Better, bit by bit

 It's been 9 days since I've run and my hip is slowly feeling better.  Still quite a bit of pain at the source but the areas around it have calmed down so at least now I have a bit more clarity what's going on.  I'm fairly convinced it's a tendon thing which unfortunately will probably take a long time to completely heal.

In the meantime I've been hitting the bike most every day.  The bike workouts continue to improve and I've been hitting relatively high intensities.  Also road my longest ride ever (1:37:00)... I know that's not a ton of time for a cyclist but I always struggle with fatigue and boredom around the hour point on a stationary bike (I've gone longer outside but that's a totally different effort for me).

Today I took a day off from biking and walked on the treadmill.  Wound up doing 1500 feet of incline in an hours walk and about 3.75 miles.  

Overall, nothing too interesting about my training, but I'm trying to stay active and heal as fast as I can.

The next big determination will be how to start running again.  Like I said I'm still in some pain, but I think that's going to last a while and I'm hoping I can start working in some easy running while I heal.  I had originally though December 1st, but now I'm thinking I'll give it a few more days just to be sure.  I've already done some run/walking with 4 to 5 minutes at a really slow pace (10 min miles).  It was manageable but I felt it a bit the next day.  At this point I'd rather take an extra day or two off than do too much too soon and wind up with a setback.

Adapting to the bike

 After a couple of lack luster maintenance efforts on the bike I finally got a solid effort in today.

1 hour and 3 minutes at ~20 MPH (11.22 Cal/Minute).

I followed that up with another 40 minutes of walking on the treadmill on a 5% incline.  I'm almost back to walking normally and can jog for a few steps.  My running form is not at all right but a couple days ago my leg muscle wouldn't even fire to run a single step so that's improvement.  Still in quite a bit of pain though and don't think I'll be running again for at least a little while.   

So if I'm going to be stuck on the bike I'm going to have to step up my game.  Getting in an hour of solid effort was a good start but it's hard to make up for running with biking. I'm going to have to up duration and intensity here if I want to maintain and build fitness...  looking to start adding some HIIT sessions fairly quickly.

Less hurt than yesterday

 Still gimping around but I feel better than yesterday and I can walk a bit more normal.  

I got another 39 minutes in on the bike today and then walked on the treadmill for 41 minutes at a 5% incline.  If you question my random times on these exercises it's mostly attributable to me extending the workouts to hit arbitrary metrics (400 calories burned, 500 feet climbed, 2.5 miles walked)... figure every extra minute helps.  Need to get some longer sessions in on the bike, but trying to ease into it and not do any additional damage to the hip.

Unlike last time I was injured, I don't feel that there is an overtraining component.  I might have gone a little too hard to soon but I'm not burned out.  I'm also not freaking out about not being able to run at least not for now.  I'm just going to bike a bunch and hopefully build fitness.  Maybe I'll even start to do that weight work I've been meaning to do once my hip allows it.

Staying positive for now...  we'll see what happens.

Turkey Trot 2021 Race Report

 When you schedule a race for late November in central Illinois you’re rolling the dice on the weather.  Luckily for me, Sunday turned out to be a beautiful Sunday for the 50^th annual Peoria Turkey trot!   55 degrees and full sun = shorts and a tee-shirt running weather.

Since the race started at 1pm, I was able to convince the whole family to tag along and cheer me on.  After I got there I was also able to convince Nori to do the fun run (Maya and Kenna were not feelin it).  I snuck in a mile warm up before the fun run began.  Nori was able to come in 2^nd in the fun run (out of 2), but put on a good effort and ran most of the way on the ~1/2 mile course.  Most importantly she had fun!

My race started soon after the fun run finished, so I booked it over to the start line.  I was nursing a sore hip and knew I really shouldn’t be running but I’d been waiting for this race since 2019 when I came in 3^rd in my age group (top 2 in each age group get a free turkey) and was itching for redemption.  I had run 4 miles on Saturday and it felt okay so I hoped my hip would hold up. 

