Ending the hiatus at last

If you've kept up with this blog at all, you may be wondering what I've been doing for the last six months since the Tyler Rose Half. The short answer is: moping. I've been moping and feeling sorry for myself. I've gotten most of that out of my system now. I'll be posting some new fitness and nutrition goals next week.

For a more detailed break down of my six month pity party:

Race Day:

Aka, the "purpose" of this entire blog. It didn't go as planned. During our first 9 mile run (about a month from the half), I had some kind of physical break down where my hip gave out and my guts went crazy. I had to stop running about 6 miles when my gastrointestinal distress became so severe that I feared an imminent pants-disaster. We stopped at a gas station but I couldn't go to the bathroom. So, we tried to run again (because I'm hard headed) and that's when my hip just gave out. I didn't feel anything snap or pop, it just suddenly became loose and wobbly. I hobbled down to the nearest Dairy Queen and made it to the bathroom just in time. Then we hobbled back home about 3 miles. The next day I could barely walk. Awesome.

I made a lot of bad bad decisions that run. Looking back, I should have stopped for good the first time. I should've called a friend to come pick us up. I should've refueled better and eaten more carbs before the run. I should've kept up with my strength training, since I knew my hips were vulnerable to injury.

I basically rested for the next two and a half weeks, and then attempted some 30 minute walks along our normal running paths. Although I still had some serious hip discomfort, I was too bone-headed to give up. By the day of the half, I felt "well" enough to convince my husband that we should walk the half. So we did. It was incredibly cold (like, almost freezing). It was slow going, but my hip and my fear kept us from running. We did end up running the last mile, which was pretty encouraging. All in all, it took us about three and a half hours to cross the finish line... pretty abysmal. Because we got there so late, the race organizers had run out of finisher's medals. Ugh. We did eventually get them in the mail.

They looked like this:

After the race:
I didn't feel like running EVER again. I felt incredibly discouraged, stupid, and worthless (never mind the fact that I had just walked 13.1 miles after training for months, something that should have made me feel proud of myself). It just seemed so pointless. I spent about two months doing nothing aside from some karate and half-hearted walks. Needless to say, I put on a bit of weight. Then the holidays came, and I put on some more weight. Yay!

At some point, I decided to get off my butt and do something. I landed on this strength training program from Kara Goucher, courtesy of Tony Salazar. It's specially designed for runners and it is a beast. I made it through one full round (four weeks of increasingly heavy weights + one rest week), put on a lot of muscle, and felt pretty awesome about myself. During my first week of round two, I screwed up by not eating enough calories (again) which resulted in me almost passing out in the middle of a set.

Shortly after this experience, my husband and I traded various flu strains back and forth for about 6 weeks. Then I got a little depressed. Then, we had this ridiculous month of crazy weather changes that threw my poor joints into a tailspin.

Then I went out of town for ten days for a conference in New York. Then I got sick again.

Aaaaaand now I'm here. Sick and tired of being sick and tired, as they say. Last week, my husband and I started a new round of the Kara Goucher workout. Next week, I'm going to start a weird paleo food challenge called the Whole30 Challenge. So there you go.

Words of encouragement are welcome, as are any hilarious stories of failure that you might have.

Looking down the barrel of 11 miles

First, a quick recap of the last few runs:

Saturday, according to the training program, we attempted a 4 mile run. We ended up running a little over 3, as a complication of joint inflammation, lung issues, and the addition of my new CamelBak (which we had to repeatedly refit). Pace was about 12:10, much much lower than either Matt or I would have predicted.

Monday, we tucked in a 30 minute run where we covered about 2.6 miles at a pace of 11:32 (the fastest we've run in about two weeks). My lungs had gotten so bad by Monday evening that I had to use my bronchitis inhaler before we left; I'm really really glad I did. My breathing was still extremely ragged and halting even AFTER using the inhaler. The biggest issue I had was with tightness in my hips; it wasn't so much pain as fatigue and diminished range of motion, but it was still very upsetting. I also had some issues with my right shin at the very beginning, although they subsided after about 10 minutes. I'm still concerned about the shin issues, namely that I might develop a stress fracture if I'm not careful. All those concerns aside, I was glad just to finish this one.

For Wednesday's run, we're hoping to take advantage of this week's cooler weather and run around a bit on the UT Tyler trails. Saturday's run will be a goal distance of 11 miles, so it would be great to get a break from the roads for a bit.

Just a reminder to myself and my cutie husband: we've got to sign up for the race!

9(ish) mile run and the adventures of Stick and Box

Saturday's run was a new "longest ever". Our goal was 9.5 miles. In the 132 minutes allotted, we covered 8.78 miles. This was an increase of about 2.25 miles over our last "longest ever run".

We actually experimented with Jeff Galloway's proposed run/walk ratios this run (he recommends a pace of 3 min run, 1 min walk where we had been doing 10:3 or 8:5). I really liked it, because I felt like my legs held out a lot longer. Matt didn't enjoy it as much, because the constant time checking prevented him from "zoning out". We basically broke it up into 32 rounds of 3:1, with an extra 1 minute walk break after 8 rounds.

