Getting Back On Track

The post-marathon soreness in my legs was virtually gone by Thursday morning - I'm sure the massage helped tremendously!!! So Friday morning I headed out for a morning run. I wanted to get a few miles in before my chiro appointment to see if my hamstring issue flared up again.

It was still dark outside at 6am when I left the house Friday morning. Hey...wasn't changing the clocks supposed to help with this morning darkness thing??? Also, it seemed really cold. I found out later it was only 37 degrees - so my choice of a long-sleeve NikePro crew (which retains heat) may have been a bit too much...but it sure made the first mile a bit more bearable.

I headed out on a route that I could make 2 miles or more - depending when I re-entered the community. It's a bit hillier than my normal route, but I didn't want to go 4.5 miles - just in case the pain came back. Luckily, the hamstring didn't bother me.

I ran 2.5 miles - at a 10:42/mile pace. Nice and easy.

I did not run this morning - I think another day of rest is probably a good thing right now. However, resting didn't mean that I sat on my behind all day. This afternoon, I took my 7 year old to Seneca Creek Park for a little hiking. We hiked all the way around Clopper Lake. It was about 4 miles of walking for the two of us. My son did start to complain about 3/4 of the way around the lake, but otherwise he was a real trooper.

At the very end of the hike, we started to hear a sound that was like a hyena or monkey, however, we realized it was coming from the sky. We stopped and looked up and saw a bird stop at a nearby tree. When we got a better look at it, we saw it was a woodpecker! The bird stopped "laughing", pecked the tree once and then entered a hole in the tree. It was really cool. A little bit after that we started to see lots of deer. Seeing all of the wildlife definitely took my son's mind off of the fact that we had just walked 4 miles.

I'm planning to go for another run tomorrow morning - hopefully in the 5-6 mile range. We'll see how that goes and then decide on next week's plans for running...

Massage Therapy!

I don't have time to do the full race report blog post yet, it will come soon...

I have been spending a good amount of time getting back to "normal". I went to the chiro on Monday evening to get adjustments (i.e. back cracking) and to have electro-stim and massage on my right calf / lower hamstring. Yesterday, I had to lead Israeli Dancing in the evening...it was good to move around, but I did not over do it. I also iced my quads a bit as they were still feeling very sore.

By this morning I felt almost 100% - no more wincing while going up and down the stairs, although there was still some soreness in my quads. I had an appointment for a massage which I was totally looking forward to. Except, I forgot that my massage therapist really gets into those tight muscles - which can be more painful in the moment than the soreness I have been experiencing for the past few days.

The massage therapist started with my neck and shoulders for about 5 minutes, and then spent the rest of the hour on my legs. Quads, shins, feet, calves and hamstrings. There was so much going on in the major muscle groups there, that she almost forgot about the little muscle in the back of my right knee - in between the calf and hamstring - which was one of the main reasons I was there in the first place!

I reminded her about it, and she started to dig in...OWWWWW! Perhaps I should have just kept my mouth shut...

The massage therapist has a theory about what happened on Sunday - and during last year's marathon. She noticed that my psoas muscles are really tight and that my right leg is twisted/tilted inward just a tad. She's thinking that the muscles in my right leg that were in pain are probably working extra hard normally to make up for this deficiency - and when I decide to go out and run 26 miles, the muscles are in overload which causes the pain that I'm experiencing. This theory seems to jive with the pelvic instability issue that I was told at the Stride Clinic earlier in the year.

I'll review this assessment with the chiro later this week and see if he agrees. If so, I think I may have a new set of objectives and goals forming right before my eyes...

Back Pain :-(

I went out for a 5 mile run this morning - 5:30am and all is dark. It was a cool and comfortable morning, but I felt a bit tight trying to start up.

At around mile 3 or so, I felt a twinge in my mid-back on the left side. Sometimes this will happen and then go away, but this one stayed...and it continued to get worse.

I made a chiro appointment at lunch today - ends up the muscles between the last two ribs had "locked up". After some cracking, massaging and electro stim, it's still hurting me - especially when I do any type of twisting action. The chiro told me to ice it this evening and by tomorrow it should feel better.

I hope so, since tomorrow I'll be on a bus for 4-5 hours on my way to New York! And tomorrow evening is a group run in Central Park with Team Run To Remember!!!

Another Chiro Visit

Weirdest thing - I was playing around with my kids last night and all of a sudden my foot started to hurt whenever I put pressure on it.  I tried massaging and stretching the foot, but to no avail.  I popped a Vitamin I before going to bed hoping that it would do the trick.

This morning my foot felt a little better - but not well enough to lace up my running shoes.  (Actually, I also have that feeling that I'm on the verge of catching a cold - so I'm not about to go and run in 18 degree weather).

I went in to the chiro's office.  He did put the electro-stim thingy on the top of my foot (some tendon there?) and after that he went to do his adjustments.  He was trying to release (I think that's chiro speak for "crack") my talus bone.  It took him about 5 attempts but he finally got it.  And I believe that by tomorrow, this foot pain will be gone.  Gotta love the chiro...

