Getting Worse

After a week of no running, my knee felt pretty good yesterday, so I headed out for a short, slow run. My legs were a little sore early in the run, but I’m sure that was from moving after a week of not much activity. When I was a mile and half or so into the run, I was feeling pretty good and thought for sure that my knee was back to normal. However, after three miles or so, the pain started. I continued to run easy for another half mile or so just to be sure, but then I had to shut it down and walk home.

Last week by the time I had walked home the pain had lessened. Yesterday itcontinued throughout the evening. Although it’s not too bad, today I can still feel the pain. Anyway, I bit the bullet and made an appointment with the doctor. I go in on 4 December. I’d like to say that at that time I’ll know more, but I suspect that all I leave with is a referral to a specialist.

In the meantime, I’ll just try to watch my weight, continue doing sit-ups and push-ups, and get whatever other exercise I can (walking or bike riding depending on my knee).

No Good News

After a few days of no running, I tried a slow, easy run last night. I was hoping that I could run at an easy pace and that I’d be able to participate in today’s Turkey Trot at work. I wasn’t going to run the Turkey Trot hard, but wanted to at least run it. Not that it matters; the awards are based on closest guess to finish time, not by who’s the fastest.

Last night’s plan was for five miles at recovery pace, which ended up being approximately 8:40/mile. The first few miles were okay, but I started feeling pain after three miles or so. The pain got worse as I continued to run, so I stopped after another half mile. I ended walking home. I don’t really know what’s wrong. My knee was sore as I was walking home, but within a few minutes of getting home, I felt fine. I was able to walk around the house, including going up and down the stairs without any pain. I’m fine walking around work today. However, my knee is tender to the touch, almost as if it’s bruised.

I’m not sure what to do as far as treatment goes. I’ve been using the heating pad because that made it feel better. I iced it once, which actually caused my knee to hurt. Even so, I think I’m going to try rest, and alternating ice and heat. In addition to the ice and heat, my plan is to do no running. I’m going to try to walk for exercise and see if I can do that painfree. If I can walk a couple of miles a day without pain, I’ll try another run on Sunday and hope for the best.

I’m done

Last night I limped through a painful, depressing run. I thought my knee was improving, but it’s clearly not. Tuesday evening I ran 10 miles at a decent pace (around 7:25/mile). I know it was stupid, but after a couple of days off, and an easy run on Monday, I felt good, so I went with it. About seven miles into the run, my leg felt tired, but not painful, like the muscles around my knee were working harder than normal, but it didn’t hurt, so I continued running.

Tuesday evening through Monday morning, my legs were a bit tired, but not more so than normal after a decent workout. By Wednesday afternoon, I felt good and was ready to run. I made a point to run easy Wednesday evening. Even so, about four miles into my run, the knee pain was back. It wasn’t too bad, so I forged ahead at a slow pace. I finished my scheduled ten miles, but the whole time the pain only got worse. By the end, I was hurting and not in a good mood.

The bottom line is that my body is shouting at me, and I guess it’s time I listened to it. I won’t be running today or Friday for sure. Starting with Saturday, I’ll take it day-for-day. When my leg feels good, I’ll run an easy five miles. If the pain is completely gone, I’ll run again the next day. When I can string together a few pain-free days, I’ll see where I’m at and go from there. The difficult part is that when I’m not running, my knee feels fine, so it’s easy to convince myself that I’m okay to get back to it.

Quick Update

Last night I ran an easy five miles, and my knee felt pretty good, although a couple of times during the run, the knee sort of let me know it was there. I won’t say there was any pain, but there was a sort of thick feeling to remind me that it wasn’t 100%.

I went back and forth between running five miles to see how I feel and running my previously scheduled ten miles. I let the fact that it was raining – and had been raining for most of the day – convince me to just go for the shorter run. It was probably a wise idea. It wasn’t raining hard when I ran, but because it was so dark I ran through a number of fairly substantial puddles. The bottom line is that I ended up with soaking wet (and very heavy) shoes. Another five miles would not have been much fun and wouldn't have been easy on my knee.

