Well, after weeks and weeks of trying to avoid the inevitable I finally broke down and went to to the physical therapist last week. I know I should have done it sooner, but hopefully this will be the kick I need to get me back to running without pain. So what did I learn?
First off, my IT Band issue is not a one event injury. What happens is the band rubs on the side of the bone and gets frayed over time. Being white tissue, it just doesn't get the blood flow needed to repair itself. That also means that it takes longer to heal and most of the things I am doing now are to make sure it doesn't fray again.
Next, my physical therapist told me I have a WEAK BUTT!!! Runners have strong legs but the muscles in the hips and buttocks don't get worked with running. With weak glutes your hips flair out further with each stride, tightening the IT Band just at the moment it passes past the knob on the bottom of the femur. Stronger Butt = Less Hip Swing = Less Damage to the IT Band. How does that song go? "Leg bone's connected to the hip bone...."
Prescription? A kick in the REAR! Lots of exercises and stretches for the upper leg and hip. After my appointment with him this morning, I can hardly sit! He has me doing a daily routine that takes up to an hour to complete. I'm not allowed to run for another week but I think I'll be good for Salt Lake next month.
The other thing he has me doing is pinpoint icing my IT Band for 10 minutes 1-2 times a day. I always thought that it was just to prevent inflammation but my PT has told me it has the added benefit of inducing blood flow to the area. Remember how I said that the white tissue doesn't get enough blood flow to help in repair? Well, by making the area supper cold the body says, "HEY, we better send some blood to Sector 7 to warm it back up." That extra blood helps to repair the damaged tissue.
So, if any of you have a desire to start running, don't forget to cross train your butt and hips or risk long term damage to your knees!
Monday, March 23, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The Half Nelson It Is Then
Sorry. I don’t know why I feel the need to apologize. It is not like I didn’t give it a try. I gave it probably more of a try than I should have considering the injury and pain I have been dealing with. I guess I feel like I am letting some people down (including, and perhaps primarily, myself) and any time I think I may be disappointing someone, I feel the need to say sorry. The mind was willing but the body was not…
If you didn’t guess from that first paragraph or from the blog title, (either you haven’t been following my blog or you are really slow today) I’ve failed in my plan to prepare for and run the Salt Lake City Marathon on April 18th. During Saturday’s scheduled 14 mile run from my PLAN, I had to cut it short due to severe knee pain around mile 6. I slowed to an 11:30 pace and "crawled" home completing only 10 miles. Although some would be happy with that pace, and I would have loved to have run that pace at the end of last year’s marathon, the pain would have slowed me even further had I pushed out to 14 (let alone 26.2) miles.
So, as I stated in my last post, if I couldn’t follow that plan there really is no way I could properly prepare for a full marathon in just over a month from now. And considering the shape my knees are in, it would probably do more harm than good anyway.
So what does this mean? Today I officially signed up for the Half Marathon. I still won’t be gunning for my 1:40:18 PR at that distance but I am cautiously optimistic (not that my optimism has helped me of late…) that my knees will hold together for at least a 2 hour goal. I am still VERY EXCITED to visit my family and run in this event.
I also finally scheduled my visit to the Physical Therapist. After my doctor visit (and the drugs they gave me) the pain really went away. That, combined with a hectic work schedule, kept me from going to the PT that the doctor had referred me to. Well, this last Saturday was the last straw. My knees are recovering much more quickly following my runs now but I want to learn what I need to do to stop the in-run pain.
One last affirmation… Salt Lake City has not defeated me, my knees did. In the words of MacArthur "I shall return!" or Mr Schwarzenegger if you prefer "I’ll be back!" I hereby promise to run the full marathon in Salt Lake City someday.
If you didn’t guess from that first paragraph or from the blog title, (either you haven’t been following my blog or you are really slow today) I’ve failed in my plan to prepare for and run the Salt Lake City Marathon on April 18th. During Saturday’s scheduled 14 mile run from my PLAN, I had to cut it short due to severe knee pain around mile 6. I slowed to an 11:30 pace and "crawled" home completing only 10 miles. Although some would be happy with that pace, and I would have loved to have run that pace at the end of last year’s marathon, the pain would have slowed me even further had I pushed out to 14 (let alone 26.2) miles.
So, as I stated in my last post, if I couldn’t follow that plan there really is no way I could properly prepare for a full marathon in just over a month from now. And considering the shape my knees are in, it would probably do more harm than good anyway.
So what does this mean? Today I officially signed up for the Half Marathon. I still won’t be gunning for my 1:40:18 PR at that distance but I am cautiously optimistic (not that my optimism has helped me of late…) that my knees will hold together for at least a 2 hour goal. I am still VERY EXCITED to visit my family and run in this event.
