Losing it, gaining it back, and "losing" it

The human body is an impressive machine. It can be pushed so much harder than you mind ever thinks it can. I really believe we are all capable of more than we think that we are. It's our mind that usually holds us back and sets our limits. Yet sometimes you can tell your mind to shut up, and that's when magic happens.

At the end of 2012, I still had not quite figured out what caused my knee to flair up. My best guess was that my SI joint had been out of whack and I was landing harder on my left side. After constant manipulation of my low back, things seemed to be back on track. I was having less low back pain, I could now do a basic bicycle crunch without pain, and I had my range of motion back. After about a month of consistent running (and we'll consider running 4-6 miles every other day consistent at this point), I signed up for the Dash 'n Dine 5K. Time: 19:36. Whaaaaaat? Oh yeah, I have blogged about this kind of stuff before, don't use it, don't lose. I went into the race with ZERO expectations. I wasn't even paying attention to the pace on my watch while I was running. I just ran at my best effort and was 7 seconds off my PR, the PR I had said on flat, fast, Hayward Field. The Dash 'n Dine course had hills in it, including one steep one in the last half mile. The next five months were a whirlwind of PR's. I had begun doing speed work again. Short speed work and with a training group. This was exactly the type of track stuff that I used to stay away from because 1) I am a marathon runner and 2) I'd get injured. Yet, it seemed to be the strength that I had been missing in my training. I kept my mileage low (40-60) and the paces even lower. I was the rabbit in the group, just trying not to get caught.

February 12: Mardi Gras 5K: 19:34

March 3rd: 10K that I got sent on the wrong course, 6.3mi in 40:18 (nothing like having a kid who you passed in the last mile of the race waiting for you in the finishing shoot. Nice kid, though, he let me go in front of him to get my correct placing.)

March 17th: Shamrock 15K: 1:00:50. This was the big shocker. I have NEVER been a good hill runner and I kept a 6:40-7:10 pace on the 4ish mile climb.

April 14th: Corvallis Half Marathon: 1:26:30. Felt like sh*t from mile one. I was shocked that with zero tempo runs in my training that I was able to maintain this pace.

April 27th: Eugene Marathon 5K: 19:04. Crushed my PR and again on a course with hills.

At start of June, I ran an impromptu marathon with over 1800ft of elevation gain on mostly trails in 3:30, laughing and talking with my training partners the whole way. I went into July with even bigger goals: a 5K in 6:00's. An official sub 40 10K, and a 5:30 mile.

June 21: Summer Solstice 10K: 39:01 (Last year I ran a 40:00 in August)
July 4th: Butte to Butte 10K: 38:51. Whaaaaat???? I still wonder if someone snuck me an illegal drug to pop out this PR on THAT course.
July 11th: OTC All-Comer's 5K: 18:41 (6's on the head. Last year I ran a 19:29 in July)
July 25th: OTC All-Comer's 3K: 10:54 (that's 5:50's! Last year I ran a 11:14 in August)
August 1st: OTC All-Comer's Jogger's Mile: 5:30 (Last year I ran a 5:43 in August)

During late July-early August, I was focusing on tapering for these shorter events. I dropped my mileage down to the mid-50's and eased off on the length and intensity of my Tuesday speed workouts. On July 8th, I got a hint that I had reached my peak a couple of weeks back and couldn't hold onto this speed much longer. I re-raced the mile, hoping to go under 5:30 and ran 5:31. Two days later I ran a flat, windy 10K and could only muster out a 39:16. Worry and depression set in. Had I lost my racing edge? In my last race, I gave up mentally. I got a side stitch in the first mile and it carried with me until the end. I couldn't battle the wind anymore and I just gave up. Rethinking all of my training and goals, I took 6 days off from running to let my body heal and rest. I was now moving into marathon training and was hoping all of my mileage and hard work over the spring/summer would translate into a sub-3 hour marathon. I was there last year fitness-wise and I knew I could get there again, especially now with this much faster base I was carrying with me.

