Moving On, Sort Of

It's difficult to keep a running related blog even remotely updated when one is continually sidetracked with injuries, not to mention life in general. I missed pretty much all of July in running terms and with the Toronto Waterfront Marathon now less than two months away things are at a bit of a breaking point. So here's the update...

In the last week of July I started to walk include commuting of foot either to or from work. It's not a long distance really, somewhere in the 6.5-7km range depending on the route, but at least it was something. What shocked me most of all was the muscle pain I encountered in a variety of places from just walking! In the lower and upper leg things were definitely being "activated". It proved to me that running really does ignore a bunch of muscles that are very much exercised when one walks. I don't mean strolling along and gazing at the view. I mean walking at as brisk a pace as one can sustain for the entire duration of the activity. It definitely gets aerobic!

Anyway, the other thing I did as I tried to recover from my left Achilles tendinitis was calf raises. Nothing too crazy or anything, just single legged body weight calf raises. And my calves go so sore! I was shocked, and clearly my calves, which I always assumed were fairly strong, were weak. The soreness only lasted a couple of days, but I continue to do the calf raises almost daily to ensure that this group of muscles is not ignored. On top of that I have also been to a massage therapist once each week for the past month or so just to get some help in recovery and for "maintenance".

So, after about a week or two of walking to/from work I started to sprinkle in some running. Just a kilometre at a time in amongst the walking. This was after I managed a 13.5km walk in the hills around the cottage one Sunday, which took me nearly two hours to complete. I figured if I can huff and puff my way through that distance I must be strong enough and recovered enough to start gentle jogging.

Now as we hit the last days of August, I'm at a stage where I'm walking to work in the morning and walk/running home in the evening. The mileage for running isn't great, but the total mileage including the walking is decent. Last week I managed 75km with 49km running. This week I'm already at 50km and I decided to take a break and rode my bike to work this morning, though I am planning to hit up the track later this evening for some easy intervals (400m with same distance walks for recovery). Tomorrow, should I continue to feel pretty good physically, I will once again walk to work and (mostly) run home.

The Achilles still tightens up now and then with this routine, and I realize that I am potentially asking for trouble with daily walking/running, but I firmly believe now that walking must be a significant part of my training if I am to remain injury free. Guess I'm going back to the training philosophy of the Finn's from the 1920s in this regard, but given that I'm not an elite athlete I figure any program, no matter how dated, is better than the alternative.

Here's to healthy walking/running and to a marathon without that dreaded death march, which is the ONLY goal for this year other than finishing the distance, of course.

A New Twist

After missing Wednesday's walk/run I was itching to test out the Achilles today and decided to do the whole walk to work and then run home thing on a Friday. As I was walking this morning I couldn't help it and decided to test the heel by running TO work.

I walked for 2.5k and then started up in a slow jog. It was OK, I suppose, though I didn't want to push it for a couple of reasons. One, I was afraid of a setback, and Two, I didn't want to sweat. I kept my heart rate below 130bpm and arrived dry after a decent 4.5km run.

At lunch I decided to mix things up a bit and instead of going to the gym (figuring that running twice in one day entitled me to a little bit of rest rather than adding an extra upper body weight workout) I went to the Art Gallery of Ontario. I am lucky in that I work right around the corner from the AGO and also have recently purchased a family membership. This allows me to, in theory for this is my first visit other than seeing the King Tut exhibit, to go there for a short stay and not worry about any costs. I wanted to check out the Thompson collection of model ships, and I must say that it was very cool. I was definitely impressed with the skill that is required to build these models, many of which are hundreds of years old. I then went exploring a bit and had a surreal experience when I happened upon an exhibit that included a running film projection of atomic bomb explosions. The surreal part was that these explosions were all taking place in the water, filmed from the air, and right in the middle of a large number of ships set up to test the destructive effects of these weapons. The whole experience left me a bit angry actually. Thought provoking, as art should be.

After work I hit the streets again for my run home. If you could call what happened a "run", that is. More like a hobble. Let's just say I was not having fun as I jogged 10km. At least I got all the way home. I am really perplexed why my body continues to give me trouble. I am being as conservative as possible and yet aches and pains are a constant companion.