I also finally scheduled my visit to the Physical Therapist. After my doctor visit (and the drugs they gave me) the pain really went away. That, combined with a hectic work schedule, kept me from going to the PT that the doctor had referred me to. Well, this last Saturday was the last straw. My knees are recovering much more quickly following my runs now but I want to learn what I need to do to stop the in-run pain.
One last affirmation… Salt Lake City has not defeated me, my knees did. In the words of MacArthur "I shall return!" or Mr Schwarzenegger if you prefer "I’ll be back!" I hereby promise to run the full marathon in Salt Lake City someday.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
My Plan, a Full Nelson
I think the few of you that read my blog are well aware of my challenges in preparing for a planned marathon in April. With the Kearny 9 mile run on February 21st, followed up with a successful 12 mile run on the 28th, I started to do the calculations. With 7 weeks until the Salt Lake Marathon I am asking myself if there is a logical path between where I am right now and the possibility of running a full marathon on April 18th. By "logical" I mean that there is a training plan that follows safe guidelines to prepare me for 26.2 miles that doesn’t take shortcuts which would open me up to even more injury. I think there is, but only one.
Every plan you look at has two basic elements of minimal training to realistically prepare for a marathon. One, you have to have run at least one run of at least 20 miles and Two, you should not increase weekly mileage by more than 10-15% week to week. Beyond those elements there are other things that are desirable but not as critical. Things like, you should be running at least 35 miles a week (and if you are doing 20 on one day, this is really not that hard!), you should aim for your long runs to be no more than 50% of your weekly miles, you should have a 2-3 week "taper" to allow your body to rest and repair training damage prior to race day. There are a million other things, but these are the elements I contemplated in my situation.
First, where am I right now? The last two weeks have been 18.5 and 22 miles respectively with the long runs I mentioned above, 9 & 12. I have been doing almost all of my weekday runs on a treadmill and not once over 4 miles. The miles on the treadmill are easier on my knees and I can do more of the proper stretching on a carpeted floor in a heated house than leaning up against a car at 5am in 40 degree weather. So, as much as I cringe at the treadmill training, I think it will be key to getting me to the Full Marathon.
So the key to my plan is the month of March! Each Saturday in March my long run will have to lengthen by 2 miles; 14, 16, 18, 20. If I can do that, I can then taper back down to race day in April; 16, 10, 26.2. If for any reason I fall off of that schedule, I think it would be unrealistic and dangerous to run the full marathon and I will step back down to train for a half-marathon which I am confident I would be able to complete that day. (Unless my knee completely blows up... then I walk the 5k… but that’s not going to happen, right?)
So here is the plan, you can follow my log on the right side of the page to see how I do each week but I will keep you posted on any significant deviation or development.
Week Ending......Long Run Length (miles)....Total Miles for Week
March 7....................................14.........................................25.5
March 14..................................16.........................................29.5
March 21..................................18.........................................34
March 28..................................20........................................39
April 4.......................................16.........................................34
April 11.....................................10.........................................24
April 18 ...................................26.2......................................34.2
The other element of my training that has had me thinking a lot lately is what to use as my motivation. I have almost always had the motivation of wanting to set a new personal record in any race I have run. The ONLY instance that I didn’t improve on my previous record at a race distance in the last 3 years was last years Peachtree Road Race on the 4th of July when I was running with 55,000 people and it was more for the experience than a PR. But I still ran a good time.
This time around I am not trying to kid myself into thinking I will improve my marathon time. I hope I do, and I will pace initially for a 4 hour marathon, but I would be shocked if this level of training and my patched together knees would allow me to finish there.
Last fall I found the fundraising I did for Diabetes Action to be very rewarding and provided a lot of strength and motivation over the final grueling miles of that run. I’m not doing another fundraiser at this point, one because I can only humble myself to ask for donations from friends and family only so often, and two because I have neither the time nor resources to put something like that together like I did last year.
So I asked myself, "Why am I running in Salt Lake when injury and lack of training would dictate perhaps putting it off?" It started off as something that would be fun to share with more of my brothers and sisters but that alone doesn’t get me over the hurdles I have been jumping. The biggest reason I can’t pull out now is that my two sisters would probably KILL me, but that gets me to Salt Lake, not through 26.2 miles.
I haven’t asked my sister if this was okay, but I hope she will forgive me. Last Saturday, on my long run, I had a kernel of an idea that sprouted into a full concept in a dream I had Sunday night. My nephew Nelson has been fighting more health issues during his 10 years of life than any human should face in a lifetime. He went into the hospital on Saturday, I’m sure that is why he was in my thoughts. The further I ran that day, the more the concept of completing the Full Marathon became a reality to me.
