Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow

Good news, I got my personal blog working again. Had to take an old MySQL backup and configure it to work with the new server. I lost a couple comments, but other than that it's all there. I also finally lost the horrible big toenail on my right foot, after over a year of trying, so that's even better news. Fresh starts all around.

To make myself feel better about the Packer loss, I posted some more inspiring quotes on my blog, this time all are by Vince Lombardi. Click here if you care. 

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AM - Easy 5 miles on a fresh new layer of snow. Didn't wear watch.

(Adrenaline blue: 491 miles)

PM - having seen enough of the Packers humiliating themselves (and their fans) in front of the Bears, I bailed on the game drove up to Green Canyon and did some XC skiing. Lots of people up there; nice to see the ski community out and about. For fun, I took my Garmin to see how fast I was skiing. First two uphill miles were 15:04 and 15:53. Then I turned around and went downhill. I'm not very good down hills on skinny skis and leather boots, but I managed to do some snow plowing and not bite it at all, which is important when there's a lot of other people out there. 8:01 and 8:11 on the downhill miles. 47:06 for the whole 4-mile trek. Green Canyon was really beautiful, with huge amounts of snow hanging from the trees. I may try the golf course by the Planet Walk later this week if we get some more snow.

Workout today, of medium proportions, since I'm just returning from sickness. I did a hill fartlek on the Hyde Park Hill Loop. The idea was to hit 5K pace on shorter hills (<800m), LT pace on medium hills (800m-1600m) and MP on hills longer than a mile. Well, most hills out here are longer than a mile, so I was MP for most of the surges, but I got the other paces in a one point or another as well. 6 hills total. I just ran by feel and didn't pay attention to pace, since it's pretty meaningless to me going uphill anyway. Kind of a fun run, and weather was nice. My quads and hip flexors are sore from XC skiing yesterday, but I managed to cope.

(Elite: 203 miles)

Merry Christmas! I ran a little bit with the dog, and then Logan came by and we ran around Providence. We got about 8" of snow last night, so roads were not in good shape, and it was absolutely FREEZING. The bank by the Providence Stadium 8 said that is was 3 degrees. That digital sign always runs a bit on the low side, so it was probably more like 10 degrees out. Either way, my hands hurt by the end, and I had the full Frostillicus beard going. 7:45/mile average pace.

(Triax: 369 miles)

PM - Stacy and I went out in the afternoon and XC skied the Logan River Golf Course. Finally, a good use for golf courses. Snow coverage was good, and it was actually kind of run, skiing up and down the hummocky terrain. Skied the front 9 and crossed the bridge over the Planet Walk and tackled the back 9. Probably a couple miles total.

AM - easy 8.5 miles. Roads are still very snowy, and traction is difficult. I ran around town for a while, then did the Planet Walk, which hasn't been plowed yet, but has been packed down a little. 8:19/mile average pace.

(Adrenaline: 14 miles)

PM - I was sick of being cold every run and was craving a good sweat, so for the PM run I went to the gym and hit the treadmill. 7.5 total, with the run to and from the gym.

(Adrenaline blue: 499 miles)

Bad day today. I had been experiencing some irritation since Tuesday in the vicinity of the ischium, but it was tolerable, not impacting my stride, and not getting any worse. Today it got worse, much worse.

I ran from work to the gym, warmed up a mile on the treadmill, and then started my 8x1000m workout. I chose the treadmill over the roads after a lot of internal debate. The basic reason was that the roads are so slick and snow-covered that trying to run a threshold-paced workout on it would have been futile, or even dangerous. I don't like the treadmill for hard workouts, but the mill is flat (uncrowned), snow-free, plus I rationalized I needed to get used to heat for the Houston race.

I cranked the puppy up to 12 mph for the interval portions, and ran that pace for 3:07...roughly a 1000m. Recovery intervals were just over a minute. Incline was set at 1% to help negate the lack of wind resistance. The first 4 intervals went pretty well. The 5th one had a little bit more pain, but nothing to worry about. But after the 6th one, I knew something was really wrong. I got off the treadmill, walked around a little bit, and got a drink of water. I then jumped back on the treadmill and tried to jog slowly. Not happening. I went from being able to hold 5-minute pace pretty easily to not even being able to jog at 9-minute pace, all within a few minutes.

