5k group

Did 20 mins of PT exercises this morning, plus 2x1:30 scar massage. Glamorous stuff, I know, just try and contain your awe and excitement! Ok ok, I didn't actually time my scar massaging... but it's sure funny to imagine. 

I spent a good chunk of the day yesterday in the house catching up on hospital bills, cleaning, etc. Feeling a little stir crazy but 5:00, Ali convinced me to go to the beginner 5k group at the store with her. She's been helping coach it so I figured I'd tag along. I was really glad I did-- getting outside was so much more gratifying than the alternative, which for me would've meant watching Trailer Park Boys or some repeat episode of Game of Thrones. 

There were a couple people from Crossfit Bonafide to show the 5kers some warmup exercises and drills. We did bunny hops, butt kicks, high knees, did circuits of this flat, ladder-looking stepping contraption (oh yeah...called an agility ladder!) that encouraged hop scotch type jumping, you know... things like that. It was pretty fun to pop around to the different stations. Reminded me of gym class in middle school or something along those lines.

For the running segment, the group was set to do 8 minutes of running x4 with 1 minute walking between. Monday was the 10minx3 day, which was a big jump from what they'd been doing, so this week is big for them in terms of the overall program. I was impressed though, everyone was hanging in there really well. I chatted with people and enjoyed jogging alongside them. It was nice to breathe the fresh air! We got back and did some quick stretching and that was it. I walked home with Ali and that was the night. 

PT mañana early early AM!

AH

Back to PT

Yesterday I went to Sport and Spine PT here in Portsmouth to start the next step in my recovery back to full time running. Walking into the waiting room brought back some awful memories though, and right away things were off to a rough start. 

Back in the summer when this sports hernia was really becoming an issue for me-- roughly in August/September-- I started seeking outside help. At that point I had tried resting, stretching, strengthening on my own, but I had been unable to do any serious running for about two months. I went to my PCP and he referred me to Sport and Spine, which was both a convenient and logical first step. Of course, I didn't have a diagnosis at the time and was treating the injury the way you would a pulled muscle or inflamed tendon. We tried several different stretches and releases at PT (most notably the psoas, which involved the therapist slowly drilling his hand into my side, working his way almost all the way to my spine to try and loosen up the muscle around it), along with some Alter G treadmill running. The Alter G was really cool, and for a moment I felt like Galen Rupp or Ritz, but unfortunately it made no difference for me pain-wise. It was a hopeless endeavor, which became obvious to me after about 4 weeks. 4 weeks of essentially spinning my wheels and going nowhere really put a sour taste in my mouth about the place, even though none of it was actually the fault of the therapists or their plan for care. That's why I wanted to go back and give them (and myself) a second chance. 

I tried my best to keep these negative feeling pushed aside, but that hopeless feeling crept up in me like a fever. I even felt physically hot. Scribbling through paperwork as quickly as possible, I was feeling only slightly calmer by the time my PT came into the room to show me to the room where she'd do her evaluation. 

Balancing feelings of frustration and a little hope, I retold the annotated version of my injury and everything I'd done since surgery. Obviously, the post-op time was the focus, and I went into detail about my progression since February; here's the abbreviated version of the version I told:

(Did I just use a semicolon and colon in the same sentence? ... I don't know... Does it look obnoxious? Is it even correct grammatically? It just felt right...)

Surgery date: 1/30

@ 5.5 weeks: Very light running, interval style walk/runs

@ 8 weeks I had built up to comfortably do 5 miles straight at about 7:00 pace. Confidence building. 

@ 9.5 weeks I was up to 8 miles, overdid it by running too fast one day, and felt myself back tracking big time. I took 4 days off and went back to doing 2-5 mile runs very easy and saw my surgeon again for a follow up @ 11 weeks. He went on to scold me, very matter-of-factly, that I was basically a fool for trying to build up so much running without proper strengthening post surgery. I was asking for a setback eventually. 

