::recalibrating::

Yesterday I logged into my Garmin Connect account for the first time in months. I was poking around in my history trying to remember what I ran last year on Thanksgiving (of course I hadn't been keeping faithful to the blog at this point and if I had been, I would've been able to figure it out in a matter of seconds) and fell down a black hole of reliving past runs and races. Then I came across the PR section of my profile.

When I look at those numbers now, they feel like a lifetime ago - or that they must belong to a different person. On April 24 during the Carytown 10k, I ran my fastest 5k at 21:36, a pace of 6:57/mile.

Fast forward to this morning. I found myself solo at the track for another stimulating 30 minutes of run/walk intervals. My goal for these has nothing to do with pace or distance; the focus is to try to run as normally as possible without favoring or adjusting my gait to accommodate my foot*. To quote the great Han Solo, I just try to

I wear my Garmin during these workouts only to keep track of elapsed time and intervals. Today when the two mile indicator chirped, I looked down and realized that I had just hit the 20 minute mark. Thus far, I haven't been anywhere near that pace and decided that I would challenge myself to fit in another mile before my 30 minutes were up. Then, I did it.

Being extremely excited about breaking the 10 min/mile barrier is not something that I anticipated for myself. Six months ago, this would have represented a catastrophic run. But today it was a huge achievement.

This is one of the tiny positive things about side-lining injuries - when you finally get to come back, all of your goals must be recalibrated and things that once felt routine become accomplishments. 

I used to joke that I wouldn't even get out of bed for less than 5 miles and that I wouldn't use the qualifier "long" on any run unless it was 17 miles or more. A seven mile tempo run was child's play and any pace over 8:30 may as well have been walking. A week logging less than 20 miles was a week wasted. Basically, I had to work really really hard to impress myself.

This isn't to say I'm belittling any of those things; it is simply a reflection of where I was as runner and what my personal standards were at the time that I consider my peak fitness to date.

Honestly, it's kind of nice to be thrilled by 3 miles of run/walking. 

 

For those who've expressed concern or told me to be careful, I appreciate it. Let me reassure you that there are few people who are as cautious as I am when it comes to recovery. I have not gone through all of this just to turn around and ruin it all by being foolish at this point. There is far too much at stake.

Right now, I am five weeks post op and am well within the prescribed time frame for a return to normal activity (based on my specific procedure). I am not pain free but each time I run/walk, Gertrude hurts less both during and after. This is a good sign.

BFF Steve has told me that when I do my run intervals, I need to do what feels comfortable and that the biggest enemy/danger to recovery is not in my pace but the amount of time on my feet and total mileage. Ramping up mileage too fast is what most often causes relapse. During my 30 minute interludes, my run/walk ratio is increasing but I'm really not going much further than 2 miles of total running each session.

For me, being comfortable means running at my normal pace... my normal pace being something that starts with a 7:xx over short distances. Kit recently observed that I apparently have only have two speeds: fast and boot. He's pretty much right. If I try to adjust to run slower than what I am used to, I become hyper-aware of everything and think far too much. My gait suffers and I compensate; things become unnatural, awkward, and yes - painful. If I relax and let my legs do what they know how to, things are great.

I'm just going to keep doing that until they aren't. 

*I'm so tired of writing "my foot" that I've decided to refer to it as Gertrude from here on out.

**I know half this entry is blue. I've tried to fix it but Blogger is being stubborn and I don't have the time or patience to figure it out.

The Long Road: Zero to Boston 2017 - Warm Up 1b

[Note: these are lengthy and boring. These are also mainly for me so that hopefully in 6 months, when I'm sitting in a hotel room in Boston on April 16 freaking out, I will be able to remind myself how far I've come.]


Monday evening - I got home, iced, stretched, donned my compression sock, and rolled my foot/calf. A lot. I even wore my night splint to bed. Yes, I admit that my foot and calf progressively hurt more as the day wore on. It did not hurt more than it ever has previously and let's be real - I haven't run in 5 months and just got off doing next to nothing for 4 weeks. This is not going to feel good and stuff is going to hurt.

Tuesday - Woke up, stuff hurt. It was really chilly outside in the morning, which made me want to go to deep water running class even less, but I did it anyway. It's really strange but for some reason my calf is always more achy after I do that class, which makes pretty much zero sense. Anyway, at class the instructor thanked me for working hard (not sure what he was insinuating) and my reply was, "I don't have much choice and besides, I don't get out of bed at 5:15 am to come get in this pool and do this for fun!"