At least I did manage my first "two-a-day", though it was forgettable at best. Here's hoping my Achilles recovers by Sunday so I can get my long run done.

A Long Wednesday

Can't believe I have the energy to actually try and summarize the day, but here goes...

Woke up, biked Owen to school, biked to the gym and did some weights, biked to the Doctor's for my annual physical (seems like everything is OK), biked back home, grabbed my stuff and walked 7.25km to work, worked, ran to Owen's school to get Owen and then ran with him on his bike back home for a total of 10km (another low heart rate attempt where I averaged 138bpm despite going a bit faster at 5:36/km), and now am in the middle of doing laundry (yay).

Whew! That wasn't so bad...

Recovery Weeks Piss Me Off

On my new and improved training plan (insert sarcasm on the heavy side here) I am not even two months in, still feeling pain in the ole right knee, and am finding it really hard to hold back during the recovery weeks. What's up with that?

Am I not training hard enough in the three weeks leading up to recovery time? (My answer is clearly NO!, but I do think I am training as hard as my body will allow without being sidelined with major injury or injuries.) Or, more likely, is my brain continuing to try and write cheques that my cannot cash?

Don't know how others do it, and based on the running sites and blogs that I've read over the past year or so, taking recovery seriously and actually doing it right is not an unusual issue. That being said, I am trying my best and have laid out a plan for the entire year that has me running three weeks "on" followed by a fourth week "off". And "off" is the right word, because recovery weeks are pissing me off.

Today I walked to work 6.2km, did upper body weights at lunch, and ran 8.2km home (well, to get Owen at school actually). Now that's what I call recovery! Though I must say that these recovery runs, slow and easy as they are, leave me more stiff and sore than I would like. Perhaps it's the leg weights that I've been doing that has led to this because I have not been including weight training as part of the whole recovery plan. Or maybe NOT running isn't particularly good for me, just like running too much.

Anyway, tomorrow I have leg weights on the agenda and I might actually take it down a notch and do an easy workout for a change. Things always seem to change once I'm at the gym and I end up doing more than I'd planned, but I am seriously thinking of holding back a bit. Here's hoping...

A Typical Wednesday

And by "typical" I mean walking to work (6.5km), doing some weights at lunch (just upper body stuff), and then running home on freshly fallen snow. Seems like once a week we get some snow, it always lands on Wednesday, and I always seem to have less than ideal footing for my run home. Oh well... The picture says it all.

Although that image is from last week's run home, it's been typical for pretty much every one this year. Today it snowed all day, but luckily none of it stuck! The sidewalks were wet, and I did have to navigate around quite a bit of black ice, but I'll take today's conditions over a slushy, snowy mess any day. I ran a total of 9km with the first 8.45 on my own and the last 0.55 with my five year-old since he wanted to "run with Daddy" and told anyone who would listen that that's what he was going to do. It was fun, naturally, even if a bit slow.

Humpback - Summary of the Last Few Days on a Wednesday

Another Wednesday, and another successful day of exercise. Though the right knee still reminds me that I have to "take it easy" and "watch it" and "run less than you think you should", I cannot help but delude myself into thinking that all the weight training that I am subjecting myself to will ultimately shut that sucker up for good.

Case in point, for the past few days I have been feeling, and this is a poor description to be sure, somehow "properly packaged". Not almost any piece of cheap ass electronics that come in those impossible to open, never to disintegrate, clear, hard plastic, "g'damn it why won't you open without a chainsaw!!!" coverings, but rather like everything is starting to work the way it was intended to.

I had a great run last Saturday where I went way faster than I should have, but those 8.25km felt so very good, easily the best run of the year. I really felt like keeping going, but remembered that my body has a nasty way of slowing me down if I don't stick to the conservative plan and so I stopped, happy that I still had energy to spare.

Then, skiing on Sunday was fun and it was just cool to take things easy and not worry about "getting a workout", something I suffer from both in self-imposed guilt as well as physical injury. 12km on the trails with my better half while the kids were taking their lessons.

Monday I had a great leg workout at the gym (things are starting to feel like they are getting stronger, and I actually look forward to doing squats!). In the evening I rode the stationary bike for a half-hour to finish off the day.