@ 12 weeks here I am in this office

After going through some basic flexibility and strength tests, we started talking about a plan. The surgeon had told me to stop running entirely until I at least spoke with the PT, which I didn't really listen to very well, but after this meeting and talking about it again I resigned to the facts: I will probably recover faster in the long term if I can limit the setbacks that running too fast or too far will inevitably give me. 

The basic plan for PT is to do specific inner hip stretching and strengthening, along with lots of soft tissue release around my hip area (more of this initially), probably work that damn psoas again.... 

The big picture is this: my affected side is tighter than my right side, which makes sense post-op. Smoothing things out on the muscular level and getting that side of my body to function more fluidly is how I thought about it. Perhaps a little naively, I am hoping to have rapid improvement. I'll be going twice a week for the next few weeks, and you better believe I'll cringe every time I have to fork over that massive copay. I try to ignore it and pretend it's not real... Seems to work pretty well. I'll post updates as I go along of course. Thanks for the support everyone!

AH

Day off

Today is a good one to take off. Feeling a little sore in my hip from yesterday-- could be one of a few things. 1) PT exercises I did yesterday. It's been a while since I've done that kind of thing, and they're geared specifically for lower core work. 2) My 5 mile run. This is a definite possibility too. I may have gone too fast. 3) There's also the possibility of the soreness stemming from the scar massaging I've been doing the past several days, though this is a more distant concern for me at this point. I've never done scar massage before.. It's a cringe-worthy endeavor, no doubt about it. I'm literally taking this scar healing cream and pressing deep into it and over the incision. Shit hurts! Obviously it's to break up the scar tissue, which will help me going forward. This doesn't help the fact that I'm a huge baby about it. 

PT appointment tomorrow. We'll see what happens... I'll post a longer update then.

AH

5 miles into Kittery

5.5 miles easy-moderate pace today. Went over the memorial bridge into Maine and ran a loop-- first time I've done that in a while. My groin felt good this morning when I woke up; otherwise I felt less than ideal after a fun night on the town with friends. After some lounging around in the morning, stomach issues subdued for the moment, I got myself going and was happy I did. I was feeling good enough that I needed to be careful not to get too carried away and start running too fast. Sometimes it's hard for me to slow down once I build up to a certain pace and feel good doing it, so I actively tried to check my speed in the first mile or so. It's always more fun to run fast, you know? I still ended up quicker than most of my runs lately. I averaged 6:52 pace with a 152 average hr. Little high on the hr side but that's to be expected given my fitness. I try and avoid this kind of thing, but back when I was training for Grandmas I would be running closer to 5:50 pace with a heart rate in that zone. Comparisons to my fittest, moment-in-the-sun-self bum me out a little, but also remind me how much I'm capable of once I'm healthy. There's so much room for improvement that I feel excited and annoyed at the same time. 

Anyway, once I got home I did 15 minutes of PT exercises that I found helpful pre-surgery. I hope they'll be even more helpful post-surgery to build up my core so I can handle running quicker paces. I need to continue to take it easy with my running and let the PT play itself out. 

Yesterday, in case you wanted to fill the gaps in my blogging life, I got out the door for 2 very easy miles just to shake the legs out. I tested out the NB Zante for the first time. They felt nice-- light, snappy, fast feeling for sure. I'll definitely keep them in the rotation going forward. 

Tomorrow I'll have to take much easier. As the day has gone on I can feel some soreness in my hip building up a bit. Might take the day off of running and focus on core stuff. We'll see. 

AH

Graveyard loops

I couldn't bring myself to go to the gym to pedal on a bike for an hour, so I substituted SC's workout with a 3 mile jog (~7:05 pace) and a few minutes of planks when I got back. I ran a couple loops of the graveyard along south street. I haven't gone over there in a while, mostly due to my lack of running ability over the fall and winter. I always love a good graveyard loop though. If you go a certain route through there it's almost exactly one mile, which is maddening but also a little meditative if you think about it the right way. I've done repeat miles through there before, but that's going back a couple years. I also loved doing my doubles in there on days when I couldn't imagine going too far out of town. Mentally, it seems easier sometimes to just stay close by.

