AREC Training With Train 4 Autism

I won’t be able to participate in the Wrigley River Run this year which falls on June 2 because I have to work on my birthday. Instead, this post is about last week’s run.

If you have been reading this blog for awhile, you might have seen a post or two about my dizziness problems. If you haven’t, well that’s okay. I have labyrinthitis, an inner ear problem which causes dizziness and hits me from time to time for no apparent reason. Saturday morning was one of those days. I drove to the AREC run not knowing how that was going to affect my running later. Not only that, I was nursing a slight right calf discomfort which I was hoping wouldn’t get worse if I ran slowly enough. When I got to the location, I noticed that there were a lot more people than in previous weeks and that was because the athletes from Train 4 Autism (a fund raising group) had joined the fray. They sure had some nice looking baby blue uniforms. I hazard to guess that there were at least 150 runners that morning.

After a very brief talk by Nadine, we were off. I was really apprehensive about my dizziness so I just kept pace with the 12 minute milers hoping I wouldn’t topple over. Within the first half mile, I noticed that some of the mentors of Train 4 Autism were pretty speedy. They zipped past us in their baby blues. Their group was nice enough to mark the course with blue and yellow markers on traffic cones indicating which way the half marathoners or full marathoners have to go. I ran with Rosie and Tina up to the 3 mile water station and when we resumed, I got to talking with Mark F. I didn’t know that he had stopped running for a year and he recently just started again because of another mid life crisis. He did not elaborate and I did not probe. He suddenly asked me how long my every day running streak lasted before I had to quit. I didn’t even know he knew about that. He was guessing a thousand days and I told him it was actually 21 years and 8 days. He said, no wonder my ankle tendons were shot. We had a quick laugh about that. Incidentally, someone asked me this question the previous week:  What was the minimum number of miles you ran when you had your 21 year running every day streak? The requirement of the running streak association which I’m not a member of is one mile, so to simplify, that is what I would say my minimum was even though it was more like 1 ½ miles. Anyway, back to the run. Mark then regaled me with stories of his trail running races and how one time he and another friend of ours – Roberta, finished last at a very technical (i.e. rocky terrain) Colorado trail race. He pulled me for about a mile and a half, then for some reason, I pulled ahead and caught up with who I think were mother and daughter experimenting with the Galloway 5 minute run to 1 minute walk system. I asked them if they were with AREC and we ran together for the next mile. With half a mile left, I attempted to run with a full stride. Not my natural gait, mind you, to protect my ankle tendons, but at least a semblance of a full stride. And I resisted to do a full out sprint in the last 200 meters, also for ankle protection reasons. I hardly noticed that by the time I finished 6 miles or so, my dizziness had dissipated. Running had calmed my inner ear.

Hopefully in the coming weeks we could mingle with the Train 4 Autism runners and get to know them better instead of sticking to our packs and them in theirs during the run. They seem like a pretty good group. Thanks for running with us Train 4 Autism athletes J

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A Fortnight of No Walking and Blogging

Oh well, I haven’t posted anything in more than a week which is my longest drought since I started this blog. Just lazy I suppose or nothing to talk about, more likely. Ideas must be running dry. Notice how I managed to add “running” to that sentence?

First, a freak injury which sidelined me for more than a week in which I had to hold off from walking. It was more about overstretching an already injured or weak tendon, that being the left posterior tibialis. I was trying to keep awake or warm one night at work and was doing squats. The first few sets were okay but when I tried to do faster repetitions, that’s when disaster struck. I guess I didn’t control my legs too well and I overstretched to tendon mid squat. I was hurting the whole night and even though I avoid taking analgesics other than a daily aspirin for heart health, I had to take Motrin for pain relief. After that I had to limit myself to stationary cycling for exercise for about a week and a half.

Second, I missed participating in the Wrigley River Run this year (I ran it the past couple of years) because I had to attend a mandatory Management of Assaultive Behavior class on the day of the race. Renewing it annually is a requirement for my job and my certification was supposed to expire the day after the class. Even if I didn’t have to attend the class, I would have missed the race anyway due to the aforementioned injury. There were physical movements involved in the class and I tried to limit myself as much as possible due to the ankle pain.

I tried walking again on the treadmill when the pain subsided last Thursday morning. Normally I would have gone to 10% incline within the first five minutes of the workout and at least 3.5 mph and gradually increasing it up to 4 mph. That may sound slow, but remember it’s an uphill walk all the way. Well, on my first day back to a walking workout, the best I could do was 7.5% incline (which I didn’t even reach until about half an hour into the workout) and 3.5 mph. It was good enough for that day and besides, I have to save something for Saturday’s AREC workout.