I lined up in the front and with the sound of an air horn we were off.  I tucked in behind the front pack of over-eager racers for the first ¼ mile.  After that a lone male runner broke away and I followed suit (winding up ~20 feet behind him).  At the ½ mile point the race includes a steep climb.  I followed along in 2^nd place for the next mile over a winding, slightly rolling climb, to the top of Detwieller hill. 

The hill is broken up with several downhill sections.  I was able to keep pace with my competition on the first climb.  I was really pushing the effort the whole climb but it was manageable.  I just focused on smooth, short, steady strides.  By the 2^nd steep climb I started gaining some ground and the guy ahead of me even started walking for a few steps.  I weighed pushing it to make up some more ground but decided to keep it steady. 

At the 1.5 mile point the course flattens out a bit as the road comes around to an intersection before hitting one last short climb before a long descent.  Although my HR was in the mid-170s for most of the climb I actually felt alright.  I pushed it a bit on that final climb and started gaining some more ground.

The next ½ mile was steep downhill and that’s when the problems started.  I could feel my hip throbbing a bit on the climb but it was manageable.  Then the downhill section totally blew my hip up.  I didn’t feel there was much I could do but just let the hill carry me down, but the pounding took its toll.  I tried to run tangents and even hopped onto the grassy shoulder for a bit to reduce the loading but nothing really helped.  By the bottom of the hill I was in a lot of pain and when we finally reached the flats I was basically limping. 

With almost 1.5 miles left, I briefly considered dropping out but I was in 2^nd place and there wasn’t another runner in sight behind me, plus I didn't want my kids to see a quitter.  I decided I’d power through and deal with the aftermath later.  For the rest of the run I didn’t really have the ability to race anymore.  The 1^st place runner pulled way ahead and wound up pretty much out of sight.  I just chugged along as fast as my injury would allow and tried to keep my stride normal and avoided limping as much as possible.  It hurt on every step but I knew I didn’t have too far to go. 

The last mile is on grass along the Illinois high school state cross country course.  It’s pretty much a flat open field so I could see behind me and no one was close.  I was able to maintain about a 7:15 pace and my HR dropped back into the 160s.  I didn’t feel like I was running that hard but my leg wouldn’t let me run any faster.  I just tried to go as fast as I could sometimes even focusing on powering off my good leg as I hobbled along.

Mercifully, I finally came to the finish and was able to stop.  I was hoping my kids would at least been around to cheer me in but they were screwing around in the car and missed the finish by about 5 minutes L.   None the less, my daughter Maya was still very excited and proud of her father for getting 2^nd place overall so I suppose it all worked out okay in the end, for all intents and purposes.  Plus it was a good opportunity to get everyone out of the house to enjoy the nice weather.

We stuck around for the next half hour waiting for everyone to finish and the award ceremony to start.  I wasn’t able to cool down because once I stopped running the leg completely tightened up to the point that running even another step was out of the question.  2^nd Overall came with an oversize turkey trophy and a coupon for a free Turkey (up to 15 lbs and/or $25).   We stopped by the grocery store on the way home and claimed said turkey.  It’s sitting in fridge thawing for the smoker.

I was happy with the result and beat my previous time by about 30 seconds.  I was disappointed that I was hurt and couldn't compete for first place.  I was in pretty good position with 1.5 to go and on flat terrain.  I don't know if I could have won but it would have been nice to at least compete for it.  Jogging in to a far off 2nd place was sort of anti-climactic.  Oh well, I guess I have something to shoot for next time.

_______________________________________________________________________

Today, my hip is not in very good shape.  I’m pretty much limping around even when walking, although once I start walking it loosens up some and the limp gets less pronounced.  I was able to ride the bike for 45 minutes this morning.  I wouldn’t say that biking was exactly pain free but it didn’t really seem that it was making it worse and if I got into the correct alignment it was okay.  I also walked on the treadmill for 2 miles after that to get some of my steps in.  This was also manageable, although occasionally I’d take a wrong step and my leg would nearly buckle.