It also reminds me of doing graveyard loops at Bucknell. There was a graveyard right across the street from where we'd meet to run over the summers (I spent my summers there training with the team sophomore, junior, and senior year), and it was a great little .6m, 1.2, 1.8, 2.4 etc etc mile add on after our runs. We joked about doing 18 mile long runs on it but that never came to fruition. Graveyard loops here in Portsmouth bring me back. I should try and get out there more often, it's a nice calm area with softer footing through most of it.

AH

 

Direction

So I've redirected my focus--or at least I'm trying to. For the past 6 weeks, since I started running again (even though the beginning consisted of run/walks and painfully slow progression) my focus was on increasing mileage at a steady pace. Things were going well-- by the end of March I had built up to doing 7 miles at a respectable 7:00 pace. I felt that the worst was behind me until I did an 8 mile run on 4/5 that immediately felt like "too much too soon." I had really pissed off the injury and it flamed up and caused me some frustration and pain almost immediately. Since then I've been running here and there-- probably average 4 times a week and no more than 5 miles. I've been getting into my own head, and looking back at these blog posts is proof of that-- I can be quite the flip-flopper when it comes to my running-related-mental-happiness. At times I was convinced I had re injured myself and I'd need to go back under the knife.

Today I finally had that follow up appointment with my surgeon, Dr. Busconi, at Umass medical in Westboro. By the time I'd made the 80 minute drive and waited for another hour to see him I was getting a little nervous and had psyched myself out a little bit. Didn't take long for him to knock some sense into me once he finally came into the room. He cut straight through the BS overload in my head and dismissed any chance I had reinjured the spot from the get go. He felt very confident about this-- just that I was a fool for trying to run that much without building up my core strength first. He said I was basically trying to run on the same chassis (read: biomechanics) that caused the injury in the first place-- not to mention the fact that I still have a lot of scar tissue in that area that is probably affecting my gait as well. It was just a matter of time before I aggravated the injured spot again, the way I was going. His presentation of the information was so concise and straightforward you can't help but think you're an idiot for not taking things a little easier. To my credit though, I was told I could start running 6 weeks post-op, and start building from there. My fitness tendencies tend to be aggressive though, so I imagine that's another reason this was an issue for me.  

On a side note I hate when people say my mechanics are off, or they are a reason for the injury in the first place, but I guess I need to swallow my pride and realize that it was undoubtably a contributing factor. Plus the fact that I've avoided core work my entire running career doesn't do me any favors.

So the new plan is to NOT increase my running distance for right now, but rather back track and start going the PT route again. Their four week goal will be to release any tightness in my psoas, hip flexor, or adductor, plus get on a good core strengthening program. This will hopefully give me the base I need to start to build my mileage back up.

At first I was disappointed to hear of this PT plan, but it definitely makes the most sense. I am burned out on PTs from all the months I spent going that route before finally landing on a diagnosis. But at least there's less doubt about what I need to improve and the direction it needs to go this time. And the bottom line is I should get better, where before the "better" part was always in flux and never assured. I made an appointment this morning and will start PT on Tuesday next week.

Doctors offices

They all smell the same and they all make me uncomfortable. Daytime TV blasting too loud and nothing interesting to read. I'm just hope I'll leave here with good piece of mind. I'll post again with updates on what the doctor says

Longest run in 2 weeks!

5.9 miles this morning. Hips got a little janky by the end as I got more tired but the pain stayed in the 1-2 range. By janky I mean... wobbly.... like I don't have full confidence that they'll hold up if I kept going on at the same pace, or increased. Clearly not 100%, but this is also the longest run I've done in two weeks when I did that 8 mile negative split situation that set me back.

You know how sometimes a sneeze can really sneak up on you and you're totally unprepared for it, causing you to spray unnecessary amounts of spit/fluids everywhere? That just happened to me moments ago.

All better now though.

I'm trying to currently figure out how to link my runs from Garmin to these posts and the blog in general. I don't have a ton of time this morning. Here's a link that may or may not work.