The problem was... is... I have lost it mentally. I really attribute 50% of my PR's to my mental strength. The other 50% is the mileage and the workouts, losing 15lbs in the last 2 years and eat a gluten-free, dairy-free diet, and sticking with Pilates. But that "Toot Toot" training run I wrote about last year, that workout changed my life. I summoned strength that I never knew I had and it changed the way I looked at training and racing forever. Losing that now, is like losing a major part of my training. I now give up on myself quicker. I don't care if someone passes me in a race. I don't fight the demons trying to slow me down, I allow them to get into my head and fester there. I realize this is going to be a BIG problem if I want to run my goal of sub- 3 hours. A marathon is a long long ways to be beating yourself up mentally. If I can no longer run a 10K without losing it at mile 4, how am I going to run the marathon?

My training partners tell me this is a normal stage of training. I've just hit a lull and once I get my mileage up consistently, I'll find the workouts get easier again and I have my strength and stamina back. The question is, will the mental strength and stamina come back as well?

Continued from "What goes up must come down"

(written in retrospect in 2013)

A week later I saw Stan James at Slocum. Stan is the man of diagnoses. He was the only one who properly confirmed my plica injury without an MRI. I trusted him and figured he'd know what the problem was and help me fix it.

Well, he didn't. He was baffled because we couldn't mimic the pain in the office. I said, "I can make it hurt if I walk up and down stairs." So off he sent me to climb stairs for awhile. Sure enough, 2 flights latter, my knee was throbbing. He assumed it was tendonitis of my semitendonosus and sent me off with a prescription for Voltaren. He told me to try running again in one week.

So I rested, stretched, applied creme, and waited. In one week I tried running again. This time I got 3 miles on a walk/jog style run. All 3 miles were painful.

So, I quit running. I decided to wait 6 weeks in case I did really have a stress reaction in my knee. In the meantime I continued with Pilates, but I noticed that I could not do the bicycle crunch, squats, or many leg extensions without a lot of pain. I also took a Yoga class and couldn't do many of the moves because they were so painful to my left knee.... and my left hip. Hmmm, I got to thinking, if I cannot do a basic straddle stretch without massive pain to my left hip, perhaps there's something greater going on here.

After 6 weeks of no running, I tried running again. I had sharp pain in my knee immediate from the first step. How was this possible? I just didn't understand. I decided to seek the opinions of some physical therapists. Their advice was helpful, but when I tried to apply it on a test run, the pain was still there. It was on one of these test runs, that I turned my head/body to the left to see if a car was coming up behind me and noticed my knee screamed at me even more.

Wait. Stop just there.

My brain began working like crazy. Maybe it wasn't me knee, or my sartorius, or my semitendonosus. Maybe it was my back. Specifically my SI Joint. When I got home from my run, I did some twisting exercises I had learned from the past to adjust my SI joint. The next day I went for a run...and had less pain.

I immediately made an appointment with Kelly. When I got to his office the next day, I told him I that I thought I had figured out what was wrong, but I wanted him to try to figure it out without my bias opinion. I told him to do a full body alignment check on me. Everything seemed to be normal, except when he had me sit at the edge of the table and bend forward, the bones in my right low back were slipping way up. He then noticed that laying down on the table, my right leg was a clear inch shorter than my left leg. After some work, we got everything back in place... and the rest... is history.

It took many weeks and I had to constantly work on adjusting my SI joint and to make it stay in place, but I began running pain free again. I also had full range of motion back in my hips and Pilates and stretching were no longer painful. You know the phrase, "hindsight is always 20/20". Well, looking back on things, it's obvious that my SI joint slipped out of alignment back on that "Toot Toot" run. I complained after the run of right low back pain. It was so bad, I could not sit in a car afterward. It hurt for 3 days and I thought I had bruised my back with my water-belt, but there wasn't a mark. A week later, Kevin made the comment to me while sitting on a park bench with my feet dangling, "Wow, your left leg is a lot longer than your right leg."

Sigh.

