[S]he Conquers Who Endures

4h long bike. Last week 4h long bike was at 72% max hr, this week 4h long bike was 76% max hr! I checked in the Pfitzinger book after, I averaged target heart rate for long run pace for marathon training...for 4h!!!! Nice.

1.3 mile WALK to the pool NO boot, then 75 mins waterjogging with some friends in my running club. 10 min wu, 8x5 mins hard (well, kinda, we did a bit of talking :) ), with 1 min recoveries, then 10x45 sec hard with 15 sec recoveries (these were truly hard - no talking), then 5 min cd. Then 1.3 mile WALK home! The walk home felt much better than the walk to the pool. I think waterjogging is a magical cure-all.  

AM: 1.5 h speed bike. 30 min wu, then 7x3 mins at 80-93% max hr, with 3 min recoveries, 15 min cd. This felt good...like 800m repeats good. :)

My 0.5 mile walk to work today with no boot felt like any old normal day!! First longer walk that felt like that since April!! :) T-10 days until first run!! 

PM: 82 mins waterjogging. 20 min wu, 2x[10x1:30 min hard w 30 sec recovery] 2 min easy between sets, then 20 min cd. It's so awesome to build from 2 sets of 5 repeats to 2 sets of 10 repeats. I've come a long way! The pool felt so refreshing this evening, and then my legs were so fatigued once I got out of the pool. I think everyone should try this because that sensation is amazing! 

AM: WALKED 2 miles in my running shoes while singing "I would walk 500 miles..." in my head. I didn't realize how long walking 2 miles would take, haha, so I got a late start to the day. I definitely got some good work in on my foot for this walk! Then 4 sets of 3 exercises with 3 sets each exercise. Finished with 6 mins planks and burnt my abs with 3x30 abmat situps. Yeah, there are some packs poking through now! :)

It's T-9 days to run, but I cheated. My dr okayed me to try the AlterG anti-gravity treadmill I start that Monday!! So less than one week to AlterG run!

My motivation and attitude are kicking major booty right now, and being able to add AlterG while working back into running has me feeling better about this half in July! Right now I think I will annihilate it, but let's just see how things go. :) 

PM: 110 mins waterjogging. 20 min wu, 7x5 mins hard, 5 min recovery, 20 mins cd. The pool was vacant since I went mid-day so I could run my work experiment later. It was nice to have an entire lane to myself for a while!

AM: 2.25 h steady bike. 25 min wu @ 60% max hr, then 3x20mins @ 80-85% max hr, with 15 mins recovery, 10 min cd. I imagined the 20 min intervals were running the July half marathon. It didn't feel that bad! :) My foot was achy towards the end and my legs are fried. I am looking forward to an easy waterjogging workout later this evening to fix me up good. I get to start elliptical tomorrow!!!

PM: 1.25 h steady waterjogging. This felt really good to take an entire workout easy. I haven't done that in a long time...too long! 

30 mins elliptical then 3.5 h long bike. 

This is my first elliptical go, and it was amazing! Wow, I never thought the elliptical would feel so heavenly. As soon as I started going, it felt so similar to that running feeling in my hips and thighs that I almost started crying it felt so good! Definitely got a good workout in on my feet muscles. :)

I will be driving the van and bike pacing my Ragnar team this weekend from Madison to Chicago, so I had to get my long bike in today so I wouldn't miss it this weekend. It was so tough to get going after my bike workout yesterday, but I basically did a "progressive long bike" % max hr-wise. Started out hardly able to break 68 to 70% in the first 45 mins, then continually increased hr until the last 15 mins I kept it closer to 78-81% max hr. Averaged 73% max hr - right on target.

Now I'm ready to drive a van and ride a bike alongside my teammates through the night! It'll be great times with friends. I'm pretty sure I've come to terms with not being able to run. I can blow up my pace in races when my body is ready. 

Bike paced my Ragnar running teammates through the night. I counted up the mileage, it was actually 26.2. Weird!! Probably around a 4 h bike ride, probably around 45-50% max hr. There were some nice rollers in WI. I made sure to keep seated on the bike to get a little burn in my quads. :)

Bike pacing was a success! One of my good looking female friends got hit on around 2am by some drunk, creepy guy with a flash light out in the middle of nowhere with no people around. I'm so glad I was with her! He wouldn't want to mess with me!

Ragnar was more difficult than I thought. At the finish, my team ran in the final runner. I, of course, could not run. I watched as all 6 of them ran through the cheering crowds to the finish. It was so sad! There went another race I was looking forward to. There would be no finisher's medal for me, they would be taking pictures of the team without me as I make my way over to them. I went along for the ride, driving the van all but 4 legs, and the legs I was bike pacing my teammates. As I make my way to meet up with my teammates. I force myself to hold back tears (doing a very good job of it, I must say). As soon as I link up with them and see their beautiful ultra finisher's medals they pull out a 7th medal and place it around my neck. I burst into tears. They made me feel so much a part of the team. I was sad and mad I couldn't run, but they were so grateful for all the work I did to help them through the race.

