Goal Based Running

As I previously posted, I took some advice some running friends and made an appointment with a physical therapist at Beacons Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine. They came highly recommended and my first appointment was last Friday. I had seen their commercials on TV and I knew they often took care of the professional athletes in Cincinnati (believe it or not, but we do have them here!). Walking through the halls, I saw all the autographed posters from athletes, both local and remote, as they came into town for games. At least I could trust their experience, right?

Anyway, I checked-in and was told my insurance covered physical therapy at 100% with just a $15 co-pay each visit. Much better than I was expecting, so I don’t have to worry about forking out a lot of money over the duration of therapy. I’m in the waiting room and the therapist comes around the corner and calls out my name. I knew she looked familiar and we quickly determined we went to high school together. Actually, she was a year younger than me, I knew her from soccer and she cheered for other sports with my younger sister. At first, I wondered how much she experience she could have being relatively young, but I was quickly impressed with her knowledge, questioning, etc.

So, we went through the history, symptoms, etc. She confirmed I have some scar tissue in my lower hamstring, but then we started talking about the other pain I’ve been experiencing. It has been a sore achilles, sore calf, hamstring pain, pain in the hip/butt and lower-back pain. She thinks the back could be contributing to those issues and she suggested some dynamic stretches that would allow me to stretch my hamstring without having my back contribute to other issues. I have also taped up a towel that I will use in my car, as that’s often when I have the most pain.

As far as my therapy schedule goes, I’ll be trying to go 2-3 times a week for 4-6 weeks. I’m actually looking forward to it and starting to be optomistic about the recovery. I’m interested in getting their thoughts on whether or not I should run during this period, so I’ll find out tomorrow. I have gone back to getting in some workouts. I was on the elliptical for 20 mins on Thurs, 30 on Fri, 30 on Sat and 45 on Sun. Because of our great weather this weekend, I also snuck in a two mile run on Saturday. Just the simple two mile run made me realize how much I miss running.

After two weeks without any exercise, I visited another doc today. Several friends referred me to Beacon Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, so I decided to give it a try. The doc and I spoke about the cause, symptoms, etc. and he prescribed me to 4-6 weeks of physical therapy at 3x a week.

I’ll be honest, I still have my doubts simply because it has already been five months. Does he really think he can turn this around in the next four to six weeks? I’m going to give these next four weeks a lot of dedication to stretching and listening to what they are having me do in the PT sessions. Here’s to hoping for the best…

I’m still here…just trying recovery option #351. It seems like I’ve tried it all to get back on the road. I’ve reduced my mileage, tried cross training, saw a physical therapist, saw a chiropractor for active recovery, stretched, etc. I’m still experiencing pain in the back of my left leg: heel, achilles, calf, hamstring, hip and lower back. It’s never really more than one spot at a time, but it’s usually the hamstring or the achilles. The hamstring is at it’s worst when I’m sitting in my car. I’m guessing it’s due to the location where the end of the seat hits my leg.

So, I made an appointment with a massage therapist two days ago and he really worked on my leg. I mean, he worked on it so much that I’m still sore today. I haven’t had any exercise in the past seven days in hopes that some time off will help. It never hurt when I was cross training (ex. elliptical), but I’m not sure it was helping, either. I can’t believe it has been five months and I’m starting to wonder what the future holds for my running. I guess time will tell…

With that said, I’m really enjoying reading about others progressing through their goals. I know some friends on twitter and dailymile have some upcoming races. I’ll be cheering on a lot of them down at the Flying Pig in May, so I wish nothing but the best for you guys/gals and can’t wait to watch you hit those goals! Keep up the great work!

Mon: 45 min on elliptical
Tue: 20 min on elliptical
Wed: rest
Thu: 45 min on elliptical
Fri: 2 mile run on TM
Sat: 1 hr 5 min on elliptical
Sun: Rest

These were my goals entering the year and I now need to get healthy to make them happen.

For someone that averaged over 51 miles per week for the first nine months of 2009, I never thought I would be so happy to have consecutive weeks of 35, 34 and 40 miles. It has been a very tough couple months and I’m still far from 100%, but being out on the road is a positive step. I’ve given myself until Feb 5th to make a final decision about Boston, as I can still cancel my hotel prior to that date and only lose $20. It then quickly goes to $40, $60 and then $285.

Leg update: If it’s not the hamstring, then it’s the groin, upper calf, lower calf or achilles. All on the left side. I have another ART session on Thursday, but I may move it up in the week because my hamstring and calves are pretty tight/sore. I’ve also found that the hamstring doesn’t hurt nearly as much when I’m up walking around versus sitting down. It’s at it’s worst when I’m sitting in the car. Like I said, I’m out on the road, which is better than nothing (I think).

