Going With The Flow

2 mile run with a short walk between miles. I ran this morning against my best judgement and the adductor and obliques were definitely weak/tired from the last two days. No damage done, but I have to make myself take tomorrow off (at least in the morning).

Forced day off. Yoga, arm weights, and walking. 

2.5 miles around the block with Jake, 8:50 pace. A few little aches and pains that would come and go, but overall felt good.

So glad this is my last day of work this week! :) Bring on the 4th festivities!

Went to the Murray 5K with Jake. Ended up with 3 miles broken up across about 5 different runs. Ran 2 x 1/2 mile at about 6:45 pace. Everything felt great except for slight abdominal cramping again. We are on our way north towards cooler temps now... I only brought red/white/blue clothes for the rest of the week! Have a great 4th!

NOTHING. Super lazy day hanging around Hebgen Lake, MT. Felt pretty achy from yesterday's run and travel. Not a bad place to be!

Joined in on the VDK family fun and ran the Sawtelle Stampede 5K in Island Park, ID. This was my farthest run to date post-surgery, and I had to be careful to NOT get in the competitive spirit for this race. Amiee and I ran together for the entire race and came in right at 8 min/mile. I felt great until about 2.5 miles, then I could feel the groin area (not bad though). Amiee saved me from potentially destroying myself by running too hard and then being in pain the rest of the day.

I loved this event - lots of patriotism and festiveness :)

Walk/jogged about 2 miles of the Mesa Falls Nature Trail. 

Day off from running. Short biking and strength training. 

Another great post by Functional Path Training -

Hard Work

It is a given that to achieve any level of success in sport demands hard work. That being said anyone can work hard, the champions are the ones who work smart. They know how to balance the work in order to get full benefit from the time and effort in training. Some athletes and coaches make the choice to try to go hard all the time with the hope that they will survive. It is just that hope & hope does not win medals. In reality more often than not it is this athlete who is seldom there when it counts the most. They either get hurt or spend all their time managing niggling injuries that keep them from achieving results. The alternative is to train smart, understand you capabilities and recoverability so that you can thrive and be at your best when the stakes are highest.  Smart training balances the hard with the easy, it takes into account individual differences and allows for differing adaptation times to different training demands. To train smart listen to your body and follow what it is telling you. Training accumulates over time so recognize that you are in it for the long term.  

20 minutes of slow running with Jake.

My running plan the next couple weeks is 2 days on, 1 day off - morning run, afternoon run, off, repeat. I'm really hoping to be able to get up to 4 miles by the end of the month. Progress is slowwww.

I felt pretty good this morning so I decided to run in the morning instead of the afternoon. 2.5 miles in 21 minutes. Only a little incision area discomfort, no compensation pain. I am 9 weeks post-op today. I am guessing that I need about three more weeks to really feel good all the time.I still have a pretty significant bump around the incision areas that haven't gone away yet. Any suggestions to promote healing?

Great article and video about Gary Player, 77-year old and was in the ESPN body issue. He is still going strong and has some great things to say - 

“America is maybe the most unhealthy nation in the world because they live on crap,” Player said. “They’ve got the best food in the world, the best farmers and the best food but they live on crap. When [British chef] Jamie Oliver went to America he went to areas where children never had cabbage or broccoli or spinach or vegetables in their life. People giving their children a soft drink and a doughnut to go to school. No wonder academically they’re affected.” 

“Most of my friends are dead and I’m going on to 78. I’m so fit and strong. I could get a heart attack, that can happen in life. But dam it all man, I get up in the morning at six o’clock. I work on my ranch. I mix cement. This morning, I stood there with a guy, we’re doing a new land. For three hours I helped pick up rocks. Now I’m in such great shape. I climb a mountain, I swim in my pool. I walk and I exercise. I don’t ask anyone on my ranch to do anything that I wouldn’t do. You got to keep your body moving, moving, moving.” 

Forced day off + work stress = not a happy camper. Psoas hurts.

2 miles around the block. Psoas muscle still super achy so I scheduled a PT visit for later this morning. 

I self-delegated myself as photographer and cheerleader for the Tour de Run. Honestly, it was hard for me to watch 3 races this weekend. One race and usually I'm okay, but after the third one I was feeling sad that I couldn't run even one of the stages' distances, much less race all of them. Maybe I'm trying too hard to get better.

Anyway, I ran 3 x 1 mile with about a half hour in between each mile. 

4 MILES!!!

My longest run in 5 months! I felt really great today which was surprising considering the last couple days. There must be something special about the new Saucony Ride 7s that I tested out for Jake today :) Those shoes are awesome.

I also just added a new psoas inhibition exercise to my PT that I found in a research article and I think it's helping.

