Love2Run

My doctor says that if everything goes well I should be able to get my cast off in a couple of weeks.  I will still be on crutches for a while, but I will be able to start rehab and physical therapy.

I am hoping to get back in shape for the ekiden season in the fall, but my doctor says I should not rush it.  It was my sudden increase in mileage and hard workouts that helped get me in this situation in the first place.

Went 400m around the track on my crutches today in 3:57.  It is the firt time for me to go under 4 minutes.  :)

It is hard watching everyone else run, and not being able to run myself. :(

The date for getting the cast off my ankle has been set for March 22.  I can't wait.

This is the last week of the school year in Japan.

The new school year begins in April.  I hope that in the next school year I will be able to run.

Met my physical therapist today that will be helping me with ankle rehab.

She seemed really nice. 

I learned today that my bf is going to the USA next week for a week  He will be attending the IMG Sports Academy in Florida for a week to do some tennis training.  Sounds so fun.  I wish I were going.  I have never been to Florida.

Tomorrow is the big day that I get my cast off.  I am REALLY looking forward to that.  I will still be un crutches for a while, but it will be good to finally have this stupid cast off.

It was great getting my cast off finally yesterday afternoon.  My leg feels so much lighter without it.   I didn't sleep well last night though.  I felt some pain in my ankle, but the doctor says that is to be expected.  The doctor warned me though not to try to take things too fast.  I have to try and be patient.

I have some strength exercises I have to do for my ankle, and tomorrow I will go to my first rehab session.

I want to get back in shape like I was.  First I need to lose some weight.   I gained 10 lbs while I was in a cast.

I have been going to rehab for my ankle.  The people there are all really nice and encourage me a lot.  I have also been walking a little every day without the crutches.  I increase the distance I walk a little every day.  The doctor told me to be carefull not to do too much too soon, so I have been trying my hardest to follow his instructions.  It is hard though.  I want so much to get back to running again.

My bf comes home tomorrow.  :)

Yesterday I walked 800m on my ankle without crutches.  This week I am going to try and walk 800m every day without crutches.  I think this is rather conservative, but the doctor wants me to take it slow.  I will gradually increase the distance every day.

On the weekend, I got an e-mail from Zack who used to be on the blog.  It gave me lots of encouragement to be patient and to get back to running again.

Went to my doctor yesterday.  He says my ankle is looking good.  The range of motion is good.  Told me to keep on doing what I am doing.  He said maybe in a couple of months I can start to jog a little on it. 

 I was so stupid to overdo my training and to keep running on a stress fracture.  If I would have known it was a stress fracture I wouldnt have run on it though.

Have decided I will take a break from the blog until my ankle is healed and I am able to start running again.  During that time I will also take time to evaluate whether I am getting any benefit from being on the blog.  There may be better alternatives out there.  The blog was great when I joined a little over a year ago, but it doesn't seem to be the same place as it was then.

The doctor said if I took it easy, I could start joging on my ankle starting in May, so today I did some very easy jogging.

I jogged 400m, walked 400m, jogged 400m and walked 400m for a total of 800m jogging and 800m walking.   Felt good.  

I will keep it at this distance for at least this week, and will work on increasing the jogging distances over time.

The track coach told me that the teams last track meet of the year will be at the end of October, and that I could run the 800m if I wanted.  He said I could run it at any speed I wanted and that I didn't have to worry about time.

It is good to have something to work toward, but I need to be careful not to push myself too hard too soon.

I think one of the hardest obstacles that I will have is mental.  Right now I am constantly afraid that I will do something to break my ankle again.

Last week was a good week of jogging.  No pain in my ankle.

I am increasing my distance this week to

600m jogging - 400m walking - 600m jogging - 400m walking

for a total of 2000m.

Today I went to the ITU Yokohama triathlon.

It was so exciting.  It was my first time to attend a triathlon race. 

It started out with the swim.  There were so many people watching the race and I was not able to get to a spot where I could watch the swim well, but I did watch it from a far distance.

Next was the bike portion.  I couldn't believe how fast they rode.  You could hear the whirling sound of the wheels as they passed by.  It gave me goose bumps watching them.

Finally was the running portion.  After the bicycle portion, all of the athletes looked so tired.  I couldn't imagine them being able to run fast in that condition.  Also the temperature was in the 80s.   But all of these athletes surprised me.  They have so much determination.  There was even one runner from France that had a crash in the bike portion, and had blood running down his face during the run, but still kept going.  The winner was from Spain and ran 10K in under 30 minutes.

It would be fun to try a triathlon someday, but first I would have to learn to swim fast and to ride a bicycle.  

