Bret

AM - 1.25 mile walk with Finn then 3100 meters of indoor rowing and 30 mins on the Peloton as Tracy was getting the pool area ready for a bridal shower she is hosting out there and I would be in the way if I tried to get a pool run in.   I will attempt a pool run later in the day.  

PM - 75 mins of pool running - which I would equate to about 8.5 miles of running. 

AM - 1.25 miles walk with Finn and then 2000 meters of indoor rowing and 5.25 miles on the Peloton. 

AM - 2 mile walk with Delaney in NYC - she's resuming run training for the marathon in November, so she did a walk/run thing whilst I walked.  I tried jogging a little bit, which was still a bit painful and even more so afterward when I was walking to my business meetings in Manhattan.    Total walking through the day was probably 4 miles.

AM - 5.25 miles on the Arc Trainer eliptical in the hotel Equinox gym.  The first eliptical I stepped on was a different configuration and actually caused some pain in the hip - but the Arc trainer was fine - and I got a solid CV workout.   Very concerned that the healing of the hip will take much longer than I had originally hoped and expected.   The good news however is that my weight is down, my BP is down and my sleep data is significantly improved with the new anti-lectin diet.   

PM - following a day of meetings I did another 2.25 miles on the elliptical and 2000 meters on the rower. 

AM - 3.0 elliptical miles and 2000 meters of indoor rowing at the hotel before my return to ATL.

AM - 1.5 miles of walking on the trail with Finn and then the pool running equivalent of 5 miles on land.   With the walk today, I did a little "testing" of the injury using a recommended return to running protocol.   1 min of jogging, then 2 mins of walking x5.  Initially I was very tentative and did not do a full minute but got bolder toward the end.  The recommendation is that if the pain level is 2 or lower, you can begin the protocol.   Even if the pain gets to a 3 or a 4 in the running intervals that's ok, but stop if it exceeds that level.   If you pain level afterwards during the day exceeds a 2 then you need to take a day off before resuming the protocol - which builds on itself with 15 levels.  You do each level twice which gradually adds more running time with more intervals and longer ones until there are no walking breaks.  Some may go through level progressions faster and some slower.  I was quite pleased with how it felt following the pool running and doing my daily activities.   

The thing about this hip flexor injury is that generally if you are on both feet at the same time as in standing or running, it is really not too problematic because the other leg absorbs the additional stabilization responsibilities for walking and standing.   But running has you on one leg at a time, however briefly, and the weakness of the injured hip flexor is too much for the muscles that have tears or micro tears and that results in pain and sometime functional deficits.   Deep water running helps with no weight-bearing and helps maintain fitness levels.  Most elipticals are good because you are not isolating the weight of your body on one leg at a time because the machine/equipment "catches" the legs and carries them forward with the movement.   Patience and non-weight-bearing or otherwise put no isolation of weight-bearing on the injured leg allows for healing.  The extent of the injury of course has a direct relationship to how long it may take to heal properly.   Early "testing" can in my experience result in aggravating or prolonging the healing cycle.  The is probably the most difficult part for me - having patience or mindset to allow for the body to heal rarely is on the same timetable as the body's actual healing process.  

AM - 2.5 miles walk/run with Dan! and Finn - doing 2 mins on and 1 min off x5 so 10 full minutes of running - which went well with the hip injury.   Pain never exceeded a 2-3 and feels fine afterwards as well.  3 mile land running equivalent of pool running after the walk. 

Dan had PRP for a hamstring tear in March and has not run since then - His doctor told him a month ago to wait 30 more days before resuming his running - which timing worked well today - and he did the running with me.   His hamstring was fine - but unfortunately he hurt his back about 10 days ago doing some landscaping work - and he has radiating pain and numbness in one leg - so he still may be limited in being able to fully return to running. 