Looks like I’m biking for a bit, which I’m mostly okay with… I knew the risk when I raced and decided to go ahead with it anyway.  I’m hoping a week off will be enough to get me running a bit again but it’s hard to tell… right now it feels more tender and swollen than actually damaged so I’m hoping it amounts to a bad bruise rather than something more nefarious. 

Taking it easy

 Took Thursday completely off from real exercise and opted to walk on the treadmill.  My hip still hurt but not as bad as on Wednesday.

Today (Friday) I ran/walked on the treadmill for 5 miles over an hour.  I started out walking but then threw in a couple minutes of running at 8:50 pace and it felt okay.  Sprinkled in a bit more running at 8:50 pace doing .25 miles, then 1/2 mile, then 1 mile.  Took walk break in between.  Ended with 5 minutes of running at 7:30 pace.  I can still feel the hip but it's definitely better.  These brief efforts didn't really hurt and I don't feel much worse for the wear later in the day either.

Maybe some light running outside tomorrow and hopefully it's good enough to race on by Sunday (and hopefully racing on it doesn't screw it back up).

Workout Wednesday, hurt Thursday

 I got my first workout in yesterday.  It was actually 60 degrees out so I ran outside in the semi-dark (local town Facebook haters be damned).  

2 mile warm up, then 15 minutes at threshold, then 4 minutes easy, then 12 at threshold.  7:55, 7:40 for the warm up miles.  6:40 pace for the 1st threshold (~2.25 miles).  8:00 pace for the 4 minutes.  Then 6:50 pace for the 2nd threshold (1.75 miles).  The 8 minutes for the last bit home.

Ended with 7 miles at an average of 7:13 pace.  The 6:40 pace was hard but sustainable for the 1st threshold.  I was glad when 15 minutes was up though.  The 6:50 pace was a little slower than I would have liked.  I probably needed to take the 4 minutes much easier in retrospect to recover a bit more.  Not sure how much it would have made a difference though.

My left hip really started hurting on 2nd threshold session... of course I ran through it.  Felt/feels like a nerve or bursitis or something.  I definitely aggravated it because it really bothered me for the rest of the day.  It's still hurting today as well but feeling a little better.  It's probably caused by impact from running hills on Saturday and maybe the damn marathon too... and of course I'm racing that same hill in a few days.  

I hope if I just take it easy until Sunday it will recover.  I took today off (only walking) and will maybe just bike tomorrow and maybe even Saturday.

My fitness level is weird right now, between the marathon and then recovering and then having a cold and now my hip I'm not quite sure where I'm at.  I wouldn't have thought that 6:40 pace would feel as hard as it did but then again that's still pretty fast.  

I'm chomping at the bit for my next stage of training so hopefully this hip thing is short lived.  If I was smart I wouldn't race on Sunday but I'm pretty set on it.  

Week 1

With 12 weeks until my target half-marathon, training starts today. 

For the first time in forever I'm actually going to attempt to follow a plan.

Today, I was supposed to run a prescribed 9 miles of general aerobic.  I wound up running 8 which is pretty close and at least meets the general intent.  I'm still a bit beat up from running on Detwieller hill on Saturday and following that up with 12 miles in a 22 mph wind on Sunday... not sure if I'm beat up because I'm still rounding back into shape or because I'm not adapted to running up and down a really steep hill.  It was damn good work either way and I really need to do that more often.

so anyway, 8 treadmill miles on beat up legs.  1:04:33 and a 8:04 average pace.  I picked up the pace as the run progressed and varied the incline between 0 and 1.5.  0 incline felt like it beat me up the worst to be honest.  I'm getting more and more comfortable on the treadmill but I'm also quickly running out of streaming content.  Gonna need to find some more shows and movies to watch since it's going to be a long winter.

