Escort.
I just had some work done do it and was told it would need new brakes soon. And yesterday on the way to my run, the anti-lock brake light came on. Last time that happened, $300 got thrown away to fix a sensor. The ABS light was just another part of the worst day ever.
So anyway, the only place I could think of for a decent burger was TGIFriday’s. That didn’t disappoint, although instead of fries I got broccoli and the broccoli wasn’t good at all. I couldn’t tell if it was overcooked or undercooked.
When we left the restaurant, my car nearly turned off as we were driving through the parking lot. I had gotten in my head to just go ahead and wait a month or two before looking, but that just pissed me off, so to the car dealership we went.
We went to the Hyundai/Mitsubishi/Mazda/Nissan place where we bought our Ford Escape earlier this year. They treated us well then and I like returning to a business if I’ve been treated well. (For those that know me, you know I boycott a place for a long time if I’ve had bad service.)
When we pulled in, the guy who sold us the Escape was in the parking lot. And he remembered us, too. It was just a sign. To make a long story short, if that’s possible, we test drove a couple of cars and looked at a few others.
By acting like we weren’t ready to buy yet and explaining that we didn’t want any payments due until at least November, we got a brand new Hyundai Elantra.
In the end, we got the payments down almost $100 a month and didn’t have to put any money down… and no payments until December. Suddenly, it was the best day ever.
Anyway, I have run out of time for more details than this … I will let you know that my knee, thankfully, feels better today. Now I just need to be patient and give it some rest.
Hello pavement
Earlier this week, my dog Duke and I had yet another bit of confusion at an intersection — he went one way, I went another, and when he realized what was going on and before I could adjust my stride, we collided.
Elbow and hands, meet the pavement in Midlothian. I got up, dusted myself off, and tried to keep running. I was a bit shaken, though, and had to walk for a few minutes. I felt like I was in a bit of shock.
This is the same elbow I banged up during a trail race in January.
That evening, Thursday, I was in a decent amount of pain. My right hip was also a bit bruised. I skipped Friday’s run as a way to heal up and then turned around and had a nice long run yesterday.
Tonight my elbow still hurts. It’s a nice bruise, plus road burn. I can’t do a plank, which was what I was hoping would be key in my core streak.
I tried last night, but couldn’t last more than 30+ seconds on it. I’ve tried push-ups as well, but that feeling of stretching the skin a bit also hurts.
I waited a few days to write about this because I wanted to make sure I was OK. After getting warmed up yesterday, I knew I was fine enough to run. It’ll be another few days before I can really do everything I want to though.
All this cost me about 4 miles this week, keeping me from what feels like a good milestone with marathon training of 30 weekly miles. I still had a good week though, both mentally and physically.
A 30-mile week will come soon enough, along with many, many more miles. For now, I’m just grateful to not be broken (literally) from this fall.
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
A pain in the …
As much as I rave about the Shamrock Half Marathon, there’s one aspect to it that I truly dislike – Shore Drive.
The unevenness of the road for a few miles is something I’ve noticed before, and this year I really noticed it. I ran the high side of the road the best I could so I could get to the flattest part, but it was still rough.
Every year I am relieved to turn back onto Atlantic Avenue and head south for the second half of the race to a more even surface. This year, though, I noticed this nagging feeling near my left knee cap with about 5 miles to go.
I’ve probably felt that in this race before, but since it had been two years since my last Shamrock, any weird feelings are easily forgotten about. Even the year in which I got hurt during the race is a distant memory.
Last week I stayed away from running quite a bit – the roads really took a beating on me and I needed some time off. A short run the day after Shamrock felt fine; a few days later I felt that nagging feeling after a couple of miles. I didn’t mention it in my post the other day because I needed to give it some time.
Today, on a run just under 4 miles, I felt it slightly at the end.
Pain or discomfort is not easy to discuss or write about – of course in my mind I want to blow it off, but there are also the questions as to whether or not this an injury or if it’s post-race soreness due to Shore Drive or maybe even a combination of the two.
It’s not of great concern yet – in the past, a pain like this has come and gone in a few days with rest and ice. I have already done that will continue to do that over the next week. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d say it’s a 3.
While I have races on the horizon, I know that a second straight low mileage week won’t set me back too much. The downtime after my highest mileage first quarter ever isn’t necessarily a bad thing anyway.
It gives me a chance to do other things, like dust off my bike like I did yesterday. …
Recent Comments