THOU SHALT BE A COMEBACK

am.  8 at 8:31 AP on the treadmill.  I took yesterday off from running and did lots of corework and hip/knee strengthening exercises.  While still un-motrined I was able to hop down the stairs pretty quick this morning on my knees.  They are far from 100%, but are none the worse for the wear-and-tear last week and I daresay better.  More super easy in the stroller after Vanessa wakes from her nap.  I am saving some steam for a workout tomorrow.

afternoon.  5.75 at 8:30 pace with my girl in the stroller.  Of course we stopped for 20 minutes at mile 5 when we encountered a playground

7:19 AP.  It was windy and I was totally not feeling it today.  Workout was supposed to be 3 x2 miles at tempo pace with .5 brisk recoveries.  I plodded my two mile warm up and decided that I would just run fast for the tempo miles but wouldn't push too much.  I just... wasn't feeling it today.

2 mile warm up 8:32, 8:28

2 mile "tempo" 6:56, 7:04

.5 at 7:36 pace

2 mile tempo 6:43, 6:54

.5 at 7:35 pace

2 mile tempo 6:51, 6:45

.65 cooldown at 7:27 AP--I had to rush and get serious about getting to work

8:24 AP.  Talk about dead-legged and sluggish.  I plodded my way through, exploring the dirt roads east of here and found some decent rollers to run on.  The south wind was quite feisty by the time I ran in the afternoon.  I was planning on another threshold/speed session tomorrow but if my legs are still dead I will probably can it for another easy day.  Part of me wants to take an easy week, but part of me says there is only 3 1/2 weeks to taper time so just barge on through and get it done.  This, I see, may be the folly of running marathons so close together.

7:40 AP.  23mph winds today.  Freakin' Kansas.  Anyways, after secretly fighting 3 weeks of increasing sore throat, nightly coughing fits, and fatigue that finally got downright overwhelming, I gave in and went to the doctor. Hopefully after these antibiotics I'll be right as rain, because antibiotics tend to make me feel horrible.  My knees, however, felt better today than they have in weeks! I did more of the strengthening exercises and abripperX afterward. 

7:33 AP.  Ran with Eddy on the dirt roads around my house, hit up some decent hills.  It was cold--25 degrees, but the wind was only 7mph which isn't even noticeable really so we didn't completely freeze.  My legs were tight and nothing was flowing so without the company it would have been miserable.  Gotta be thankful for my best running friend!  I didn't run yesterday.  My daughter had a 3am asthma attack, the worse ever, scared me so bad we called an ambulance because I didn't think she would make it to the ER in the car.  I am a paramedic and a nurse and don't scare easily--and I was terrified.  She wasn't moving air and her chest was silent and anyone in the medical field knows how ominous that is.  But, she is doing GREAT!  She turned around fast and today is running around as if she had never been sick.  Thank God for modern medicine and for protecting my little girl.

8:21 AP on the gerbil wheel in my basement.  Watched David do plyometrics.  I am going to have to try that out when my knees heal, if they ever heal.  They have good days and bad days.  Today was not a good day.  Good thing I was only interested in a recovery run today.

8:11 AP.  Treadmill at naptime.  I went mostly easy but kept cranking the speed at the end to get it over with.  Big workout planned for tomorrow morning on what promises to be a windy day!

7:35 AP.  This was supposed to be 5 x 2 miles at MP.  I was tired when I rolled out of bed today. I was also very

pre-occupied with some things. I didn't want to do this workout at all.

When I started the warm-up and my legs were dead and tired I knew I

had to make a decision--do the workout anyway and accept the sub-par

times or abandon it and just jog. I decided that part of a marathon is

slogging through miles when you are 100% ready to quit mentally and

physically. Knees didn't exactly hurt but had this week, wobbly

feeling. I didn't know what to make of it. It was a little windy

today. Well, there''s my excuses. I'm sure I could come up with more.

Two mile warm-up, 1/2 mile recoveries at ~8:00 pace. Sets were(7:22,

7:29), (7:13, 722), (7:13, 7:10), (7:14, 7:05), (7:13, 7:09). All I

thought about during each set was quitting. Terrible attitude I know!

As much as I would like to go to the clinic tonight, I think I will stay

home and hover over my family who has had a tough week.

20 miles on the mountain bike.  Yesterday my knees hurt and the pain radiated down both side of my shins.  I didn't run.  Today they feel great, virtually pain free, but I am giving another rest day before I do a test run tomorrow.  I am planning 20 for Sunday morning with 10 at MP or better as a fitness test and to see how my legs hold up...I need to decide if Eisenhower is a go in a month or if I need to back out, crosstrain and heal, and set my eyes on something else.  We shall see.  Being pain-free today is very encouraging!