AM - 2.75 mile walk/run with Dan on the trail with the dogs.   2 mins on 1 min off.   Felt better than I thought I would given that I was very achy and the hip was more tender yesterday afternoon and evening.  Not really sure what's going on - but I will take it.   5 miles land equivalent of pool running afterwards. 

AM - 3 miles of a run/walk where I did 3 mins on and 1 min off.  So this was mostly running.  Pain level was a 1-2 at the beginning of each effort.  Very pleased with the progress of recovery.   

AM - 3.25 miles of mostly running.   4 mins on and 1 min off.  Felt reasonably decent - pain level was 2-3 just in the first several steps but once started, it is less than a 2 or a 1, but I felt a bit wonky much of the time - as if I could not just relax and run.   I stopped approximately every 4 mins to walk and each time I had sort of the same experience of low pain levels.   I averaged just over 10 min miles even with the walking breaks - so that was not too bad.   It is a somewhat strange injury in that the pain level comes and goes regardless of activity.  For example I awoke at 3 am as my dog evidently urgently needed to go out and at that time I thought to myself, the pain level on the hip is more than it was all day yesterday, I probably won't run this morning - and then after I went back to bed and got up 3 hours later, the pain level was less than a 1 and so I decided to run/walk.   After I finished the run, I had zero pain in the hip and did 2000 meters on the indoor rower, with zero pain.  Now as I write this entry a few hours later, I have some level of vague achiness.   With most of my injuries there is a linear progression of improvement, sometimes interupted by too much activity that disrupts or aggravates the injury - but this one is a little perplexing.  Directionally this seems postitive though.  

PM - elliptical / ARC trainer - 5 miles

AM - 3.25 miles on the trail with Finn.  Full run with no walking today.  First 100 -200 meters were a little painful - but got much less noticiable and because of the experience yesterday of restarts after walking for a minute were somewhat painful, I decided to just run with no walking breaks today.   Ran much faster than I had expected - after a first mile of slightly over 9 mins - my next two miles were in the low 8's.   HR was a bit higher than I would like it to have been, but this was a very postive step.   Hip was not really painful even after finishing, and so I did 2000 meters of indoor rowing followed by some yoga.   I think I will supplement the running this week with more elliptical/arc trainer minutes to work on the cardiovascular restart with the remaining time I have before Grandma's next weekend - without the pounding on the recovering legs.   
 

PM - 6 miles on the elliptical. 

AM - 3 mile run / walk with Dan on the Milton trail with Finn.   Initially I thought we were doing just a run, but Dan's back is not really ok, so he had expected to do a run/walk - and so that's what we did, which in the end was probably good for me too.  Easier on the hip for sure during and after.   I will continue to supplement with the elliptical/arc trainer for the next several days until I have to do some business travel as that provides a really good CV workout without the pounding and is remarkably close to the running motion.   It is better than pool running at least for me in that it keeps the HR up by adding resistance with the machine whereas pool running requires you to create your own resistance by moving more vigorously than is probably natural.  Or at least that is my experience.  

AM - 3 miles with Dan and the dogs on the trail - again we did a run/walk thing mostly for Dan who is not in running shape and also having some lower back issues.  He went to the doctor yesterday and was told he does not have any nerve compression and he has no restrictions against resuming his running training now.  This has actually been of benefit to me to keep me from overdoing things.  I would normally have just run 3-5 miles grinding through some nagging discomfort - but because of adapting the effort to ease Dan's reintroduction to running, both yesterday and today - my hip actually feels markedly improved.  I think will still do some elliptical / arc trainer work today and tomorrow to maintain CV fitness.  

PM - tried to go to the clubhouse to do elliptical but there was as swim meet going on and no place to park anywhere - so I did 5 miles equivalent pool running instead. 

