This bunny is not hopping

Happy Easter! I hope everyone is having a wonderful bunny day full of Easter candy. I actually managed to stay away from Easter candy this year which is impressive for me because it’s my favorite holiday candy. However when we were sent a box of Easter sugar cookies with yummy frosting that taste just like my mom’s…. wellll let’s just say I caved. Like binge ate them in two days and then couldn’t fall asleep both nights because my body was freaking out from all the sugar. They were yummy!

My Easter is not exactly starting out as I would like. The fact that I’m writing a blog post first thing in the morning is a sign of that. I would be swimming but pool has limited hours today so have to wait for that. The real issue though is I should be doing my long run for the week. Unfortunately my lower leg issues just aren’t healing up fast enough. I can’t say I’m surprised. Take something that’s bothering you and then do a hard half marathon while trying to recovery and of course things will get worse. So things are healing but very slowly.

Over the last two weeks I’ve run ohhh about 14 miles which is about half what I’d like to run in one week (not two) right now. What’s odd is I mostly feel ok during the run but as soon as I stop and am walking it’s like ohhhh ok this kind of hurts oh wait ow ow OW! Followed by lots of swearing. The good news is I’m no longer limping while walking. Yay progress! But I’m still getting pains in a few different places all in my lower left leg. One includes this one little spot when I push on it really hurts (followed by more swearing) and general pain along inside of the tibia. Then there’s pains in my tibialis anterior that only gets brought on when the muscle is in use. And finally, after my first run after my race when I got out of the car after 6 hours of driving I started having really bad knee pains that made it so it hurt like hell to walk. I knew exactly what that pain was since I’ve had IT band issues before.

I’ve been able to get the IT band related pains in check. All of this is certainly making me learn my body better and better. I’ve been able to identify a few tight muscles and places that feel like giant knots while rolling. I’ve gotten used to having bruises on certain parts of my legs from rolling hard enough to break them up a bit. So I’m getting there. It’s just taking time which is what I’m running out of since I have a 70.3 in 3 weeks. I’m trying to be patient and not freak the hell out since I’m barely running so close to my race. I’m frustrated but compared to how I would have reacted a few months ago, I think I’m reacting pretty well. It’s still killing me not to go out a run right now though.

In other news in my life, other than my running falling apart, so is my house. More like torn apart. After almost 5 years of slowly doing renovations, the upstairs is finally all done! Hooray! We also finished all the bathrooms on the main floor and some other rooms. That means all (haha… ALL) that’s left are the all the main living spaces. Sigh so much work. I told Bill I couldn’t do it anymore, I’m so sick of house projects and hate doing them. He’s been awesome about it and doing 98% of the work while I “go on joy rides all day” as he puts it. This time we are going to contract out a bit of the work so that will help a ton. The kitchen will most likely be a ways down the road but I’ll be very happy even having all the other spaces are done. It will be so weird not having some house project going on. Bill won’t know what to do with himself. Don’t worry about me! I have more than enough to do to fill the time!

Skyline Drive!

This past weekend I had a “cousin’s weekend” with my husband’s family. They randomly picked near Luray, VA. Naturally I was going to bring my bike so I could still train while there. It’s nice being able to explore new places. While looking for common routes on Strava heatmaps (love that website!) I noticed this road that went through mountains highlighted. Turns out it was Skyline Drive which is a 100+ mile road in the mountains which I think is all part of a state park. I got a 3 hour “have fun!” ride on my schedule for Skyline and was very excited to be able to go out and ride in a new place and not worry about numbers.

The week leading up to this I kept checking the weather (naturally) and of course it kept changing. It went from nice to raining to nice to raining and I was pretty convinced I was going to be riding in the cold and rain but I was determined to do this ride either way. I’ve been a giant pansy all winter and would never ride outside unless it was light out in the in the 60s, maybe once or twice in the 50s. I don’t own cold gear for riding. I ordered real riding gloves and leg warmers two days before I was going to leave for the weekend and prayed to the Amazon gods that the my prime 2 day shipping would serve me well. It literally arrived 5 minutes before we left. Even with these purchases I knew I still didn’t have the right gear like some type of cycling jacket for wind/rain and covers/boots for over my shoes.