Garmin Connect

Anyway if that didn't work... this is what I did: my goal was to do about 50% of the run in HR zone 2, which is 149-158. After warming up, I did my next three miles right in that zone, which meant I was running about 6:25 pace. It felt awesome to turn the legs over a little more! Quick mile or so cooldown and I was done. That's all for now...

AH

Afternoon thoughts

Groin didn't bother me much at the store today. Oddly enough I got one very noticeable and surprising sharp pain out of nowhere, but it dissipated pretty quickly and I didn't have any lingering issues afterwards. Weird. 

I continue to be so happily amazed by all the people coming into the store saying how they loved reading my blog, asking about the injury etc etc. Even though at times I get tired of talking about it, it means so much knowing there are lots of people out there pulling for me. You guys are awesome! 

As more time goes by I'm becoming more aware of the fact that this injury is defining me more and more. I hate this of course and I don't want that at all. But in all likelihood this is the most severe running injury I'll have in my life. If I can handle it and heal, I'll be able to handle pretty much anything. I'm over it-- how's that for an understatement? 

Also, wouldn't it be nice to read something where I'm not constantly obsessing over my broken core muscle?

Let's look ahead for a second to imagine greener pastures and talk about what I'm really looking forward to in my running life.

Long-- aggressively long-- trail runs. 

SC and I discussed trail running and how it can help build core strength really well, not to mention the endurance side of it. I'm picturing myself up in the white mountains running and hiking for hours and hours on end. Maybe checking heart rate every now and then, but having no concern for pace at all. How liberating would that be? My legs get all jittery just thinking about it. After my last marathon cycle where I was so analytical and focused on the details for such a long time, I'm craving the pure side of running where you get lost in yourself and your brain is void of thoughts, where it's just you and your feet and the trail and the air in your lungs. I'd like to build up to do the presidential traverse, and maybe more, depending on how it all pans out. 

Yesterday I did an SC prescribed leg routine that involved squats, lunges, jumping squats, bulgarian split lunges, and box jumps. I've been finding this stuff hard but helpful when I've done it. The college runner version of myself would have punched the current me in the face right then and there for typing that. In college I was an all running, no anything else kind of runner-- and deep down I still am that person. The pureness and simplicity of that mentality is so appealing to me. If you had more time or more energy in your life, pushing it towards running more mileage is the best and most efficient way to improve, was my mentality. But now things have shifted a little bit. I need to obviously do more "other stuff," ie biking, strength work, core, to get back to 100%. It involves swallowing my pride a bit but it's ok.

The college version of myself would punch the current me in the face for lots of things, now that I think about it. Writing a blog is a great example. Wearing a GPS watch, training with heart rate, paying a little bit of attention to my nutrition. That could be a blog post in itself how my mental outlook on running has changed in the last 5 years.

Today (Saturday) I went out and did 4 easy miles, about 7:15 average. No pain while running in my groin or hip, but my hips still had that wonky feeling they've had for a while now. It's like things don't feel "set" yet. As I'm walking around post run, I can feel a slight soreness in the groin, but it's not bad. I took some Advil and I'm icing it. I have 5 or 6 miles tomorrow with some in zone 2 HR, so a slightly quicker pace than "easy." More "steady," so to speak. I hope I feel ok the rest of the day...
 

Yesterday I didn't post anything, but sometimes life is more important than talking about yourself on the internet! The store got busy before closing and I wasn't able to leave until late.

I had a pretty solid day of exercise though. I ran 2 miles (call it 7:10 average) and then went for a 60 minute bike ride. I don't actually own a bike currently, so I used one at the gym. This sounded utterly miserable to me at first-- it was a beautiful day and I felt pretty great running a couple miles, so going inside to pedal a stationary machine for an hour sounded like the real pits. I also have zero capability to listen to music right now. I dropped my phone on the ground a couple months ago and the screen cracked right in the spot where the headphone jack is supposed to go in. High comedy, I know. As hard as I try and jam it in there, something must have broken/shattered and is now obstructing the hole. My ipod died about a decade ago and Ali's was MIA. So imagine me sitting about 4 feet from two different TVs, no sound, no headphones, pedaling away, and feel free to chuckle to yourself. I should really look into purchasing a road bike.