AM - 3 miles with Dan and Finn at Milton HS.  Dan let me know he left his house late, and told me to do the first lap on my own and then he would meet me.   Ran in the Vapor Fly Nike's to see how my hip would do with them in case I run in them in the race next Saturday.  First few hundred meters were a little stiff and awkward but not really "discomfort" - ended up hitting a groove about a half mile in, and felt good until I met up with Dan - was probably running low 8's when we connected, but then slowed to his pace of about 9:45 to 10 which was actually probably good for me - and we took a few walking breaks for him as he gets back into running fitness.   Debating whether to do elliptical today or tomorrow or just let the hip rest - it is feeling so much better. 

AM - 3 miles with Dan and the dogs on the trail.  Some walking for Dan but much less than the last few days. 

AM - 4 miles with Finn up to North Valley and up the Dinsmore hill coming back.  Hip was achy but not terrible - very warm and humid today.  

PM - Travelled to Amsterdam late last evening and arrived midday today.  Got out for a run at VondelPark before a dinner meeting.  Felt a bit wonky after the overnight flight and hip pain was annoying for the first couple of miles.  Ended up running fairly quickly relatively speaking - and with a much higher HR than I should have - but I was kind of enjoying the pleasant weather in the mid 60's having just come from very warm weather in Atlanta over the weekend.   

AM - in Amsterdam - tried going a different route to run partly in VondelPark but also around the park near the museums.   Felt very slow and stiff this morning and the left hip was uncomfortable for a good part of the run.  Perhaps also because I resumed taking the Zetia and it messes with my muscles.  I will discontinue it until after the race on Saturday, which based on how I felt today, will probably end up being a longer training run with consideration of a DNF/Uber ride back to the hotel after enjoying a few miles with friends.   

AM - 1 mile of walking in Amsterdam and 2000 meters of indoor rowing before heading to the airport.  

AM - 2 miles on the trail with Dan and Finn - hip felt a bit better with a day off yesterday.  Plan to take tomorrow off for travel to Minn and then see what I have the ability to do on Saturday morning.  Supposed to be cool and rainy.  

No run today - travel day to Duluth 

2024 48th Grandma's Marathon - This race was on my calendar a few weeks after Tokyo when I started really feeling better from a hip injury and some post virus heartrate issues - and I trained well for several weeks, but unfortunately tweaked my left hip flexor when starting out too quickly one morning to get a across a street to avoid oncoming traffic and my muscles were not yet warm.   That injury derailed my training - first by training through it, the muscle could not properly heal, then various cross training efforts limited my cardiovascular development.  In fact, I was not sure I would even be able to run this race even last week - pain in the hip was not fully resolved and the lack of time on my feet plus the lack of long run efforts was going to be the other challenge...I even considered this was going to be a training run, to where if I did not feel well, or the hip was hurting, that I would drop out / DNF to be smart about it. 

So...this actually worked out better than I had expected.   Travelled up with Richie and Johnny meeting them at the airport in Minneapolis and drove in to Duluth on Friday afternoon.   Weather forecasts called for rain and temps in the low to mid 50's.   We were hoping for a light rain or just cloud cover and a tailwind - we pretty much got that for the early part of the race.   The bus transportation to the start cut it very close.  Each of us had to use the toilet and had 15 mins to get that done with long lines for the porta-potties by the time we arrived.    Johnny literally exited the toilet and ran to the start and the gun went off.  The three of us ran together at just over 9 min pace with constant conversation and interaction with other runners.   We picked up a runner age 21 who was in his first marathon with a goal of sub 4 hours around mile 11 or 12.   Things were going really better than I had expected, the hip was not really painful and the rain held off for the early miles and the wind was at our backs.  Things started to get more difficult for me - I assume because of the lack of sufficient training because my HR started to climb above my AT at around mile 14 and when we got to mile 17 and my HR was approaching the 170 mark at the 9 min pace, I bid the guys good luck and I slowed my pace to try to get the HR down under 160.   I was able to run the rest of the miles in the rain, not too significantly slower; in fact I think I had just one mile at 10 pace but I never really blew up in terms of pace per mile and managed to keep the HR as close to 163 ultimately as possible.   Last mile was pretty difficult as we swung around facing a headwind and rain coming off Lake Superior.  Finished in 4:06 which was about a 6 min positive split from the first half.  Richie came in at 3:57 and Johnny at 3:58.   We met up afterward after navigating through some really cold windy conditions at a local restaurant; had some lunch, met some new friends and then did a sauna/cold plunge thing at Pier B - which involved jumping into a canal filled with the Lake Superior water that was in the mid 50's.   Never expected to be doing that - but it was fun and there were runners from all over the country at the spa that we got to meet.  Everyone was so interesting and friendly the entire trip.   