So Saturday morning I woke up hours before everyone else and headed out to Skyline Drive. The GPS got very screwed up in where it was trying to take me so I ended up getting there when it was still dark so I drove south for a while and enjoyed the view before heading out on my bike heading north.

I was excited for this ride because I haven’t done climbing in literally months. At the same time the weather seemed to be giving me anxiety because my resting heartrate was high. The first several miles were more like rollers before I started to climb the first big section. I was putting in what felt like a solid effort for my legs but my heartrate was staying lower than I wanted which seems to be a trend for me all winter. I was cold but it was manageable. Somewhere during this climb it started snowing. Yes….snowing. Now I’m not saying I was happy to be riding in temperatures that cold but at least it was just cold enough to be snow vs rain. The snow was very pretty and it made for a new experience for sure. During the climb it wasn’t that bad because I was working harder and barely chugging along at like 8mph.

Then it was time to descend. I like descending and it’s something I’d like to improve on to get over my fear of going really fast. I always have images of my friend who crashed while descending though and that makes me break when I start to get close to 40mph or am going around a curve. During the first descent is when I started to feel cold. At this point my feet were pretty much numb. My hands were very cold but everything else was mostly ok.

Did the climb on the next section and once I started to descend down the back half of that I quickly decided that it was time to turn around before going any further downhill. Descending was brutal. Going over 30mph while it was snowing and windy was starting to chill me to the bone. I started intentionally breaking more in hopes that the wind wouldn’t be as bad and because I was getting nervous with the wet roads. I stopped at some of the outlooks to take my gloves off and thaw my hands out a bit on my stomach (and take pictures naturally while trying to pretend I was still happy). It was so cold that I had to put my bars in my jersey in an attempt warm them up so I could bite into them but after the first bite it would turn back into a rock. I literally thought I was going to break my teeth on it but I needed the fuel. I drank half of what I brought because for the first time in my life I wasn’t sweating at all and the bottle tops kept freezing over. By the end my whole body was shaking and all I could do was count down the miles until I got back to my car.

I made it back to my car in one frozen piece. I spent the whole drive back to the house with the heat full blast and seat warmers on high and couldn’t stop shaking the whole time. It wasn’t until maybe 2 hours later and a long hot shower that I finally got feeling completely back in my feet.

Despite the fact that I was truly miserable for most of the ride, I’m glad I did it. Goes back to how I felt about run camp. It’s good to put yourself in tough situations sometimes to help build up what you can and are willing to put yourself through (as long as it doesn’t include hypothermia). And the ride itself really was awesome. Other than the whole being freezing part, I loved the descending and climbing and the views were great.  I’d love to do it again sometime and I realized the north entrance of the road is an hour from my parents’ house so hopefully I can do it again one day. Next time in nicer weather though.

DC Rock n Roll Half Marathon

Like I said in my last post, I went into this race with no real goal, no real expectations. After this race and others in the past where I’ve had the same mindset, I’ve determined that’s the way to go…

I met up with another teammate, Erin, who had my packet. I hung out with her and her husband until the race started. This included the usual standing around, waiting in long bathroom line, running out of time for a proper warm up so half assing it and heading to my corral where we finally split up. Her husband helped me out big time by holding onto all my crap so I didn’t have to do a bag check. I had packed every upper body clothing option I could because I couldn’t decide what I’d want to race in. I ended up in my team singlet and arm warmers.

Race started and I decided the first mile I wasn’t  going to push it too much so I’d give my body a chance to warm up a bit more and then I’d find a pace to settle into. First mile I hit 9 minute pace and then I picked it up a tiny bit to be at the top of my goal pace range. I hung towards the top of my range for a few miles and was feeling really good at that pace. The weather was PERFECT for racing. Seriously could not have been any better. Around 50F and overcast. However, my arm warmers were too much for me after about half a mile. Luckily I saw Katie about 3 miles in and was able to toss them to her.