Today (Thursday) I'm headed in for the "graveyard shift" at work, aka 12:00-8:00. I have the day off from any running or exercise. This weekend the running picks back up a little bit. Baby steps. I can't believe how long this hernia situation is taking to heal. It's unbelievable.

Something for all you loyal subscribers (I don't think any actually exist) to look forward to: A virtual discussion about different training methods and strategies that some of my former Bucknell teammates were discussing in a recent email chain. I'm planning on having this post (it'll be a long winded affair) linked to next month's Runner's Alley newsletter. I hope it drums up some interest. If nothing else, it'll almost surely get you to think critically about your own training and all the different strategies out there, and that maybe the way you're training isn't the only way, or best way, to do it.

AH

Four miles... Plus pickups!

Today I set out for an easy four miler with the intention of skipping the three "pickups" Shawn had written for me. I am still so nervous to run fast for any length of time. It's like the opposite of marathon training when the adage goes "the distance is what kills ya." The "ya," not the "you" I think adds dramatic flair. I feel like I could go for a decently long run, but turning it over more quickly is what set me back a week ago and I'm terrified of doing that again. Mentally healing from that might even take longer than the physical part. 

Once I got a couple miles in though, I thought I'd try picking it up. I had built up some confidence by then. Funny how a couple miles, just 10-15 minutes of running, can really shift your mental state. I'm used to that being a warm up period where I'm trying to jumpstart my legs from yesterday's or that morning's run where I might have run really hard or did some workout. Now it's a warm up period where I'm getting used to the fact that I'm even out there. I did two 90 second bursts at about 6:10 pace with 3:00 rest between. Heart rate jumped to about 170-172 during the pickups, which seems about right. Nothing fancy or impressive, but it was something. Getting back home I got a little tiny tiny bit of that "shitshitshit I did too much" feeling, but I threw some ice on the injured hernia side and took an ibuprofen, which should hopefully keep any inflammation down so it doesn't get out of control. So now we can call this two days in a row of running without noticeable pain. Well, now that I think back again I did get a mean side stitch about 5 minutes in, but that was due to the pathetic shape I'm in. In a sick way it felt kind of good. It's been a while since I've felt that. 

I also heard from an old high school track coach of mine, Tim Weir, who I haven't heard from in a while. That was pretty cool too

AH

Levelheaded-ness

Sometimes I can't even believe how moody I can be when it comes to running. Yesterday was a serious "valley," so to speak. My hip was really hurting during my little four mile jog around town. I considered the possibility of needing to walk home if it got any worse. Dramatic, right? It's ridiculous. After the run I went for a short hike up Mt. Major with my friend Timmy but needed to turn around about half way up the mountain because my groin was bothering me too much and I didn't want to push it any farther. The trail was snowy and icy too which added to the strain on it. Coming back down the mountain without reaching the top was frustrating, but it was nice to walk in the woods regardless and I tried to focus my attention on that more than my chronically straining groin. I spent the better part of the evening moping around my house and feeling badly for myself. Sob sob sob. Boo hoo, ya know?

Anyway, take all that frustration and fast forward about 10 hours. I went for a run today, fully expecting carnage once again, but the pain never came. I did change my shoe choice and ran with a much quicker cadence, really focusing on form and protecting myself from overextending. I ended up going s full five miles with no pain to speak of. Averaged about 7:00 pace. Just like that my mental state was reversed. Obnoxious. 

Writing this now another few hours later I'm definitely feeling the dull pain again, but it's not freaking me out like it was yesterday, all because I was able to run pain free. I'm really hoping this is a sign of good things to come, but man what a head case I can be. 

