Week of 05/27/2007 - 06/02/2007 (Separated 2nd Metatarsal Joint Week 3)

Three weeks in the land of the mere mortals... and I'm NOT liking it.

For those who watch Grey's, its like when Cristina wanders into the hospital on her wedding day and begs to operate, because she has no eyebrows and no dignity left after getting dolled up by the mother in law: "One cut... I'm a surgeon..." she says pitiously. That's me, see...

One run, one ride, one lap... of anything! I'm an athlete... and I need to FEEL like an athlete... Don't give me the "having the right attitude towards injury" crap--this is a physical suffering, a withdrawal. A material and physiological craving, like the starving person's desire for food... I need to feel the ground move faster and faster beneath me, I need to feel the wind cutting my face, I need to feel the impatient energy run up and down a lean and defined leg, to push with reckless abandon, the lactic acid burning as seconds tick by hard and fast....

In the meantime, there's this:

The $245 shoe...

MBT, Masai Barefoot Technology, was invented by Swiss engineer Karl Müller. During a visit to Korea he made the startling discovery that walking barefoot over paddy fields alleviated his back pain. Back in Switzerland, Müller began to develop a footwear technology that would make the natural instability of soft ground such as Korean paddy fields or the East African savannah accessible also to those, who have to walk on hard surfaces.

Apparently its sort of like the Nike Free concept, except that it supposedly also redistributes the pressure of your weight more evenly across your feet, which is the reason for the decreased joint pain.

I was originally hoping that they would be able to replace the flat surgical shoes that really hurt my feet... but after a few days I determined that the L foot wasn't really healed enough to be able to take the increased range of motion. As a compromise, I'm now wearing one surgical shoe and one MBT shoe. Fortunately, they happen to be about the same height.

Friday 06/01: CORTISONE SHOT. Hot diggity, did not know about all of the ways that this could hurt. First off, the needle is about the size of a dull pencil lead... then, its not like one clean movement, there's a lot of poking around in there to distribute the fluid and find the right place to put it.

Finally, apparently 1 out of 4 people have some sort of horrendous reaction to the cortisone so that they experience excruciating pain for 1-2 days. But, ofcourse, don't freak out, he says. Guess which category yours truly is in...

THIS is my new shoe:

The thing is, given how painful and potentially joint/tendon weakening this shot is, I want to make sure I did all I could to help my foot heal. This is a lot more immobilizing than the flat surgical shoe, so it should help with keeping the pressure off of the joint if it comes out of this shot in good shape.

There was originally novacaine mixed with the cortisone, and as that wore off throughout the day, gradually the pain of the adverse reaction worsened until it reached "excruciating". Iced as much as I could and took 1 Aleve... helped a bit, but still pretty awful.

Reclaiming me... one day at a time

For those of you young 'uns, this is not a fire and brimstone warning, this is merely an empirical observation:

Life sucks after college, if you don't have anywhere to go.

And by "anywhere to go" I don't mean, a job to go to, or a grad school to attend, or even a parents basement to mooch off of, I mean that you've got something to do that you're excited about. Something that will help you get to where you want to be, or even something that will help you figure out where you eventually want to be.

The freshman class when I was a senior are shortly about to graduate, and I still have nowhere to go. Stuck somewhere between not thinking I can get to anywhere I want to be, and not wanting to be anywhere I think I can get to... I question what exactly it is that I want, and if you question what you want too much, you start to question who you are. This is the state of me as a runner, and this is also the state of me as a person. Like I've always said, I am as a runner who I am as a person.

The reality is, that ever since that day in December when probably the best workout of my life (10K tempo on the track, which was thoroughly exhilarating for the ease with which I found I could crank out 6:35-6:40 miles) was immediately crushed by a 2-3 week injury from which I never truly recovered... my hope for myself as a runner has slowly been receding. You start out all optimistic that you can overcome the injury, the training mistakes, the everything that goes wrong... you start out with a firm belief in your own potential... and with every day that goes by without improvement, a little part of that dies, slowly but surely. The doubt grows, the motivation wanes, the depression creeps in.

