A Lean and Hungry Look

My back bothered me a little bit all weekend, so I tried to stretch a lot and use the Miracle Balls whenever possible.  Today's run was very slow (7:40 avg pace).  Back pain was mild, although it felt a little worse by the end.  Counting down the hours to my massage appointment tonight.

I had a 90-minute massage last night, and I think it helped a lot.  There was tremendous tightness in my hips and glutes, as well as my quads and hamstrings.  I have been terrible about stretching anything other than calves and hamstrings, so that may explain part of my back trouble.

I was concerned about doing my scheduled interval workout this morning, so I decided instead to go out for an easy 8 miles and to postpone my speed session until tomorrow morning.  I didn't feel any particular tightness or pain anywhere during the run, and the biggest difference was that my pace was faster than it's been lately, but with a similar effort.  Yesterday's pace was unusually slow (7:40 avg) for an easy day.  My easy days usually range in the 7:20-7:30 pace.  Today's average was 7:09, and that was after a very slow first mile (I was testing things out).  For an easy day, that was a good sign.

In case my two readers are interested, my massage therapist is Leah Nelson (leahnelsonlmt@gmail.com; 801-906-3222).  She's at 133 Kensington in SLC.  She just moved here three months ago from NYC, where she had a thriving practice.  She has worked with a lot of athletes, and I recommend her highly.

Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of my back pain.

10x1/2-mile repeats at Sugarhouse with 2 min active recovery between each (down from 3 min in past workouts).  Usual warmup and cooldown.  Splits looked like this:

1: 2:33 (5:07/mi) (AHR 160/MHR 170)

2: 2:37 (5:15/mi) (174/178)

3: 2:31 (5:01/mi) (173/178)

4: 2:38 (5:17/mi) (175/180)

5: 2:27 (4:53/mi) (175/181)

6: 2:32 (5:06/mi) (178/181)

7: 2:31 (5:01/mi) (175/179)

8: 2:39 (5:20/mi) (175/180)

9: 2:30 (5:00/mi) (175/178)

10: 2:35 (5:10/mi) (178/181)

I was pleased with the workout.  It was comfortably hard but never painful. I didn't have any back pain until the last couple of repeats.  I need to keep rolling on tennis balls and stretching more.  I've also started bringing my ice pack to work so that I can at least get a little help that way.  All in all, my confidence level is much higher today than it was over the weekend, when I was concerned that the back issue could derail my SG plans.  At this point, I think it's going to be manageable, as long as I stay on top of it.

I left Maja home again (I'm wondering whether my habit of running with her leash attached to my waist may be the cause of my lower back pain) and headed out for an easy 9 on the route across the U campus, up to 11th Ave, over to F Street, then back via Federal Heights Drive/Primary Children's/Research Park.  No noticeable pain today.

I had to get my 12-year-old up early for a soccer game, then head to Provo for an early meeting, so I missed my morning run but brought my Five Fingers to work for an easy run on the grass at lunch.  The schedule calls for a 10k race tomorrow, but since I hate short races and missed my long run last week due to back pain, I've decided to run 20 tomorrow instead.  As a result, I decided to stick with the recommended 4 miles for my Friday run.  Since it was hot and muggy, I was grateful that it was only 4.  As usual, I forgot to bring my inhaler, so I was wheezing a bit by the end.

No back pain today.

Today's plan was to run up Emigration and to work in about 8-9 miles at MP.  Since we were planning to take the kids up to Snowbird early for a little "Stay-cation" (I hate that term), I got up at 4:40 to get ready.  I decided to try the Generation UCAN product again to see if I wanted to use the product for the marathon, so I drank 24 oz. while I got my water and other gear put together.  I also had a small banana.  Because I was worried that the waist belt might throw my back out again, I decided to take my Camelbak instead.

The first couple of miles felt crappy, as usual.  After that, I started to warm up and get used to the climb, but I still didn't feel great.  I started paying attention to my splits around mile 3-4 and they were in the mid-8 range, which is a little slow for my easy runs up Emigration.  I maintained a similar effort to my usual easy runs up the canyon and watched my splits get slightly better, but only slightly.  Normally, by the time I'm at 5-6 miles, I'm under 8 min/mile and getting faster each mile.  Today, though, I seemed to top out at 8:06 pace with the same effort.  By the time I got to the Pinecrest turnoff at around 7.5, I could tell that something just wasn't right.  I went another mile and decided to turn around and cut the day short at 17.  When I stopped to turn around, a woman came cruising down the other side of the road.  I took a drink, stretched for a second, then headed down, expecting to catch her very quickly.

Since I wasn't feeling like myself, I decided not to try to start blasting down the mountain at MP, but to slowly work up to my pace and see how it felt.  I gradually increased the pace but was not gaining much on the woman ahead of me, so I upped it a little more.  I finally started catching her on the steep section just below Pinecrest, but I was at about 5:40 pace at that point and it wasn't feeling good.  After I got well ahead of her, I settled back to what felt like a normal MP effort, but the splits were far above what they should have been.  What normally feels like a 5:45-5:50 pace was translating to a 6:20-6:30 pace.  Recognizing that a solid MP session was not in the cards, I just kept the effort steady the rest of the way home and the pace stayed roughly the same.

I felt kind of wiped out by the time I made it home--just like I felt the last time I tried to do MP after taking Generation UCAN.  I think I've used the stuff four or five times now, and I'm ready to render a final verdict: the stuff is as good as poison for me, and I'm not planning to touch it again.  Anyone want about $30 worth of the crap (I made the mistake of ordering it in bulk)?