Beautiful day though

Sort of a rough one today. Did 4 slow miles, call it 7:15 average around Portsmouth (it's getting crazy busy again with the warm weather coming...) and had some pretty sharp pain in my left hip for most of it. Different type of pain than before surgery, but this is some of the sharpest and most acute I've dealt with in a while. Looking forward to next week (Wedesday) for a follow up with the doctor. It's too bad, when I scheduled this appointment a month ago I thought I'd be nearing 100%. Now there's a lot more doubt thrown in there. Trying to stay positive...

This week was two giant steps back, but today was a quarter step forward. I was able to run today with minimal pain in my groin and got back a few minutes ago feeling pretty positive about the whole thing. I'll have to see how the next few hours and days play out before I get too excited though. I exchanged quick emails with my high school coach "Abu," who told me very simply in his Abu like ways that progress is not linear. Always knows just what to say.  

So I'm going with that linear thing from now on.

My first goal this year in terms of competition was to race the Market Square Day 10k in Portsmouth in June. That was one of my favorite moments from last year and it really feels like my hometown race right now. It tends to be competitive too. I ran 30:31 there last year and only won by 10 seconds with Jonny Wilson (Falmouth, ME) behind me. Coming out the other end of a vicious marathon training cycle that winter and spring, I was primed to run fast at any distance, but I wasn't necessarily focused on 10k training, which admittedly would look a little different than the full 26.2. I was hoping this year I could train hard for that distance and try and better my time from last year-- maybe even run sub 30. I guess what I'm getting at is I don't think that's a super realistic goal anymore. Getting to that level would require me to be ready to run fast right now, which is currently my biggest hinderance with my groin. The sooner I can wrap my head around the idea of skipping the race entirely, or being ok with a much slower time, the better my recovery will be long term.

Some other really exciting news for me: my name (and a few quotes and brief paragraph about my training) appeared in the magazine Running Times yesterday. I knew it was going to be in the article about "The Long Run" but I had no idea in what capacity. When they were delivered to the store I tore open the box like it was Christmas. Turns out my little paragraph is the freakin' OPENING PARAGRAPH of the whole feature article! I dropped off a copy at Shawn's (my current coach who got me to that "level" of long running) house and he was stoked to see his name in print as well. I thought that was the coolest thing! The article isn't online yet but is out in hard copy (it's the May/June publication). I'll post it later.      

Positive thoughts!!!

AH

This past Sunday I ran 8 miles (which was on the higher end for me since surgery) but wasn't significantly more than I had been doing. I had been building pretty steadily all the way from run/walking 20 minutes in the beginning of March to being able to comfortably run 5, 6, 7 miles pain free. On Sunday I would say I overdid it. I did an out and back on 1A in Rye with Andrew Sears (new RA employee--pretty quick dude), going out easy (although a beastly headwind made it tricky) and coming back in HR zone 3-4 which for me right now comes out to 5:50-6:10 pace (with the tailwind). After finishing my legs were pretty sore but I had this sneaky sinking feeling I had gone too hard, or too far, as soon as I sat down in my car to drive home.

My groin/hip area has been aching much more since then and hasn't gotten significantly better, though I'd say it's improved slightly. I called the doctor's office where I got the surgery and have a follow up in a couple weeks. I spoke to a nurse who said it's likely I "overdid it, but didn't screw anything up." I think she sensed the desperation in my voice. I'm still not sure what the deal is or if I really did screw anything up, but the past several days have been pretty rough. I ran 2 really slow miles on Monday and it didn't feel right, so I took Tuesday and Wednesday off and planning on taking today as well. I'll try and test it out tomorrow.
 

RA shout out!

As most of you know, I work at Runner's Alley in NH. I attribute tons of my successes in running and otherwise to the store and Jeanine (my boss and the owner). My first two "blogging" posts were for the Runner's Alley blog recounting my experiences running my last marathon and what's been happening since then with my injury, surgery, etc. Those two posts have been a big motivation for me to start one on my own and put up more regular updates for interested parties to read. Check out runnersalley.com/blog to read mine and several other great posts from my co-workers.