I finished up the last two intervals on the elliptical, just tried to work hard for 3-minute durations. After that I changed and went back outside, tried to start jogging back to work. Still not going to happen. So I ended up walking the mile back to work (fortunately Logan is a small town, and I both work and live centrally).

For the rest of the afternoon, it just went from bad to worse. The pain had spread up my sartorius muscle (which attaches to the ischium, I'm told). It felt a little like the groin strain I had last year, but also a lot different. I was afraid I had a pelvic stress fracture, or something like that. It hurt to stand on my right leg when unsupported. It also hurt to raise my right knee while sitting or standing. An activity like putting on pants hurts a lot. Walking the half mile home from work also hurt a lot. My lifestyle relies on me being healthy and mobile, so something like this trickles down to my "commute" home as well.

I wanted to get this thing diagnosed, or at least a referral, just for peace of mind. I'm a bit obsessive that way. Plus, if I couldn't run Houston, I wanted to let the USATF people know asap, so they could give my spot and my funding to someone else. After dinner Stacy and I went to the IHC Instacare, which is open until 9PM. I don't really like my family doctor, so this is as good as any place for me. Waited half and hour (which what I have to wait when I make an appt for my family doctor), and then got to see the doctor.

I totally lucked out here. It turned out the doctor had a background in sports medicine, and she was pretty good. She thought that since the pain varied by what position I put my leg in, and since it came on quickly, it was probably not a stress fracture, and didn't recommend x-rays or anything fancy like that. She thought that it was more likely that the muscles in the area are messed up (my wording) and spasming (her wording), which was causing pain, inflammation, and weakness. Treatment: prescription-sized doses of OTC NSAIDS (which I have plenty at home), heat, and ice. I asked about deep massage, and she thought that could help as well, so I'll probably schedule an appointment soon with my LMT. Apparently inflammation is the big problem here, so the key will be to kill it. It probably wouldn't hurt to see my DC next week either.

If I can get rid of the pain enough to where I do a few short runs/day, I think I can maintain fitness and still run Houston. Elliptical can help too, but I need the pain to subside a little even for that.

My only theories on how this could have happened:

• Responding poorly to activities I do not frequently do
• XC skiing - went for the first time in two years on Sunday, then again on Tuesday. Perhaps something got pinched or torqued from the motions that my body is very much not used to. Pretty good timing correlation for this theory.
  
• Running in the snow and ice. Probably a little less likely, but people do get injured more when running on slick surfaces. It throws the stride off, which can lead to all sorts of things. I first really noticed some irritation on Tuesday afternoon, and I had done my first run on snowy roads in a while on Tuesday morning.
  
• Treadmill. Kind of the opposite of the snow/ice thing. Footing is good, but it does affect the stride and biomechanics. Injuries are known to happen from treadmill running. However, I've been doing treadmill running for a couple months now without any hint of discomfort, so I'm not too sold on this idea.

Not much progress since yesterday. Still hurts to walk. Still hurts to dress myself (don't worry, I gritted through the pain and am wearing pants). At this pain level, I don't believe even cross training to be an option.

I'm sticking with the short course of ibuprofen (800mg, 3x day) and applying both heat and ice. I have a massage session scheduled for tomorrow morning. Hopefully my LMT can work her usual magic. She almost single-handedly cured my plantar fasciitis, and also increased the rate of healing on my groin strain last year, so I have reason to be optimistic.

Since I can't register any miles today, at least I can enter sleep time!

Yesterday afternoon and evening, my groin got progressively better. I did a few heat/ice cycles at home, and that seemed to help quite a bit, and the meds were probably kicking in too. Wasn't really limping much by bedtime.

This morning, I heated the area in bed for about 20 minutes, then got up. It didn't feel as good as it did yesterday evening, but better than it did yesterday morning, making me think that it really is totally muscle-related and how it feels is a function of how warmed up it is. I managed to walk the dog and do errands without too much problem. At 11:30 I had my 2-hr full-body massage. As usual, it was really good. My LMT couldn't quite pinpoint the exact problem, but in any case it got the circulation going and when I got off the table (hard to do after 2 hours), it felt a fair bit better. And the rest of me feels wonderful. I'll continue with the ibuprofen, heat, and ice over the course of the day. We'll see how the progress goes. It's pretty simple: when the pain goes away I can run again; if it's still around I won't run.