8:24 AP. stuck to the dirt roads.  Knees and shins are awesomely better.  Tomorrow will be a 20 mile measuring stick to gauge fitness, my injury, and whether or not to drop out of Eisenhower.

7:49 AP.  Alone.  Dirt roads. 17mph winds.  I started out slow with a 9 minute mile, and basically jogged the first 10.  Although I didn't have pain, I had that weird unstable feeling, and a sense of burn out.  I had pretty much decided to drop Eisenhower in the first 10.  Shortly before the 10 mile mark, I did something I haven't done in a long time, and took a chocolate gu.  At mile 10, for some unknown reason, I decided to pick it up and at least try.  As I ground out the brisker miles, I began to feel better and better and the unstable feeling dissipated.  Despite the wind blowing me around and the side stitch in the final two miles, I finished feeling much better about Eisenhower.  1st 10 8:16 AP. 2nd 10 7:21 AP, which is decent considering the wind and terrain.  In fact, 7:21 pace would give me a PR in a marathon.

6 at 8:20 AP running loops around the pasture and our property while Vanessa napped.   Then I went in side and did 4 on the treadmill including 10 x 30 second strides at 6:00 pace with about 45 second recovery.  7:39 AP for these.  Knees/shins are so-so.  I promised them if they would make it 25 more days to Eisenhower and get me through I would quite running until they were healed.  Some days it doesn't seem I am injured at all and some days it is there.  So weird.  Nothing on google matches.  Nothing.

8:39 AP.  Minced gingerly along nsaid-free.  I am really dependent on those.  So, I swallowed crow and went to the doctor.  He also specialized in sports medicine at one point.  My pain doesn't match anything.  He said it basically is either inflammation in the area and I will have to rest it to make it go away, but can probably nsaid-up and make the marathon, or, it is tibial stress fractures.  I am being scheduled for a bone scan.  Preparing for the worse.

Tried 3 on the mill. It hurt and my gait was weird.  This is stupid.  I have to heal, and there is no way I can give my best at Eisenhower like this.  I e-mailed them and bowed out.  Time to pull back and crosstrain.  Bone scan is on Tuesday.  Regardless of the diagnosis, I'm toast for now.  I guess I better look into a Y membership.  My  new goal is to spend the next month getting skinny like I was last year and staying somewhat in shape. Then, hopefully, I can at least come back for half marathon May 1st.

Biked 5.5 miles easy with Nick, then 1 mile with Ian, then walked up and down the drive while Vanessa rode her tricycle.  Then I pedaled furiously in the wind for 13 miles.  Riding a bike into a headwind is way worse than running into one.  I plan on getting my Y membership Saturday and getting on an elliptical if it doesn't exacerbate the injury.  The elliptical has kept me in decent shape before and it will do it again. I'm also going to lose 10 pounds this month.  So take that stupid injury!  My bone scan is on Tuesday.  Now that I am not using motrin or anything I can feel it when I walk like crunching glass at the top of my shins.  It isn't particularly painful but it's not runnable.  I hope they're not fractures, but I'm already pounding the milk and planning to heal fast.

60 minutes on the elliptical doing one minute on/one minute off intervals with the resistance.  On the off intervals I concentrated on keeping the cadence high(180/min).  It got me panting and drove my heart rate very high at times.  Good.  I also sweated ridiculous amounts.  This will be my primary fitness maintenance machine. I think I will be waiting at the door at 5am most mornings to get an hour in, and will try to squeeze in another hour during lunch at work, and on off days Vanessa can chill in the kidzone while I do 1.5 hours of work.  I'll probably vary it up with the bicycle but the stairmaster is a no go for my legs right now.  I'm also planning on lots of corework in the evenings when I have time.  So there.  I will NOT get out of shape and I will lose some weight.

YMCA.  65 minutes on the bike until my hiney could take no more, then 30 minutes on the super-elliptical.  This machine was different than the one yesterday--put me through a much bigger range of motion as if bounding and totally jacked my heart rate up and made me pant.  Sweet!  Oh, the sweat, pouring off of me and sloshing on the machines.

76 minutes on the super elliptical thing.  Left knee/shin is already tons better...Right knee/shin is not.  Bone scan tomorrow.

ramped up the crossramp and resistance and went psycho on the elliptical for 60 minutes, then did 20 minutes of weights, mostly arms. According to the elliptical machine my heart rate was all over the place, cycling up and down from 140-230.  Don't know if I believe that.  I definitely got my breathing picked up and was sweating like crazy.  I got injected with the radioactive isotopes and go for the bone scan later--probably still won't know anything for a few days after that.