And that brings us to Saturday. My alarm woke me up mid-dream at 5:00 a.m. and my first thought was - do I really have to do this?. After all, it’s too soon to try a six or eight mile walk after not having done so for almost two weeks. I banished the thought and got up, prepared myself for the task ahead, then headed to our meeting area. That day, instead of starting with the group I left about 15 minutes early to get a head start before they caught up with me. Normally I would do a mile warm up, then start with the others. I incorporated the warm up with the whole workout this day and instead of doing six miles (for the half marathoners) or eight miles (for the full marathoners), I did an in between seven miles. I tried a few steps of jogging while I was at it, but the left ankle felt very tight, as if it was about to tear. So I went back to walking and didn’t try to push the pace even at that. It was brisk but not as brisk as the 13:30 to 13:45 pace per mile I did in previous weeks. I managed a few short jogs in the last three miles which was probably not a good idea, but the ankle felt okay when I finished. I’ve mentioned this before in my posts: once the endorphins kick in, the analgesic effect lasts for hours and the pain feels diminished. It wasn’t until the next day that I felt it really badly. Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation were of little help. Fortunately, when I left for work the pain had subsided probably because of the increased circulation in that area. Now, it’s a wait and see to figure out when I can do a walking workout again. Stay tuned.

Things noticed during the above mentioned walk: swim trunks are similarly cut and just as comfortable as running shorts for workouts and much cheaper too. I never knew there was a lifeguard museum in Long Beach. It was housed in what was not more than the size of a snack shack. That’s what happens when one has a meandering pace. You observe more things than when you are running breathlessly. When I took off my shoe when I got home, I found a piece of jacaranda flower in my shoe. The search for a runner’s high even when it pain is not such a good idea, but runners (or in my case: ex runner) do it anyway. Nuts, I say!
And as an addendum: In the last mile of my walk, one of the long time runners from the AREC club passed me and said "I couldn't do 21 years of running every day like you did". Thanks for making me laugh and smile Bernard! I responded - I couldn't even do 5 minutes non stop nowadays! With that, we continued on our way to the finish. Since that running streak has been long gone, sometimes I forget nowadays that it even happened.

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Run or Bust on Saturday

I know when one kind of pain feels different from the usual. The different pain is what I felt towards the end of what was supposed to be a slow, easy run last Tuesday morning. It’s the same old tendon overstretch story that you have probably read time and again if you’ve followed this blog for the last couple of years. It won’t be the last time it’s going to happen either because this is the nature of my injured ankle. Just from personal experience, it would either be baseline pain, overstretch pain, or tendon tear pain. The third one of course is what lays me off from running for several weeks to a couple of months. What kind of pain did it feel last Tuesday? It felt like the second type, or at least I hope it’s that one. The pain has been coming and going the last few days and I haven’t run since then even though my schedule calls for a run Thursday. Usually it doesn’t hurt as much two days later. I don’t intend to try running again until Saturday which happens to be the Wrigley River Run 10K and I don’t know how my ankle is going to feel that day. I am only hoping that taking a few days off from running will enable it to heal enough for me to run the race on Saturday regardless of how long it takes for me to finish.

On Saturday morning, I’m going to wake up early, lace up my running shoes, drive myself to the starting line, play it by ear, or in this case by ankle, and hope for the best. It’s going to be run or bust.

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Run Like A Slug

A crummy run is better than no run at all. Even if it feels bad, it always feels good when you’re finished. It was a sluggish run on Friday morning that lasted all of 50 minutes which is too short for most runners. I blame the sluggishness on the high protein diet I’ve had the past two days. My body is a carbohydrate craving machine and without it, it sputters. My running conditioning has also suffered since I’ve been doing other forms of aerobic exercise while trying to make my ankles heal. Regardless of how badly I felt during the run, finishing it gave me a huge relief at the end. At least I got to run.

On Sunday afternoon, I had another uncomfortable run but with better results at the end. I don’t usually run in the afternoons anymore but my schedule was screwed up due to a dentist visit last Thursday. After an hour and ten minutes of the 4 minute run/1 minute walk workout I had covered 7.12 miles which was an average of 9:50 pace. Compare this to my 50 minute sluggish non-walking run last Friday which only covered 5.11 miles and 9:48 pace. You see, there is very little difference between running non-stop and the run/walk combination because I’m able to push the pace a little bit more during the 4 minutes that I’m running while giving my ankles a break and also able to cover more distance. Should I just do all of my runs that way then? I’m considering it seriously.

I finally downloaded the entry form for the Wrigley River Run 10K coming up on June 12th. It’s in my neighborhood and it benefits the community. I filled out the form and a check and dropped them off on my way home from work Monday morning at the organizers' house which was nearby. I ran it last year after not having done a 10k for almost two decades. Here are the two entries I posted about that race: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com/2009/06/10ks-to-remember.html and http://noeldlp.blogspot.com/2009/06/surviving-wrigley-river-run-10k-on.html . I’m not sure how I’m going to run it this year. Run/walk, or run non-stop. I’ll decide depending on how my ankles hold up till then.

It just occurred to me, slugs don’t run, they crawl. Perhaps I’ll try that sometime.

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