And since the weather is supposed to warm up a bit, I may be able to go out for a run :-)

Chiro Visit and Busy Work Week

After yesterday morning's back pain, I was in desperate need of my chiro. His posted hours started at 11am, and I was supposed to be in Columbia, MD for work. I called his office, he answered (he was in the office doing paperwork) and he took me early. He did a bunch of trigger point work, "adjustments" (can you say back cracking!), pulling, prodding, icing and electro-stim work. I felt 1,000 times better! HOORAY!

He gave me some stretching exercises to "open up the joint" (apparently the joint was pinching a nerve or something like that). I'll need to hit the Chiro's office one more time this week - no biggie. I was able to sleep last night and run this morning!

Which brings me to this morning. I need to be in Sterling, VA for work today. The weather forecast called for freezing rain (which really did not happen) - so I planned to wake up early, drive to the Fitness First in Reston, VA before the traffic got too bad, and run before getting to the customer site. I was on a tredmill by 7am and did my Pyramid Intervals workout - and threw in an additional 1/4 mile interval at the end. All intervals were done at 7.5 mph (8 min mile pace). 5.5 miles, 52:52 - 9:37/mile pace.

Off to the customer site I go!!!!

Back Pain = Up At 3am

Last night I started doing some push-ups in front of the MNF football game. I had decided to stop the Hundred Push-Up Challenge for a few weeks - but continue to do five sets of 25 push-ups three days a week. After a few weeks, I'd hop back into the challenge - hopefully ready to attack Week 5 (I've done Weeks 3 and 4 three times now!).

At the end of my first set of 25 I was starting to tire out and I pushed myself to get those 24th and 25th push-ups in. However, I think I may have pulled a muscle in my back - just below my left shoulder blade. I started to feel some pain, but didn't think much of it. I tried doing another set of push ups and got to 20, but had to stop.

There was still a bit of pain when I got into bed, but I was able to fall asleep. However, I woke up at 3am and the left side of my back was killing me! I got up to pop some Ibuprofen and tried to get in a comfortable spot in bed. Nothing was comfortable.

I had considered trying to go for a run since I knew I wasn't going to fall back to sleep. Either I would go out then, or leave the house at 4:45am to be at the gym when it opens at 5am. I got out of bed and started to pump my arms back and forth like I do when I'm running, just to see if I could do it. No go. Too painful.

Finally around 4am I went downstairs and got a bag of frozen carrots out of the freezer and laid on that for about 15 min. That seemed to help a bit. However, I knew I wasn't going to be able to just fall back asleep - I grabbed my iPod and dialed up some mellow music (James Taylor, Cat Stevens and Dido) and laid back in bed. I dozed in and out of sleep until 6:30am when the "morning madness" of the Fox household begins.

So no run for me this morning. I actually was supposed to head out to Columbia, MD early this morning - instead I'm going to wait to see the chiro and then head out to the customer site.

Semi-Scheduled Rest Day

I did not run today.  I'm scheduled to run either today or tomorrow, so I decided on tomorrow.  Two big factors contributed - I stayed up waaaaaay too late last night watching the MLB All-Star Game (I watched through the 11th inning - I can't believe it went to 15 innings!  and hooray for Michael Young for hitting the game winning RBI for the second time in three years!), and I'm still hurting from yesterday's massage.

Good news on the massage front, though.  I had a chiro appointment today and although I'm really sore, the chiro mentioned that the muscles in back of my leg are much looser than before.  So the massage therapist definitely did her job well!

I had hit a lull at work this morning around 10am, and I was considering going for the run that I could have done earlier in the morning.  However, then I stepped outside and realized it was already really hot and humid...no way I'm running in that if I don't have to.  I'd rather wake up at 5:00am tomorrow.

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I finally posted some marathon pictures on my family website.  I actually have finally updated the family website - the last pictures that were on there were from January...now I'm "current" through May.  I still have my son's sixth birthday party and our trip to Michigan for June pages and then I'll really be caught up.  I don't think I'm going to do those tonight, though.  I have to wake up at 5:00am tomorrow to run, remember???

Speedwork - Short Strides

Today was a speed workout of what the training plan I'm using is calling "Short Strides". This plan says to run these short intervals (today was 6 x 50m) at "near max speed". So I ran to the QOHS track this morning, and did six sets of 50m sprints with a 2 minute jogging rest between intervals (RBI).

One small problem - my calf/hamstring tendon issue started to flare up again. It started to get worse on the jog back home (it's about 1.7 miles from my house to the track), so I ended up walking the last half mile or so.

Luckily, I had a chiro appointment set up for this morning. And a rest day on the calendar for tomorrow.

Rest Day and Olympic Trials

Today was a scheduled rest day since I ran the 5K yesterday.  Also, my chiropractor told me to take it easy for the next week or so - I was originally hoping to run long tomorrow, but I'll either do a short run or cross-training at the gym (rower or elliptical).