I knew from looking at the elevation map that it looked like I had to run up a wall around mile 6. I didn’t feel any better about this from talking to Erin before the race and her explaining to me that when she did this race two years ago she had to walk up the hill and she’s a faster runner than me. Holy hell was that a hill. My pace dropped back into the 9s and then the 10s and my heartrate was spiking to almost as high as it was at the finish. At the top my legs were burning pretty bad. I knew that hill would kill that mile split and that I had work to do to make up for it. That ended up being my slowest mile just over 9 minutes.

After that I decided it was time to start slowly picking it up and see how fast I could go and still hold on. Before I knew it I was in the low 8s and I was determined to hold it and see if I could push a bit harder. When 4 miles out I was in the upper 7s I was worried I would blow up. This was around my 5K PR pace from two months ago. But I told myself I could not back down. I held in the upper 7s for those last 4 miles, my last full mile was mid 7s and the last 0.3 miles (because I ran an extra 0.2?) in the low 7s. Those last few miles were hard. My legs were tired, my breathing was getting harder, I could feel the pains in my foot and legs. I’m pretty sure a few drops of pee came up towards the end because I really had to go the bathroom and I was pushing myself so hard (to which I’ve now realized I’m pretty sure I could completely pee myself while running if needed…not a skill I want to use  but could come in handy during IM).

There were a few things that kept me going in the end. The rush of passing that many people late in the race is awesome. I don’t normally experience that so it was a huge boost to keep going. I also spent pretty much the entire race behind someone dressed as a pizza. After hearing people yell “YEA PIZZAAAA” mile and mile I decided I had enough and it was time to pass him and put enough distance between us that I wouldn’t hear it anymore. Thanks pizza man!

So obviously based on all of that I had a PR. Major PR for an open half by 10 minutes which is huge and I’m sooo happy with that! To think that last February I raced my first half marathon in 2:15. Now a little over a year later I raced a half marathon in 1:52. I also apparently have an awesome skill of crossing the finish line at exact minutes with :00 seconds. I’m sure I could have had a bit of a better race if I had been a  bit more consistent in pace instead of my first mile and last miles being 1.5 minute difference in pace. My pace is still in flux too much for me to have a good sense of what I’m capable of so I’m ok with the fact that it varied so much. In the end I ended up breaking every PR I have from half marathon to 5K to even 1 mile somewhere within the race. That’s pretty damn awesome.

Of course my one hope was that I wouldn’t be limping after the race. I felt ok rest of the day given the fact that I raced a hard half marathon. That night I woke up with pains all over my legs so bad I had a hard time falling back asleep because no matter how I laid, it hurt. By the morning it felt better though. Now my leg pains are pretty much back to where they were before the race with a slight limp on one side. Still have plenty of recovery time for my legs though this week so I’m not worried about it and certainly not stressing about it (for once). I normally don’t like training this little but right now I’m happy about it because I know my body needs it.

It was a great day all in all. Erin was awesome enough to let me shower at their hotel before we met up with Katie and our other teammate who ran (and totally rocked) the full marathon. We had a good lunch before I headed back to spend rest of the weekend with my family. As always I’m so thankful for Katie for getting me where I am today. Not only is she an amazing coach but she did an awesome job running all over DC (literally) to see her athletes racing and help us out. It was nice to spend time with her and some other teammates. These women inspire me.

Normally after I race I go straight into reward eating. This time I decided to hold out for a day to be nice to my body by eating anti-inflammatory foods when it needed it the most. The following day I ate a healthy lunch paired with a chocolate peanut butter milkshake and half a cookie. Good paired with bad. And I might have done the same thing the next evening for dinner. Chicken and veggies paired with melted chocolate and peanut butter. The milk shake I’m happy I ate. My melted concoction was a mistake. I’m remembering how different my body can feel depending on what I’m eating. I’m also realizing that dairy (milk) makes me fart and remembering that eating chocolate right before bed makes me lay awake for over an hour. So in the end, not worth it. But I do think it’s good to reward yourself even if only a little.