While we were "warming up," I chatted with two other injured runners banished to the pool. One has recently been diagnosed with a stress fracture in her hip and I told her it's GOOD that it's a fracture and not soft tissue. Be GLAD that's what it is because you've got a finite time line as to when bones heal. It sucks now, but in 4-6 weeks, it will be healed and you'll be back on your feet. Her goal is to try to BQ in the spring. I told her she definitely can. I wish I was as confident in my own recovery.

I had planned to go to yoga that night  but as the day wore on my foot and calf bothered me more and more. It had turned into a gorgeous day so I asked Kit if he'd rather meet me for a walk after work down on Belle Isle or the Canal Walk instead. I had noticed that everything hurt the most for the first few steps that I took and thought that maybe a nice walk would help things loosen up more. Plus, there was no way I was going to be able to do any balance poses on my left foot.

It wasn't too hard to convince him, so we met at Tredegar and set off toward the pipeline. As predicted, things started to feel better. I haven't been on the pipeline in months and months - I honestly can't remember the last time. Of course when we got onto it, all I could think was that I wished I was running it and not walking it. That led to a whole bunch of "what ifs"...

What if Wrightsville was my last marathon?
What if I never run Richmond again?
Or have a snow run?
Or one of those runs when it feel so awesome that you just keep going and going?
What if from now on, I will always only be watching other people run?
What if it is over?

And that's when I started crying - a big old ugly cry too. It had been a good month since my last ugly cry, so it was due. I felt terrible, because my intention for going on a walk was for it to be an enjoyable and relaxing thing and not including me sitting on the pipeline sobbing like a child.

What ifs are terrible things. I try not to dwell in the realm of what ifs, but it has been impossible lately. What if I had just taken off for 2 weeks back in May? What if I had just gotten the cortisone shot instead of the Tenex? What if I didn't run that half in Chicago? Or had transitioned to lower drop shoes back in the spring when I said I would?

Past what ifs are bad because obviously those are all decisions that have been made and nothing can be done to change them. I made the choices that I did, I am in this place now, and there's nothing to do about it but keep going forward.

The worst thing about them, though, is that if you spend a lot of time wondering what you could have done differently, it makes you paralyzed to make decisions in the here and now. What if I wait another two weeks to start running? What if I hurt myself again? What if I just stop every time it hurts? Where will it lead me? Which is the right choice?

I'll never know the answer to any of the what ifs that I face - and neither will you. That's life. We can all only try to make the best choices we can, learn from them, and live with them.

Wednesday - By some miracle, on Wednesday my foot felt 100 times better than it had on Tuesday. (Side note, I'm already really sick of writing "my foot.") After work, I met up with Marcey and Kit at Runner's Purgatory the vita course for another stimulating 30 minute session of 1 minute running/1 minute walking. I am so out of the habit of running that I had neglected to pack a sports bra in my change of clothes and had to first go home and get one before meeting up at the vita course.

I felt creaky during this outing, but also determined. During the last lap around the ~1 mile course, I let loose a bit. I stopped thinking, shortened my stride, relaxed, and just went. I pulled ahead and remembered what it feels like to run fast. 

When you run fast, something happens in your brain. More accurately, what happens is that your brain turns off. You stop thinking and just go. During my 4 or so minutes of running fast (and yes, I admit it was truly fast - the first number of my pace was a 7), I stopped concentrating so hard on how I was landing with that left foot (was I favoring it? was I not? was I overcompensating?) and like magic, it felt fine.

Or maybe I just too busy being disgusted with my loss of cardiovascular fitness and didn't notice the aches anymore.

Thursday - Things flared up post-run and I felt it in the morning when I dragged myself out of bed to go to spin class. We had a substitute instructor for spin who literally had just happened to be walking through the Y and plucked from her normal routine to fill in last minute. She didn't have a plan and winged the class. It was good, but it seems that her default was hill and hill after hill. My quads were very tired. Not sure if that impacted how my leg and foot felt for the rest of the day or not. They were both sore, but not as achy as they had been on Tuesday so I'm going to count that as net positive.

Friday - New and improved strength routine in the morning with Kit. We've been doing this set of ten moves for a few months now with a few additions including a variety of planks, leg lifts, and tricep work. Now we've added in clam shells and wall sits and eliminated the scorpion for the time being. Before Erie and my surgery, we had really made a lot of progress in all of these exercises but lost a lot of ground during about 3 weeks of down time. This was the third session back and it finally started to feel a little bit easier.