The patient lies supine in hook lying and is instructed to dorsiflex at the ankle and push through their quadriceps as if to gently slide up the mat. The challenge is to contract the quadriceps without activating the hamstrings. If done correctly, the tibialis anterior and quadriceps are activated, while the hamstrings and psoas are inhibited.

PM - 4 miles on the bike with Jake. 

AM - 2 miles around the block. Probably should have taken the day off, but I didn't want to. I had a little more TFL and glute compensation this morning. 

30 minutes total of all the different aerobic machines at the gym to see if I can handle any of them yet. Order of worst to best - recumbent bike, rowing machine, upright bike, stairmaster, elliptical, treadmill. I may actually be able to handle the elliptical on the off-running days soon.

4 miles, 8:22 pace! I felt a little off it terms of what muscles were supposed to be firing but no pain so I kept going. It is so nice to go out for a 30+ min run - I hope I can do this every day soon!

PM - 3.6 miles. I ran with Jake for 3 miles then the heat hit me hard. I haven't exercised at all in the 100 degrees yet so this was a huge shock to the system. Walk/jogged the last mile back home then immediately jumped in the pool. My face is still beet red from the effort - I am so out of shape! Really loving this running thing again :)

I got signed up for Draper Days 5K this weekend, so my goal will be to break my 5K time from the last race: sub-24:47! Baby steps...

1.6 miles with Jake. He only put 1 mile but he's wrong.

Really excited to run at Draper Days this morning. My warm-up consisted of only stretching and one stride because I didn't want to push my luck with mileage. I decided to run whatever pace felt comfortable injury-wise. I am actually quite pleased with my time and effort today - it shows that I have made huge improvements in the last two weeks (weeks 9 and 10 post-surgery). Good to know that I am right on schedule in terms of the rehabilitation. And that time is pretty good for running 10 miles/week for the last 4 weeks and 4 months of nothing prior to that. I am just so thankful to finally be running again :)

The race turned out to be very competitive and a great showing by the top level runners in the area. Allie, James, and I went on a cooldown after our real cooldown of laying in the grass for 30 minutes. I'm trying to remember the last time I ran with Allie and James and I couldn't even remember. It's about time!

 I got to bust out my new Saucony uniform too -

Hiked 3.5 miles around Albion Basin this afternoon. It was perfect weather and beautiful up there! I felt really good until about 3.4 miles when my right leg got too tired to work right anymore. Good to know that I can hike since we're going up to Jackson Hole this coming week!

Went on a 4 mile bike ride with Jake after a long break. 

No running - I need a day off to recover from so much last week. I have to update my blog now so I don't convince myself it's a good idea this afternoon. 

PM - 7 mile bike ride with Jake. PT today focused on lots of manual therapy on my back and psoas. He added a lot of glute isolation exercises and static back extension.

AM - 3.2 miles with Jake, 8:15 pace. I really focused on lifting my knees because I'm still weak there. I probably need to start doing form stuff to make sure I'm not creating bad habits.

I spent the morning cheering on the Des News Marathon/Half/10K runners. I watched a very exciting (and fast!) race in the 10K then headed up to Wasatch Blvd to cheer on the marathoners. I ended up running 3 miles along the course at 6:30 pace. Pretty happy to manage that pace but it was hard! Progress from last week's 5K!

Shout out to Jake who had a solid kick this morning and huge shout out to ALLIE who ran an awesome marathon this morning :) Pics from the races here.

Now off to Jackson for the long weekend!! 

Hiked 6 miles in Teton National Park - Jenny Lake to Hidden Falls to Inspiration Point and back. Had some distal hamstring pain but felt pretty good overall.

10 MILE hike in Teton National Park, up to Ampitheatre Lake and back (3100 ft elevation). This was a huge step for me and I honestly didn't think it would go as well as it did. Had two very cold soaks in the lake before heading down and that helped a lot. Wrapped my distal hamstring and it didn't bother me at all.

After two breakthrough days of hiking, I needed a low-key day. Biked alongside Jake running in the morning for 6 miles then did a service project of weeding (which was hard!) with our friends for the museum in Jackson. We also went boating on Jackson Lake which was beautiful.

Hiked up to Ski Lake on Teton Pass, 4 miles RT. It is a great, gradual trail so Jake and I decided to run some sections on the way down. 

AM - 3 miles around the block. Felt tired, but really good.

Lots of great pics from our trip to Jackson here.

PM - 5 mile bike ride with Jake. 

AM - 5 MILES!! Ran 3.5 miles with Jake then headed home, got back at 4.1 and kept thinking - just a little more. I even beat the 8 min guy this morning! I had a little discomfort in the groin throughout the run but it was just surgical site weirdness. This distance means I get to do horsepark loop again!!

Nothing. Hard day at work felt like a workout.