Week of 09/16/2007 - 09/22/2007 (Transition Week 5)

RUNNING AGAIN! This time for reals (fingers crossed).

A new beginning, hopefully. Unfortunately I am definitely not even ready for base miles. For the next few weeks, with a little help from the powers that be, I will be doing my pre-base miles, which I've decided will be measures in minutes and not miles to discourage the grousing about slow paces and embarassment. I may even forgo the HR monitor for the first few weeks lest I should be so discouraged that I give up on this again.

The goal of the pre-base miles is just to get my body used to running again, to make sure all of my broken parts are holding up, and just to get to a point where running a solid 30-40 base mile training week can be managed without undue stress to the system. However long it takes to get to that point, so be it. I think this will be fastest safest way to training again.

Sunday 09/16: Off, traveling back from Colorado. Flight delayed, pretty miserable. Got to bed around 2 or 3 am. Working from home this week, thank goodness.

Monday 09/17: 31:22 pleasant jog in the Arroyo. Drove to the entry point to be really really cautious, jogged out 15 minutes, back the same way then a little extra up the little hill back to car. Whether it was from descending from altitude, or just because I wasn't stressing out about pace--it actually didn't feel at all like drowning. Felt cool and pleasant the whole way, feet even felt pretty good in the Nike Frees on the trails.

Stretched and iced after getting back, really hoping I can just manage 30 minutes a day for the rest of the week without it breaking my feet again. Really felt like I could have happily done more today, but need to be really really careful with the feet. At this point in the game, its less about gaining fitness and more about gaining back the ability to train at all. The fitness will come, just so long as the feet don't break--so that's got to be the first priority.

Tuesday 09/18: 31:33 same route as yesterday, just a smidge slower. Felt good, no drowning, but did notice a bit of soreness in the hamstrings today throughout. Nothing major but eeesh, it is not good if 30 minutes of jogging makes one sore! Lots of precautionary stretching and icing. Its not much, but being able to run even a little bit really slowly is like a little piece of heaven.

Wednesday 09/19: 30:53 out to the random pile 'o woodchips again. Slightly faster today, so considered going 30 seconds farther out, but decided to restrain myself. Maybe later on I'll try driving to the California entrance to the arroyo and run 15 minutes out just to mix things up a little bit, but I'm really going to try to enforce the 30 minutes only rule this week.

Tried out a brand new pair of Nike Frees 7.0's felt good, just a tiny bit more steady on my feet but really felt mostly the same as the 5.0's. Liked the wide toe box for my big duck feet, and narrow heel. By comparison the 5.0 v.3's that I tried on really sucked... it felt like the sizes ran small, AND they were narrow and uncomfortable and something about the heel just didn't fit right. Argh. Had to find some v.2's on eBay--didn't find as many as I hoped, but DID learn interesting enough that the pair I currently own is like some rare collector's item... hahahaha.

Otherwise, stretched and iced exhaustively as a precautionary measure. Just the fact that I've actually run 3 consecutive days and am still standing is a miracle in and of itself.

Thursday 09/20: 31:36 drove to California and Arroyo for 2 x Arroyo tempo loops, easy, then a little extra up the switchback back to car. Cheated a little on the whole minutes only don't measure distance thing, since 2 Arroyo tempo loops approximately = 5K according to Ian. Was slightly too sunny at 2 pm, but felt pretty good. 15:09/15:06 for 30:15, or 9:45 pace... was pleased with sub-10 minute miles--this warrants a felicitous upgrade of my training state from "glorified walking" to "warm up jogging"!

Friday 09/21: 31:16 back to the old route. Almost sprained ankle, ergo slightly less placid than the other days. Also, rain clouds looming. I am just such a pansy about the rain... Don't get me wrong-rain, shine or snow, I WILL go out there and run, but I just really dislike it when I have to run on a rainy day. Felt a twinge in the mystery ankle tendon making a sharp right turn, which was consterning. On second thought, I'm thinking maybe 5 days of running may be sufficient for this first week, and I should take tomorrow off to hope that the tendon doesn't twinge again.

Saturday 09/22: Off. Probably a good call--raining all day, and L ankle felt kinda tweaked out all day. Did a lot of cleaning, hauling crap around though, which hopefully counted for some exercise. Iced for a long time, ankle felt better after that.

Weekly goal: 3 hours
Week Actual: 2:36:40 hours

Week of 09/09/2007 - 09/15/2007 (Transition Week 4)

Finally! Food returns. This week has been devoted to eating and travel. I perhaps naively thought that I would resume running immediately upon conclusion of fasting--but as it turns out, I'm a great deal weaker than I thought I would be, so the timetable has been shifted so that this week will allow me to ease back into quasi-normal existence again.