I’ll run 10 tonight; and if things go well, I’ll run 10 or 15 each day for the rest of the week.

More Knee Pain

Bad news – I seemed to have aggravated my knee. After a couple of days of a dull pain that I could only really feel when running, on Saturday the pain was worse. I couldn’t even walk around the house without some pain. I tried icing it, but that didn’t help. However, putting it under the heating pad made it feel much better. I ended up not running on Saturday or Sunday, even though I felt much better on Sunday. I’m going to run after work today and see how I feel. My plan is to go home, put the heating pad on my knee for a half hour and then run. I’ll figure out the rest of my week based on how I feel during and after this evening’s run.

Despite this setback, my basic plan is the same. I’ve decided to run as much as I can through the first week of December. It won’t be as many miles as I had hoped for, but I’m still planning on getting up to 80 miles for at least one week. At that point, I’ll start marathon training. I was going to simply join the Pfitzinger 18/70 plan based on how many weeks I’ll have until the marathon, but I think I’m going to simplify things. I’m going to set up a plan that alternates a 15-miler and a 20-miler every other weekend and includes a tempo run and two marathon-pace runs each week. The other runs will be based on how I feel. My weekly mileage will start at 65 and will build to 75, with a cutback week every fourth week. Wish me luck.

Feeling Better

Below's the entry I typed yesterday before Blogger crapped out and wouldn't publish it.

I am feeling much better. An easy day did wonders for my legs. I went from dragging ass to feeling pretty fresh. There is one small problem. I've been having a pain in the inside of my left knee since my run at lunch earlier this week. It's not a sharp pain, and I only feel it when running, so I'm not too concerned. I suspect I tweaked it running on the uneven ground at work. I'm confident that the pain will be gone soon. It's just sort of an annoyance at this point.

Yesterday, I ran ten miles, including five at what was supposed to be marathon goal pace of 6:50/mile. I ended up running 6:30, 6:32, 6:42, 6:35, and 6:46. There's a long way to go before I race in March, so I'm sure I'll get the pace a little more accurate by then.

I'll run 20 miles between today and tomorrow. Today will be the longer of the two runs; I'll run either 12.5 or 15 today and then either 5 or 7.5 tomorrow. This should leave me rested and ready to go longer on Sunday. I believe 17 miles are called for on Sunday.

So far I've been keeping up with my pushups and crunches. However, my eating habits are not what they should be. Halloween candy is my downfall this week. I need to put it out of sight. Having it the house isn't too bad if I don't have to see it all the time. Oh well the battle continues.

I took leave on Thursday and today is Veteran's Day, so I'll have a four-day weekend of basically doing nothing other than running and puttering about the house.

To follow up, I ran 12.5 miles on Friday and will run 7.5 today. My knee is a bit more sore today. This is the first time it's hurt when I wasn't running. I'll be sure to ice it and take it easy as much as possible and try to stay healthy.

Happy Veteran's Day, everyone.

Too Much, Too Soon?

I don’t know if I needed more recovery from my 29 October half marathon or if I needed to start with less mileage after a week off, but my legs have felt shot all this week. They are a lot more sore than they should be for the mileage I’ve put on them this week (32 miles through three days), especially considering that all of my runs have been at an easy effort.

I considered just running through it with continued easy miles, but instead decided to cut back a bit. Instead of four consecutive 80-mile weeks, I’m going to shoot for 70-70-80-80. The big difference is that I’ll either take an off day or two days with shorter runs during the 70-mile weeks. I’m confident that this change will work for me. Yesterday, I was scheduled to run 15 miles on two runs (7 at lunch and 8 in the evening). I skipped the second run and got a good night’s sleep. My legs feel much better after only one easy day.

Working to Improve

I took the first steps towards improvement yesterday. I did better with my eating, and I did a few crunches and push-ups. It wasn’t an impressive workout by the most generous use of the word, but it’s a start. What I did was three sets of 10 push-ups and three sets of 20 crunches. I know it’s not much, but I’m seriously starting from zero for these workouts. My plan is to do this routine five times a week, and add one rep each week. In other words, next week I’ll do three sets of 11 push-ups and 21 crunches, then 12 and 22, etc. If I can stick with it, I’ll get to 25 and 35 reps and then add another set. I guess I should weigh myself and get a point of reference so that I can track any weight loss.

