a8a0r8on

This journal is restricted to friends only. It's been maintained since February, 2000. However, during a short period when I was training for a marathon I made those training related posts public. Now my training is on sabbatical due to injury, but will start again this spring. Anyway, if you want access to the juicy stuff, you need to have an LJ account and add me as a friend. That's how they setup the game.

Here is the Google Pedometer map of the Tufts 5K course. Look at the elevation and you can see what I mean by hilly.

Last year the Tufts 5K was my first ever race. I finished it without walking, but it almost killed me. When it was over I felt like crap, was in a bad mood, both knees were screaming and my shins were on fire. Even my iPod was frozen. I didn't train for it due to my ongoing shin splints. I hadn't run in a month prior and only rode a bike a few times a week, and not very well at that. Regardless, I did get 9th place out of around 40-50 runners (and 30-40 more walkers).

This year I spent Jan-Feb strengthening my leg muscles, increasing flexibility and I biked a lot more (longer, faster). On March 1, I ran 1/2 a mile and increased my mileage by a tenth of a mile per week since. Except for this last week when I jumped quarter mile. I also biked and swam and continued strength training on off days. On Tuesday I ran 2.1 miles and have taken off since. A 5K is around 3 miles, so I didn't quite reach my training goal.

Today's race weather was cold (I overheard someone saying it was 40 degrees), drizzly and it rained lightly at the end. But it was still well attended by runners (not many walkers and kids this time though). It was much easier than last year. I was in control the whole time. Nothing hurt, anywhere. I was very tired at the end but not dead by any means. Afterwards I was talking to others who beat me and they were all suffering and out of breath. I could have run further, but not quicker.

They didn't tell us our rank this time, but they did give a time. I ran it in 24:05. I left my watch at home by accident. So I couldn't pace myself thus this was a *much* faster pace than I trained at. I was training at 10 minute miles, instead I ran 8 minute miles. (I trained at that pace last fall when my shin splints returned, so this time I have been going much slower.) 8 minutes is not fast by any stretch, but it is decent, especially since I haven't run that distance in a year or at that speed in 7 months. Also, Tufts is a VERY hilly course whereas the treadmill is quite flat. So overall I'm quite happy with the result!

I've been icing the shins and expect them to hurt the next few days. After all, I jumped 30% in distance and 20% in speed in one race. After they calm down, I'll return to tenth mile increments starting at 2.5 miles. In between runs I'll resume swimming and upper body weight training. My goal is to run 10K sometime this summer (not a race, just 10K outside along the Charles). If it happens, then it's possible that I can seriously consider the boston marathon next year.

I'm pretty sure I have an overactive immune system. Reasons:

• I have pretty strong allergies, an autoimmune disorder


• I have very mild eczema, an autoimmune disease of the skin


• My mother has celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder of the intenstines


• My father has an autoimmune disease of the spine which I can't spell or pronounce


• I rarely get sick. Other than allergies, I can count the number of times I've been sick as an adult on one hand


• I get a slight fever at the slightest sign of trouble, such as when giving blood or getting a vaccine.

So I wonder if that may be why I'm so susceptible to shin splints, which is inflammation - again, an autoimmune thing. Maybe my body's natural tendency to go into attack mode means that any kind of injury is going to be exacerbated. I gotta be careful.

So I've continued my cross training. I broke down and bought a membership at a gym that is within walking distance of my house. It's fabulous! It's so nice that I haven't been back to Tufts' sorry excuse for a gym since. But it's mainly the convenience of now being able to go anytime I want and not having to plan in advance. I've been able to increase my weight lifting load across the board a bit too. I do weights for about an hour and then I bike for 30 minutes at a high pace (avg heart rate=170). But in reading some marathon handbooks I think I'm over training the heart. I think I need to drop that down to around 160 when I start training to run again in about two months. In the meantime I'm continuing to get my body stronger, my legs more flexible and rolling on my shins to wear down the last bit of nagging soreness in my inner right calf. The left calf is perfect now. I've been e-mailing with the Tufts' marathon team coach and he's been totally awesome. He has a good, funny spirit and is incredibly supportive. He's given me advice and offered me their therapy and training services to prepare for next year. Nice!

Last week I was 99% ready to give up on the marathon training. After a 2 mile run, my shins hurt for a couple of days pretty bad. The suddenly on the day of my next scheduled run they felt great. So, with no expectations at all, I did the run. The run was easy, but afterward the shins hurt and they have never hurt the day of a run before, only the day after. So I was sad. But then the next day they felt great! WTF!? So I ran again on my next scheduled day and again they hurt after the run, but not after that. Then today I ran again, this time 2.5 miles, my scheduled increment of .5 miles per week. It felt wonderful! I'm now reaching lengths of runs that it feels like a real run and not a jog. I thoroughly enjoyed this run more than almost any other.

But immediately afterward my shins felt like cantaloups walking back to the gym! Something definitely wasn't right. In the locker room I was fairly sure that they even felt hot to the touch. But it's hard to be sure since my entire body was hot and sweaty. Still, I am pretty sure they were swollen. I iced them and they almost immediately felt fine. Now, 2 hours later, they feel perfectly fine.

So I don't know what to think. I have a previously scheduled checkup with the foot doc next week and I'll tell him and let him make the call. I am pretty sure that he'll tell me to stop. So I still think it's not gonna happen. Enough that I'm starting to think about playing squash again. As soon as either I or the doc make the call, I'll be e-mailing Anton, the_macnab and la_chispa. In the meantime, I'll stick with the current plan. When a day of a scheduled run appears, I'll do it if my shins don't hurt that day.