As everyone else looks forward with starry eyes towards summer training, a new beginning, a new season, a new hope--I've decided that I have to take a stand against the angst and the wallowing. I'm reclaiming me, who I used to be, who I want to be, who I will be.

I don't have anywhere to go, in fact I don't even know where I want to go. I can't answer the big questions in life. But of this I am sure: I want every step of my journey to stand for who I am. I embrace extremes, I am small but I am fierce, I am dedicated, I am loyal, but what drives me most of all is competition.

I realized one day this year, that I'm not cut out to be a coach, because I am what I am. I'm not a role model. I'm not selfless, I'm not the runner I should be. Kiesz asks, "why run at all?", and the "right" answer is because you love to run, right? That you find some sort of deeper meaning, that it defines you, that it brings out the best in you, makes you all fit and happy and fast. My answer is because running is the only truly selfish thing that I do, running makes me free... its the purest distillation of what I am, the good, the bad and the ugly. I define running as much as running defines me.

I don't run to be happy, I don't run to get something out of it, I run in order to be myself--my flawed, neurotic self. Its a bond stronger than love. At the end of the day, I'm an athlete, not "a person who loves running". I run so that some day, if not today, I will race you, and I will win.

I'm the best at what I do. I was top of my highschool class, I was the best organic chemistry student that Caltech has seen in many years, I was the first and the only one of my year to be hired at a top 3 consulting firm, I can even stuff envelopes faster than anyone at the office. Whatever comes next, bring it on. I will pick up more marbles with my toes than anyone else, I will balance on the ankle board for longer than anyone else, if I have to be the most dedicated physical therapy patient that ever was, then I will be that plus one more set of theraband stretches. I'm not always happy about what I am currently doing, but whatever it happens to be, I'll do it better. That is my stand against all of the uncertainty, whatever happens to me next, I will conquer it. I'm the best at what I do, and if anyone or anything thinks otherwise, come and race me: I dare you.

Postscriptum--for our more sensitive viewers: the above is not meant to be offensive. I sincerely hope that every person believes that they are the best at what they do. I hope that when you stand on that starting line, you think you can win it all. I hope, actually very strongly, that when you stand next to me in a race, you want to kick my ass. Because otherwise, it wouldn't be a fair contest. If we were all just happy to lie down and accept "so and so will beat me today", then why bother at all? Why don't we just line up in the order that we think we will finish, and assign place cards accordingly? So, be a little arrogant, be non-PC, be all of who you are, and not just the sanitized, perspective-infused, even-keeled, realistic parts.

Week of 05/20/2007 - 05/26/2007 (Separated 2nd Metatarsal Joint Week 2)

No training this week. Just trying to get my crap together. Two words: oy vey.

Sunday 05/20 - Monday 05/21: Packing boxes, lifting boxes, moving boxes... on the upside, I'm not getting as fat as I could be, on the down side, my feet are killing me. Toe joint is getting progressively worse, so glad that the moving is almost over. Feeling anxious... about flying again, about health, about life.

Tuesday 05/22: Woke up in the early AM took one step out of bed and felt a searing pain through the arch of my RIGHT foot. GAH! Went immediately back to sleep, and thankfully it was a lot better after a few more hours of sleep. Still freaked me out... I still think the flat shoes are damaging to basically everything else in your foot (and knees, since there's no give or cushioning, especially when boxes are being transported...). I don't think I'm going to wear them anymore.

Wednesday 05/23: Nothing, made it safely home. Exhausted, but glad to be back. Had interesting existential conversation with Gustavo who picked me up from the airport, forgot to ask him how running (or his recent lack of it) fits in with all of this philosophy.

Thursday 05/24 - Saturday 05/26: Unproductive, over-eating. Foot getting worse, bastards won't move my appointment up to get the cortisone shot. *Shakes fist*. Despite my resolution, I am still sucking at being healthy and at life... gotta do better next week.

Week of 05/13/2007 - 05/19/2007 (Separated 2nd Metatarsal Joint Week 1)

I'm feeling really apprehensive about the appointment with the Ortho doc. It's not so much the idea of *having* the stress fracture or whatever it is... its more about what it means for the future. Fractures heal, but its not really the bone that's the worst of it. Its what having a cast/flat shoe for 2 months does to your body. I'm scared because neither of Natalie Muren nor Liz Tedsen (both 37:20 10K-ers) have recovered from their stress fractures, and the time frames are now reaching the 'years' unit of measurement instead of the 'months' unit.