I got off work a bit early and it was just a glorious day, so we met up after work at Tredegar and this time did the Belle Isle loop for the 30 minutes of one on, one off. It didn't feel great this time, but I was very thankful to be out and running (as it were) after work, on a beautiful fall afternoon. When I do these work outs, I always use my Garmin for all of the intervals to make sure I'm sticking to the correct timing. This time, Kit only cut his on when we were doing the running intervals. At the end, he informed me that I had run a total of 2 miles at an 8:18 average. I was SO HAPPY.

2 miles.

Saturday  - NADA! Unless you count moving your fork to your mouth as a work out. If that's the case, I did plenty of that.

Sunday - It has been 5 weeks since I went on a good long bike ride; since I've really felt that I pushed myself hard and long during a work out. Today was the day for that, at long last. The morning was chilly and the sun isn't coming up until 7 these days, so that's when I met Kit for the 40 mile round trip to Ashland.

Within the first 5 miles, I felt tired. This isn't completely unusual for me. No matter what I'm doing, I often have a slump during the 20-30 minute mark and then revive. Despite being tired, I couldn't help but love taking in the scenery around us. The city had been clear but as we got further out on less well-traveled country roads, a thick fog appeared. It was beautiful to ride through the quiet country side and watch the mist settling on the fields. My helmet collected a bunch of condensation, as did my shoes and Astrid too.

The way up to Ashland had many rolling hills. NOT being a cyclist, I'm terrible at pacing and powered my way up them like a mad woman. When we were about 5 miles out, I looked down as we sped along a flat and saw that we were going 21.7 miles per hour. That's pretty darn fast for me. And it felt good. We passed some abandoned farm houses, still shrouded in mist. A field of low plants (I am not a country girl and have no idea what they were) was dotted with perfect spider webs that were easy to see thanks to the water hanging on them. It was so terribly autumnal that it almost felt like a movie.

We stopped briefly at Ashland Coffee & Tea for a drink before setting off again, back toward Richmond. My legs were very heavy and very tired; I'd spent all of my energy on my mad dashes earlier. Kit was tired too, lagging behind me which is strange. He is always faster than me on the bike. I refused to give in though. "We don't have time to be tired, Kit!" I yelled over my shoulder and continued on. I make it sound like I was flying, but in reality it was around 14-15 MPH with some 17s thrown in once in a while.

About 10 miles out, I started to get hungry. REALLY hungry. It has been a very long time since I worked out to the point that I worked up a good appetite. All I could think about was how hungry I was and how much longer it would be until I could eat. By the time we got to Richmond, I was downright delirious with hunger. We planned on going for breakfast, but I didn't know if I could hold out that long. I asked Kit if he had anything that he could feed me RIGHT AWAY in his apartment. I said I was so hungry that if someone gave me a banana at that moment, I would eat it. Thank goodness he had just bought a whole bunch of trail mix and nuts. We got off our bikes and went straight up and I pretty much ripped into the contained of mixed nuts like a starving person and devoured a mozzarella stick too.

I can't remember the last time I was that hungry. I think it may have been a year ago at the Richmond marathon, where all I could think about for the first 13 miles was how delicious my salted caramel gu would be once I allowed myself to eat it at the half way point (significant because I hate Gu and normally eat them very begrudgingly) and then for the second half, nothing but the finish festival pizza filled my mind. I ended up eating four pieces.

Despite the desperate hunger and tough ride back, it felt really really good to go for a long hard ride. For the first time in forever I got a great dose of exercise induced endorphins. It was fantastic.

As for my foot, it hurt a lot yesterday (Saturday) until about 7pm when for no apparent reason, it suddenly felt better. Today it has continued that trend, even post-ride.

Week 1 Summary
3 runs, 30 minutes each of 1 min run/1 min walk intervals
1 aqua jog session
1 strength session
1 long ride

Foot Status: Pain level currently a 1/10

The Long Road: Zero to Boston 2017 - Warm Up 1a

[Edit One: I realize I haven't yet posted about the injury itself and the reason I haven't run for five months. It was a sudden, acute, and as BFF Steve says, "rip roarin" case of plantar fasciitis. Eventually, it led to surgery in an effort to fix it. I could write a tome on the experience - and trust me, I am. That post will go up soon but I don't want to get behind in documenting my journey back, from the beginning.]

[Edit Two: I also realize that I haven't officially "announced" that I was accepted into Boston 2017. There will also be an entry on that whole experience at some point!]