Tuesday saw me doing more weights, this time of the upper body variety, and running on the treadmill, where I completed just over 6km holding a nice steady 6.5mph pace even though I had a huge urge to try and match the 7.0mph setting of the guy running next to me. The fact that I didn't inch my speed up to that level shows a level of maturity that surprised me. Am I actually getting smarter, or just old, lazy and complacent? Either way, I was proud to have held back. It also helped that my would be adversary had to stop and stretch out his obviously shitty hamstring at one point before making a failed attempt to resume his run. Ha!

Today was another walk to work, run home day. I walked just over 6km to the office after dropping of the boys at the school bus. I attempted to maintain a decent clip, though I was slowed down by the snow that had fallen overnight, making traction a real problem the entire way. At lunchtime I once again hit the gym for upper body weights and had a good time of it. I am even beginning to like doing ab exercises as I am really seeing progress. Now if only I could limit my intake of highly processed, and ultimately useless, carbs that six-pack of my swimming youth days may actually make a cameo. It's tough giving up sweets for me...

...because they're soooooooo sweet.

The run home from work was pretty good, all things considered. It took a while for the Garmin to locate satellites, which is always annoying, but once the watch was ready I took off at a slow and steady pace towards Owen's school. The snow from the morning, which had made walking a bit tricky, seemed to be completely gone and I was quite pleased with this until I hit the Viaduct and was faced with a slippery, slushy mess. For the entire second half of the run I had to contend with slush, snow, ice and all three combined. This made the run more of a challenge than it otherwise would have been, but I made it through OK, a bit overheated. In the end I completed a decent 8km, changed into a dry shirt at the school, and walked home without freezing my ass off too badly. Some stretching later this evening is definitely in order...

Day After Walking Experiment

Just a quick update to document how my body is dealing with the whole walking to work, then running home thing. In short: I'm a bit sore! Muscles that were clearly underused in running have been awakened as a result of my rather brisk 6km trek yesterday morning. Any motion involving pulling my foot up (I believe it's called dorsiflexion by smarter people than I) is where the pain is localized. As a result I truly believe that walking will help my running because it absolutely works out complimentary muscles. I plan on doing this again once next week, and slowly work my way up to two or three sessions per week in the New Year.

And now for something completely different...

No, I am not into my own take on Monty Python, and somehow relating it to how I am struggling with running these days, but I do secretly wish for such creativity. Instead I have decided to add something new to my "training"...

After reading "The Lore of Running", as mentioned here, I was intrigued by the training techniques of the best runners of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. If you haven't read Chapter 6 of this book I highly recommend it for entertainment alone! Specifically I was shocked by how fast some of the cotton-wearing masters of the Victorian and WWI era were able to run on the diets that they recommended to other athletes. Don't know about you, but I wouldn't get very far on stale bread, flat bear, and old mutton. Gross.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, how does this particular Chapter impact my so-called "training". Well, in a word: walking. It seems that the marathoners and ultramarathoners of a bygone era were big on walking, LOTS of walking. I am not planning on 30km every morning like some of these folks, but I figure a bit of walking can only help my running in two ways:

1. By adding extra mileage to my training without the destructive pounding of running.


2. By working out complimentary muscles which running ignores.

And so I decided to start by walking all the way to work so as to allow me to run home afterward. I was pleasantly surprised at the pace I was able to maintain, and thought I'd be hard pressed to stay around the 10:00/km mark. Instead I managed an 8:37/km pace for the entire 6.05km distance, with the whole trek taking just 52 minutes and change. Nice!

Then, after a day of desk sitting, I ran home. My right leg was a bit stiff from the walk (remember those complimentary muscles getting worked out?), but this didn't seem to affect my running. I ran slow and steady all the way until I was pretty close to Owen's school, stopping at 7.3km. I easily could have gone the extra half kilometre to the school's front door, but given that the longest run I've been on since starting up again was 6km I figured I'd pushed it far enough.

The only thing I did wrong was neglecting to put on the extra fleece vest that I had in the backpack and, therefore, nearly froze on the walk home. Live and learn...