Everyone is on a different running journey. Just as with life, there are highs and lows. You have to experience the lows to feel the highs. Last year was a big year of PRs for me. As I write this now, I am actually grateful for this injury. I know I would keep PRing, but now I will be starting a marathon training schedule fresh (for once) and my PRs will feel that much more worth it after sacrificing so much this Spring.

1 h elliptical ladder workout. This is my first hard effort on the elliptical! The workout was: 17 min wu @ 60% max hr, then 1 min hard/1 min easy, 2h/1e, 3h/1e, 4h/1e, 3h/1e, 2h/1e, 1h/1e, then 20 min cd. I was able to stay up in 90-97% max hr for the hard efforts by raising the resistance to level 15 and maintaining 85-90 rpm. I haven't had my hr up so high in so long and I did realize you could do that on the elliptical!! So happy.

AM: 2 back-to-back Flywheel classes to take the place of my speed bike workout. Oh my gosh, this was so awesome. I have a little IT band tightness and leg soreness from the elliptical (which I am loving bc I think that means I'm building back closer to running muscles). I wasn't targeting for 1st place on the torque board (shows everyones' total power output), but halfway through the class I managed to go from 3rd or 4th, to 2nd place and only 1 power unit behind 1st. Naturally, I push it at the end and come out finishing the class in 1st place by 5 points! Holla! I wore my Garmin to track my hr. Shoot, my training effect is already 4.9 by the end of the 1st class! (4.0 means highly improving, 5.0 means overreaching). Took the 2nd class a little easier.

Class 1 total power: 281

Class 2 total power: 274

Pretty surprised the total power was so similar when I thought I was sandbagging the 2nd class. 

I am now counting down the mins until I get to test out the AlterG for the first time!! 

PM: 1st running session on AlterG! 30 mins at 30% body weight. 2 min walk (4 MPH)/3 min run (7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10.2 MPH). It was really weird to get going. I could definitely tell I needed to neural reprogramming to increase my cadence after all that water jogging! It's just like riding a bike I guess because by the end of the session it felt "normal" to run at a faster leg turnover.

1 h on the elliptical, easy, maintained 68% max hr. I don't know why my feet always go numb! I made it about 12 mins until they were numb. I wanted to do 90 mins, but the numbness was scaring me so I cut the workout at 60 mins so I could do a 2 mile walk instead. 2 mile walk on tm at 1.5% incline. 3.5 MPH for the first 0.5 miles, then finished with 4.0 MPH. Man, my foot muscles were sore at the end! I'm glad I made that decision, I think it was more therapeutic to get the walk in.

2.25 h steady bike. 15 min wu at 60% max hr, then 4x15 mins at 80-85% max hr with 15 min recoveries. My legs are so fried! I'm behind on sleep too, I think I will benefit from sleep more than a second workout today. Why do I feel like a slacker if I skip my pm workout?!

Happy Back to Run Day to Me!!

Well, run/walk, but running was involved nonetheless...on real ground! 3 min walk/2 min run x6 paces for runs were: 7:41/6:58/6:44/6:56/6:49/6:29 min/mi!!! Honestly, it did not feel like I was going that fast. At first I felt like someone was pulling me down with rubberbands. The last interval felt like I was running slower, it really felt like 8s. I'm very, very surprised by this. Yea, they were only 2 min intervals, but the perceived effort was telling me I was going a different pace. Also, 0 pain!!! I think the soft tissue felt better to run than walk. Ha.

Drove to Hopkinton for 1 h on the AlterG. 1 min walk @ 4MPH, 4 min run @ 10 MPH x12 @ 30% body weight. I wisened up and wore padded bike shorts for this one! Boy did they help a lot! The PT was really awesome and set up a camera and monitor for me to watch and correct my gait. Naturally I didn't realize I was guarding so much, I'm so thankful he showed me!! I'll get that fixed in a jiffy.

So, 0 foot pain the entire workout, hamstring soreness from land running (more in right), and inner thigh soreness from AlterG. Not too shabby. I'm getting running legs back! 

PM: 1h weights. 4 rounds of 3 exercises with 3 sets each. Finished with 6 min plank/side plank (no rest) and 3x30 abmat situps to burn up my abs. 

A much needed rest day. I woke up with the tightest calves! My hammies were also pretty tight all day. I sure hope my massage later will flush things out. I'm schedule for my second run tomorrow and I can hardly walk!