Anyway, here was this past week’s breakdown:

Monday: Rest

Tuesday: 6 @ 7:14 – Treadmill run. Gave the legs and my fitness a little test. Splits were around 8:00, 7:41, 7:30, 7:13, 6:27, 6:27. Pleased with how I held up during the run.

Wednesday: 8 @ 7:56 – Just a cold, morning run. Added 20 minutes on the elliptical in the evening.

Thursday: 6 @ 6:58 – Decided to give my body another test. Splits were 7:11, 7:04, 6:50, 6:53, 6:57, 6:47.

Friday: 4 @ 7:59 – Started off the workout with 20 minutes on the arc trainer and then jumped on the treadmill for the four miler.

Saturday: 12 @ 7:56 – Met the Mojo Running store for a group run. They had some new runners that are training for the Flying Pig, so I ran with them which made for a nice comfortable run.

Sunday: 4 @ 7:45 – Just a four miler through the neighborhood.

Total: 40 miles

Well, the leg appears to be doing slightly better. I visited an Active Recovery therapist twice last week and once this week. I have another appointment tomorrow and I’ve been pretty pleased with the status. They massage and stretch different areas of the leg and they also perform heated electric stimulation on the hamstring. The hamstring hasn’t been hurting as much and we are still working on the calf and achilles tendon. It appears those have been over-compensating for the hamstring, so they have been pretty sore.

I was actually able to get in some good mileage last week. I can tell my overall fitness has suffered from the reduction in miles for the past few months, but I’m hoping to get a better guage of where I am within the next few weeks. Here’s my breakdown for the last month or so:

You can see I took a rest period at the beginning of December. I then realized complete rest wasn’t doing much good for my leg, so that’s when I decided to get in a few miles and started looking at active recovery.

I have yet to make a final decision on whether or not I’ll be running Boston. I did find out that I am able to defer my registration until 2011. Basically, I would lose out on this year’s registration fee. I have really been looking forward to a rematch with Boston, but I want to make sure I’m 100% before attacking it again.

I’m nowhere near 100% right now, so it will largely depend on whether or not I’ll be able to continue to increase my milage, increase the distance of my long run and incorporate speed work into my runs. At the end of January, I’m hoping to have my long run at 14 miles and my weekly mileage in the upper 40s. To put it in perspective, at that point in my training for my last two marathons, I was at 18 mile long runs and my weekly average was in the mid-60s.

More to come over the next few weeks, but I hope everyone had a great holiday season. I know a lot of you have already started training for a spring marathon. Good luck, stay injury free and keep getting in the miles!

I managed to go 21 days with runs on four of those days for a total of nine miles. Pathetic. To put it in perspective, I averaged 7.4 miles a day for the first 270 days of the year.

When I met with a doc and a PT a few weeks ago, they said I should be able to return to 70-80% of my total mileage. I tried to get back on the road, but my hamstring kept bothering me and I didn’t feel like I was doing any good. So, I took some time off to rest to see if it would help with the recovery. I didn’t feel like there was much recovery taking place, so I decided to seek some other opinions on twitter and Runner’s World online forums. Several people mentioned that rest wouldn’t do much good and I should look into Active Recovery Therapy. I received a recommendation from someone and I plan on making a call tomorrow to see if they can fit me in on Wednesday.

What a year! I hit PRs in the 5k, 10k, 15k, 13.1 and 26.2 distances. I also had my first race without a PR. I learned a lot about training, about racing and about injury recovery. I met some great people and amazing athletes on dailymile and twitter. I’ll admit the last few months have been extremely difficult, but I’m hoping for a strong recovery and I’ll be back in 2010. I still have a lot to learn and I still think I have some PRs ahead of me. Here’s a recap of my 2009 mileage and races: 

January: 276 miles

February: 231 miles

• Last Chance for Boston Half Marathon – 1:26:37 (4 min PR) - Interesting race: (1) Middle of February in Ohio…temps were upper 20’s to start and lower 30’s to finish, (2) the course is a one-mile loop…yes, a one-mile loop and (3) the race has a 5k, 10k, half and full on the same course. I wasn’t sure what to expect with the race, as I was using it as a tune-up for my full marathon in April. It was difficult to determine what place you were in during the race because it was a one-mile loop and the different races meant people were ending at different times and people were running a large variety of paces. Around mile 12, I started to pass someone who I knew was running a pretty good pace. We chatted for a minute or two and he said he was running the half, but wasn’t feeling great. At this point, I kicked it in, but I didn’t realize I was now leading the half marathon. There was only a two second  gap between myself, 2nd place and 3rd place with a mile to go. I was able to run a 6:13 last mile to win by 10 seconds. My first overall win…very exciting!

