Every Run is a Great Run!

The SF runners had planned to meet at 8am for a New Year Run. Was up just after 7, took a look outside and saw breeziness. Weather.com said 0 degrees with -10 wind chill. Promptly went back to bed and Kim and I decided to try our luck later in the day. Went for a drive around 10am to see what roads were runnable. Not very many it turns out. Only a handful of roads not completely snow/ice covered and those that were clear had plenty of traffic. Trying to see the glass as half-full we made a game plan to get it done.

Finally got running just before noon. Not the funnest to try and stay dry, keep from sliding, and getting hit by brain-dead drivers, but we were able to get a good long run in and get some sunshine as well. We had the best luck down in Benjamin where the roads were the driest and traffic wasn't too bad. We also found a church open there (thank goodness for church basketball!) so we could get a drink and visit a bathroom. I was able to get in a few faster MP miles in the middle miles 6, 7, 9 with paces of 7:15, 7:04, and 7:24. Good to finally be done for the day.

8:36/143

AM: Ran with Kim early in balmy mid-teen temps with a touch of breeze. Still hard to find roads with good footing but we managed ok. Ran with Kay and Carolyn for a little bit. All in all a pleasant winter morning run. Hoping to keep those dang January blues and blahs away this year!

9:35/139

Noon: Ran 4 more at work. Lots of newbies at the gym as usual every January. They looked at me funny as I headed outside in my gear which did not include longs. Hey after the last few days mid-20's and sunshine feels like shorts weather to me! I wish the newbies luck with their resolutions but if past years are typical they'll all disappear by the end of the month and it will just be us old-time regulars.  Just as hard in Provo to find good roads as in SF. Not the greatest on Kuhni road, I'll try a different route tomorrow.

8:08/148

Early AM: Six miles with Kim, we both worked on trying to sweat off some braindead teenager frustrations. But kinda hard to work up a good sweat when it's so dang cold!

9:08/143

Late AM: Three more miles at work. I was unsuccessful at finding any decent roads to run on that didn't involve driving or dealing with snow/ice to get to a clear road. So I was content to just run around the parking lot a few times. The slip-sliding running seems to get some of my "itis's" fired up, especially in the lower ab and groin area. But on the bright side I was bewildered but pleasantly surprised when I weighed myself at the gym and found myself at my lowest weight since last May or so.

8:02

Working from home today so waited until around 11am for the run. Probably around 20 degrees at the start, wish it was warmer but we're getting used to it. Actually felt pretty good when the sun would poke thru the clouds.

Warmup mile with Kim then ran her speed workout (7 x  1/4 mile with 1/4 mile rests) then did a few hills solo. I was thinking around 1:45 (7 min pace) for Kim's quarters but she had good mojo today and did them all around 1:40 (6:40 pace) +/- a couple seconds either side. Very nice workout for her with just over 2 weeks until Painters 5K.This Saturday coach Tom will get to see how she does on 5K time trial #2.

8:30/150

AM: 5 miles easy on a lovely 9 degree morning. Rest day for Kim so all by my lonesome.

8:51/147

Noon: 3 more miles around work campus as well as 10 min XT.

8:05

Another fun BURRRRRRRRR run in the early morning with Kimilou. It might have gotten up to 10 degrees if we were lucky. At least the smog isn't as bad in SF as it is north of us. Sure is hard to get to the legs to want to move when it's so dang cold outside.

9:25/136

Went out around 7am and ran about 8 miles mostly solo but maybe a couple miles with a variety of SF runners. Then I met up with Kim to get 8 or so more including her 2nd time trial 5K in preparation for Painters 5K in 2 weeks. Two weeks ago Kim ran this same route in PR time of 23:21. I wasn't sure if that would be doable today since temps were quite a bit colder than last time. But Kim had it going again and was able to best her previous best by 12 seconds and finish with another PR of 23:09. Sweet! Sub-23 is looking more doable all the time for Painters. Looks like a pretty fast course, although pretty hilly so not sure how hilly-with-net-downhill will compare to the nearly flat loop course of previous years. But I am sure that it will be fun to see what happens!

Early AM: Ran 6 with Kim in our awesome 10 degree weather that has become typical for this Jan 2011.

Late AM: No good roads near work so had to make do with 3 more miles on the dreadmill. I actually didn't hate it as much as usual and it was nice to not have to wear so much gear. But I'm glad I was only doing 3.