Final results: I weighted in 10 days ago at 111 pounds, after not really exercising at all for a while, with both my feet and my allergies getting alarmingly worse. At the conclusion, I weighed a shocking 98 pounds but remarkably, during this time, my feet healed extremely quickly and my upper respiratory allergies cleared very quickly in addition to the food ones (for obvious reasons). Another strange effect was that after day 1, I really ceased to be hungry in a physical sense at all, though I did find myself thinking longingly about food a lot. It made me realize though how much food is a psychological phenomenon for me... I missed food the same way I miss running, or my family or something that's heavily an emotional thing--rather than how you miss water if you're thirsty or oxygen if you're racing...

At any rate, 10 days and 13 pounds later, when I finally did start eating--oh, food is so, so good. Its still a bit of a mixed bag how much this helped me, but in general I feel like it was a good rest for my body, and that all of the allergic reactions are like, less severe and towards the end of the week I felt up for running again.

Friday 09/14 - Saturday 09/15: Colorado

Preliminary investigations of the greater Denver basin with Peter. 2 days and 400 miles of driving later, there seem to be more questions than answers. Loved Boulder, it was like a neat little Pasadena meets Boston, all the good parts only... everywhere else, a bit sketchy. Downtown was moderately acceptable, but then there were just expanses of scary mass produced suburbia and small hick towns that reminded me uncomfortably of the deep south. Still taking in all of this information, unclear for now what the future holds.

Drove up THE real Flagstaff mountain--very impressed. Steep, scary switchbacks even by car. Amazing views, trails everywhere. Plus the whole altitude thing... really wished I could have had a go at the route described in RwtB but not enough time or fitness (obviously) at the current time.

Also drove past the entrance to the Mt. Evans hill climb, also from RwtB, very cool. Totally psyched to see all of the famous sites--I'll be back some day to actually explore. Wished dearly for ability to run again.

Week of 09/02/2007 - 09/08/2007 (Transition Week 3)

Healing.

This week will be taken off from exercise so that I can heal, in various respects. I have decided that its just not a great idea to start the running again on feet that are still so questionable. I want to get through at least a week without pain before I start to jog (slowly and painfully) again.

Other factors exacerbating my return are the increasingly severe allergies (both external and food related) including a new violent reaction to prolonged contact with sweat. Life has just become one big miserable inflammation. I feel like I'm always uncomfortable, and just taking stabs in the dark as to what I ate, stepped on, walked through today to cause the problem. To solve this... I will be fasting, sleeping and watching DVDs in my room this week. After this period of rebooting, I will introduce foods and activities one at a time so that I can more accurately ascertain what causes allergic reactions so that they can be more effectively avoided.

Well, off I go now--wish me luck. Expect the next update next week. Happy running to the rest of you!

Week of 08/26/2007 - 09/01/2007 (Transition Week 2)

Like 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag...

Steve Slattery is so funny. Granted he had being suddenly transplanted to altitude as an excuse for feeling that way... whereas, I on the other hand am just fat, and woefully, woefully, out of shape.

I'm running and updating again, but as the former is going so poorly, I'm feeling more than a bit cantankerous. If by some unlucky chance, you do happen to see me running, and I sincerely hope that you don't... kindly avert your eyes and refrain from asking how it went. Just pretend that you asked me how my run was, and know that my answer would have been: "Like 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag."

Sunday 08/26: 3.5 miles, 34 minutes. Rule #1: Never, EVER eat a large roast beef and cheese bread sandwich 1 hour before a taxing run. Unfortunately for me, running right now only comes in one variety--taxing. The sandwich, ofcourse, was delicious, but the run, was probably one of the worst I've ever had. Jogged painfully from Peter's to the North Fields, struggled mightily through 10 laps, then jogged back to Peter's. Am still amazed that I did not keel over or barf up my sandwich.

Saw Kiesz, then Markimarkonnen... *big sigh*... wanted to run away, but knew that I wouldn't make it to the next closest source of grass, so had to suck it up and be observed in this compromised state. The painful cramping/distended stomach feeling really complimented the usual drowning/suffocating feeling to create a thoroughly delightful running experience. Was glad to survive this one and never make this mistake again.

Monday 08/27 - Tuesday 08/28: Off. Woke up on Monday morning and nearly fell back over due to a sharp and unexpected pain in R arch. Gathering my wits a bit, I determined very quickly that this must be plantar fasciitis pain. Judging from the location and the unforgiving nature of it, it just couldn't be anything else. Remembered groggily that I had neglected to stretch or ice after Sunday's debacle due to the preoccupation with the sandwich induced discomfort. Thoroughly regretted the decision and the consequences... but some too late but copious icing and stretching on Monday brought the condition mostly under control. Took Tuesday off too to be safe, still nursing a slight twinge in the R arch. Was definitely a scare, but recovered about as well as I could have hoped.

