The Fall Marathon...Jinx?

Last week I took a deep breath, crossed my fingers and hit "confirm" to register for this:

And....the next day I promptly injured my hamstring on a 3x2 mile tempo run.  To be fair, it was a bit sore after the speed work from the following week.  I'd done speed again on Tuesday, then run easy on Wednesday and Thursday.  It was feeling much less sore, so I went ahead with the second dose of speed work on Friday as planned.

The workout was 3x2 mile at 6:20-6:30 pace.  It was raining so I opted for the treadmill.  Did a 1.5 mile warm up, then 6:31, 6:31 - 2 min rest - then 6:27, 6:27 - 2 min rest.  I started my third set at 6:27 and was alllllmost done with that 5th mile when I took a step and felt a huge twinge in my right hamstring that made me jump to the sides of the treadmill, wincing in pain.  Tried to run easy for a few paces and the hamstring was not having any part of it.  So I scrapped the workout and run and just gently stretched and cooled down.   I sadly (but wisely) decided not to run the Saturday long run with friends as planned and spent the day with family celebrating my nephew's birthday.  I foam rolled and iced and wore my compression shorts around the house.

Sunday I went for a tiny little run to test it out.  Still very sore, but improving.  Felt like I wasn't getting the proper push off and power on that leg and my gait felt off.   Was hoping for 6 miles but called it at 4 since I felt like I was doing more harm than good by trying to force it.   On a happier note, I also taught BodyPump and had some of my very favorite people show up to take my class:  my family!  Three of my sisters, my sister's boyfriend and my Mom all took my class and had a blast - along with getting a great workout!  They only heckled me a little bit and I got a big kick out of making them work hard!!  Extra pushups for everyone!

Cross-trained Monday on the Arc Trainer and had a massage.

Today I went out (with fingers crossed) for a 5-mile run.  While that leg still feels off (adductors are very tight on that side, and hamstring still feels tender), it was much improved and I was very happy to be able to run without wincing at every step.

Fingers crossed that this is a little bump in the road on the way to my Fall marathon.  I am having flashbacks to this time last year when I was injured right at the start of marathon training for Harrisburg and had to take the Fall season off.  It seems every time I actually hit the "confirm" button on a registration for a race, something pops up!   Hopefully I've caught this early enough and with a few days of easy running and cross training I can nip it in the bud and be back on the roads to ramp up for Erie.   I'm really looking forward to running Erie again.  While the drive up there is LONG (almost 9 hours!), the course is great and several of my friends from my running group are planning to go up as well.  I can't wait to train alongside them this summer as we all gear up to run.   If I'm going to train through the heat and humidity of RVA summers for a September marathon it sure makes it nice to have others suffering along with me!

Fingers crossed for me on this hamstring, eh?  Anyone out there have hamstring strain recovery advice? Who is running an early Fall marathon?  Anyone else in for Erie?  (you'll have a great time, I promise!)

Marathon Monday & a Training Update

I must admit, watching the Boston Marathon on TV yesterday made me very excited to return there one day.   Watching the elites race (and seeing Kris Lawrence up in the front with the leading women!) was so inspiring and I applaud all of them for running such a great race.   I was especially proud of Desi Linden – she’s one of my favorite elite runners. She just has a work ethic that just won’t quit – and (as you can tell from the tagline of this blog), that is something that really resonates with me. When others try flashy race tactics or complain about the lousy conditions, Desi just puts her head down and quietly gets to work. She ran a solid race yesterday and while I wish it had been enough to put her on the podium, it was still such a fantastic and well-executed effort.

The broadcast aired during my normal crazy preschool dropoff-grocery store-gym-shenanigans so I recorded the broadcast of the marathon so that I could watch it later. For the second year in a row, I’ve invited my parents over and we’ve had a Marathon Monday party!   We order pizza, watch the marathon broadcast, and even play marathon-themed bingo (complete with prizes!!).

It was such a fun evening and the end of the race was quite exciting!   So exciting, apparently, that I had a hard time going to sleep and wound up awake until 11pm.  That made this morning’s 4:50am alarm seem very, very early.   And why was I getting up so early, you ask? Well…

It’s track time!   I’m into a block of work on my schedule that is focused on improving my VO2 Max. I’m notoriously bad at faster stuff. My 5K pace is embarrassingly close to my marathon race pace – not kidding. I have yet to break 20 minutes in a 5K.

In any case, it’s time to make some improvements on that. Which means that for the next few weeks, I’ll be doing more track/interval type workouts. They are my nemesis. I start to get nostalgic for my dreaded tempo runs after only a few repeats.   But I will do them because that’s how I’m going to get better.