This week I have increased my distance to

800m jog - 400m walk - 800m jog - 400m walk

for a total of 2400 m.

Went to a pancake restaurant with my boyfriend.

The pancakes were delicious!!!!

I am attaching photos.  I am still learning about how to add photos to my blog, so I hope they appear.

I want to add more distance.  I haven't had any problems with my ankle with the distance that I am running, but I also don't want to injure my ankle again, so I will try to be paitent and just continue adding distance a little at a time.

Increased my distance by quite a lot today and decreased the walk between jogs.  Maybe it was too big of an increase all at once, but since I have had no problems so far with my ankle I was sure I could handle it.  I had no pain so I will continue this week with this distance and see how it goes.

1000m jogging - 200m walk - 1000m jogging - 200m walk -1000m jogging -200m walk

total distance = 3600m

Increased my daily distance for this week to:

1200m jogging - 200m walking - 1200m jogging -200m walking - 1200m jogging - 200m walking

Total distance: 4200m

My coach told me to keep doing what I am doing by increasing the distance every week until I get to where I can run 5000m with no walking, and then we will start working on adding a little more speed.  I still have a little over 4 months to get ready for running my 800m track race in October.

Today we had a coach from one of the top univeristy Ekiden teams come and talk to us about "core" training and the importance of doing "core" training.

It was very interesting.  He explained the importance of having a strong core from a scientific point of view, and how having a strong core can improve running speed by reducing inertia losses during running.

I now have a new desire to strengthen my core.  Six pack here I come!

The hydrangea are in bloom now in Japan.  They are beautiful.  There was this little creature on one flower yesterday that was looking back at me. :)

We went to Chinatown today.  Fun place and good food.

We had a fireworks display this weekend.  It was beautiful.

This week I have increased my distance to:

1400m jogging - 200m walk - 1400m jogging - 200m walk -1400m jogging -200m walk

Total distance: 4800m

This will be the last week with walking.  Starting next week I will finally reach my goal of running 5000m straight with no walking.

Had a check up with my doctor today.  Everything is good.  Should be fine to continue what I am doing by slowly increasing distance and speed.

With the talks between the USA and North Korea coming up this week, there is lots of news about Singapore this morning.

Brought back some good memories about being in Singapore last year at this time.  Time goes by so fast.

This week I will be running 5000m everyday.  No rests for walking this week.

Looks like I will have to start tomorrow though.  There is a Typhoon here today.

I attended "Asaren" (morning practice) for the first time in a long time this morning.  It is getting to be too hot and humid to run in the afternoons.

I ran 5000m continuously with no rest breaks.  First time for doing that since I broke my ankle.  Time was 24:32.78.  It was just easy running, but I felt like I have accomplished something from not being able to run at all to being able to do this.

I have a habit of kind of slouching forward when I run.  My coach is having me work on my form.  By being more erect I will open up my chest allowing for better breathing.

Had a good conversation with my coach about training for my upcoming race.  My coach just wants me to participate and is not expecting anything from me timewise.

My 800m track race will be on October 10, so I still have about 4 months to get in condition for that.  October 10 is "Sports Day" in Japan.  It is a National Holiday to commemorate the 1964 Tokyo Olympics that opened on that day.

My coach says that I will not need to increase my distance over 5000m a day.  I will keep doing easy runs for the rest of this month.  Maybe I will gradually increase my speed as I can, but I will not push it too hard or go too fast.

Next month my coach is going to have me do a speed work out once a week, then if everything goes well, in August I will increase that to two times a week.

Felt very good this morning.  Ran an easy 5000m in 23:28.95.

For a while I had lost the excitement of running, but I am starting to get it back.

Ran a little faster today than I had planned, but I felt good and there is no pain at all in my ankle.

Maybe I should take it a little slower tomorrow just in case.

By the way, someone on the FRB blog mentioned yesterday about doing 52 pushups in one minute.  I decided to take on the challenge to see how many I could do in one minute.  Of course I can't get up on my toes because I don't want to put unnecessary pressure on my ankle, but doing pushup on my knees I was able to do 80 pushups in one minute.   When I am no longer worried about my ankle, will try them on my toes.

Ran an easy 5000m this morning.  Forgot my watch today, so I don't know what my time was, but it was very slow and easy today.  It was cooler today, so it felt very nice.

Also, quite sore today from doing pushups yesterday.  

Ran an easy 5000m in 23:34.96.   Felt really good.  Still tight and sore in the the chest and arms from doing pushups the other day.  They took more out of me than I thought.  Probably is a sign that I need to do pushups more regularly.