Last year I had to wear the flat shoe for 3-4 weeks and after that, my R knee was tweaked bc of the imbalance between the legs, and my L arch collapsed because of the atrophy from being mostly immobilized. These issues then spawned the chronic L arch/R knee, hip problems which in turn distorted my stride and footstrike enough such that I developed the stress fracture in the first place. Now that I know what *can* happen, I hope that I can use this info to come back properly from this next injury, but it also makes me really see how much time and patience this will require. Its not going to be, taking this time off so that I can come back this summer for base training, this is going to be more like being out until July and then using the summer to gradually be able to run at all. Meaning XC 2007 is most likely shot. (ARGH)^2.

Sunday 05/13: 61.1 miles, the usual Sunday River Trails ride in 3 hours 42 minutes 53 seconds. 16.5 mph avg, was at 17.1 avg. through 40 miles, but then that little hill at the dam killed me and my lower back started to hurt like hell. Kept HR mostly under 165, felt strong, huge course PR. Definitely channeling a lot of consternation. Mulled over just becoming a cyclist for a year--I just want to be able to train really really hard for something for a long time and be really good at it.

When I was a little kid, my largest career related consternation was, WHEN I won the Olympics (in... something) would I want to be competing for Japan or the United States? The sports would come and go but the dream was always the same (2012 Women's Time Trial gold = me???). Clearly, nothing will have the same depth of emotional significance to me as running, but I want to improve, I want to win, I want to succeed at something, so, so much I feel like my brain is going to pop.

Monday 05/14: Nothing. L knee feels a bit tweaked so was going to stationary bike for an hour but ran out of time. Instead, baked delicious edibles for Will's send-off party. Lucky bastard is focusing on training for a year before the crushing responsibilities of being a working person set in!

Tuesday 05/15: Did manage to get up early to ride around the Rose Bowl, but had to turn back after 10 minutes due to excruciating pain in L knee. Resisted efforts to ignore and hope it would just go away. Arghhh, now I'm really screwed! Presumably this is because my cleat is misaligned but for the life of me I can't figure out which direction to adjust it in order to fix this...

Wendesday 05/16: Day of Judgment, visit to the doc. It took him all of 2 minutes to proclaim it a stress fracture, which had been the unanimous diagnosis of all who had looked at it... but strangely enough, it actually wasn't. Instead its something more nebulous and scary, what we all thought was the kink or the calcification around the fracture, turned out to be my grotesquely distended joint. Apparently it is swollen so horribly that it is pushing my bones apart and separating my joint, and further progression will actually dislocate my toe! Eeeeeee!

The worst part is that there isn't really a treatment, per se. You just kind of do what you can to make the swelling go down and hope for the best. And in some cases, it doesn't and then you have to have this horrifying surgery that shortens the metatarsals and raises your arch. Gah... So with that, I've been shoved into a flat shoe and packed off on a red eye flight to the east coast. Boston for a week to help the folks move.

Thursday 05/17 - Saturday 05/19: Cold and rainy, which I suppose is alright since I'm not allowed to run or bike anyways. Nothing, except moving boxes. Swelling as gone down a little bit, but the flat shoe is really painful for the arches, heels, ankles. Realized that the main problem is that a shoe that prevent forefoot flexion mostly also prevents ankle flexion, because the only way one can really walk is by picking up the whole lower leg at the knee and stomping it down a bit in front of you in one piece. The atrophy of the ankle, arch ligaments is what causes so many issues once the actual injury is healed, assuming it ever heals. I see a lot of physical therapy ahead of me, but lets take one step at a time, for now just have to work on getting the swelling down and be able to bend that joint at all.

Week of 05/06/2007 - 05/12/2007 (Angst and Consternation Week 3)

The catch-phrase for the present is: damage control.