Our overall pace was about 15 minutes per mile. I don't want to get hung up on time, though. The distance itself was a victory. Temps were 86 with a heat index of 90, humidity of 57%. That's pretty ridiculous for 9:00pm.

During the run, I had some moderate hip discomfort in my left hip. I took periodic breaks to stretch out my ITB and pop the tendons back into place, which seemed to help. Surprisingly, I had no problems with my right shin; so, the periodic ache I'm having there is probably not a stress fracture. When we got home, I went through my normal routine of static stretching followed by a cool shower. I then decided on a whim to take an impromptu ice bath. We didn't have much ice, so it was pretty weak. I can understand the appeal though.

For fuel/hydration, we brought a good ol' 12 oz gatorade and a package of Clif Shot Bloks (they're like giant square gummies). The Clif Bloks worked great. They're really easy to eat while running, they don't leave a horrible aftertaste, and I definitely felt the effects. No glycogen issues on this run. We scheduled a Shot Blok approximately every 45 minutes (one at 12th round, and one at 24th). I may experiment with some other gooey fuel in the future, but I thought these worked awesome.

I ended up buying this CamelBak Aurora Hydration Pack (70 fl oz), which is different than the one on my wishlist. The one I bought is $65, compared to $50, but it has more pockets, more colors, and a greater water capacity (which I hope will make it more useful if I ever decide to transition to even longer distances). I don't know when it will arrive, but hopefully soon.

Also, the adventures of Stick and Box.... while we were running down Old Jacksonville Hwy during the first leg of the run, we came across a big cardboard box with a long gnarly stick leaning against it. We decided that Stick and Box were the main characters in a buddy comedy. Box is the staid, reserved, slightly overweight pencil pusher (to be played by Nick Offerman) while Stick is the spontaneous, fun-loving new guy who likes to shake things up (to be played by Seth Green). We decided that their love interest (which threatens to tear them apart) is Puddles, a refreshing but unreliable woman played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. We made them a theme song (although we didn't really get past "Stick and Box, Stick and Box, one is a stick, and the other's a box"). This took up a large chunk of our run.

Catching up, and a new record

I've been pretty silent on here for a few weeks, but rest assured that we haven't given up. I got a bit bogged down by the blogging process.

Here's what you've missed, in the meantime:

• Wednesday, July 18 run - a 30 minute run that got cut short due to hip pain; kept up a decent pace though.
• Vacation in Miami - in which we endeavored to run, but failed (Saturday July 21, Monday July 23, and post-vacation recovery on Wednesday July 25)
• Saturday, July 28 run - 8 mile target, just under 6.5 run (making this the new longest run ever). Run/walk of 10min/3min was adjusted to 8min/5min to deal with hip pain, headache, and tummy ache. Ended up stopping 5 minutes earlier than planned because I completely depleted my glycogen stores and just couldn't run any farther. It was a surreal experience which taught me that: 
• a) I need to have a plan for fueling on runs longer than 1 hour
• b) I am infinitely tougher than I used to be; seriously, this was the most out-of-body miserable experience I have ever put myself through
• c) My husband makes an incredible long-distance runner; he isn't affected by this stuff at all
• d) Old Jacksonville Hwy inside the loop has great sidewalks
• e) It's time to buy that CamelBak
• f) I still hate the heat, and probably always will, but it doesn't have to keep me from running
• Tuesday, July 31 run - a 30 minute run fraught with whining and puttering and grunting. I learned that:
• a) Some runs are just really hard for no reason.
• b) My attitude problems aren't gone, but they are getting better (and Matt allows me enough grace to make up for it)
• c) I need to be mindful of my tendency to fall into a slow-pace rut
• d) Accordingly, it's time to kick it up a notch
• e) I still let my emotional environment dictate my physical output
• f) Sometimes my feelings are wrong.

With the Saturday run, we wrapped up what I consider another week towards our bribe-thermometer (lost a week while in Miami).

It's been really tough here lately. I know lots of people experience seasons of discouragement in their training, so I'm not alone. I've been struggling physically and mentally for the last few runs. What have you done to get through periods like this?

New Milestone: Longest Run Ever

As of last night, I've set a new personal record for myself: longest distance/time ever run. Technically, it was more of a run/walk but I'll take it.

The previous "record", set just over two years ago, was about 45 minutes long. It was a memorable run because I pulled my infamous hip flexor muscle (the injury that has defined my running failures ever since). I followed up that injury (which immediately left me limping) by running a 5k that weekend and walking around San Antonio for three days the next week. Note to reader: don't do that. I could hardly walk at the end, and the muscle STILL plagues me today.

Last night's run, however, went significantly better. We ran/walked for over 60 minutes (not including warm up and cool down), at an average per mile pace of about 13:00. I tapped previously unknown resources to finish the last mile. My hip was definitely nagging me, but not painful. I stretched extensively post run and took a cool shower. Today, I'm trying to stretch it lots and give it a bit of a rest.

