Old Man Still running

Still recovering from the R2R2R.  Very weird that I came away with such sore quads and calves.  I guess it is because of the lack of hill training for the past month.  Otherwise fell great.  Wasn't drained at all, just sore.   It seemed to have cured my shin soreness.

Treadmill

OK, here the deal.  R2R2R left me with very sore muscles but no shin pain anymore.  But once all the muscle pain calmed down the shin pain returned.  It has me spooked.  It is minor, but is similar to pain I felt in 2012 before my stress fracture went wild. A couple weeks ago I would only feel the pain after running, but now I feel it during running (at least for the first several miles).  These symtoms are consistent with pre-stress fractures.  I'm paranoid that this tibia bone can easily break.   The pain is really minor, nothing like the pain felt in 2012 and could just be pain left over from all the healing and surface tention.  But to be safe, I'm going to shut down running for a couple weeks and use the dreaded eliptical for my miles.   I experience no pain doing that which again makes me think the running motion is putting stress on a sensative area about four inches below the break in 2012.  This could be just a minor shin splint but I doubt it because the pain is weight-bearing.  Not yet the bone pain I'm now familiar with, it is pain in the soft layer that surrounds the bone.  So, I'll give that a try.  I need to rest a foot anyway.  The R2R2R left a painful spot on the forefoot that is slow healing.  All this is alway on the right leg, even the same leg with the torn meniscus in 2003. The cause of all these problems?  Over pronation in my right foot.  All my siblings have the same problem and a couple kids too...just the right foot.   And I think the real cause is a hip defect that swings the leg a little off.

Healing taking place.  I've learned that if I feel daily progress it is unlikely to be a stress fracture which is more a weekly progress thing.   I'm feeling less pain daily, so that is good.  The foot problem is more pain than the leg.   Do I hit the pool to maintain?  I dread doing that.  I used to swin about 3 times per week but I just don't enjoy it anymore.   I guess I'll start looking for my swimming stuff.

Shoes.   Trying to find something good for Across the years, 200 miles on that flat smooth dirt.  I now have Altra Torins that seem to be pretty good.  I've also order that new Hoka model.   Rapa nui. I'll give it a try.  Asked the Altra guys for a demo Olympus but haven't heard back.

Elipical.  Progress.  Able to get the sweat dripping like crazy.  Not feeling any tibia soreness today.  Definite daily improvement.   The painful spot on my forefoot is also calming down.  If I had a 100 coming up, I really wouldn't worry, but this is Across the years, three days of running this time on the same track that caused my big stress fracture in 2012, so nervous about running that far (200+ miles) with any sort of issue.

Figured out the foot problem.  Inflamation of the joint in the ball of the foot to the little toe.  Cause by over-compensating to relieve pressure on the inside of the leg during the R2R2R.  Reading about it, takes time to heal but pain remains pretty low.  To take pressure off it, I simply cut a notch in the insole to give it more room, less pressure, seems to work. I'm no longer worrying about that problem.  Just want to make sure the tibia is fine.

New Hokas arrived.  Looks like this model give much better stability but the show is pretty narrow.   I'll test it out when I start running again but it looks promising for using in Across the Years.

Eliptical and some careful treadmill running.  No ill effects, except my chronic hamstring problem is flaring up....tends to do that if I'm not using it regularly.  

27 indoor miles on treadmill and the tracks at Lehi Legacy Center and the American Fork fitness center (my son swam a swim meet there).   After that ventured out on Frozen Utah lake.  Usually have two solid weeks under freezing, dipping below zero the lake frezzes solid.  Sure enough.  I wasn't the first one out there.  I saw tracks of ice fisherman.  They made a terrible mess out there leaving trash all over....makes me made.   THe snow was rather deep, but along the fissures where water had seeped out, melting snow and then freezing over, there were crystals on top of that making a nice fast running surface, so I ran along these lone frozen cracks out until I could barely see any shore through the fog/smog.

Leg pain on and off, mostly off.  Just can't figure it out because the pain points shift.   I suspect I probably have a small tear in the layer over my healed break line and it is sending pain down the leg through the surface nerves.   I hope that is all it is.  I'm just going to keep running and see what happens.   The pain is mild, only about a 2.