And the verdict is...bilateral proximal tibial stress fractures--one in each leg, just below the knee at the top of the tibia.  I am to stay off them for 4 weeks with no weightbearing exercise or anything that causes any stress or torque on tibia including pushing--so no cycling, elliptical,  long walks on the beach, etc...  I am looking into pool running--thanks Bonnie for the link on my facebook.  The doctor prescribed me mega doses of vitamin D--apparently you can have all the calcium in the world but with no vitamin D you can't absorb it and it does you no good.  I already went and got a suitable swimsuit and am eager to start flailing around.  Rumor has it a lot of fitness can be maintained with pool running.

am.   The Y opens at 5 and I will be at the door waiting more often than not.  One hour pool running consisting of 5 minute warm-up, countless sets of two minutes hard, one minute easy, and 5 minute cool down.  This is going to take some practice--I haven't quite figured out pool running form yet and many times I am pretty sure I was just thrashing wildly.  The pool belt thingy chafed my arm pretty good so I need to figure out how to fasten it correctly. It sits up high but I am a short girl with not a lot of trunk so maybe if I scoot it down on my hips a little?  I dunno--all things that I have plenty of time to figure out.

am. one hour thrashing wildly around pool running.  5 minute warm up then 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 ladder with one minute rests, then recovered a few minutes, got bored, 5 sets of 1 on, 1 off, 5 minute cool down.  It's interesting how fast recovery is in the pool cardio-wise, even after all out flailing and effort and "sprinting" intervals the one minute is more than enough.  Mentally I need that minute, though.  I felt a little better about the form today.  I ran out of time yesterday but hopefully I get to swim some laps later.

afternoon:  2250 yards, one hour, and a nauseating belly full of chlorine.  I am not a good swimmer.  

I am on the on-call nurse ths weekend which means I must carry and answer my phone at all times, and man have the calls been coming.  So, no pool, which means no cardio workout because I'm not allowed on anything else.  I did 30 unsatisfying minutes of ab ripper x plus push-up, light upper body hand weights, and leg lifts at home.  Blah.  I can't wait until Monday, then a whole week of pool running and swimming!

am.pool running!  one hour: 5 minute warm-up, 25 x (90 seconds hard, 30 seconds easy) with 90 second breaks between sets of 10.  I actually experienced a decent amount of aerobic distress--very satisfying! I had time for a 3 minute cooldown.  Hopefully I get to do some swimming later this afternoon.  I find it entertaining to cook up ridiculous interval workouts that I could never, never get away with in normal running.

afternoon:  1750 yards(1 mile) crawlstroke in 43 minutes. I kept having to stop and empty water out of my goggles, I cannot get those things figured out.  Swimming still sucks.

am.  aquajogged in the rec pool because there were a lot of serious looking people swimming gracefully like fish in the lap pool.  Couldn't see the clock real well in this pool so did a 5 minute warm-up, then intervals of 4 lengths across the deep end hard with one length recovery--did these for 70 minutes then did two maxed out "sprints" of one length then a few minutes to cool down for a total of 80 minutes.  Corework later.  It's funny how even when sprinting I move slowly, slowly forward in the water--but at least I am going somewhere!  I don't think I would like pool-running while tethered in place as some folks do it.

Pool run.  5 minute warm-up.  10 x (45 seconds intensely hard, 15 seconds easy), 10 minutes steady, repeat the sprints, 10 minutes steady, repeat the sprints one more time, 5 minute cool down to one hour.  This was actually pretty tough.  Swam 1000 yards in 22 minutes afterward.  The swimming is getting easier...slowly.  Once again, a ridiculous interval workout that would destroy me on a track but is doable in the water.  My arms are sore,sore, sore.

I needed a little bit of a light day.  2000 yards.  First 100 yards with just the kickboard working my legs.  One mile(1750 yards) in about 41 minutes..improvement.  Next up 3 50 yard sprints in 49 seconds to make 2000.  Sat in the hot tub for a while afterward and this dude struck up a  friendly conversation, I think he was trying to show off for me as he talked about going to state in swimming freshman year in high school, which evidently was not too long ago.   He's probably friends with one of our kids lol.  Still, I like his opening line.."So, how many laps did ya swim?"  On another note, I am considering triathlons as a way to transition back into running without coming back too quickly, and to keep me motivated and crosstraining.  There is sprint triathlon in May--500 yard swim, 6 mile bike, and 2 mile run.  Maybe?