Also, day 1 and I'm already deviating off plan... probably not a good sign.  Then I'm running a race on Sunday that will put me even more off plan...  I'm really not sure if I can handle following a plan but I'll at least use it as a guide line.

And speaking of plans... I posted an update on my 2021 goals for a while.

1. 10000 push ups:  currently at 8865, on pace for 10111.  These are so easy that I just never remember to do them.  Then I'll do a couple hundred over several days and catch up.  I either need a more aggressive goal to keep me honest or I need to come up with an actual routine instead of just cramming them in in the 5 free minutes I don't have between getting ready for work and driving to work.

2. 10000 pull-ups:  currently at 8783, on pace for 10018.  getting in an average of 28 pull ups a day is hard enough that I need to be pretty consistent.  Sometimes I fall behind and then am forced to do 50 or 60 a day for a week to catch up but super-compensation and rest is a real thing so I don't think I'm hurting myself with this technique.  

3.  26 hours on the bike.  currently at 25:38.  22 minutes to go.  Literally ready to coast this one in.  Plan to close this one out on Monday.

 

That's about it at this point.  My 12500 steps a day streak is at 1242 days.  I'm at 2146 miles on the year (on pace for ~2450).  I've met most of my racing goals (except I haven't run a half marathon).

With the year winding down I'm starting to consider my goals for next year.  Thinking the myrtl routine and some burpees may be involved.  Also, I'm hoping that next year will be the year I really go for the marathon.  Should be okay, as long as I stay healthy.

Workout Wednesday

Treadmill progression workout today starting at 7 mph and advancing by .1 mph every 1/4 mile until I got to 9.5 mph (6:18 pace) which I held for 3/4 of a mile.  I was working pretty hard by the end with the last 3 miles being at a sub 7 pace but maintaining this pace on a treadmill is a lot easier than doing it on the roads. 

mile 1    mile 2      mile 3     mile 4     mile 5   mile 6   mile 7 

(7-7.3)  (7.4-7.7) (7.8-8.1) (8.2-8.5) (8.6-8.9) (9-9.3) (9.4-9.5)

Also of note in my recent training:  3.13 miles in 20 minutes last Saturday.  20 minute tempo that wound up being just about a 5K.  6:31, 6:20, 6:20 splits.  The last mile really hurt but this was my first workout since the marathon so partly attributable to getting back into the flow.  

Sunday, LSD 12 miles at 8:30 pace.  Didn't feel like going much faster after Saturday, but this was a really easy run.  

I'm starting to get my legs back under me and am excited to build up to my next challenges.  Short-term I'm trying to prep a bit for a Turkey Trot in 11 days but my real focus is on a half marathon in February.   3 months is about perfect for a build up.   

My key for this build up is going to be these briefer 20-30 minute workouts.  I think I can recover fairly quickly from this type of work so should be able to do more of them without wearing myself down.  I really enjoy the longer steady-state runs but they are sometimes hard for me to recover from.  I'm sure I'll wind up doing one or two of these but will primarily keep the efforts more concentrated.  

One thing for sure, I really feel good after today's work.  I'm tired but also invigorated.  

 

Throwing up bricks

 33 minutes on the bike this morning followed by 30 minutes on the treadmill (3.77 miles).  Always a bit curious if there is any benefit to this type of workout vs just running for an hour instead.  I could understand if I was running triathlons but no plans for that in the immediate future.  At least I got an hour of aerobic work in and saved a bit of pounding from my legs. 

Hope to get outside and hit some hills this weekend.

Better than last year

6 miles into today's 7 miler on the treadmill I officially breached last years mileage total.  I am now at 2069.75 miles on the year (versus last years 2068.36).   Average pace of 7:54 (versus last years 7:58).

I've gotten into my groove on the treadmill which each run feeling more and more natural.  