Wednesday 08/29: 3.1 miles, 29:39 for 10 laps around the North Fields. REALLY CRAPPY YET AGAIN. Also, lightly rolled R ankle, had to stop to shake it out. Felt really irritated. Feet and legs are feeling pretty good, but the hot, suffocating sensation is unrelenting from the stomach up. Still can't manage anything faster than about 3 minutes per lap. I don't even recognize what I've become. Its as if I'd never run a day in my life before this.

Thursday 08/30: Unplanned off day due to pain at the ankle where the rolling took place yesterday. Feeling grouchy. This whole returning to running thing hasn't exactly been terribly successful from any standpoint so far.

Friday 08/31 - Saturday 09/01: Feeling some aches and pains in the L arch. This isn't the heel pain or the plantar fasciitis type pain... its just the same old thing that precipitated my training decline all last year. I actually remember the first day I felt it, it was while turning right onto Fremont from my house, and it was like this sudden, unforeseen sharp stanbing pain right at the base of my ankle where the highest point of the arch is. It freaked me out, but for some reason it resolved itself without further problems that time... this was like sometime in summer of 2005. Since then its just gotten worse and worse, in so much that the frequency of occurence has drastically increased and so too the recovery time between flare ups. Its hard to tell what exactly is wrong too, because there isn't really a tendon associated with the precise spot... its just this mystery shooting pain. Kind of cramps the comeback though. Argh.

Week of 08/19/2007 - 08/25/2007 (Transition Week 1)

To where I am transitioning is not clear. But what *IS* clear at the moment is that I'm done recovering. What's even less clear is whether that's really a good thing. I feel mostly okay these days, but the weird aches and pains don't really clear up. Its always something slightly different, but I never feel... totally good. Its just like this plateau of no man's land. The funny thing is, the less I exercise, the worse my feet feel.

I honestly feel totally overwhelmed with work and athletically and physically directionless, but for lack of desire to stay where I am, I'm moving on. To something. Let's hope its to running again.

Sunday 08/19: 11.5 miles, hiking. Mt. Baldy adventuring with Peter. After my proposed route was vetoed, we parked halfway up to the ski lifts, then took the south side "Ski Hut" trail up to the summit, then came back an easier, longer way along the ski lifts on a fire road back to the car. The way up was *brutal*... that or I am miserably out of shape. Likely a combination of both. Had a fantastic roast beef sandwich and a nap at the top at 10,000 feet. Windy and beautiful. Really enjoyed the wind and the clear air and the coolness. Way back was more boring, but getting tired so glad for the less challenging terrain.

Feet held up pretty well to this excursion, mildly rolled an ankle at one point, but thankfully the hiking boots avoided the other Mt. Baldy-esque disaster. Some aches and pains later on that day, but miraculously pain free the next morning!

Monday 08/20 - Tuesday 08/21: Really, Really, sore... ughhhh. This was NOT a welcome development. The bipedal motion muscles must really be shot. The second day, the rolled ankle felt sharply painful to the touch. Iced a lot, but the feet are still okay. Had promised myself that if the feet held up to the hike, I would go ahead and try 20 minutes of jogging. Feeling really antsy to get the show started.

Wednesday 08/22: 2 miles, 21 minutes with Peter. Oh, the rude awakening that is el first "run" back... all of these months of darkness I imagined what running would be like, to glide effortlessly over hill and dale, perhaps a bit more slowly than usual, but nevertheless... all crisp cool air and quickly bounding legs. Little did I know... within 50 ft, Peter was already sprinting on ahead, and when I finally caught up, panting for an easier pace... I was met with pure incredulity: "WHAT?! but we're almost *walking* as it is!"

The reason for his complaint was discovered some 4-5 minutes later when we arrived at the track, and I realized that we were going like 9 minute miles... and it already felt like drowning. The thing is, I was prepared for bad... I was even prepared for... really bad... but this was... off the charts bad! This is going to take like, a good 3-6 months to repair.

Thursday 08/23: 3.1 miles, 31 minutes. Pre-race from the gym at night. Hoping to meet no one I knew... was successful at least this time. Sans el boy unit, I was able to go at a pace that didn't require huffing and puffing. Sadly for me, this was just about 10 minute miles. The running system feels really, really bad. HR pushing 170, sweating like a pig, but at the very least, my feet were okay.

Friday 08/24: Off. L achilles really painful. Decided to institute the 2 days on, 1 day off plan until the aches and pains stabilized out a little bit. Iced a lot, and it all cleared on up. Feet holding up better than I expected, but nonetheless resolved to run on grass for the next few.