Anyway, coming back from this injury, I'm taking it really slow. I decided that I am going to focus on short distances for awhile and stop marathon/ultra marathon training. Hopefully I have better luck and this stupid alignment problem made me smarter.

What goes up must come down

(Written in fall of 2012)

It's the law of gravity: what goes up, must come down. In running, it's the mantra I use when I'm attacking a huge hill to remind me that the pain and suffering of climbing the beast will eventually come to and end with the sweet reward of a downhill. In life, it's what reminds us that we are not invincible, and no matter how careful we are and what steps we take to ensure that no trouble will come our way, that life is full of unexpected twists.

Egos go up and then come down.

I was getting fit and fast, as in I was getting fit really quickly and I was getting damn fast. I never imagined that I would accomplish the running feats that I accomplished this summer. What a sweet reward to come back from a controversial knee surgery and be faster than I had ever been before, without much of what I would consider a speed base. And, I was running injury free. I was listening to my body and doing what it felt like I could do at the time, but being careful not to push it too hard or too soon. I thought I was being smart.

No one is invincible. No matter how careful you are, something could come into your life to alter your training. You could trip and fall and tear your meniscus. You could get in a car accident and break your leg. You could come down with a bad case of the flu and be laid up for a week in bed. Or, like me, you could go for your first bike ride in 2 months, sit for 4 hours, forget to stretch after a Pilates workout, and have your sartorius muscle tighten up on you, causing friction in your knee. Ok, maybe it wasn't totally random, but from all the articles I've been finding online, pes anserine pain is more common in athletes who participate in cutting sports or side-to-side activities, and runners with weak hips or poor shoes. Neither were may case, but it's possible my form was beginning to deteriorate slightly from all the mileage. Or... since this came after a down mileage/easy week, the sudden introduction of cycling into my training regimen and the lack of stretching after hours of shorting my hip-flexors had suddenly caused a huge hiccup in my running.

I have had pes anserinus problems In the past. Back then it was due to a tight hamstring muscles. I'd stretch, massage, and even get dry needled. The muscle would loosen up, time would pass, and I'd be back on my way down the road. This time, I decided to address the pain myself rather than running to massage for help. The pain was so slight and dull that I thought I could fix it quickly with some self massage on the foam roller, lots of stretching, and a few modifications to my training. I rolled and rolled, both on a tennis ball and with the foam roller. I regained a lot of flexibility in my hamstring. Yet still, I had pain on my easy runs. I did discover that when I ran fast intervals or when I ran uphill that I had no to very little pain. Hmmmm, perhaps this was not an issue with my hamstring after all. Now I began leaning towards quads.

On Saturday, 5 days after the onset of the pes pain, I got a massage from Kelly. He determined my knee pain was actually due to a tight sartorius muscle. He worked on it pretty aggressively up in the hip and even some directly on the tendons in the pes anseranus. I left his office thinking I had been magically cured once again.

Nope.

On Sunday, I went forward with the long run I had planned. 20mi easy- but subject to change if I had any pes pain. I wasn't going to be deviated if I needed to shorten the run a bit if my knee was a little tight. I had a race in a week and I didn't want to compromise my time by running too far the weekend before. I though perhaps even 14-16 was smarter if all things felt good.

Kevin and I drove to Champoeg Park that morning for an Autumn Leaves course simulation run. Kevin had an easy 23 miler on the docket and he didn't feel like running it all over our normal Salem routes. I don't blame him. But I was scared. What if I could not run for very long. I would be stuck at the car in Champoeg Park for 3 hours waiting for him to get done. Nothing like leaving that kind of lasting impression on the course that I was trying to break the women's record at. I was now determined to run as long as I could, so long as my knee allowed. As we pulled into the park, we noticed a huge lineup of cars also arriving. Here there was a half marathon going on that day. This was going to make our run a little more interesting, but we welcomed the company.

