What a difference a day can make

That's the Charles River on the left with the well-cleared Boston path on the right.

Sunday 25 and Monday 26, Jan. 2009
What a difference a day makes.
Yesterday afternoon, Saturday, I was deep in runner’s depression. Instead of going for a short run I went to the swimming pool with Sara. I am not that strong a swimmer; hence I don’t like it so much and don’t feel like I get much of a workout. But seeing how swimming like spring cleaning and good bookkeeping is highly recommended, I decided to go. The Kennedy pool in Somerville is clean and bright and not over-chlorinated, and it was not too full. All was going quite well.

A couple of laps of my ever so elegant breast stroke was making me question my aerobic capacity, so I trudged up and back with a kick board for a few laps. All continued to go quite well. Workout over, I was sitting on the side of the pool waiting for Sara to finish and decided to stretch out my leg by pointing my toes. Well, I held the pose too long with my right foot and that induced a nasty spasm in my calf. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Some muscle in the upper right of my calf began horribly pulsating and trying to break free. I straightened up my leg and sort of rubbed it, and Sara rubbed it or something. To be honest, I am not sure what I did—it was one of those things where the thought process gets comprehensively closed down. I do know for sure that I pulled pained faces till it settled after a minute or 30 seconds or however long it took. It hurt quite a bit after getting home, and I couldn’t really put weight on it for a while. I iced it a good bit throughout the day. My mood = foul—why did I go swimming—I hate swimming—I am so stupid—etc.

I assumed the worst—no more runs for weeks—long slow rehab. A couple of hours later, I went out on my bike with it bandaged. That went okay. Sara and I had a long run planned for today, and as we are doing a 20-miler in less than month, I felt that I needed to get the run in, and here I am wondering if I will be able to run at all. I decide the only way I will know is to try to do something and see what happens.

And so, on a cold sunny day (high of 26), off we went to the river, and despite the chill and not having eaten enough, all went successfully for us, and for my dramatic calf, and I did my longest run in quite some many months, 17.2 miles. I am not sure what I should learn from this—beyond not doing pointy toe stretches after swimming. There must be more than just that. So, in the hope of something surfacing, I am going to hold off on posting this till tomorrow morning in the hope of greater insight.

On reflection, morning after, here’s what I have to offer: try not to overreact to something that is potentially bad. It is too simplistic, while true, and not particularly helpful either, to say something like things might not be as bad as I think. When something like this happens, is it possible to adopt some kind of wait and see position? And if possible do something to help the situation. Or just do something?

It has been a niggly month for me in terms of training and something potentially show stopping it can get you down a little even when you are just a regular joe, as opposed to someone whose life and livelihood is their fitness and health. One final thought—try to do no further damage. Having been running regularly now for about 3 years, I have a good sense of how each part of my body feels, and without being very conscious of it, by checking in or noticing changes or aches or pains, or changes as they occur, I have a chance to be preventative. A chance, that is. But sometimes the opportunity goes untaken, as in the instance where I went out to run 7 one morning and my knee was giving me real grief. I ran through it, but ended up with shin splints. I should have turned around after the first 100m. I got the warning but didn’t evacuate the area.

Next time…

Broadway and McGrath in Somerville, MA, on a chilly evening last week.
I am still working on getting the camera settings right.