Saturday 08/25: 2.5 miles, 24 minutes, 8 laps around the North Fields at dusk. Apparently 10 minute miles on pavement is NOT the same as 10 minute miles on grass... Felt pretty drowning, HR really really high. Really discouraging run--looking back before I started this last 4 month stretch of being injured... the whole 3 min/lap speed was my rest day routine of 10 laps at 135 bpm. This was less a "run" and more just a pleasant jog, just to get the blood circulating on non training days. Right now, said pleasant jog requires a heart rate of 175 bpm, and an unpleasant drowning sensation. I realized after 8 laps that I was really relieved to be done. Legs felt heavy, heart was pounding uncomfortably, everything just felt bad, bad, bad.

Weekly Totals: 7.6 miles. With some help from the Medical Gods... I could even reach double digits next week!

Week of 08/12/2007 - 08/18/2007 (Recovery Week 8)

Its bad when you can't even remember what you did for training. This, in the current case is a combination of the fact that this week was a long time ago, and the fact that I have, in fact done miserably little training between then and now.

The short story is that I'm losing the battle with work... rides have kind of dwindled from 5 a week... to 3... to 2... to none?

The only rides I know for sure happened on this week were:

Birthday ride up Wilson to Clear Creek with Kev, and 8 or 9 laps around the RB in the AM on Friday also with Kev. Probably about 30-35 miles a piece. Fun, but generally felt weak and tired. Feeling physically pretty lousy lately. Not a whole lot of sleep, eating crappy, really stressed. Also, out of Zyrtec, and no time to track down a new prescription. My state has been steadily worsening since this happened. My nose won't stop running, and my eyes are back to not being able to tolerate contacts again...

There may have been one other short ride in there somewhere, but not exactly sure. Working on trying to contain the workload situation. Hope for improvement in the coming weeks, but not very likely. Posts are/have been/may still be sporadic. Apologies for the technical difficulties. Please tune in a little bit later.

Week of 08/05/2007 - 08/11/2007 (Recovery Week 7)

Today might be the first day this week that I've made it to bed before 2 am. Consequently, the whole training plan aspect and the progression of weekly mileage has mostly been lost to the sheer will to survive the tsunami of work that has hit in the past 2 weeks. I'm basically in salvage mode right now, just basically squeezing in rides wherever they will fit. Typically they're just slow rides, base miles, no climbing, cuz that's about all my sleep deprived body can handle.

I saw Chavez, Ramon and the Oxy gang running the trails along the Rose Bowl last week. I saw them on lap 3, and by lap 4, my HR had sky-rocketed 10-20 bpm. I realized that I hadn't really seen any serious runners out training for like, months and months... until I was clobbered by the pang of jealousy mixed with nostalgia mixed with longing. Its been so long since I've run a step that its almost become the norm to live with the fact that I can't... but seeing the real runners out just brought all of the emotional angst crashing back down. Unconsciously I mashed the pedals harder, as if the increased effort would bring me sooner to the state of having two viable feet.

Sunday 08/05: 32.6 miles, 2:08 ride time, 15.2 mph average. 8 of probably the slowest laps I've ever done at the RB. Definitely feeling some form of fatigue from yesterday's debacle. Didn't feel bad, surprisingly, it was just... really really slow. Actually relatively relaxing and mercifully few serious athletes to shame me.

Monday 08/06 - Wednesday 08/08: Another disasterous week at work, absolutely no time for anything. Did physical therapy with Peter on Tuesday, felt like I'm making a lot of progress. Mysterious bruised sensation on R heel is basically the only thing that's keeping me from running at this point. I'd like for that to heal completely, and make it through some more PT though, which means that I won't meet my goal of having my first run be for my birthday next week.

Thursday 08/09: 30.9 miles, 1:59 ride time, 15.6 mph average. Successfully administered an all day training for the principals at our schools, at last, the all nighters are at an end. Went immediately home afterwards to ride to Encanto park and back. Really chill ride was all I could manage, and didn't have time for anything longer. Not excited about where my fitness is entering second hell week of work... but it just felt SO, SO fantastic to be on the bike again. The sedentary life does not suit me. The stress has totally collapsed my healthy eating resolve though. Today I had 3 bowls of strawberry jello, fried chicken and 1 slice of pepperoni pizza... yikes.

Friday 08/10: 35.8 miles, 2:27 ride time, 14.5 mph average to Clear Creek and back. Woo hoo! Finally, a bit of a breakthrough. Made it from base of the 2 to the ranger station at Clear Creek in an acceptable time of 61 minutes, for the first time this summer, averaging about 8.5 mph. I never felt terrible, but it did require a lot more effort and a high HR to achieve this, but now, at least I know I can. Felt vaguely encouraged about climbing for the first time this summer. Good ride, except for getting into a yelling match with a car at an intersection.