I was supposed to run/walk today, but decided to switch workout days with Sunday since my calves and hamstrings were still so sore I could hardly walk. Instead I did a 4h bike ride at 74% max hr. 

My calves and hamstrings were still tight from Thursday, but they felt a little loser than yesterday so I decided to give my run/walk a try. 2 min walk/8 min run x3. My calves felt like they were going to tear the first running interval, but felt nice and loose by the third. My paces were: 8:03, 7:44, 7:09 min/mi. Finished up with some really good stretching and foam rolling. Then went for a 2.4 mile hike in the Blue Hills (443 ft elevation gain). I hope I can run Tuesday! 

I started measuring my resting hr every morning when I wakeup. I thought it would be a good leaf to turnover after I got my stress fracture to figure out if I'm pushing too hard. It seems 42-43 bmp is my average "low" and I typically have closer to 45-47 bmp for a more "normal" resting hr. This morning my resting hr was 40. Holy cow! I had a pretty hard workout week last week and would expect to need a recovery this week. 

AM: Criss-cross speed bike 1.25 h. I found out my glutes are pretty sore probably from running and hiking yesterday. My calves and hamstrings are still tight but not as bad as I expected, so I'm happy about that. It turns out, my glute weakness somewhat limited my workout since it's harder to get your hr up on the bike with weak muscles. 15 min wu @ 61% max hr, then 6x4 mins at 80-89% max hr (ideally would be more like 85-93%), then cd staying above 60% max hr. It's called criss-cross because you are supposed to build your hr for the first 2 mins, then slowly lower it for the remainder 2 mins. I am fairly surprised to find out that although the bike workout seems to drop a hair on tired running legs, you can really do a lot on the bike fairly comfortably when your legs are so sore you can hardly walk. You use the opposite muscles biking so I think this will be a really great exercise to maintain once I'm back to 100% in my running life. :) 

PM: 40 mins easy waterjogging. Felt good on my legs! 

2 min walk, 15 min run, 2 min walk, 14 min run (because I can't add), 4 min walk.

I haven't run slow enough yet to hit recovery pace. This run was slower than my previous runs, but my calves and hamstrings are sore and tight. I don't know why I'm scared to purposely run slow! I don't want to get comfortable there, but that's stupid because I should be running slow to reduce the pounding and allow my bones to adapt.

First interval was 1.84 miles at 8:14 min/mi pace, the second interval was 1.74 miles at 7:57 min/mi pace.

I got a lot of work to in 4.5 weeks to prepare for this half! But, I did not feel the need to walk once. My foot is feeling great and ready to run!

Drove to Hopkinton for 1 h on the AlterG. 2 min walk (4 MPH)/10 min run (10 MPH) x5 at 30% body weight. I kinda cried a little during this run. A really good song came on during one of the run intervals. My body was in sync, my legs were flying and I felt like I did when I was speed training on the treadmill back in March. Once the chorus hit during Mumford and Sons "I Will Wait", it was over, tears welled in my eyes and I was so glad I was facing a wall so people could see this crazy girl teary eyed on the treadmill filled with joy to finally be able to feel that great feeling of the run. What a great glimpse of what is to come!!

65 mins threshold on the bike. Normally I do longer, but now that I'm weaving in running, I think it's better to cut back the bike to keep my legs fresh for the run. 15 min wu at 60-65% max hr, then 35 mins at 82-88% max hr, followed by 15 min cd. This felt good hard and I even had enough energy coming off the bike to stretch, foam roll, then hit up a few exercises.

circuit (3 rounds): 12 pushups, 12 stepups each leg 20 in box, side step with band

then 6 mins continuous plank (normal and each side alternating), then burned out my abs with 3x30 abmat situps. 

PM: 40 mins easy waterjogging. I met a girl who is trying to join the New Balance team! So cool! We chatted, waterjogged for a bit and exchanged emails. It will be so nice to have a waterjogging partner, and a super speedy one at that! :) 

 Resting HR: 44 bpm

 2x20 min run, 2 min walk. I tried to allow myself to slow down for this one. I still couldn't mentally allow myself to slow to my old recovery pace (9:15 min/mi), but I did a lot better. Runs were 2.31 miles at 8:49 and 8:51 min/mi pace. I need to succumb to a slow pace! My calves and hamstrings were minorly sore, but my right knee start giving my that kiss of death pulling sensation that in the past has forced me to take a month off running.

Note to self: this is a period of building mileage, you are not supposed to build mileage, frequency of runs per week and intensity!!! Forget the half in July, focus on getting up to a healthy base to start marathon training in July!!