Everything just feels worse this week. Which is surprising only in so much that the lack of activity I presumed would at least heal my injuries. Second metatarsal on left foot appears to be worsening alarmingly in the past few days, scared of potential stress fracture. While I have become morbidly obese from 3 days of southern meals and absolutely no exercise, but it can't possibly be enough weight to break a bone!

Meanwhile, I am still morbidly obese, my bike has still not been fixed and T-minus 9 days until the NEXT extended period of time away from exercise. Ofcourse none of this would matter if I DO in fact have a stress fracture and base training for XC 2007 is ruined already. Like I said, damage control.

Sunday 05/06 - Monday 05/07: Traveling, nothing. Unless the HR/blood pressure increase from a rage blackout can be counted as aerobically taxing. Every now and then I feel a burst of motivation to go to law school so I can do my own litigations. It's not the fact that my flight got delayed and I had to spend a day of training and of my life that I'll never get back at the airport... its the fact that I had to be insulted, point-blank lied to, and denied compensation for this inconvenience that is the straw that broke the camels back. Management will *definitely* be hearing about this one.

Tuesday 05/08: 65 minutes ellipticizing at 150-170 bpm in the PM. HR is alarmingly high from not moving for 4 days. Felt pretty rusty, L forefoot extremely sore and stiff afterwards. Core strengthening at the gym. Ran into Muren at the gym, apparently still broken from stress fracture like, a year ago. This is NOT encouraging...

Wednesday 05/09: 40.2 miles, 10 laps around the Rose Bowl plus commuting and an extra detour to make it add up to 40 miles. Just under 2 hours and 30 minutes, started at 6:30 am after sleeping in an hour. ~16.3 mph, HR still rather high, but mostly pleased. Feeling a lot more balanced now that I've logged a few days of training. Didn't hurt foot. Everyone that's out in the early AM is middle aged + 1 random PAA guy. Slightly peeved that I can't keep up with moderately rotund middle aged men...

Thursday 05/10: nothing. Poked by needles in the AM, work late in the PM. Exhausted and disgruntled. I am allergic to many of my favorite foods, apparently. Gah, I just want to be allowed to lead a medically normal life, is that too much to ask...?

Friday 05/11: 35.7 miles, 1 hour 58 minutes, 9 laps around the Rose Bowl plus commuting. Fastest ride ever. Indescribably fun, felt positive about my athletic future for the first time in like, a year. Got adopted into a random group of cyclists after trying really hard to drop them for a lap. Rode hard for 5-6 laps (avg. 19-20 mph) with the group until dusk, after which they peeled off one by one. Met a new PAA guy, Raul, a Cat 1 former Mexican National Team track cyclist, who taught me all sorts of cool training/balancing techniques. Learned how to balance while standing up on the bike properly.

A lot faster than I'm used to riding, but was surprised by how strong I felt throughout, even pulled the group through a few laps with Raul at the front. A novel feeling. Received a lot of undeserved compliments, first time to be called "a real cyclist" by competitive riders. Interesting. Was invited to the real RB ride, but I think I'll pass on that, after what happened to Kangway.

Saturday 05/12: 38.3 miles, 2 hours 51 minutes. Wilson to Clear Creek then attempted to find Oxy... got lost, piddled around Glendale for a while before back tracking and arriving just in time to see Kiesz run 3:56.24, a great race! Chill ride most of the way, but glad to see that I'm improving on the climbing front. Had to push pretty hard at the end to get there in time. L 2nd toe hurt afterwards, got a ride back home from Ian after the meet.

65 minutes ellipticizing and ~7 hours 15 minutes riding. Ellipticizing really hurts the toe now, so I don't think I'm going to do that anymore. Can ride flats more so than climbs w/o pain. Dr. Rossi confirmed likelihood of stress fracture... *frowny face*. Appt. with ortho doc next week--not soon enough.

Week of 04/29/2007 - 05/05/2007 (Angst and Consternation Week 2)

More inauspicious beginnings. Fat, sleep deprived, hit by car... do the calamities ever end!?

The mourning period has expired, however, so its time to get motivated! The master plan is now to kick ass in XC 2007, so come september I'd better bring my A game. 04/29 - 05/26 will be some resting and strengthening to lay the foundation for a solid, injury free base phase (05/27 - 08/31) leading up to a month and a half racing season with Riverside as the tentative peak race.