We parked in an nearly deserted parking lot away from the race start. The bathrooms were vacant and we prepped with some last minute fueling/clothing stripping. I took a deep inhale before we took off. I was very nervous that this was not going to go well. I was wrong. The first 2 miles were great. No pain at all! Normally after about a quarter mile into the run, I would feel the dull ache near my pes anserinus set in. THis time nothing. But then, after 2 miles both knees began to bother. I took this as a good sign. Each side hurt evenly. Kelly had worked on both sartoriuses so they were both going to be a little sore. I stopped after two miles to stretch as Kevin relieved himself in a bush. We resumed running and all was good. No pain at all on the right side. A slight tightness on the left, but not as bad as last week. Again, a Kelly miracle massage had worked!

We jumped onto the race route which hadn't started yet. The course was the same as Autumn Leaves. We crossed the wooden footbridge and began climbing a steady hill. My knee had been steadily growing tighter, but I was looking foward to this uphill climb because I knee it caused me no discomfort.

Not this time.

My knee began to hurt more running uphill. If it was any consolation, running downhill hurt about the same as uphill. We turned around at an intersection around mile 3.5 and headed back towards the car for water and a GU. My knee was really getting sore, so I stopped and did some stretches Kelly had taught me. They helped for the first few strides, but then the pain came back. My knee was now more sore than it had been all of last week before the massage. This was really not good.

While heading back to the car we ran into the race. Everyone cheered us on and told us good job as though we were the leaders, telling us good job. I began to get angry. Didn't anyone notice we were not wearing bibs? I was in so much pain and had to keep stopping and yet people would cheer for us. I wanted to just disappear. My life felt like it was crumbling down around me and here I felt like I was the center of attention. What a mistake to come to Champoeg on so many accounts. We finally got off the course and back to the car. As Kevin took a Gu, I streteched. We went to the bathroom and after about a 5min break, I decided to give it a go again. My knee felt fine walking and standing. It's as if nothing was wrong.

As we started out, everything felt good. I had a sudden burst of endorphins. Perhaps I had just tightened up again and need to stretch the muscle when it was warmer. That endorphin rush ended real quickly though. Just like before, after about a quarter mile, I got intense pain in my pes anserine area. It picked up just where it had left off, very painful. I pushed through for awhile and then said, "that's it." I stopped and walked back to the car. Kevin walked with me and tried to keep my spirits high by saying "It wasn't painful at at for the first two miles. I had got an aggressive massage directly on the tendons, and they were probably inflamed. I was only upset because I didn't get to run as far as 'I' wanted to, but I still got to run." I tried to believe what he was telling me, but I was so frustrated. How was it worse now? Hadn't the massage done anything to relieve the stress off my knee? Had my form, which I had worked so hard to perfect with Pilates and a slow mileage build up really gone to sh*tter in the last week? Had that one bike ride messed me up this much?

Kevin took off to finish his 23 mile run and I stayed at the car stretching. My knee pain had calmed down so I decided to do what Kelly always suggests when you can't run... I went for a walk. I walked for an hour pain free. Not the slightest twinge. Whenever I thought I was miraculously healed, I would try to jog a little and be in pain right away. As soon as I walked, nothing. Well, at least I knew it wasn't another plica ;).

I got back to the car and Kevin was still running, so I grabbed a blanket out of the trunk and sat down in the grass to stretch. I stretch for about a half an hour. I could tell the insertion of my sartorius into my hip was very sore and tight. I worked at the area for awhile until it completely loosened up. My knee was again feeling better, but decided not to test it again. Kevin finished his run and joined me on the blanket. He told me not to run for the next two days and then see how it feels. We determined that Kelly's massage directly on the inflamed pes anserinus really flared it up and it just needed time to calm down. I believed this theory on the surface, but deep down, I didn't know how this kind of pain would "calm down" in just a few days.

When Wednesday rolled around, I got another massage from Kelly. He did not massage directly on the tendons this time, but rather worked the sartorius, gracilis, and semitendinosus. My sartorius was still very tight, but everything else seemed to be in working order. After the massage he checked my flexibility and I had a much better range of motion in the sartorius with no pain at all in the knee. He suggested a test run in the evening that involved alternating one minute walking and one minute running. I was nervous to try it but went forth anyway since everything was feeling so much better.