Oft-delayed and sporadic

January 20, 2009
Getting this blog entry out has been a bit like my training this last few weeks. Oft-delayed and sporadic. I think I need to start posting my actual log to keep me honest and also as a way to deepen my own motivation.
So, what has actually been going on? Since the last entry, which was a whole three weeks ago tomorrow, I shut down completely for about 5 days because of worries about, mainly, my left shin, and also right Achilles/calf. I gradually started again around Jan 5, after I couldn’t take sitting around any more. My first run was a slow jog around the neighborhood, and then the next night the evil urge took me again and I did a faster 2.5 miles also in the neighborhood. That run felt like liberation. I bandaged up the shin for it and double layered and so on. I was running down Beacon St in Somerville, and everything felt right just for a couple of minutes. It was one of those in the zone experiences when it was all just working. I gradually worked up to doing long runs, from a 7 mile to a couple of 13s. And that is basically where I am now.
I did another 13 on Monday, Martin Luther King Day, on the slushy river paths of Cambridge and the clearer paths of Boston. Getting right up to date, yesterday after work I went to the gym—it is too slippery to confidently try to do a faster run outside—and had a good workout. I warmed up on some stupid elliptical machine that felt like it was wrenching at my hips. Then jumped onto a treadmill and warmed up another while, managing to make a fool of myself by catching my earphone cord with my hand and sending my iPod to the treadmill which promptly deposited it on the ground behind the machine. I still feel self conscious on treadmills and then tend to do klutzy things. I did about 45 mins total, with three faster 2-3 minutes spells built in. I think I had the incline set at 2.2, which I had not really planned. It either set itself or I accidently set it.
Plus, I am scrupulously warming up these days. The root of my calf and shin problems lie with not warming up properly, first way back in late Feb of last year when I did a half marathon in Hyannis didn’t warm up and then started off too fast. Second episode was the Mill Cities Relay mentioned in earlier blog. I thought I had warmed enough for the relay, but no, not quite enough. I am hoping that I can make it through the marathon, April 20.
Which brings me to the theme of all runners around here this last few weeks, snow. Snow, snow, and more snow. And ice too. And slush. When I signed off the last blog entry saying I would be writing lots more about the joys of winter training, little did I know. We have had three storms since the beginning of the month, and there are large piles of snow everywhere, piles on the sidewalks, on the sides of roads, piles in people’s gardens. Lots of folks haven’t shoveled outside their homes, which means packed, icy snow, or just nasty slushy snow on the sidewalks. Usually, I do longer runs along the Charles River, and it too has been a mixed bag. The path along north side of the river, in Cambridge, is usually cleared, but in a half-hearted way, or it is cleared and then the snowplows on the road toss snow back in on it. Sara and I ran there on Saturday last, and I ran there again Monday. Part of the Cambridge side was in fair condition, but parts are still really messy. Across the other side of the river, in Boston, things are much clearer. If I had realized that on Monday, I would have avoided some of the mush in Cambridge.
Photos are acoming—I got a nifty new camera that I have carried with me now for two runs. Soon there will be pictures of some of the fine and lovely places where I run. Adios.

The New Year spirit is dispirit

With the year coming to a resounding close it seems to be as good a time as any to evaluate the first four-week section of my marathon training and look forward to the next fourteen weeks. Overall, the first four weeks went very well. I wouldn’t say that I cruised, but everything went acceptably well, even the weather was decent overall, apart from a snow storm that gave us a foot or so the week before Christmas.
But one is only as happy as one’s last run, and here’s the latest: I got up this morning to run before work. All I can say is that I hope this is one-off, a reality check to not make any assumptions about how any run is going to go.
So what happened? Well, here’s my running log for today. It’s not usually quite so narrative driven. The reason for this is that it’s basically a cut and paste job from an email that I sent Sara, and I was being a bit more dramatic than usual:
6:30a: Tough run to river and JFK to Harvard [these are the names of bridges along the Charles River. Put lifts made from old insoles in shoes last night. My left knee really hurt basically up to Harv Sq. And then by the time you would usually be nicely warmed up, the left shin started to tighten. I stopped and walked a bit, stopped and rubbed it a bit, stopped and took the heel lifts out. Each time I restarted, or at least sometimes, the knee hurt again. Just fine while walking. Even without the lifts, the shin still surfaced as something that I could feel a few more times. Once when I lengthened my stride a little for about 50 yards. I realize both pain points were in same leg, and it might be related to the lifts? I am going to stay off hills for a while until calf lays off a bit, and I am going to hope and pray this shin/knee things was just an end of year glitch, and I am hoping to try to persuade myself to do a two-week ankle strengthening routine.
Well, that was the low point of my marathon training so far. The relay race I did without warming up sufficiently would be on the low point list too. I’d rank it below today. The relay was a few weeks ago so time might have diluted its memory as time does with so many things. Thank you, time, for obfuscating so many of my memories, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Would it be a curse or blessing to be able to recapture old places, setting, emotions? I must send an email to M. Proust on that one. Perhaps I could begin by saying, “My name, sir, is Madeleine, and I am trying to reconnect with some things from the past.”
I am getting back to this blog entry a day or two later, New Year’s Day, [Happy New Year!] it feels like things have taken a bit of a nose dive. I ran about 5 miles this afternoon and it was freezing cold with slippery snowy conditions underfoot. I should have worn the shoes I put the screws in, but wasn’t sure what to expect so didn’t. Today, once again, some troubles; the left shin felt like it was ready to tighten up at any moment. Any time that I sped up a little it was right there waiting, waiting ready to pounce. I walked a few times and stopped to stretch a couple of times. I am trying to figure out what happened. Top theories so far are the heel lifts I wore the other day or perhaps some wear and tear combined with the fairly severe and cold weather we are having. I think it might be time to hit the treadmill at the gym if I do run tomorrow, or alternatively take an extra day off. I hope this is just a temporary glitch. Will have a better idea by the time I get to the long run of 13 or 14 scheduled for the weekend.
In conclusion, a dispiriting end to ‘08 and beginning to ‘09. Hope for better things tomorrow. Thanks for reading. I will be writing lots more about the difficulties of winter training during the bleak period of the New England year. Bundle up!