Stinking cold day!!! This morning it was 0 degrees with wind chill making it feel 10-20 below! That is stinky!! Luckily it was my work from home day and had the option of going later. So Kim and I did just that and didn't get out the door until around noon. I ran with Kim for about 5 miles and did her drop-down speed workout (1 mile, .75, .50. 25, .25 rests - she did good!). Then I did 6 more miles with a bunch of hills. Felt pretty good today after getting warmed up. It was still only 11 degrees when we went at noon. It may have warmed up to 13 or 14 by the time I was done. Downright balmy.

8:15

AM: 6 miles with Kim on a quiet, crisp morning. Temps around 16-18, possibly the warmest morning of the year yet. Tomorrow morning it appears we may even see the 20's. Don't-care pace today, just under 9:30 I think.

Noon: 3 more at work. Temps around 26 or so with occasional sun. Felt kinda warm actually! I celebrated by wearing shorts and mocking all the people in the gym as I went out the door.

7:57

AM: 7 miles solo. Thought it might get to the 20's this morning but it was not to be. But 17 degrees was ok. 8:28/154

Noon: 3 miles at work. 7:58 pace. These short 2nd runs later in the day are relaxing to me. Although today after the 1st mile I had the annoying chorus from this Les Mis song going through my head over and over. Posting the youtube here in the hope I can exorcise this song that invaded my exercise.

Well Mother Nature finally gave us a morning with temps in the high 20's or maybe even 30. Of course there was a catch - along with the warmer temps we got rainy/sleety/slushy conditions that made for not the best roads to run on. Thankfully neither Kim or I was in any big hurry and were able to take it easy and avoid any slips or falls. Ended up running 5 miles.

9:35/134

Later at the gym did 25 min XT split between stair-stepper, elliptical and bike.

Long run on a foggy morning, temps in the low 20's. Ran 8 with Kim, then 3 with Chad, Kay, Hal, and Doc L, then the rest solo. Misjudged the length of the last loop and ended up little longer than I had planned on. But no problem as pace was on the pretty easy side and I still felt pretty good by the end. Looking forward to St George next week and forecasted temps in the 50's and sunny.

8:45/147

Slept in a bit today then ran 3 solo before meeting up with Kim for 5 more. Warm today - high 30's - and overcast. Nice to be able to wear shorts! Pretty nice for January although we did get rained on for a few minutes. This week is a RRR week for me (Rest/Recovery/Reduced-miles) to give my body/legs a break before officially beginning the 20-week marathon training cycle leading up to UVM.

I've been fortunate to have built a real nice winter running base and I'm feeling healthy. Nice to already have the base and have the body used to 60 mile weeks before starting the marathon training, as I should be able to start adding in the speed without also having to worry about adding mileage. Hopefully all will go well between now and June.

8:45/141

6 AM: Ran a little over 4 miles with Kim on a peaceful morning. Temps in the high 20's.

9:12/131

11 AM: Ran 3 more at work, my short relaxing run. Temps in the 30's with a little sunshine, felt good. I was very pleased to see my HR stay mostly in the 140's while running pace was in the 7's. This doesn't happen very often for me and I hope it's a sign of good things to come.

7:47/146

Working at home today so did hill workout around 11am. After warmup run with Kim I did the hill stuff solo. Pretty warm again in the mid-to-upper 30's but about 1/2 way thru the workout the wind kicked up and made things not as fun. Looking forward to heading down to St George on Friday. Forecast for the Saturday race is looking dandy.

8:11/160

AM: Nice & easy 3-miler with Kim then 1 more solo mile.

9:11

Noon: 3 more miles at work in the sun plus 10 min XT.

7:42/154

Nice little 10-miler solo in the early morning. This will be my long run for the week. Felt good. Ran the Krishna temple loop with a humungous moon to light the way. Moon was nice for the run, but made my sleep not so good since it made the room so bright. Now off to STG for some sunshine and warmer temps. Kim is going to rock her 5K! Good luck to everyone racing!

8:23/156

Ran with Kim a bit warming up for her soon-to-be record-crushing-PR-5K. She cruised to a massive PR 5K of 22:22!! Sweet!! Just goes to show that work will work when wishy washy wishing won't!

I tweaked my back a bit yesterday so I'm taking it easy today. Beautiful weather and January temps (50-60) in St. George. Wish we didn't have to go back today.

Not a very happy camper today. Whatever I did to my back/hip Friday appears to be alot worse than I thought. I don't even think it had anything to do with running, just a fluke thing by carrying some stuff in just the wrong way. My last "normal" run on Friday was an awesome 10-miler in the morning where I felt really great after having had a bit of a rest week throughout last week.