Eliptical and Treadmill.   Still can't figure out the leg problem, pain was pretty bad today but shifts around and doesn't seem to be bone pain.   Still pretty sure it is soft tissue.  At times there is no pain.  When I had a stress fracture in that bone I always had pain.   Well, now it is time to start tapering anyway, so I'll shut down the running, just do cross-training and see if the tissue can heal up.

Eliptical

Pool running and elipitcal. Leg is still a pain. Minor but just won't go away. No doubt some sort of injury because of the strange pain. How serious, cant figure out. 

Eliptical.  Much better today, almost pain free.  What I'm doing seems to be working.  Hopefully this was just a six-week deal.  It has almost been six weeks. Nine days until race day.  I was ten pounds over race weight, but coming down.

After a week without running I had to test things yesterday and today.  I would rather do damage here at home than at ATY.  Still problems.  Pain keeps increasing with each week despite resting.  Mostly feels like a shin split.  Nearly pain free after 7 miles.   I just can't figure it out.   I'll probably still go but disappointing that I likely won't compete, probably will end up doing a lot of walking.

Significant improvement.  Pain way down almost pain free.  I've concluded that I just have a bad shin split caused by the usual poor pronation or overcompensating which causes the Tibialis posterior muscle (inside calf attaches to shin) to inflame and pull on the the periosteum (membrane on the bone).  This is called periostitis.  This can lead to a stress fracture if you aren't careful.

For the past 24 hours I've iced the muscle and taken plenty of Aleve resulting in less pulling on that area.   I read through my running log in 2012 and the symtoms I'm having are far less severe without the bone aching I had then.  So I don't think the periositis has progressed to stress fracture yet, just probably microtears of the periosteum.  Less pulling on the membrane means less pain.  It does take a long time to heal but normally the pain calms down later in a workout.  So, I'll continue to let it calm down....hitting the pool tomorrow and will head out to Arizona this weekend.

Mile swim this morning.  First time swimming in 20 months.  What is weird is that I have been suffering from neck/shoulder pain for four months when I turn my neck.  After the swim today, the pain is gone.  I guess the swimming motion somehow kicked something back in place and no more nerve pressure.  That's nice. Leg doing good today too.   Starting to think about Across the Years this weekend.

Across the years starts for me on Sunday at 9:00 a.m.

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Ran Across the Years again.  This time the 72 hour race.  In previous 48-hour races I clocked 187, 175, and 135. So with the extra day it should be easy to reach 200, right?   Not so fast.  This year I had lots of issues to deal with...my bad leg was a constant worry....should I push it, should I hold back.  On day 2 I had some lung problems, bad congestion and the lungs would get very sore if I tried to run fast.  Day 3 I had bad back soreness.   The entire time I had bad quad soreness.   So it was quite the challenge.   I started off fine and for the first 20 mile was in first place.  Buddy Mike Miller than passed me but I still stayed in 2nd place well into day 2.  My 50 time was bad, 10:10.  The heat was despetive and slowed me down greatly.  I reached 100 in a slow 25:05.  In past years I would reach that between 19:40 and 22 hours.  Nights were the best for me.  At times I would by far be the speediest on the quiet track at night.  Day 2 was a struggle with some long rests.  I only ran about 40 miles on Day 2. At 136 miles I was seriously going to quit because i saw swellness in the leg.   But I went back out, tested things out and did more careful running.  But I really could only run 7-8 miles at a time.  Sleep deprivation was bad.  On Day 3, I shut it down for the heat of the day, washed up and tried to sleep.  Didn't sleep much.  As dusk arrived I went back out and ran some another pretty fast 15 miles.  But by 8 p.m. I could tell that I was thrashed, painful slow walking and I felt very sick.   I drove to a motel very beat up and slept for the night.  I woke a 2 a.m., got up to test the legs and feet but rejected wishes to go back to the track.  At 5 a.m. I did it again and this time felt much better.  By 6 a.m. I was again running fast on the track.  I did another nine miles until it was too painful and then quit an hour early with 163 miles total for 14th place.  Not bad, but I know I can do much, much better if I didn't have the issues I did.   I had a great time running with friends.