I got home from work and changed into my running clothes. I was a nervous mess waiting for my Garmin to locate a satellite. What if this did not go well? Then what? Then were would that leave me? Finally my watch was ready and I headed out the door. The one minute of walking went great. The one minute of running hurt like h@#%. Right from the get-go I was very sore. I conintued with one minute of walking and tried to run again, thinking maybe I just needed to loosen up. Nope. Immediate intense pain. I turned around and walked back home. As any psychotic runner would do, I first blamed my shoes. When I got home I put on a different pair of shoes and headed out the door again. Same problem. Ok, it wasn't the shoes. I was devistated. I called Kelly and told him about the failed running attempt. He said something that would shatter my world,

"I think it might be a stress reaction."

I didn't hear much else after that. After I hung up, I began balling. I called Kevin and told him the news. For the first time, Kevin did not have all the answers. He didn't make any jokes. He didn't tell me everything was going to be fine tomorrow and just sleep on it. He was silent. I excused myself to make a doctor's appointment online to get a proper stress reaction diagnosis. I lucked out and my doctor had an opening Thursday morning. I then made a phone call to two of my girlfriends who wanted an update on how the test run went once I was done. My friend Liisa told me the one thing that really helped. I have climbed a ladder during my training. And I'm the highest on the ladder than I have ever been right now. Just because I step back down a few rungs for a bit, doesn't mean I start again back at the bottom of the ladder.

Thursday morning, I went to the doctor. He listen to my story and then had me do a series of basic diagnostic tests to rule out a meniscal tear or stress fracture. Walking like a duck didn't hurt. Jumping up and down on one leg didn't hurt. But basic walking was about a 2 on the scale of pain and running was a 9. He poked and prodded around the knee and found my patella was tracking correctly and I had no crepitis in the knee. He did notice quite a bit of swelling and localized pain on the pes anserine bursa. He diagnosed it as severe bursitis. He told me one of my options was getting a cortisone injection into the bursa. It would bring rapid relief to the pain and swelling and I could be running again in a few days. I immediately ruled this option out. I know enough to know that anytime you put a needle into a bursa that you have a higher risk of infection.

He believed with rest, cross training that did not bring on pain, and the use of a special homeopathic oil called "Pain Away" that I would be back running next week. Wow! Wouldn't that be great? If only I could believe it for myself. I went from being completely broken hearted to having faith again. Autumn Leaves was not out of the picture yet. I went home and began a strict regimen of icing, taking Ibuprofen, using pain away and arnica on my knee.

Nothing worked.

(to be continued...)

Toot! Toot!

So I'm not one to toot my own horn, but I've got to after this workout. Today I ran the last "hard" long run of my training for the Autumn Leaves 50K. Due to the 10 Miler road race at the end of September, I cannot run another hard long run and be recovered in time to hopefully PR in that race. My plan is to run two easy runs the next two weekends, one 15 miler and one 20 miler and then race a hard 10 miler, and the following weekend run an easy 28 miler to complete my training before my 3 week taper.

These past two week's I've felt like sh*t on my runs. Ever since the hilly 14 miler Kevin and I ran in Seattle three weeks ago, my quads have felt like crap. I spent much of the next two weeks on the trails to ease the pounding pressure on them, but that ended up messing up my arches and I've been dealing with the beginnings of plantar fasciitis. After a rough massage treatment from Kelly, I finally got my feet back under me literally. No more pain when running, but my legs felt sluggish and in a 10x800m repeat workout this past Thursday, my first interval was at 8min pace and my last was only at a 6:37 (to put it in perspective, I did the same workout the Tuesday after the Seattle run and nailed all 10 in a 6:30 pace, with only half the recovery between each).