Good run - not too sore, except for the left hip, the next day.  Going to let the inflammation subside hopefully after a few days, before resuming training.

Marathon #45 is in the books. 

AM - 1 mile elliptical in the hotel fitness center followed by some yoga.   Considerable soreness and inflammation particularly in the left hip as expected. 

AM - 2 miles of walking in Chicago - as I am here for a conference.   Soreness had subsided quite a bit overnight.   Did some yoga afterward. 

AM - 2 mile walk with Dan and the dogs on the trail.   I returned early from my conference in Chicago deciding it was better to be home sleeping in my own bed than attending a half day/half morning conference Tuesday.   Legs continue to improve day by day in recovery from the race.  I am antsy to run a bit, but the left hip probably needs more days of no running to allow for the inflammation to subside more substantially.   

AM - 2.5 miles of walking in the neighborhood with Finn.  Day by day the post marathon inflammation is subsiding.   Left hip is still feel like it needs a bit more time to resolve fully.  Toward the end of the walk, something sort of "snapped" into place with it - and I think that was a positive sign of nearing recovery.  

AM - 1.75 mile walk with Dan and the dogs from his place followed by 2000 meters of indoor rowing and yoga.   Muscle aches and inflammation appear to be nearly at a normal stasis with the exception of the left hip flexor iliopsoas or whatever it is.   That is probably at 60-75% depending when I think about it.   The key measure for me is if I am balancing on the bad leg to put pants or shorts on - if it is painful to start or afterward I still have more time off for recovery.   

Sadly my dog Finn is having some medical issues.   For the second time in as many weeks he's had a seizure.   Both times my wife and I were present when they happened.  We took him to the vet after the first one, and the diagnosis was grim - he's lost 3 lbs in the last month and they said if he continues to have periodic seizures like this, that he's possibly got a brain tumor as the cause, and may only have a few months.   This of course was without any MRI or biopsy or anything - but just an experienced vet saying that he has seen this in other dogs as a pattern.   Poor guy is just 9 1/2  years old.   When he comes out of the seizures, he's very hyper and playful and behaves otherwise completely normally.   

AM - 3 miles of walking with Dan and the dogs on the Milton trail.   Everyday I see measurable improvement in the left hip.   Today it is as close as I have been to feeling as though it is almost resolved/healed.   Going to give it another couple of days to where there is literally zero residual achiness or slight pain.  Restarted statin therapy on Wednesday - and I think the non-running only walking exercise is allowing for an easier transition - as there is normally a period of muscle aches and myalgia which is very noticable when running - but with the exception of some fleeting muscle pain - it has been relatively complication free.   Hope this continues. 

AM - walk with Dan and the dogs on the Milton Trail in a light rain - very humid.  Considered running a bit today from how well I felt yesterday, but I did not feel like the hip was pain-free enough today.  Tried a little running at the end and stopped nearly immediately.  Then Dan suggested I just do a very very easy light jog/shuffle - which actually didn't hurt at all.   Got back to the house and hopped on the treadmill and did a run/walk at 12-13 min pace and it went fine.  Pain level no more than a 2 out of 10 and post run, not even a 1.   

AM - taking Dan's advice - I did a very slow jog progressing ever so slightly to cover 3 miles at about 11:30 pace.   Pain level was 1 or below and the effort was light which was good in the very warm and humid summer conditions.   Felt fine afterwards, doing yoga.