It was nice and cool this morning, and I was feeling really good.

I ran 5000m at a comfortable pace, but a little faster than I have been doing.  I ran it in 21:56.80.  My ankle feels good.  

Had a sit-down with my coach.

The coach asked me about my goals as a runner.  For example, whether I wanted to continue running competitively at the university level and beyond, or if I just wanted to run in high school.

I told the coach that I have decided not to run in college.  I expect that my studies will keep me busy and I want to concentrate my time on my studies.  I hope to run for fun and excercise but not competitively.

We had a good talk about what kind of training will be expected of me.  

I still don't have the best Japanese, so I think that is what we mainly talked about.  The conversation was mainly one sided, with the coach doing most of the talking and me doing a lot of nodding of my head.  :)

This morning I ran 5000m at a steady pace for a total time of 22:03.28.

It seems like things are really starting to come back.   I would really like to just open up and give it all I have got one morning, but I have promised myself I would take this recovery one small step at a time.

There was a light rain this morning when I ran.  According to the weather forecast, it is supposed to rain everyday this week.  I hope it doesn't interfere too much with my running. 

It was nice and sunny this morning.  I did a relaxed 5000m.

Ran 5000m this morning at a moderately fast pace for a total time of 21:03.04.

I wanted to run a little faster today, but didn't think I was going that fast.  It felt good and I had no pain in my ankle.

Coach was upset though.  Coach asked me why I went so fast.  I said that becasue tomorrow it is supposed to rain hard and probably I won't be able to run, I wanted to go a little hard.   Coach says that even though my ankle does not hurt and seems to be fine, my whole body is not used to hard training and by pushing myself hard could result in injury of something not even related to my ankle.  Coach says to run slow the rest of this week.  Coach says that I can't just think of my ankle, but that my whole body requires that my training increase gradually.

Very easy 5000m this morning.  

Ran 5000m at a steady pace for a total time of 22:34.63.

It is going to be a nice sunny day today.  

I have recently been keeping track of my workouts and mileage in a notebook.  I have found that it is working as well or maybe better for me than this blog, so I have decided that today's post will be my last here on the blog.

This was the last day of July.  I started this month with doing some harder workouts on the track.  My coach did not let me do any workouts longer than 5000meters.  Coach says in broken English "5000meters is a MAGIC training distance!".  I want to do more but coach says no.

Today to see where I am, he said to run 5000 meters as fast as I could.  I ran the 5000 meters in 18:36.  I was surprised.  I think now that I could have even run faster.

This was the fastest I have run since before my broken ankle.

Summer vacation from school has started.  My mom and I are going to Seattle this week for a few weeks.

Ran 5 x 1000 @ 3:30 10 seconds rest in between

Easy 5K.  Coach says that next week I can finally start gradually increasing my distance.

Ran an easy 5 miles with Midori and Rina.  Not really sure what the pace was since coach doesn't let us wear watches on our easy runs.

Had a flu shot today and the doctor said not to do any strenuous exercise, so I didn't do any running today.

Ran a warm up.

Then did 2 x 3000 all out with 30 seconds (seemed more like 20 seconds) recovery between.

It was a miserable day.  It was raining, windy and cold.  No one wanted to do the workout, but coach said that by doing it would make us mentally strong.

I wanted to break 11 minutes but couldn't.

Ran a very easy 12 kilometers.

The workout today was 30 x 200m.  (Those who fell off the pace, were to do 5 400m steep hill sprints).  I fell off the pace after the 24th 200m, so I ran the 5 hill sprints with Ai chan.  It was a hard workout and in the rain again.

Ran a very slow 8 miles with Midori and Rina.  We were all so sore from yesterday's workout, so we went really slow, and even walked now and then.

Ran about 8 miles at a fairly good pace.  

About 12 long miles in the morning the Ai chan and Yumi.

We did a trail run as a team.  It is the first time I have ever done a trail run.  We started at the base of Mt. Ohyama which is at an elevation of a little over sea level, and we ran to the top of Mt. Ohyama which is at an elevation of about 1300m. The temperature at the bottom was about 15C and the temperature at the top was 2.5C.  It was cold and windy on top.  It is about 3 miles up and very steep.  and the course we took down was about 4 miles.  Going up was nice, but because of my poor balance, coming down was a little scary.  Running up and down mountains is a lot more difficult than I realized, but I liked it.

VERY VERY sore today from yesterdays trail run.  I think it might be good to do something like that once a week.  I think it would be good for strengthening my legs.  Today did an easy 10 miles with Megumi.

No running today.  Having a Mexican Taco Party for some friends today.  Looking forward to that.  