Saturday evening, Kevin and I began prepping for our long runs. Kevin was planning to run 22 miles and I had 25 on the plate. My workout was something like: 14 mi progression from warm up down to gmp, 6mi fartlek of 1min hard (6:40-45)/1min easy (7:20-30), and finish the last 5mi @ ghmp, or the a.k.a. "Dathan Workout". I asked Kevin what he had planned and he also said the Dathan Workout. I asked him what his intervals were going to be, hoping perhaps we could run together for some of the run. He began rattling off something insane and I said, "that's not the Dathan Workout!" "Yes, it is. It's what you had me do back in 2008 when I was training for my 3 hour marathon." Sure enough he was right, and I realized I have modified the Dathan Workout over the years to accommodate the runners I coach. So I asked him to repeat the insanity again and told him, "Kevin, that's impossible!" "Yeah, I know! But it's what you had me do and it's what I'm going to try to do again." "I want to do it with you," I said. "Are you sure? Well, I guess you can always slow down if you need to." I took this comment as a challenge, but also a realistic compromise. I could attempt this thing, but if my body could not handle it, I could always just slow down.

The "real" Dathan Workout: 3mi warm up 
20min @ 7:30 
20min @ 7:00 
20min @ 6:45 
20min @ 6:30 
15min @ 7:00 
3min @ 7:20 
12min @ 6:55 
3min @ 7:15 
9min @ 6:50 
3min @ 7:10 
6min @ 6:45 
3min @ 7:00 
3min @ 6:30 or whatever's left in the tank 
2 mile cool down 

Sunday morning rolled around and Kevin and I drove to our normal parking spot one mile outside of Minto Brown Park in Salem. We warmed up 3mi @ 8ish min pace, which ended up feeling good (compared to my 9-10min pace warm ups lately). Then we started the workout. The first 20min felt easy, and so did the next 20min. The 3rd set started to burn and the 4th was brutal on the quads especially since we had been running a paved/trail combo, but we held 6:30's the whole time. We looped back to the car at the start of the 15min @ 7's and grabbed full water bottles for the second half of the workout. 7's felt easy and the 3min recovery was pedestrian. Then we went back and forth down the fartlek chain. It was hard to keep track of pace since I had my Garmin calculating average lap pace, but Kevin's Nike watch did a good job filling in the gaps so we didn't speed up or slow down too much. Finally on the 6min @ 6:45 pace we rounded back to the car one more time and my Garmin beeped at 22mi right as we finished the set. Kevin dropped out and decided his legs were fried. I was feeling great. I slowed my 3min recovery to a 7min pace and the blasted the last 3min as hard as I could. My watch showed and average of 6:40 on that mile, but if the first half was at 7min pace, I'm thinking the last 3min had to have been 6:15's or so. 

I didn't slow down too much on my 2 miles at the end and the thought briefly crossed my mind to run another 1.2 mi so I could get a marathon PR for the day. Kevin said his watched showed us at a half marathon PR of 1:28 and some change for the first 13.1mi. Anyway, I'm super pumped with how this workout went. I ran 25mi in a 7:05 pace average, making the run under 3 hours with a warm up and a cool down totaling 5 miles. Now I know I'm in 3 hour marathon shape and that was my goal going into this 50K. I need to just maintain at this point and stay healthy! My legs are very tired and my low back is really sore, possibly from my water-belt being strapped so tighly. Anyway, the plan is easy all week, with a short tempo on Thursday. Ahh, it feels so good to have that run behind me!

Link to today's workout: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/220869181

Running Scared

There's a lot of good that's been happening in my life lately. And when there's a lot of good happening, I start to get scared. First off... I'm engaged! My best friend Kevin finally dropped down to one knee and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him. I'm so excited (and anxious) for our new life to begin. Kevin has been there for me in some of my highest and lowest points, especially when it comes to running. He's listened to my every sob story, ever twinge, and every recap of a good workout and bad workout. He's cheered me on at many races and even sacrificed several of his own to pace me to a new PR. He took off of work during my knee surgery to take care of me as I recovered. He's celebrated all of my runner's highs and held me during all of my runner's lows. Oh, and I can't forget, he's my back up massage therapist. The poor boys hands are going to have carpel tunnel syndrome before he's 30!