Goal-less race

Tomorrow I have a half marathon, the DC Rock n Roll half. I thought this would be a good race because it’s a “team race” and it’s near my family so I get to see multiple people this weekend!

Normally I go into a race with some type of goal. It might be a secret time goal (because I know I shouldn’t have those) or it’s something I want to accomplish, maybe mentally. I have a bunch of motivation quotes I’ll read leading into the race. This time… nothing. No quotes. No goals.

My last 13.1 in November I wanted to break 2 hours which I didn’t do. This time it’s well within my fitness level to do it but I’m still not setting it as a goal. Right now I just want to go out, run a strong race, not worry about the clock and not be limping horribly after the race.

I’m still dealing with a few different lower leg pains which have only slightly improved. I managed to get into the PT earlier this week and he confirmed shin splints and posterior tibialis tendon issues (are those the same thing?). I got needled what felt like a few hundred times in my lower legs, taped up and off I went. The needling didn’t seem to help as much as it normally does though. Still doing a ton of rolling and self-massaging and now icing. So we’ll see come tomorrow morning where all of that got me. I had to laugh when I went to reference a book for some mobility exercises and it happened to open up to this page…

So I’m off to VA in a few hours. It honestly doesn’t even feel like I’m racing tomorrow. Maybe that anxiety from racing is slowly going away with each race. That would be nice.

Slowly learning

I’m stubborn. About a lot of things in life and training brings out the worst of that in me. I like seeing boxes turn green in TrainingPeaks. I hate red boxes! I even hate yellow boxes. One time when I was sick I even played around to see what was the minimum time I could run and still get a green box (insert sound of Katie’s head hitting her desk). I love watching the blue fitness line go up (even if it’s BS which it could be) and hate it when it goes down because I’m not training due to injury or illness. I feel like if it’s within my ability to do the workout, I should do it. No excuses. That has gotten me into trouble too many times though. And I don’t just mean the yelling emails from Katie for running while sick. I know she is right. Time and time again she is right. And yet my stubborn ass decides to still do the thing I know I shouldn’t be doing.

Ever since that “great” run I had two weeks ago, my foot has been bothering me. I’ve also had various lower leg pains, some which I had before the run, others developed sometime over the last week or so. I’ve been keeping such a close eye on every nagging little pain to decide if it’s just one of those things I can work out or if it’s something on the brink of injury. This led me to take a hard look at all the injuries I’ve had in the past. They all revolve around one thing… a half marathon. One injury popped up during a race, another was there before a race and made must worse after, and now this before another half marathon.

It took a lot for me to eat my ego and tell Katie I was concerned. Normally I wait until it’s bad enough that I’m forced to miss training. I knew my schedule would be cut back and that always kills me. Same thing as when I’m sick. Sure enough runs got cut all together and sexy hard runs went to easy runs. I knew it would happen. Although it sucks to see my training going down when my fitness level can handle it, I knew it would be for the best.

I THINK that’s a sign that I’m finally maturing as an “athlete”. To recognize when something needs to be addressed even if it means lowering intensity or volume. The message is finally sticking that if I run harder than I should or run when something is hurting too high on the pain scale, that I will pay for it much more than if I just addressed it in the moment. In the end there’s less down time (ie less fitness loss) to slow it down or sit on my butt for a few days instead of screwing with my training for weeks due to full blown injury (or illness). I am learning. Just slowly. The real test will be next time I’m sick. Injury typically only impacts one disciple which means you can shift training. Sick means zero training. In the end though it’s worth it to make it to the start line healthy and to avoid more doctors’ visits or more of this type of fun…

Although I could use some of this right now I think. I’m afraid it’s too late and I’ve pushed to being officially injured in regards to my lower legs. It hurts to even walk. Starting to think its shin splints. Sigh… I hate being injured.