We covered, in total, about 4.6 miles. The splits, as far as I can figure, looked like this:

• Mile 1: (just under) 10:00min/mi.
• Mile 2: 12:30min/mi
• Mile 3: 14:50min/mi (lots and lots of hills here)
• Miles 4/5: average of 11:20

So, that's pretty spectacular. We definitely went out a little fast, which probably set us up for the big lull at Mile 3. I'm proud of our strong finish, however. I'm even MORE proud that I can walk today.

(The run itself got delayed from Saturday to Sunday because I spent all Saturday on my feet working at an antique blacksmith forge... needless to say, I was SUPER BEAT and had no interested in running 5 miles in that condition)

This puts another week in the books, which means we've raised the thermometer again:

Tuesday run

Well, this has been a heck of a week. Monday's run got pushed to Tuesday, Wednesday's run got pushed to (hopefully) Thursday, and Saturday's run will follow 8 hours on my feet in front of a forge.

The plan for this week is basically:

Monday 30 min run
Wednesday 30 min run
Friday easy walk
Saturday 5 mile run

I've got a belt test on Thursday that has my head all out in left field. I keep having these nightmare scenarios where I strain my ankle running and can't test... or break my leg sparring and can't run... or any number of ridiculous scenarios.

Sigh. Ugh. Sigh. Anyway, the running's got to be done. This is week 8 of the blog (can you believe it?) with 16 weeks of training left. I feel like I'm at a crucial point in my mental training (and physical conditioning). I'm definitely getting into the habit of running even when I don't want to. This week has been more challenging than most, because I've had a lot of excuses at hand. My body feels fine, but my mental resolve is lagging.

Anyway, Tuesday's run went okay. I feel like it was a solid 30 minutes, although I wasn't thrilled about the pace. We ran after 9:00pm, and it was STILL 93F with a heat index of 99. Crazy.

I had a really rough time about 14 minutes in with a flare-up of abdominal pain (i.e. ovarian pain). It's a thing that comes up cyclically. Some months it is worse than others, and some months it doesn't appear at all. This was one of the first obstacles I encountered when I tried to start running a few years ago. I have no idea what it is, although I had a ton of tests done. On Tuesday night, I just kind of ran through it. I tried slowing down, which made it hurt worse. It subsided somewhat after I gulped some gatorade and sped up a little, paying special attention to my breathing.

Mostly, my joints were fine. The shin pain I was worried about really didn't give me any trouble, although I iced it post run just in case. My hip flexor was a little naggy, but not painful. Attitude was mostly really good (Matt complimented me on keeping my cool).

That's the sum of it for now. La ti da.

Return of my running nemesis, or the time I was a big big baby.

Wednesday's run was 25 minutes straight jogging (no walk breaks). I started out grumpy, and stayed pretty grumpy for the whole run. I don't know what it is about running that gets me so mad, but I spend a good number of my runs really angry. I've learned to channel that anger into motivational energy, but it used to really demoralize me.

We ran in Rose Rudman park after dark (note to self: bring headlamp next time, that was way too dark). I wanted to miss the heat, and I was having a rough time getting out of the house. I really just didn't want to go (cue tantrum).
 
We did manage to leave the house. I stewed in my bad temper the whole time we were walking to warm up. The tendons on the bottom of my feet weren't bothering me, but the top of my right ankle was. I grumbled about it a lot. We started running, and the discomfort persisted. After about 5 minutes it went away, but replacing it was an old familiar pain: my stupid, stupid hip flexor.

I originally strained my stupid, stupid hip flexor in 2010 when I went a bit overboard in my training for our first Warrior Dash. Because I was a big bonehead, I insisted on running that race even though I had REALLY injured myself. The race took place the weekend before our belated honeymoon in San Antonio/New Braunfels. By the second day of our honeymoon, I could barely walk because the pain was so bad. Before I got injured, I was up to running 45 minutes at a time. I've never really gotten back to that point, because I never manage to rehabilitate it fully. I'm kind of at the "point of no return", here.
 
When this pain flared up in the middle of our run, I got pretty upset. It wasn't so nagging that I had to stop, but it triggered a whole flood of negative thinking. We managed to finish the run anyway (and cover a fair distance).

The next day, I looked at some stretches and strength training exercises which specifically target my hip flexor. I know my hips are weak; I know my core is really weak. I had a lot of success in the past supplementing my running with pilates and yoga, but I stopped for a while because I'm really (overly) picky about classes. Anyway, I've got to figure out a way to get back into a good core strengthening routine or I will NEVER make it to the half-marathon.

(Remind me of that last sentence, readers)

I've also got to make a real, serious effort to stretch them every EVERY day.

  So, that's where I am right now. As I write this, we're getting ready for our Saturday run. It's over 90 degrees (32 celsius), and it's a hot sticky day. I'm going to get myself pumped up before we head out the door by listening to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now". Wish me luck!

Here are some videos I found for hip flexor stretches/exercises:
http://www.runnersworld.com/cda/microsite/article/0,8029,s6-238-511-0-13952-0,00.html

http://www.runnersworld.com/article/1,7120,s6-241-286--13410-0,00.html

http://www.runnersworld.com/article/1,7120,s6-241-285--13543-0,00.html