Current focus areas will be:

1) Bridging the injury gap, cardio-wise. This means NOT starting base phase 15 lbs overweight and with a resting HR of 75 like last year. Right now, this means riding and ellipticizing like crazy. Hopefully latter weeks will support 1-3 sessions per weeok of aqua-jogging or slow grass jogging per week to make sure the transition to training will go smoothly.

2) Strengthening, ankle and otherwise. Healed is not enough, got to make sure the imbalances that are causing the defective left footstrike are corrected before the next training cycle begins. Also need to keep up core strengthening for my hip flexor issue and maybe even hit the gym a little bit. Sometimes my shoulders cramp on long runs and that's sad.

Sunday 04/29: 61.8 miles, 4 hours and 4 minutes riding along the River trails. Encountered my first hit and run--an old person made a right turn into me in S. Pas, and sped off happily. Grrrrr.... *shakes fist* Bruised and bloody, but nothing mechanical is broken. Bike a bit banged up, needs a trip to Steve's. Got up, wiped off the blood and rode 60 miles after that--tough like Lance. Good ride, ate cliff bar, rode strong through the end, faster than last time by a lot.

Monday 04/30: off. Body stiff and achey from crash, but healing better than I thought--maybe bc of weird recovery enzymes. R neck and L hip are worst off, in terms of non superficial injuries. SCIAC finals, Eichenlaub with an impressive 5K finish. Old people dinner with Chris, John and Ryan, fun.

Tuesday 05/01: 65 minutes ellipticizing at 140-165 bpm. HR uncommonly high, not sure why. Still not feeling great from the accident. Core strengthening was extremely painful bc of the bruising. Vaguely disgruntled, but feeling cautiously optimistic too, glad that I've exited binge-eating mode.

Wednesday 05/02: 36.8 miles, 2 hours 56 minutes, Wilson to Clear Creek on the bike. Slept very poorly, so was conveniently awake at 6 am to go on a ride. Took it real easy, tried to maintain high cadence. Climbing was really weak like last time, feel like musculature has fundamentally changed from last year (HR is low, but legs just can't push). Great on the flats, so much fun to go fast.

Thursday 05/03: 65 minutes ellipticizing at 140-165 bpm. Failed to wake up at 6 am to go riding, so more ellipticizing in the PM. Felt pretty good, wanted to do 90 minutes, but ran out of time. Core strengthening, then off to the airport to catch red-eye to Mississippi for Mary-Hall's wedding!

Friday 05/04 - Saturday 05/05: Nothing. Unless you can count sleep deprivation as physically taxing... the south is full of trees, cows, pecans and fried food. Allergies really bad, no time to do anything. Consuming ~8000 calories a day. Fried catfish excellent. Need to go home soon.

7 hours riding, 2 hours 10 minutes of ellipticizing in preparation for the damage from the weekend.

Week of 04/22/2007 - 04/28/2007 (Angst and Consternation Week 1)

I can't get duBois' quote about injury out of my head:

"The main danger of injury is a broken soul, and every man has his limit."
If this is indeed so, then, my soul is very broken, and my limit is close to here. It's not so much about exactly what's wrong with my foot and how many days it will take to heal, its about the creeping doubt that its just a matter of time before it happens again.

8 weeks. That's all the time I may ever have. Under ideal conditions, I have 8 weeks before my arch collapses again. If I don't let it heal completely, I have anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks... but its all the same in the end. For the past year or so, every injury I have is something that percolates from this chronic and persistent mystery pain that spans the inside of my arch up to the top of my foot where the ankle bends. Whether it happens because that pain itself become sharp and acute, or whether a compensation injury (R knee, or R hip) accumulates, the end comes either way, all the same. 8 weeks is not even a base training cycle. 8 weeks is not enough to make improvement.

I'm not one of those people who runs cuz they just love to run. To clarify, I do love to run, but *primarily* I run to be faster. I run because I'm a competitive, neurotic, deeply flawed, stubborn as hell, "anything you can do, I can do better" -sort of a person, and running is a mirror of who I am. This whole, on again, off again, half-way, in-between, always living on the verge of being broken, just barely hanging on to "not embarassing" much less to dream of doing better... is just twisting the knife in my heart. Every time I think I've determined the cause and found the solution to the arch problem, every time I think I've banished it for good this time, it rears its ugly head again.