This week, I decided that it was now or never when it comes to getting back to running. It has been four weeks since my surgery and by all accounts, I should have been able to do some run/walking by this point anyway. Two weeks ago, even the surgeon told me to give it a try but I was not ready - physically or mentally - to do it yet.

Since that appointment, things have been steadily improving for the most part. There have even been two days in the past week when my foot felt almost normal and pain free. The pain that is there is mostly centered on the flat bottom of my heel and shows up only when something hits the area - for example, when I wear my shower flip flops at the Y and the sole slaps onto the sole of my foot. Or sometimes when I stand for an extended period. It also hurts first thing in the morning but what hurts is the outer edge of my foot, no doubt from over correcting when I walk and seemingly not PF pain.

At this point, I've been told there is nothing I can do in terms of disrupting the healing from the surgery or "ruining" it. Either it worked or it didn't, and there is no way to truly find out except to go test it by running.

My plan is to start with a 30 minute session of run one minute/walk one  minute on the soft surface track at Munford or the Vita Course. I hope to be able to do this three times a week, plus one day of spin, one day of deep water running, one to two days of strength, and a return to yoga.

I keep vacillating between excitement and terror; at any given time the percentage that I'm excited versus the percentage that I'm terrified varies wildly. Last Friday, my foot hardly hurt at all during the work day and I was 75% excited, 25% terrified. On Saturday, it hurt all day for no given reason and thus I was 40% excited and 60% terrified.

On Sunday morning, I watched CBS Sunday Morning and the lead piece was on the placebo effect and how powerful it is. I immediately decided that what I need to put this injury out of my mind is a placebo. Truly, I do believe that most of the residual pain now is simply my brain refusing to believe that it will ever get better. That night, I decided that my placebo is going to be running. If I can convince myself that getting back to my normal activities will fix me, maybe it will work.

This morning (Monday), for the first time in months, I got out of bed before my alarm went off. I only do this when I'm meeting someone for a run. Otherwise, I have to draaaaaaaaaaaaag myself out of bed because I dread what's coming.

I put my feet into my shoes and tried to take a step.

Enter terror.

It hurt and I suddenly became very afraid of what was going to happen at the Munford track.

I kept moving though, hobbling to the bathroom and then getting dressed in my running clothes for the first time in what felt like forever. As I left the house and walked down the steps to my car, my stomach was in complete knots. What was I doing? Why on Earth did I think this was a good idea anyway? I'm not ready yet and maybe I'll never be ready.

And that's precisely why I had to do it anyway.

Kit, gracious as ever, had agreed to meet me at Munford for the maiden voyage of Left Foot 3.0. Why any able-bodied runner would voluntarily do 1 min run/walk intervals is beyond me, but I was grateful that he was there. If he hadn't been, I'm pretty sure I would have just given into my fear and gone back to bed.

He greeted me with an enthusiastic "Good morning!" I just said, "Kit, I'm scared. Really, really scared."

We walked to the track and I asked that we start by just walking a lap. As we neared the end of that lap, he offered to help me stall some more by stretching. I declined; I had already used my super duper stretching jobber at home and I couldn't just keep finding ways to avoid what I needed to do.

Off we went. The first minute of running was not pleasant. My foot wailed at me and I concentrated hard on not accommodating it, not compensating in my gait. As the intervals went on, it stopped wailing and toned down to a loud murmur. Other things woke up and protested - strangely, my right quad and glute were the most vocal. A bit more than half way through, I said I wanted to run a little longer, so we did two 90-second intervals. For the last run interval, I said I just wanted to run one lap the whole way - .25 miles.

One. Quarter. Mile.

As we ran that lap, I reminded myself that a month ago I could not take a single step. My husband was literally carrying me around the house, or I was crawling on my hands and knees. A quarter mile is nothing in distance running, but this morning it was everything.

When the 30 minutes were up, I had covered just under 3 miles.

It's a start.

At home, I stretched my calf and massaged the heck out of my foot before heading off to work. Despite that, I am paying for those three miles, though not nearly as much as I paid for it when I tried to run over the summer. After sitting at my desk for a while, my first few steps hurt but after 5 or 6 strides it became manageable with little favoring or limping. It's not any worse than it has been over the course of the last 4 weeks and most of the discomfort is in the bottom of my heel and not in my arch or the usual PF hot spot.

Hopefully with some ice and massaging tonight, it will be back to "new normal" by tomorrow morning and I can try again on Wednesday.

Onward.