About 7 miles at a good pace.

The Ekiden season is coming to an end for our teams.  Because I was still recovering from a broken ankle at the beginning of the season I was not on any of the racing teams.  Since it is the end of the season, and we will be moving toward track season, Coach had interviews with everyone today to find out what races we want to run.  I told Coach that I wanted to run the 800m and 1500m and maybe 3000m.  Coach thinks I would be better at the 5000m or 10000m.  I need to make a decision because the training groups will differ depending on what races I run.

Ran an easy 5K and then did 3 miles of hill bounding.

Went to the dentist this afternoon, so I didn't go to practice and run.  No running today but did have a cavity. :(

Ran 5 x 500m with 500m jogging in between.  We were divided into three groups.  I was in the slow group.  Our goal was to run each 500m in 1:40.  My times were all over the place, with the fastest one (the last one) in 1:36 and the slowest one (first one) in 1:43.  I wasn't satisfied with my times.  I have been slack and haven't had much motivation recently.   Somehow I need to get the excitement back.

After we ran 6 x 400m hill sprints.  Coach always has us run hill sprints after a hard workout.

About 10 easy miles with Megumi and Yuki.  The longest I have run in a long time.  It was nice and easy and we had a lot of fun.

6 x 1500m @ 5:45 with 500m recovery run.

Cool down with megumi after.

About 8 miles very easy.

5 miles at a fairly hard pace.  I kept up with the front group for the first 3/4 of the run but then started to fall back.  Then another 5 miles at an easy pace.

It was raining today and I didnt feel like running so I didn't go to practice.  It was supposed to be an easy day today anyway.  Recently, I have had a lot of days that I am just not into running.  No motivation.

Ran 5 x 1000m (supposed to be at 3:40 to 3:50) with 10 second rest in between.  I wasn't able to stay on pace today.   I felt heavy.  Maybe it was because I ate a lot last night.

Coach says that maybe I have been losing my sharpness by doing long runs recently.  I think that is what coach was trying to say.  Sometimes the language barrier causes communication problems and I don't always completely understand.  (My Japanese is getting better though.)

After we ran 6 x 400m hill sprints.

About 10 miles, with 10 x 100m striders at the end.

Ran about 7 miles at a good pace.  This week the forecast is for some colder weather.  It has been about 65F to 70F but by the end of the week it is supposed to drop down to about 55F.

I have mnade a decision to run the 800m and 1500 meters this coming track season.  Coach says that I don't have the basic speed for a good 800m, but there are only 3 800m runners on our team.  Coach would rather I run the 3000m, but there are so many faster girls and the fastest on our team ran 9:17 last year for 3000m, with the rest right on her heels.  Even if I am not suited for the 800m I think I will have more fun running it.

We had a 800m time trial today for us three that are going to run the 800m.  I was the slowest of the three with a time of 2:33.  I know I can go much faster than that, but I am still just getting back into things, and have not done much to improve speed yet.

After we ran some hill sprints.

Easy 6 miles.

Ran an easy 8 miles.

Today we had a meeting for the track team.  I will be in the 800m group.  We got some information about our workouts.  The 800m group will have 2 to 3 hard workouts a week that include 100m, 200m, 400m intervals, hill sprinting, etc.  And also we will be doing 3 days a week of weight lifting.  I have never done much weight lifting before and I have always wanted to, so I am excited for that.

Ran and easy 3 miles, followed by 7x400m hill sprints.

8 easy miles in the cold.  It was about 50F this morning, which I think is the coldest it has been all autumn.  Brrr

I have decided to be in the 800m group for track, but coach wanted me to run in a 3000m time trial today for the long distance team.  

I wasn't excited about it.  As usual I finished in 6th.  Today my time was 10:53.  I know I can go faster than that, but I am just not focused to run that distance right now.

Coach still thinks I would be better at the longer distances than middle distance, but I have made up my mind.   

3 miles at a good pace followed by 10 x 400 m hill sprints.

No running today because of hard rain.  But did weight lifting.

In the afternoon it stopped raining and cleared up.

Went with my boyfriend in the evening to see the Christmas lights here.  It was fun.

6 easy miles.  Sore from yesterdays weight lifting.

8 miles

I have been trying to figure out how to put photos on my blog.  I have done it in the past, but I can't seem to do it anymore.  :(

Very good workout today.  Maybe the best for me in a long time.

Did 5 x 1000m with 10 second rest in between.  They were supposed to be in 3:30.

I was happy about the results.  I think it helped me with confidence a little.

9 miles, 3 miles of which was very hard.

6 miles easy.  Leave tomorrow to go to the USA.  :)