March: 269 miles

• Mercy Heart Mini Marathon 15k – 1:00:43 (1 min PR) – Probably the hilliest course you could find for a 15k. This year also had some of the worst weather with very cold temps and strong gusts of wind. I was hoping to break an hour, but considering the course and the weather, I was happy with the result.

April: 156 miles

• Boston Marathon 26.2 – 3:09:39 – Everything I expected and more. It’s Boston. I could write for days about the race. I was happy to BQ with a sub-3:10 in Boston, but it was my first race that I didn’t set a PR and it was my worst paced race. Even with that said, it was Boston and I left with a huge smile on my face.  

May: 165 miles

• EyeRun 10k – 40:40 (PR) – It was my first 10k and I had a goal of sub-40. I ran the majority of the race in 3rd place with 2nd place too far ahead and 4th place too far back. This made it difficult for me to push my pace. I wasn’t happy with the time, but I ended up with 3rd place overall.
• Bashful Ostrich 5k – 18:46 (40 sec PR) – This race is held on Memorial Day, which means a lot of grillouts on Saturday and Sunday before Monday’s race. I wasn’t sure what to expect from a time standpoint, but there are a lot of runners in the race and I knew there would be some great competition. I finished in the top-15 in 2008, which has a special top-15 plaque, so I was hoping to have a chance for the same result. About two miles into the race, I passed a group of high school runners and I heard them say they couldn’t let another runner pass them. This told me I was now in the top-15. I was able to pick off some more runners and finished in 9th place overall. Very happy with my time.

June: 215 miles

• Parkinsons 5k – 18:25 (21 sec PR) – This race was hosted by a local running store, which is the same store I run with every other weekend. This meant I would know a lot of the runners and there would be a LOT of pride on the line. Basically, there would be four of us from the store that would be pushing each other. There were three other runners that were very fast (15:50 was the winning time). Through two miles, I was in 3rd out of the store group. I didn’t give up and ended up passing one around mile 2.3 and passed the other around mile 2.9. I ended up coming in 4th overall and 1st in the store group. I was very happy with my time, as I dropped 21 seconds off my previous PR from two weeks prior and it was a 61 second improvement over my PR from last year.

July: 246 miles

• Building Blocks for Kids 5k – 18:43 – This was on a very similar course to the Parkinson’s 5k with a very small adjustment to the actual course. However, the weather was absolutely horrible. At the gun, it started to down pour. I ran the first mile with one eye shut because the rain was coming down so hard. Some fast runners in this race (winning time of 15:57), but my time was good enough for 4th overall.

August: 261 miles

• Chicago Rock-n-Roll Half Marathon – 1:24:31 (2 min PR) – This was a last-minute decision, as the race had been sold out for months. However, I read a tweet by PF Changs and Runners World about a free entry being available. PF Changs was kind enough to give me the entry, so my family made a weekend trip to Chicago. I had a little incentive to run a strong race, as someone on twitter gave me a predicted time of 1:30 and a local runner gave me a prediction of 1:28. How was that incentive? Because my goal was sub-1:25. That was the time that I told myself I needed to give me a chance at sub-3:00 in my September 26.2. I felt absolutely great throughout the race, but decided to stay with the 1:25 pace group through mile 12. At that point, I knew my goal was safe and I improved my pace on mile 13 to shave off some more time. Ended up with 1:24:31 to finish in 97th place out of 14,000+ runners. Kara Goucher ran this race and it was pretty cool being in the same starting corral as Kara.
• Sprit of Columbus Half Marathon Relay – 6.55 @ 6:08  – I ran this race with a couple friends, so we made two relay teams of two members each. I ran the first leg of my team and ran my 6.55 miles at a 6:08 pace. I was very happy with my pace and gave me some more confidence going into my 26.2 in September.

