I wanted to wait to blog until after the Coburg Half Marathon that way I could verify if all this made absolutely no sense, or if I had previously just been lucky. The verdict? This all makes absolutely no sense.I want to take you back to something that happen last fall. If you know me at all or have read my previous posts, you know that I had to have knee surgery for plica removal on October 31, 2011. Plica is something I was born with in my knee that I didn't need, like wisdom teeth or an appendix. It got pinched under my knee cap and swelled up, resulting in a lot of pain. I had it removed and have been on the mend ever since. I've had a lot of ups and downs after the surgery and have had professionals in the medical field as me if I think the surgery was successful and others tell me, rarely does plica removal work for people with knee problems. These negative comments have effected me. When my knee starts to hurt I think that they may be right, but when I have a breakout run, I feel as though I'm proving them wrong. I have worked very hard in the past two months to get rid of any residual scar tissue in my knee and gain back all of my range of motion. The result? I can run down hills again without pain and I can finally touch my heel to my butt in a quad stretch.
Before my knee surgery, my fiancé, Kevin, and I attended a conference in Portland on real estate management. Kevin attended most of the conference on his own, but I joined him for the last day. The speaker used many generic motivational tactics to inspire people to reach for their dreams. I decided then an there when I figured out what was wrong with my knee and fixed it, I would get dead serious about my training. Before and even after my surgery I could not do much in the way of exercise. Bending my knee whether it was in a weight-bearing or non weight-bearing phase hurt. I picked up a new sport, POP Pilates, and worked out 30-120min a day on the floor of my apartment while watching Cassey Ho's videos. I began to notice a difference in my body after only a few weeks. I was more toned and the exercises were getting easier and easier. I had done Pilates in the past, but never on the level Cassey does them. She'd push me to the point of exhaustion. Sometimes I would collapse under my own body weight unable to do one more tricep dip. But, as many things go when they are continually worked at, I was able to finish her workouts and gained strength and endurance. I "raced" my first 5K in March and broke 20 minutes. WHHHHAT? The barrier that I've worked at for years, just broken with little running and no speed training. I was asked that time old question, "What's your secret?" I would tell people, Pilates. I felt strong, solid, and efficient when I ran. I didn't have any endurance training so running fast for anything longer than a 5K fast was out of the question. Or so I thought. A week later I set an 8K PR. Now I was really baffled.
Let me take you back one more time. During the time between this 8K race and when I began running again after the knee surgery (late December) I was having digestive problems. I began keeping a food diary to find out which food I was eating was causing me such discomfort. I could not narrow it down to one specific food so I decided to take out an entire nutrient. I started with gluten and had planned to try dairy if that did not work. After a few days on a gluten free diet, I noticed my symtoms had subsided. After two weeks they were gone all together. By the time of the 8K PR race, I had been gluten free for about 3 months, only "cheating" in the evenings with my gluten filled favorites. After the cheating began to cause me discomfort the next day, I cut out gluten cold turkey and never noticed the symptoms again, unless I accidently ate a food containing gluten.
So I was gluten free and still doing POP Pilates through April, May, and June. During these months I steadily increased my mileage from 20 miles, to 30 miles, to my normal training regimen of 40 miles a week. I was dealing a little with knee pain, but it would come and go in phases. I went to Cooperative Performance and Rehab and got the treatment on my knee that I had been needed to get done since the surgery. The exercises helped and now the knee is about 95% back to normal with only a bit of residual scar tissue remaining. I begin doing what I called "two a day Tuesdays" runs and after several weeks of the one day doubles, I added in a double run on Friday's as well. I hovered around 50-60 miles a week for about a month, and this last week I bumped it up to 65 miles a week.
And so, why all this blah blah blah background information. Well, because a week ago I PR'ed in the 5K and I wanted to blog about it right away, but then I didn't want to jinx myself for the half marathon I was planning to run on July 22nd. I got all those questions again, "What's your secret?". I wasn't doing any speed work and most of my runs lately had been slow. The week before my 5K PR, I'd warm up at a 10:30 pace and get down to a 9:30 pace by the end of them. I didn't try to fight it too much, but rather let my body do what it wanted to. I was also getting questions about my weight. I have lost 10 pounds since December. I have lost 15 pounds since last summer. The weight began to come off as soon as I started doing POP Pilates. The gluten free diet really helped the pounds melt off. My ferritin levels went up and my vitamin D was through the roof. I had subbed a lot of my bread eating with oats, rice, and lots and lots of veggies and yogurt. I no longer felt sluggish or weighed down on my runs (until that strange slow week before the 5K on Hayward, which I think had a lot to do with rebounding from a hard 17 miler that I will talk more about later). Oh yes, and one more minor detail to this story, the weekend before this 5K race, I pulled a muscle in my calf when running down a steep trail and had to get an emergency massage from Kelly on the Tuesday after. I could hardly run and the muscle was bulging out. The massage and an easy run strategy was a success, but I didn't know if it was too soon or smart to try to race a 5K four days after the pull happened.