To add to that, every year I become more and more deathly allergic to the world. If the 8th week of my training cycle happens to coincide with a day where my eyes haven't swollen shut, my throat hasn't constricted and my lungs filled with fluid, then maybe, just maybe I'll run a small PR. This isn't the existence that I want. While no one is obliged to believe in my potential without proof, all I want is a chance to show the world what I'm capable of.

Sunday 04/22: 95 minutes of ellipticizng at 130-160 bpm. Inauspicious beginnings to a week that will determine whether my season is over. This activity is really not very similar to running at all, don't feel like the right muscles are utilized. Disgruntled, but still hopeful to get back on the original plan tomorrow.

Monday 04/23: 3.1 miles, 10 laps and 30 minutes around the North Fields at 145 bpm. I cannot tell a lie... my foot just isn't really okay. Its not so bad anymore that I can't keep my form, but I feel the sore, bruised feeling with every step I take, along with some intermittent acute pain from the arch up to the top of the foot. It might hold up for some more days of jogging, but definitely not for a workout or a tempo, which means there is no hope of continuing the training plan for Oxy in May... as of today, Track 2007 is over. Core strengthening at the gym. Just going through the motions, I feel dead inside.

Tuesday 04/24: 90 minutes of ellipticizing at 130-160 bpm. Managed to procure the elliptical that has a incline adjustment feature--making the incline really low makes it more like running. Irritated that it only lets you program in 60 minutes at a time.

Definitely in full blown self-destruct mode today. Ate all sorts of junk food and leftover burritos basically continuously throughout the day until I felt sick to my stomach. Later regretted the counterproductive and irrational expression of angst, and dedicated myself to undoing the damage at the gym. In trying to analyze the source of the hopelessness, I think its because both the allergies and the mystery foot problem are things that I perceive as arbitrary (it becoming a prohibitive problem was kind of sudden onset and of unknown cause), out of my control (doctor says I'm allergic to basically everything that grows), completely debilitating to my ability to race well (can't train and can't breathe) and incurable with limited treatment options. I may never perform at a higher level ever again, and coming to grips with that is really crushing...

Wednesday 04/25: 60 minutes of ellipticizing at 155-165 bpm. HR kind of high, maybe 90 minutes of ellipticizing every day is too much. Team watching some sort of nutritional video in the gym. Tried to crank call Rosen and Kiesz, unsuccessful. Core strengthening, then Dodgers game with Peter, so fun :). Got to stand 20 feet away from Nomar Garciaparra!

Thursday 04/26: 65 minutes of ellipticizing at 140-160 bpm in the late PM. Time went by surprisingly fast, with phone calls, visitors and text messaging. Ankle didn't hurt as much as usual, but knees kind of funny feeling. I wish the foot receptacles on the elliptical could be placed slightly closer together. Feeling a strange mixture of cautiously optimistic, and fearful of allergy testing round 2 tomorrow... eeeeeeee....

Friday 04/27: 20.27 miles, 1:13 minutes riding around the Rose Bowl with Peter for a nice change of pace. Decided halfway through to stop checking the HR monitor--so fun to go fast on the slight downhills. Both knees felt very tweaked and weak in the first 10 miles or so, but then that cleared up. Felt cathartic to go fast.

Allergy prognosis sounds bleak--5 year of expensive shots with little improvement over the first year, and gradual regression after the course of treatment is my only option, apparently. The meds that are available for long term use aren't strong enough to quell my symptoms, so there's at least a year of suffering left...judging from how greatly a bad allergy day can reduce my cardiovascular capacity, that's a big ugh.

Saturday 04/28: off. Couldn't sleep because of weird drugs from yesterday, failed to wake up at 6 am to go riding... SCIAC Prelims at Whittier. Kiesz had a solid day. Ate too much watermelon.

30 minutes running, 310 minutes ellipticizing, 73 minutes biking. Barely hanging on to my sanity.