September: 182 miles

• Air Force Marathon 26.2 – 2:59:59 (7 min PR) – Sub-3. It was everything I worked for during the last year. Tough conditions from a personal standpoint coming into the race. My one yr old daughter had to be rushed to ICU six days before the marathon. My wife and I were by her side in ICU for the next four days. I was mentally and physically exhausted from the hospital visit and I had dropped around 6 lbs in those few days. She recovered well and the day before the marathon, I decided I would run the race. The race went exactly as planned with my best pacing ever. The full race report is here, but here are my splits: 6:57 / 6:53 / 6:40 / 6:48 / 6:48 / 6:53 / 6:54 / 6:51 / 6:49 / 6:48 / 6:51 / 6:49 / 6:48 / 6:50 / 6:49 / 6:52 / 6:49 / 6:49 / 6:52 / 6:49 / 6:49 / 6:51 / 6:53 / 6:57 / 6:51 / 6:50 / 6:15. Unfortunately, as I was reaching for the finish line to break three hours, I injured my left hamstring. And, with that, my mileage greatly decreases as I approach the end of the year and start the recovery process.

October: 197 miles

November: 62 miles

December: ??

Total: 2,260 (through the end of November)

If you haven’t read my “About Me” post, I work as an IT manager for a large eyewear company. One of the greatest benefits of working for such as company is their involvement in the OneSight Foundation. It’s an amazing program that gives free eye care and free eyewear to those in need. To date, OneSight has helped more than 7,200,000 people around the world see clearly.

My involvement with OneSight has included recycling glasses, providing eye screenings to Cincinnati public schools and participating in fundraising events, such as the Par for Sight golf outing and the EyeRun 5k/10k run. Recently, I had the opportunity to help provide screening to a local elementary school. Essentially, the students sit approximately 10 feet away from a screen and they are asked to read a series of letters or shapes. I was amazed at the number of students that are unable to see clearly enough to read the letters or shapes. 10 feet away. That’s closer than most desks are from the chalkboard. For the students that needed further care, they were brought back a few weeks later. I also had the opportunity to volunteer at one of these events. I heard students say they never had glasses, they lost their glasses, glasses were broken, glasses were stolen and parents wouldn’t let the students bring their glasses to school because they were concerned they would be lost, broken or stolen. I also saw a doctor makes notes about a student being blind. Her response was, “What do you mean I’m blind?” and he replied, “Don’t worry. You’ve been this way most of your life and you didn’t realize it. We’ll get you taken care of and you’ll be able to see clearly.”

Every year, OneSight sends teams to locations around the world to provide free eye care and free eyewear to individuals in need. The teams are selected from a pool of applicants and the teams are announced at a OneSight event in December. This year’s event was held today, December 1. I was extremely pleased to find out that I was selected to travel to India next November to be part of the clinic team! Yep, I’ll be traveling half way around the world to help thousands of people see clearly!

For more information on OneSight, check out the home page and a YouTube video!

Monday, 11/23
Rest

Tuesday, 11/24
6 @ 7:37 pace: I started with a head cold and sore throat earlier in the week, so I wasn’t feeling that great. Decided to get in 6 miles to help clear the head. Head was cleared (temporarily) and the leg didn’t feel that great during the run.

Wednesday, 11/25
2 @ 7:58 pace: Treadmill run. Just short and easy. Leg felt pretty good, as my treadmill has some pretty good cushion.

Thursday, 11/26
6 @ 7:30 pace: I wasn’t able to run in a race, so I went down to the 100th running of the Thanksgiving Day race in Cincinnati to help cheer on some friends. It was great watching them and they did a fantastic job. Afterwards, I headed back for a turkey lunch and then hit the treadmill for 6 miles. The leg felt ok, so I varied the pace a bit and took the first two at 8:00, next two at 7:30 and the last two at 7:00.

Friday, 11/27
4 @ 8:00 pace: Another treadmill run, as my leg felt pretty good the past few days.

Saturday, 11/28
Rest: My wife works every other Saturday, so I’m at home running around with the kids. Sometimes, this feels more like a long run.

Sunday, 11/29
10 @ 7:53 pace: Well, I was too tempted by the nice weather and decided to hit the road for my typical 10 miler. This is the route that I often run during the week and it had been awhile. It was great to be outside running and the leg felt good during the first 6-7 miles. I then decided to drop down to a 7:30 pace to see how the leg felt. Well, the pain came right back to the leg and it stayed there for the last 3-4 miles (even though I put the pace back around 8:00).

TOTAL: 28 miles

Even though my leg felt great on most of my runs, I have decided to hang up the shoes for awhile to give it a full rest. I have an appointment on Wednesday with a physical therapist, so I’ll see what he says during our meeting. I’m thinking about waiting until after Christmas to get back out there, but we’ll see. It’s very tough to think what will happen to my conditioning and the effect it has on my training for Boston. With that said, there is no way I can compete with the leg feeling like it does now. I know this is what’s best, so I’m just hoping there will be some cross-training that I will be able to do while allowing the hamstring to recover.