Closest thing in the past to compare to this was when I was late in my training cycle trying to run a BQ years ago and I tweaked the back/hip on a canyon downhill run. At that time I was way stressed because I could barely walk the next day and I was supposed to run 20 a couple days later. I ended up not doing anything on Thu/Fri then I went ahead and ran the 20 on Saturday. It was very tight at first but then loosened up and I ended up having a great run and the next week everything was back to normal.

Not sure if it's going to work out that way this time. Saturday I didn't feel too bad and I ran an easy 3.5 miles. But it got more painful as the day went on, even with taking a few Ibuprofen. Rested yesterday and it felt better. Felt ok this morning when I went out with Kim to test running but it was obvious after about 1/2 mile it just wasn't going to work and now I'm hurting pretty bad today.

Walked over to the gym just to see if any flavor of XT would work but no dice. Was hurting pretty bad just from the walk from my office to the gym. Tried bike, elliptical, and stair-stepper but no go. Just seems like most anything aggravates except sitting and laying. Meds don't seem to do much at all.

So I guess I just won't do anything at all other than all the R-I-C-E crap until I can walk around and feel perfectly normal for a few days with no trace of pain in the back/hip problem area.

This one really ticks me off. In times past when I've had nasty injuries it's because I "earned" them by ignoring the early signs. But this time around I've been trying to do everything just right and being very conservative (at least on pace, not necessarily mileage). I've felt really good most all the time and have been a good boy with taking reduced-mile/rest weeks even if I didn't feel like I needed them.

Oh well sometimes I guess no matter what you do things still go south. Sorry for all the whining today. I do realize in the overall scheme this isn't that big a deal. It's just really frustrating that right when I thought I had done everything perfect to set me up for a great marathon training cycle and then right when I FINALLY after months of patience am ready to being the actual marathon training and right off the bat I likely get a goose-egg on miles for week 1 of the 20 week program (OK so maybe .65 miles not 0).

At least I guess I get to have an extra long nap today after lunch. Let the detraining and weight gain begin.  Sorry but today the glass is half empty.

Guess one of the "joys" of being a morning runner is that even on days you don't run you still wake up nice and early.

I figure since I'm up I might as well post an injury update and write down a few words of wisdom/advice to myself (and whoever else might benefit) for future reference. And sorry about all the moaning/whining Monday, I was maybe a bit over-dramatic.

A few things to add to my list of things NOT to do, especially at 46+ yrs old:

1)  DON'T run a brisk (for me) early morning 10-mile run, then shortly after sit in a van for 3-4 hours straight, then in your eagerness to check out the newly  installed flatscreen in the master bedroom in the condo, rush carrying 2 or 3 bags/luggage AND a cooler all at once up a flight of stairs.

2)  If you wake up the next morning with a new weird pain that you aren't accustomed to, DON'T KEEP RUNNING if the pain is still there in any form after a few minutes or even  a few seconds if the pain is intense.

3)  If walking aggravates the pain then try not to walk much, and certainly DON'T try running in hopes the pain will magically disappear. Wait until you can walk with NO pain for a couple days or so, then try running but only in accordance with rule 2).

4) DON'T worry be happy.

Feeling some improvement this morning, but still feel pain when walking so for now no thoughts of running, probably not until next week.

Injury update:  Progress seems a kinda slow slow slow to me but I suppose I'm not a very patient guy. Back/hip does feel a little better each day but not by a whole lot. I'm not sure if I'll be ready to try any running on Monday like I had hoped. Need to be able to walk around more pain free than at present. Been taking a dose of Prednizone this week to attack the inflammation and try to kick start the healing but not sure if it's doing anything. I seem to get as much bang out of regular old Ibuprofen as much as anything.

Don't know if I've really described the injury in earlier posts so maybe I'll do that so if it sounds familiar to anyone they can share their wisdom with me.

There are really 2 pains. First, there is the dull, lower back pain and tightness on the left side. This I've had before from time to time and it's never bothered my running much. This dull pain kind of extends down into the left hip.

The other pain and the one that is causing me the most grief as far as running, walking, or any form of XT is in the left hip right around where the hip socket is (I don't know all the fancy medical terms for these body parts). This pain is a stabbing, concentrated  pain, kind of like getting poked with a needle in that spot.  Just feels very fragile and makes me nervous to do much of anything that puts any pressure on it.

Guess we'll see how the weekend goes and pray for the best but be prepared for whatever. I'm actually feeling pretty good mentally. Physically I'm beginning to feel like a slug. Thanks to Kim for all her support and willingness to give me rub downs and massages in my "upper thigh" area :).