As I warmed up for the OTC Series 5K race held on historic Hayward Field, I felt like crap. My legs were heavy and I was having a hard time maintaining a 9:30 pace. I ran and ran hoping my legs would finally turn on and realized they needed to be running fast in about a half an hour. Four warm up miles later I was able to get down to an 8:30 pace, and thought, "oh boy this is going to be fun."
When I stepped to the starting line, James, a running buddy of mine, asked me what I was planning to run. I told him I didn't know and I may just jog it as a workout. I wasn't about to reveal the truth, I was running on an injury and if my warm up pace was any reflection on how this race would go, I was going to run pretty poorly today.
We took off and instantly I felt good. On lap 9, I was regretting running the 5K and wished I had bailed out on the 3K, but I continued to push and managed to regain my pace on the last 2 laps. The result? 19:29. Three seconds faster than my 5K PR that I ran 3 weeks before the Eugene Marathon last year when I was in the best shape of my life.
The following week I managed a 1500 meter PR and then 3 days later I ran a 1:29:43 half marathon. 56 seconds off from breaking my half marathon PR. The Coburg Run in the Country Half Marathon was another race that I went into with low expectations. I had signed up for the race to see where I was at fitness wise over a long distance so I knew where to start my speed workouts at when I began actually "training" at the end of the month. I thought maybe I could run a 1:32 if I was really really on my game. 1:32 was my old PR before the 2011 Corvallis Half, and I had run a 1:32 twice when I had been relatively fit. The only run I had to base my prediction off of was a 17 miler I had run three weeks prior at a 7:25 pace (that was including the warm up).
Kevin had registered 3 days before the race to pace me. The gun went off and he and I headed out, and immediately checked our watches. Too fast, I saw a 6:30 and backed it off. At a half mile in we were at 6:45 pace and I continued to hold back. Lots of people were passing us, and Kevin reminded me, it's much more fun to pass them back at the end. At 1 mile we had gotten into our groove and my watch reflected a 7:08 mile. After that, we chit-chatted to keep the pace slow. I felt relaxed and very strong. We cruised gently down from 7:07 to 7:00 to 6:50 for the first 7 miles. The progression felt great and very natural. I was not winded when we talked. At mile 8ish we picked it up and had a stretch of 6:45's. This is the point in the race that we really began passing people. We saw all the people that had passed us in the first mile. We continued to chat and try to remain relaxed. Finally with 2 to go, Kevin said if we threw down two 6:30 miles we'd break 1:30. He asked if I thought I could handle it and I said I would try. Our first mile was 6:30, our next mile was 6:17. Kevin was even breathing a little hard on the one :) When we rounded the last turn and I saw we were going to break 1:30, I yelled at Kevin with glee, "we're going to do it babe!" I finished with a 5:18 kick.
I felt as sore after the race as I expected to. My calves were tight from running on my toes for the last 2.1 miles of the half and my right hip was tight due to the canter of the road. My Monday recovery run was slow, but I embraced it. I did my normal POP Pilates workout since Cassey has posted some new videos I had not tried yet.
Ok, so did I answer the question, "what's your secret?" Maybe not. I don't really have a secret. I've just been listening to my body and really enjoy learning what it responds well too fitness wise and food wise. I don't mind sharing my secret either. I've gotten many of my friends doing POP Pilates and trying gluten free diets. I also don't mind sharing my racing strategy for those who wish to contact me at happyrunningcoach@gmail.com. Funny, a woman I passed in the race has already emailed me asking if I would coach her for a sub 1:30 half. I also know God has had a major hand in my recovery and has blessed me with this talent that I never thought I had growing up. I just need to remember not to take Him nor the gift for granted like I have in the past.
I'm excited to see what happens this year both physically and mentally. I say mentally because after being racked with injures for the past few years, it's hard to accept that I may have finally gotten over a huge void that was in my training and I don't have to "run scared" anymore. Meaning, I can go out and enjoy my runs and not worry over every twinge I feel or fret that I'm going to get hurt again. That's been the biggest worry that I've faced. Kevin has been super supportive and really kept my head on straight when I just about lose it because my arch feels cramped (I have plantar fasciitis!) or my hip is stiff (I have a swollen bursae sac!) or my knee gets achy (the plica is back!). He tells me to give it a day and don't run hard and sure enough everything goes away. Now I just have to convince myself that I'm strong and smart and if something does happen it's not the end of the world. Also, one or two days of rest is better than one or two weeks of being injured. Maybe that's the secret. Maybe its giving up gluten and the inflammatory response it caused to my body. Maybe its the strength I've gained with pilates. Maybe it's losing a few pounds and running lighter. Maybe its the higher mileage with no speed. Or maybe it's all of these things or none of these things. I think my friend Liisa, who also got knee surgery for a plica, put it best in a recent message to me:
"It's cool to know that the older we get (to a point) that we continue to build on our base, even when coming back from injury. The long term callousing effect of running, base training, and racing seems to make it easier to return to the form you were in and then surpass it. And like you mentioned at some point, as women we can almost expect that our performance can improve into our 30s at least. It's promising and definitely somewhat exciting to think that our best years could/will be ahead of us still."
Happy running friends!