I for one am impressed by Lance Armstrong breaking three hours in his marathon debut. I realize that he had a lot of pacing help that the rest of us will never have, and it was more of an event than a race. Still he ran the entire course and met his goal. I for one didn’t think he’d do it. I figured he be somewhere between 3:05 and 3:10 at best.

Sunday morning I ran 15 easy miles. The first ten sucked. My legs were pretty stiff and sore after doing nothing last week. There is still some stiffness, especially in my hamstrings, at work today. This evening I’m running 10 miles. I’ll keep things at an easy pace until the soreness is gone, and I’m running easy.

Shortcomings

After my last post, Mark asked me if I had done any cross training during my recovery. The short answer is no. The longer answer is that I had planned to, but I was enjoying doing nothing but relax for a few days.

His question got me thinking about my shortcomings as a runner and what I need to do if I truly want to reach my potential. There are three major things that I need to work on if I want to continue to improve: diet/nutrition, hill running, and cross training.

I started running basically to keep a buddy company while he trained for a 10K. The reason I continued running was because I like to eat, and I needed to lose a few pounds. Running allowed me to lose the weight without dieting. Like many runners I evolved from running for weight control to running to compete. I've tried to cutback on the calories a few times but haven't found the willpower while married to a wife who loves to cook and bake.

I'm not sure what to do about running hills. I live in the Bay Area (in Alameda, which is near Oakland in the east bay). There are 100s of hills in the metropolitan area, but not in Alameda, which is a flat-as-a-pancake island. I could drive to the Oakland hills or to Berkeley to run hills, but I hate the thought of driving someplace to run. It seems to defeat the whole purpose.

I don't know why I don't do any cross training. If I did, it would only be crunches and push ups, which I could do while watching television. I understand the benefit, but it's also easy to look at my log and the mileage being run and feel satisfied that the work has been done.

Will I improve in any of these three areas? I don't know. I'm going to make an effort to drop some weight. I've said that before on this very blog and have had no success, but all I can do is keep trying. I find that a lot of my bad eating is just habit. If I can improve for a week or so, I'll have a good shot at sticking with it for a while. I'm also going to make an effort to get in some crunches and push ups. Again it's just getting into a routine. Once it becomes part of my day, it won't be a big deal. Right now I don't see me doing any hill running. I know the reasons that I should, but the driving would add close to an hour to my workout each time I did it, and I'm not ready to make that commitment right now.

Today I ran six easy miles. I ran without a watch, but would estimate that I ran 8:20 pace.

Training For Napa

After not running since the half marathon on Sunday, I am itching to get out and hit the roads. At one point I considered taking off until Veteran’s Day, but I think it’s good that I decided to only take five days off. I feel rested and am motivated to get back at it. I’ve been thinking about my preparation for Napa on March 4. I have 17 weeks before the race. I respond well to a three-week taper, so that leaves me with 14 weeks. Frankly, before counting I thought I had more time.

My plan for now is to take four weeks to just run and not worry about the pace. I’ll try to get to 80 miles each week, which shouldn’t be a problem. Thanksgiving week should be the only challenge, since it will include two days where I’ll be in the car for 8-10 hours. The only time I will think about pace will be to run for a few miles at marathon pace once a week.

After an easy week, I’ll cutback the mileage a little and increase the speed. I haven’t worked out the details yet, but I want to include a lot of miles at marathon pace. I’ll do this for nine weeks, and then I’ll start my taper. If I do the work and the weather gods smile on me, this will be my best shot at running sub-3.

Heeeeeere’s Bart!

This picture was taken on Sunday when I was waiting for the start of the race. All I remember thinking at the time is "why is this guy taking my picture now." I'd rather see him taking pictures during the race.

I just noticed that I'm wearing the same thing I wore at Napa.