Every plan you look at has two basic elements of minimal training to realistically prepare for a marathon. One, you have to have run at least one run of at least 20 miles and Two, you should not increase weekly mileage by more than 10-15% week to week. Beyond those elements there are other things that are desirable but not as critical. Things like, you should be running at least 35 miles a week (and if you are doing 20 on one day, this is really not that hard!), you should aim for your long runs to be no more than 50% of your weekly miles, you should have a 2-3 week "taper" to allow your body to rest and repair training damage prior to race day. There are a million other things, but these are the elements I contemplated in my situation.
First, where am I right now? The last two weeks have been 18.5 and 22 miles respectively with the long runs I mentioned above, 9 & 12. I have been doing almost all of my weekday runs on a treadmill and not once over 4 miles. The miles on the treadmill are easier on my knees and I can do more of the proper stretching on a carpeted floor in a heated house than leaning up against a car at 5am in 40 degree weather. So, as much as I cringe at the treadmill training, I think it will be key to getting me to the Full Marathon.
So the key to my plan is the month of March! Each Saturday in March my long run will have to lengthen by 2 miles; 14, 16, 18, 20. If I can do that, I can then taper back down to race day in April; 16, 10, 26.2. If for any reason I fall off of that schedule, I think it would be unrealistic and dangerous to run the full marathon and I will step back down to train for a half-marathon which I am confident I would be able to complete that day. (Unless my knee completely blows up... then I walk the 5k… but that’s not going to happen, right?)
So here is the plan, you can follow my log on the right side of the page to see how I do each week but I will keep you posted on any significant deviation or development.
Week Ending......Long Run Length (miles)....Total Miles for Week
March 7....................................14.........................................25.5
March 14..................................16.........................................29.5
March 21..................................18.........................................34
March 28..................................20........................................39
April 4.......................................16.........................................34
April 11.....................................10.........................................24
April 18 ...................................26.2......................................34.2
The other element of my training that has had me thinking a lot lately is what to use as my motivation. I have almost always had the motivation of wanting to set a new personal record in any race I have run. The ONLY instance that I didn’t improve on my previous record at a race distance in the last 3 years was last years Peachtree Road Race on the 4th of July when I was running with 55,000 people and it was more for the experience than a PR. But I still ran a good time.
This time around I am not trying to kid myself into thinking I will improve my marathon time. I hope I do, and I will pace initially for a 4 hour marathon, but I would be shocked if this level of training and my patched together knees would allow me to finish there.
Last fall I found the fundraising I did for Diabetes Action to be very rewarding and provided a lot of strength and motivation over the final grueling miles of that run. I’m not doing another fundraiser at this point, one because I can only humble myself to ask for donations from friends and family only so often, and two because I have neither the time nor resources to put something like that together like I did last year.
So I asked myself, "Why am I running in Salt Lake when injury and lack of training would dictate perhaps putting it off?" It started off as something that would be fun to share with more of my brothers and sisters but that alone doesn’t get me over the hurdles I have been jumping. The biggest reason I can’t pull out now is that my two sisters would probably KILL me, but that gets me to Salt Lake, not through 26.2 miles.
I haven’t asked my sister if this was okay, but I hope she will forgive me. Last Saturday, on my long run, I had a kernel of an idea that sprouted into a full concept in a dream I had Sunday night. My nephew Nelson has been fighting more health issues during his 10 years of life than any human should face in a lifetime. He went into the hospital on Saturday, I’m sure that is why he was in my thoughts. The further I ran that day, the more the concept of completing the Full Marathon became a reality to me.
Forgive the terrible play on words here but I kept thinking things like, "Run the Full for Nelson" and other pun variations of the worlds most notorious wrestling headlock… "I can escape from a Full Nelson", "Life is a Full Nelson", you get the picture. Sunday night I dreamt that I ran the whole race wearing a shirt reading "Put me in a FULL NELSON!" with my nephew’s face on the front. If you have ever been put in a Full Nelson (as the youngest of 8 kids, trust me, I have) it can be suffocating, frustrating, and painful. The key to escaping this hold involves flexibility, relaxation, strength, and perhaps more than anything else, patience. What a great metaphor that is not only for my race, but life in general.
The more I have thought about it, the more right it feels. So, I hope my sister and brother-in-law don’t mind but I am dedicating this run to their son who has shown more flexibility, strength, and patience than most grown men have been asked to have. His relaxed, matter of fact demeanor that I have seen in him, belies the pain and struggle he has faced and overcome each time. I hope I have half his composure when I hit the wall somewhere near mile 23 (based on previous experience).
And what if I falter this month and can’t do the full marathon? Hey, a HALF Nelson is a wicked strong headlock as well!
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