I know I don't have the running endurance I had, but my speed is there and I still haven't felt like I had to walk during a run (I force a walk to stick with the training plan). I just have to stay injury free and practice patience!

PM: Walked 3 miles total to volunteer for the corporate challenge in Boston Commons.

Resting hr 41 bpm

3 miles no walk/run this time. Just running. :)

Then 1 hr on alterg at 35% body weight ran 10 MPH. Boy this felt great! No run/walking fo this one either! 

Resting hr 48 bpm

Resting hr 53 bpm

6 miles straight up. Averaged 8:10 min/mi. Not too shabby for doubling my longest mileage. The last mile felt the best, 7:49. I felt like I finally got my gait back that last mile.

Walked almost 4 miles total to volunteer for the BAA 10k in Boston Commons. Got to help with Drug Testing the athletes. Man, those women are amazing! 

1 mile walk on the freedom trail with my fiancé.  

Resting hr: 53 bpm - this is pretty high for me!

I was supposed to do speed bike today, but 3 intervals in I realized I couldn't get my hr higher than 85% max because my legs felt so fatigued. I did a lot on my legs yesterday and got maybe 3 h sleep last night. My fiance flew out early this morning so it was hard for either one of us to fall asleep. The time apart is getting wearing and making me sad.

I ended up doing more of a fartlek bike. 15 min wu @ 60% max hr, then 3x2 mins at 80-85% max hr with 2 min recoveries. Then the rest is a blur, 3x5-10 mins at 82% max hr with 15 min cool down.

Tonight's focus will be to catch up on some sleep.

Resting hr 40 bpm.

4 miles run into Boston (for the first time since April!). AP 8:33 min/mi. Get this weirdness. I maintained constant perceived effort, but my splits were 8:55, 8:22, 8:22, 8:03 min/mi. Maybe I should run a marathon to hit 5:00 min/mi pace for my last miles. Jk.

My calves are still sore but much, much better then they were. My hamstrings are screaming and make it really, really unpleasant to run. I don't know if this a warning or rebuilding muscle. I read online 2 culprits could be inflexibility and muscle imbalance if your quads are really strong. I can definitely work on these. I am ashamed to admit I haven't done very much stretching since I was injured, plus the bike probably built up my quads to beast level. I think I'll forgo my steady bike Tuesday and hit up Bikram!

1 h alterg at 10 MPH and 40% body weight. This feels really, really good! 

40 mins waterjogging easy and chatting with a friend. 

Resting hr 42

Another 6 mile run in the books! My hamstrings and calves are still tight but less than yesterday. I went for an easy pace pushing to mild hamstring discomfort rather than searing pain. That ended up being 8:28 min/mi AP, and another negative split run even though effort felt the same with the exception of the last mile (I felt good so picked it up). Paces were: 8:56, 8:38, 8:42, 8:29, 8:13, and 7:50. I'm really happy about this. The effort felt like recovery pace which was 9:15 min/mi for me before my stress fracture.

Finished with 45 mins weights, tried to focus on my hammies and calves a little more without overly loading (we will find out tomorrow!). Then did 6 mins continuous planks (rotating flat, and sides) and burnt out my abs with a 3x35 abmat sit-ups. I love how my abs look at the end of this! Haha.

I'm looking forward to Saturday! I'm going to attempt a 9 mile long run in Chicago with my best running friend! We have a Kara-Shalane relationship and haven't run together since early April. This is a much needed and deserved weekend. :)

Bikram!!! I haven't done bikram since early January. I think it was a perfect workout for what my body needs right now - stretching out my hamstrings and working on independent leg balance/strength. Boy, my right leg was shaking like it saw a ghost!!! I think I will stick to this once weekly to see the progression on my right leg. When I used to go regularly, it was a great tool to assess the body damage. :)

I just had my last ortho dr appt!! He said I am healing very nicely and was kinda surprised by my mileage build. He was okay with my schedule since he thinks I'm really in tuned with my body. I don't know if I'm happier about having my schedule okayed or receiving the complement about being well in tuned with my body. 

3 easy miles outside slowing it down a bit to 9:10 min/mi AP then 1 hr on the alterg at 45% body weight and 10 MPH.

Intimidating, confidence building, bone working longish run! Pure bliss, running with my Kara-Shalane friend. We both needed this one. She has been in a running funk, I needed the distraction and support from someone I trust. That's what it's about. We chatted it up most the way, we both started to feel stinky but then looked at our watch and realized we were blowing up the pace. Averaged 7:59 min/mi with the last mile at 7:32. I felt strong the entire way. My hamstrings and calves felt a lot better. That crosstraining really payed off. Ramping up from a 6 mile long run to a 9 mile long run, you don't drop the pace like that unless you have the fitness. So, so happy, and my foot did not hurt once!