I did a about 3 minutes of 8% grade at a 7:40 pace... that was enough of that.  Did another mile at 7:19 pace.  Mostly kept the grade between 0 and 1 and the pace between 8:30 and 7:40.

Averaged 7:50 pace for todays 7 miles.  Really was just having fun with it for the most part.

Was considering getting an actual workout in this week but I think I'll just keep it steady, sneaking in a few quick jaunts of speed or grade and then push it a bit more next week.

Almost back

 Took a look back at last years training and saw that I took about a 9 weeks "break" in September where I gravitated between 20 and 30 miles a week finally dropping down to 14 in week 9.  Then 2 more weeks at 35 miles and 37 miles to get back into the 40s and then a few more weeks in the 40s to build back to a 50 MPW in December.

This year I've had 4 weeks down and 1 of those weeks was pre-marathon taper.  Then 3 weeks post marathon recover at under 15 MPW average.  As of now, I'm feeling just about fully recovered and am itching to get back to training.

I kicked the comeback off this weekend starting with 6.25 on the treadmill on Friday at 8:10 pace, Then 6.25 on the road Saturday at 7:40 pace.  This was pushing it a bit but not too hard.  I charged the hills and did 4 strides in the baseball field at the beginning of mile 6.   Then I went all in on Sunday and ran my first long run since the marathon.   

12.01 miles 
1:35:22
7:56 pace

I was tuckering out by the end but overall it felt pretty darn good.  HR was in the 140s.  I think in a week or two I'll be totally back to normal.  

Today I did 36 minutes on the bike but actually pushed it pretty hard and then did 24 minutes walking on the treadmill on a 5% grade at 4 MPH.   I really just felt motivated and energized.  

I ended October with 126 miles, which was my lowest mileage since last October but still higher than 3 of my lowest months in 2020.  Hope to be pushing closer to 200 in November but we'll see.  Plan to build a bit on my way back to 50 MPW for the next few weeks.  Judging by how the 12 miler felt, it should be to bad.

Also, I've been meaning to do this for a while but I did the Myrtle routine Saturday and Sunday before my run and it felt pretty good.  I could feel it in my hips but in a good way instead of the usual bad way.  Going to try to start doing this every day before I run and see if my hips start feeling better. 

2021 Goals Update

With 2 months left in the year its time for a goals update:

1. 10,000 pushups:  8465 pushups and on pace for 10130.  Knocked out 2 sets of 60 this morning in fact.  I'm tempted to just bulldog this goal and hit the mark in the next few weeks so I can stop worrying about it.  Pushups are easy for me but I think they are valuable for my core.

2. 7500 10,000 pulls ups: 8285 and on pace for 9914.  Travelling got me off routine again and I slacked a couple days after.  I'm back underwater on these again but just barely.   I did 76 this morning to catch back up a bit.  I'll hopefully be back on pace by the end of the week.  The closer I stay to my goal as the year comes to an end, the easier it'll be to sprint to the finish... I'm sure I could do 300 pull ups over a weekend if I really had to but hopefully I won't have to.

3. 26 Hours on the Bike:  Hit the bike again today and now am at 23:44.  I really like hitting the bike for these 30-40 minute sessions.  Not sure about multi-hour sessions unless I got hurt or something.  I was doing hour long sessions last year but they seemed to tire me out the next day for running.  I'd really like to cross-train more but don't want it to effect my workouts.  I'd toy around with using the bike to get easy 30 minute recovery efforts in as doubles on workout days.  That's an idea for 2022 anyhow.

4. 2021 miles:  I'm at 2055 for the year.  13 miles away from last years total with 2 months to go.  2nd year with 2000+ miles.  Currently on pace for 2459.   2500 would be a good stretch goal but that seems unlikely at this point.  2400 is way more likely.  The main thing is to not force anything.  The purpose of the goal is a boost of motivation to get out there most everyday but the actual miles I run depend on how I'm feeling.

5. 12500 steps a day:  Currently at 1226 days in a row.