Lately, Kevin's been listening to me worry about an injury I don't have yet. It's an injury that's out there just waiting to happen because I'm running so well right now. Even though I believe I am training smart, something random like a Plica, could happen at anytime. I believe this because it's happened before. No matter how careful I train, how much I rest, how often I change out my shoes, or how healthy I eat, something has always happened to sideline me from my goals. Kevin has listened to me every night since my first 5K PR in the All-Comer's Meet worry about some random, life threatening, career ending, flat on my back injury that's floating out there in the cosmic galaxy just waiting for the most unopportune moment to come barreling down to earth and hit me like a sack of rocks. Most of the time, Kevin just shakes his head and laughs at me. Once and awhile he'll agree with me, saying I've probably already got a stress fracture in my hamstring muscle and tendonitis in my fibula bone. Oh and most likely a bursae exploded in my plantar fascia. Yeah, let's just say he enjoys making up super random injuries as much as I dislike thinking up injuries I don't actually have yet.

Why Kevin puts up with my insanity, I will never know. Why I put myself through it, I may never know either. Yesterday on an easy 10 mile run, I spent the first 4 miles worrying about all the different types of injuries I could get if I was not careful. I spent so much time focused on this absurdity, that I hadn't even noticed that my legs were feeling great that I was running faster and longer than I had planned to. When I came back to reality, I shook myself out of my funk and decided to focus on the here and now, not the then and when. I had a great run and was able to savor the things I love most about running: the sweat dripping down my face, the sun on my shoulders, the feeling of the ground underneath my feet, the sound of my breath, and the effortlessness of the run. I wondered to myself, why can't I enjoy this feeling on every run? When I'm injured, this is the feeling that I miss the most and I long for. Yet, when I'm healthy, I do not permit myself to take pleasure in it.

So, with the help of my soon to be husband, and my own commitment to dealing with my internal struggles, I'm going to strive to live more in the moment. To live in the run. No more worry about tomorrow. No more concern about the what if's, the I can't's, and the woe is me's. I need to remember that each injury has made me stronger and smarter and if something does occur, that it's not the end of the world. There's always another race. I will come out of it strong and healthy like I have every time before. Ha, that reminds me of what my massage therapist Kelly Woodke just told me, "Wow, you always get so much stronger and faster after every injury. It would actually be a blessing if you got injured again, so you could be even faster!" Ha, ha. Well I don't want attempt to purposely get injured, but what a different take and more positive way to look at what I've been fearing the most.

Happy Running!

What's your secret?

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!

Pain

Pain comes in all forms. Quick like a lightening clap. A sharp stabbing jolt through your body. Pain can be dull and seethe in slow, digging deep into your bones and hurt like a faint pulse. Pain can wake you up in the middle of the night- make you shoot straight up out of bed with a gasp as though an intruder creeps in your midst. Yet, pain can keep you from ever falling a sleep in the first place. It keeps you tossing and turning until your eyelids finally give up trying. Pain can be visible as with a cut or a bruise. There can be swelling and redness. And sometimes, the swelling cannot be seen. It sits deep within your heart and makes your insides turn and twist. The worst kind of pain, is the pain you cannot express with words or even emotion. The pain that stays burred within your soul. The pain of losing a loved one or getting a grim diagnosis. The kind of pain that others do not understand. Many times, the visible pain can be healed with medication or bandages. A trip made to the doctor's office can decipher between bad pain and tolerable pain. The doctor can make much of the pain go away. Some of us athletes elate in pain. We punish ourselves in workouts and races just so we can feel pain and have our bodies natural pain killers kick in to give us a self medicated rush. But nobody asks for emotional pain. And yes, there are specialist you can see to help you talk though your pain, but really no one can understand what is going on inside of you and no one can take away those feelings. Its not until you come to terms with the situation and yourself that you can have relief from emotional pain.

(I found this draft on my blog recently and do not remember writing it. Sometimes when I get caught up in the moment of writing, I go somewhere else and do not return until the thought is gone.)