Today’s workout: 5 x 1000m w/90% recovery (aiming for 1000m to be 3:40s)

I was lucky enough to have a neighborhood friend for some company to do my warmup, cooldown, and recovery piece of this with me this morning. I can’t say I was in the most positive of moods because here’s how this workout went:

Warm up – 1.5 miles, easy 8:45 min pace. Awesome!! Feeling good! Noticing that it’s a bit warm (63 degrees), very windy and the pollen is so thick that it looks like a mist of rain in my headlamp. (ewww)

First interval: 3:58 (6:18 pace per Garmin) - WHAT?? Are you kidding me? It was still dark and when my headlamp illuminated that split I thought I must have read it wrong. I was huffing and puffing for a time so far off my target? UGHH…This workout is about to get ugly.

Second interval: 3:44 (5:52 pace/Garmin) - Better. (Thank goodness!) Had to work much harder for this though and have no idea how I will run one more of these, much less three more.

Third interval: 3:47 (5:56 pace/Garmin) – Surely these aren’t supposed to be these hard?? I am almost doubled over after this one and cursing the person who designed the track and thought it would be fun to sprint around a 400m oval.   I’m exhausted – two more to do!?! ARGH.

Fourth interval: 3:51 (6:06 pace/Garmin) – BLEHHH. At least the sun is coming up and I can ditch my headlamp.   I just can’t seem to get my legs to turn over any faster! I’m breathing super hard and I’m fairly certain my heart rate is near max.   Try to stay positive – only one more and then I can run home!

Fifth interval: 3:49 (5:59 pace/Garmin) – SO GLAD TO BE DONE SO GLAD TO BE DONE.   Had the lovely “cotton balls stuffed in my ears” feeling after this one. Side note: Does anyone else get that?? Took a good three minutes to get my breathing back to normal.

Cooldown: 1.5 miles at turtle speed. Jogged back towards home with my friend and was very happy to be done.

While the track and I are still on speaking terms (barely) let’s hope that I grow to love the track a bit more over the next few weeks. I know it’s good for me to be challenged in new ways, but it was mighty uncomfortable this morning.   Working on embracing that discomfort.

Anyone out there share my hate/fear of track work? Any tips on how to make friends with the faster and shorter interval stuff?

A Pain in the Toe (update)

This week I bit the bullet and went in for a podiatrist appointment to try and determine what the heck was going on with my left foot - specifically, my left big toe.   I've been having some pain with significant upward flexion of the joint.   I notice it most during lunges in Body Pump when that left leg is back and quite a bit of weight is placed on that big toe.  How important is your big toe in running?  Pretty darn important as it turns out.   That big toe can carry up to twice the load of the lesser toes - and up to 40-60% of your body weight!   I've noticed when I run up hills and push off forcefully that there is some discomfort in that first metatarsal joint.   While the discomfort in running has been minimal, it was the significant pain during lunges in Body Pump that prompted me to finally go in and get it checked.

I was nervous and braced myself for the doctor to tell me that I had to take some time off.   He poked and prodded a bit, watched me walk in bare feet, and moved the toe this way and that and asked if I felt any pain.   After a "hmmmmm" from him, he had me go to the next room and get some x-rays.  Gulp.  I knew that a stress fracture wouldn't show up on the x-ray unless it was already healing, but I was still nervous about what we would find.  Three x-rays later, I was sent back to the room to wait.   I had asked for a copy of the x-ray, and a few minutes later the doctor came in and handed me this:

I almost hugged the podiatrist.  I refrained, but just barely.  That picture up above?  That is my mostly healthy, albeit slightly deformed, foot!  No stress fracture suspected, no injuries to the sesamoids, no plantar fasciitis.  But see the reduction in space between that first metatarsal and proximal phalange? That's where it hurts.  He basically concluded that I have a bit of "hallux limitus" (stiff big toe) due to the fact that my big toe (over time) has bent to conform to the running shoes I have been wearing, causing the very early stages of a bunion.   The bend in that big toe has reduced the space available for the first metatarsal to move the toe into proper dorsiflexion, causing pain.   The good news?  He's hopeful we can help that big toe move back into place by moving to roomier shoes and using a product called "Correct Toes" to help restore the proper spacing between the toes.   While I'm not thrilled to hear the word "bunion", I am very happy that nowhere in the diagnosis were the words "stress fracture".  WIN.

The (slightly) bad news?  Time for new roomier shoes.  I may have to say goodbye to my beloved Mizunos (or at least go a size up) since he fussed at me for running in a shoe where my toe is so close to the end of it.  I have tried to go up in size but feel like I'm running in boats.  Guess I'll just have to get used to that if I want to stay in the Wave Riders.  I'm not loyal to one particular brand though (I have Adidas and New Balance shoes in my rotation), so I'm hopeful I can find something I like with a wider toe box, but that still feels okay on my narrow feet.

I'm a very happy camper in that I am able to keep running and have the green light to continue training. That was the best news I'd gotten all day!  I left the podiatrist's office with a much happier disposition.  For now it's time to order some Correct Toes, pick up a pair of roomier shoes, and take it easy on the lunges.   Thank you for all of your positive vibes - they must have worked!

Anyone have recommendations on shoes they like with roomier toe boxes?   Has anyone used a toe spacer like Correct Toes?