This morning - since I wasn't out for a run - I watched the Olympic Track and Field Trials from the night before (you gotta love DVR!  What did we ever do beforehand?).  It still amazes me how much I am getting into the longer distance races - where years ago I never paid attention to them and I only watched the sprint events.  It also amazes me how fast the elite runners finish these races - 5Ks in 14-15 minutes / 10Ks in less than 30 minutes - it takes me twice as long to finish races at those distances.  They are truly unbelievable.

Watching the trials, I am getting so psyched for the Olympics!  I can't wait!!!

Best of Both Worlds

No...it's not a post about Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana :-)

For this morning's 5K, I decided to run with my sister.  It was very nice to hang out with her since when we see each other lately it is usually with the kids (she has two daughters - a 3 year old and a 9 month old).  We started out at a nice 10:30/mile pace.  The weather was in the mid-70s and about 75% humidity, so it was definitely enough to break a sweat - but not get too tired out.

At about the halfway point to the race, my sister wanted to slow down a bit and told me just to go run.  So, that's what I did!  I probably did the rest of the race in a sub-9:00/mile pace to cross the finish line at 29:42 (watch time...it took us a good two and a half minutes at the beginning to cross the starting line).

So, today I got the best of both - I did half of the run with my sister and the other half at more of a race pace.

The best thing - NO HAMSTRING PAIN.  NONE AT ALL.  NADA.  שום דבר

It's amazing.  After 8 weeks of resting, icing, stretching, taking Ibuprofen, etc. for my injured hamstring the thing that worked was a trip to the chiropractor.  Lesson learned.

Yoga Yesterday and 4 Miles In The

As planned, I took a rest day from running yesterday and did Yoga in the evening once the kids were asleep.  Sherry joined me in Yoga, which was really nice.  She is much more flexible than I am and has taken a lot of Yoga classes throughout the years, so I got her help - she brought me a foam brick that she had which helped me do some of the stretches that I could not do properly since I'm not very flexible.  She wasn't such a fan of the Inhale show from the Oxygen network that I have been doing - in the first 40 min of the program there is a lot of doing "upward-facing dog" pose transitioning quickly to "downward-facing dog" pose - there was no "child's pose" which is a resting pose in these segments which is a really nice stretch and makes it a bit more relaxing.  However, the last 20 min or so were seated poses and relaxation - which was very nice.  We both slept very well last night!

After Yoga, I watched the previous night's Olympic Track and Field trials on my DVR - specifically the Women's 5K Semifinals and the Men's 5K Finals.  What amazing races!  I'm a bit disappointed that Adam Goucher did not make the Olympic team for the 5K (keeping fingers crossed that he'll make it for the 10K), but I was psyched to see his wife Kara Goucher win her Semifinal heat for the 5K just two days after making the Olympic team for the 10K.  Watching these elites run is very humbling.  They finished their 5K races in under 15 minutes - I'll most likely finish the 5K I'm going to run this weekend in twice that time!

This morning I went for another easy run.  I didn't get out of the house until 6:30 (see yoga above...I slept like a rock!), but the weather was beautiful - clear skies, temps in the low 60s, very low humidity.  It was a lovely morning for a run!  And would you believe it - virtually NO DISCOMFORT IN MY HAMSTRING!!!!!  My Chiropractor is a genius!

OK - I did say virtually.  I had some pain behind my knee, but instead of the pain going up to my hammy, I had some pain in my upper calf muscle.  So either the pain is moving down my leg, or (and this is probably the case) I stretched something in my right calf too much last night doing yoga.  But the good news is that after 8 weeks of having hamstring discomfort, there is some improvement.  Hallelujah!  Score another one for the chiro!

Trying To Get Back On Track

This morning I got out of the house at 6:15am and ran my 4 mile neighborhood loop.  It was cooler than normal - we got some rain last night which helped - but still on the humid side.  I think I'll need to get out a bit earlier if I want to run in more comfortable conditions, but since I'm not training for anything right now I don't see the point in setting an alarm to go running.

My hammy still had discomfort.  GRRRRRRR!   So today I went to see my Chiropractor (OK...my neck and shoulders needed the Chiro as well after the 11 hour drive each way to Michigan!).  He basically told me the same thing that the sports doc did - the injury is where the muscle meets the tendon.  He did some electro-stim and trigger point work to get the blood flowing in that area.  The back of my leg felt better this afternoon than it had for a while, so I think he's on to something.  He wants me to come 3 times this week and 3 times next week to "attack" this area - I'm ready to try anything to get rid of this discomfort/pain!  If the chiro doesn't work, I'll hit the physical therapy center in the same office building as the chiro - however, for some reason I think the chiro may do the trick (at least I hope!)

My plan for the rest of the week is to not run tomorrow (yoga? cross-train? plain ol' rest?), run on Wednesday, rest on Thursday and do the Autism Speaks 5K race on Friday morning.  Perhaps I'll do a "long" run on Sunday - we'll see how I'm feeling hamstring-wise.