I have always needed a lot of sleep. And I'm a night owl who hits his energy peak around 9-10pm. I naturally gravitate towards 10 hours of sleep per night. Nine hours is okay and 8 is the most I can have without noticing it during the day, but I can only do 8 hours for a few days in a row before I need 11-12.

So grad school is supposed to keep you up all hours. Looking at my work load, I see why. If I don't cut into my sleep hours or my work hours (which I can't, money is VERY tight) then I can only get all my stuff done if I work on school stuff all day, every day, with no days off and almost no fun time.

This is where working out hurts me the most. On the days I work out I feel physically exhausted in the evening. I actually quite like the feeling. But my minimum sleep hours rises to 10. So how do I get that extra school work done?

I'm not worrying about it now, since I'm not sure my legs will allow me to run the marathon. If I reach 5 miles and things are good, then I'll start to worry about how to fit 2-4 hour runs into my schedule.

Since the doc cleared me to run again I've run one mile three times in the 10 days. No problems. My legs havent felt this good in months. He said I can increase 1/2 mile per week after 2 weeks. I can still feel something in the lower, inner calves but it is very slight, if it was any slighter I wouldn't feel it at all.

I've been keeping a Google Spreadsheet of my runs and cross training here. I find it helps quite a bit.

( an update )

Doc left a message: MRI is negative. I should call him Monday to "decide where to go from here."

Bad news: We now don't know what the pain is.

Good news: Recovery time will likely be much less than 6-8 weeks. Marathon is looking more likely.

It's been 10 days since my last run. During that time the pain went from "really annoying" to almost completely gone. But it wasn't a linear decline. Some days were better than others. And while the bone pain was always there, sometimes the inner calf or upper shin also hurt a little.

My current theory is that the pains are a result of starting running almost immediately after getting orthotics. So my mechanics, which my body has been used to for 32 years, are different so my legs need to adjust.

What I need to for someone to watch me run. One of the new students at Tufts is a marathon runner and has agreed to train with me. I hope he can watch and look for something.

I have a stress fracture!

So Tuesday was fine, as reported. But yesterday the pain returned to my inner right calf. Today was my routine follow up appointment with the podiatrist. I showed him the problem and he literally put his finger right on it. YOW! The pain normally is very light, but when he put slight pressure on a specific spot on my tibia it was like lightning through my leg.

His verdict: Traditional shin splits are caused by inflammation of the ligament along the bone. So the pain is usually felt all along the bone. In my case he felt down the bone and there was no pain and then BOOM, there it was. Then he kept going and just as fast as it came, it went away. This explains a lot, including why ice didn't help.

A stress fracture is a microscopic fracture of the inside of the bone (he showed me a model of the bone). It's the step before a regular fracture. It's caused by too much running too fast. He confirmed that this is a new injury unrelated to my previous one (which is still perfectly fine). He took an x-ray to make sure it hadn't already turned into a real fracture. Negative. He was happy to hear that it doesn't hurt when I actually run on it, so it could be very slight. I have to get an MRI next week to confirm.

If confirmed, the diagnosis is: 6-8 weeks no running (swimming, biking weight lifting is fine) and then a very strict and gradual build up under his supervision.

Sorry the_macnab, the Doug Flutie Jr. 5K is out for me. As for the marathon, it is looking tough. The official marathon training schedule begins Nov 1 with a 20 minute run. My leg will be ready by then, but I will be starting from stratch yet again. And under strict rules to not progress too quickly. So I dunno. It's not out, but this is definitely a set back. My plan right now is to swim, bike and lift weights aggressively - basically do everything I can to simulate long distance running without the running.

Today, no pain! Woo hoo! I walked a ton today being the first day of classes and all. I then did weights and swam also. No leg pain at all. If I push deeply I can feel some soreness in my inner lower calf. But it is very light and I have to dig deep to find it. This is the first time since October I felt no pain at all the day after a run. Yippee!

I am SOOOOOO happy to be back to school. I don't think I could stand another month at work. It was a good summer at work and staff morale is high and all that. But after a year of classes I am beginning to realize I'm not cut out for 9-5 (or 10-6 in my case). That is yet another factor pushing me into academia after graduation.

The kids on campus bring great energy. And I had a blast talking with people I haven't seen in months and picking up right where we left off. 3 months of thinking and new ideas now have a testing ground. My favorite conversation of the day ended after 45 minutes of theory talk in my office with:

Him: I think I need some water.
Me: Yeah, we blew a lot of hot air in here today.
Him: A benefit of being a grad student is that you get to be pompous.

Big news: Tufts got a 30 million dollar endowment from the president of the New York Giants to build a new fitness center! The Tufts gym is atrocious and a source of shame for the school. It is worse than the high school facilities I had in Texas. The new one is gonna be awesome. The down side: They start construction in 2008 which means I may have a year at most to use it. Also, they are building it on the spot of the current facilities. So I have no idea where the current stuff will go. One thing is for sure, there will be no swimming as you can't move a pool! So any thoughts I had of postponing my marathon attempt for '09 are thrown out the window.

la_chispa and the_macnab: brand new squash courts are included!

( running update of no consequence )

( leg report )

( cut for those who could give a rats ass )

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