Getting my mojo back

Today I went running for the second time in three days.

On Thursday, I did a fast, hilly couple miles -- my regular 2 1/8-mile loop, but at a 7:42/mile pace that had my lungs burning. I had felt a twinge or two in my knee that morning, and ran pissed off. This is a loop that loses and then gains back close to 300 feet of elevation. The knee felt fine.

Today, I did the loop twice at a more sustainable 8:26/mile pace. I even did negative splits on the two loops (18:06 and 17:44), keeping my heart rate over 180 for the last mile and a quarter.

I still questioned my knee with every other step, and at one point thought it was starting to act up. But again I was just too pissed off to care, and kept going. And you know what? My knee was fine.

So it feels awesome to maybe, just maybe, be done with whatever the hell was the problem and start to get back to where I was and go forward again. I'm not quite ready to declare myself 100 percent, but getting there.

Turning a corner?

Quick post. Tried running again, went for three miles Thursday at a decent pace -- somewhere between "comfortable" and "comfortably hard." (Maybe that's "hardly comfortable"?) I wanted to be sure that my slow pace last time out wasn't the reason I made it as far as I did before the pain started. This time, I made it to about 2.5 miles before the knee acted up. This pissed me off, so I decided to finish the run, even picking up the pace the last one-third mile and all-out sprinting the final 50-100 yards. Total time was 26:02. Had minimal soreness afterward.

Oh, during my latest hiatus, I got an X-ray on the knee, which turned out negative, and went to a seemingly worthless physical therapy session where they gave me easier exercises than I'd already done. I might do them anyway in case I have to try to talk my doctor into an MRI. Although it does seem like my knee is SLOWLY getting better. Whatever.

Adding a new feature

As I've mentioned, I'm definitely lacking in motivation to post since I can't really run. So I've decided to add to URB in a tangential, albeit previously planned way: links to other non-running blogs. Take a look off to the right side of the page, and check out the "Titled Non-Running Blogs of Interest."

As the name clearly states, these are blogs about topics other than running that I find interesting for one reason or another, and it's possible you may as well. I originally conceived this as a "Random Blog of the Day" feature, which I may eventually adopt or incorporate here. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Glass half-empty or half-full?

Today was the day I've been waiting for. Or at least one of the days I've been waiting for. I went running again. It wasn't the I-kicked-ass-on-my-run-today day, but the other one.

Anyway, my uncharged Garmin didn't even survive the 5-minute drive to my starting point, so there would be no tracking this run. The best I could do is start the stopwatch on my cellphone, which I was leaving in the car. (I like to run as unencumbered as possible.) Having no clock ended up freeing me to run slow, which probably was good for my knee.

How slow did I run? Over 10:00/mile, for sure. Slow enough that I breathed through my nose for the majority of the time.

But what of my knee? And how many paragraphs will I start with questions? Unfortunately, my knee did start to get sore. The good news is this didn't really happen until about 2 miles in -- better than my last few attempts. On the other hand, I was running slowly.

So what did I do? (You knew there would be another question!) I stopped running when the soreness was somewhere between "ever so slight" and "yeah, it's there." On my other recent runs, I kept going another notch or two, until "unmistakable" or "it's gonna get worse if you keep running."

If I want to be optimistic, I can tell myself my knee is getting better. If I don't, my longer distance before the pain was only because I ran so much slower. Hmm. Optimistic, it is.

So now what? I guess I'll hold off on the running another week or two and continue to catch up on TV (but I'm running out of Hell's Kitchen episodes) and see my doctor again. Maybe he can refer me to an orthopedist (heck, I'd settle for an orthopaedist!) or at least give me a cortisone shot.

I'm not a doctor, and I don't even play one on TV, but I've self-diagnosed myself (all by myself, btw) with runner's knee, based on the location of the pain and the fact that I'm more likely to notice it going down stairs. What I don't like is how vague runner's knee is and how it could be any number of things causing it. Oh, and I don't like the fact that I can't freakin' run. How about that?

Gotta get back out there

I haven't run in two weeks. Wow. It's been nice in a way, and I've gotten some other things done that I needed to, but it also sucks. It feels like all my fall goals are just going away. This week was originally my plan for Whitney. I learned that the Philadelphia marathon, which I had been favoring, is sold out. And I've completely lost all motivation to post here. You're welcome.

The knee seems fine, but it also seemed fine before my last few runs. I've been icing it occasionally (not sure why, it feels OK) and stretching occasionally. Now and then, I feel a very slight soreness, but it could be my imagination. I'm definitely hyperfocusing on it, sometimes asking myself with each step if I felt something abnormal. Oh well.

The time for me to go running again is drawing nigh. That's right, nigh. Could be as soon as tomorrow. Or maybe Thursday.

Stay tuned.

Rx for running

So Monday I went for a run. I figured nine days off would put me in a good spot. Nope.

I headed out on the same flat course I did the time before, but at almost exactly 1 mile, I started to feel it in my knee. I went another half-mile just to confirm that I didn't simply need to loosen up. Then I walked back, dejected, kicking a tin can. And maybe a kitten or two. (No, not really.)

I went to the doctor Wednesday for an unrelated (and, for the record, non-infectious) matter and mentioned my knee. I was advised to rest it, ice it, stretch it and yada-yada it. Not exactly what I was hoping to hear, but realistically what I expected. We'll have to see about that. I can't exactly train and rest at the same time, right?

Then again, resting does further my not-so-parallel goal of being lazy. Like I said, we'll have to see about that.

Unrelated laziness update: A while ago, I promised posts about my training for San Francisco and an acutal race report. Yes, I know it's been over a month since the race. Let's just say I've been putting extra effort into this, all because the eagle eye of history is watching. At least, let's say it if you're willing to believe it. Either way, expect to see at least a few coherent sentences on those topics soon enough.

Getting the message, loud and clear

In sticking with the plan to deal with my uncooperative left knee, I scoped out a nice flat course and went for a run on Saturday. Since I normally run on hills, I didn't really know what to expect, but I hoped it wouldn't involve pain. Since I REALLY wanted a convenient answer about my knee, I wore my old running shoes (As Spike Lee used to say, it's gotta be the shoes.)

What happened was I ran pretty fast without too much effort -- or so I thought. It felt so good, I stupidly decided to make my run longer, even after my knee protested.

"Hey, idiot," knee said, "I know you can hear me!" In response, I stuck my index fingers in my ears so as to drown out the noise. That didn't make it any easier to run, by the way. (OK, maybe it happen exactly like that.)

Only after about 3 miles, when I turned back the original direction and into a stiff headwind (probably 20-30 mph) did I learn why the first bit of the run had felt so good. When I tried to sprint the last quarter-mile, I felt it in my knee every time my left foot hit the ground.

This time, I learned my lesson. It's three days after the fact, and my knee feels OK in normal use. But "normal use" is a far cry for running. So I'll take the suggestions I've gotten to do stretches, cross-training and leg strengthening. Then I'll begin to think about something else after at least another week.

(For the record, my splits were 7:58, 7:52, 8:13, 8:32, 9:37 and 9:32 (partial). I liked this course, through an industrial area not too far away. That wind will probably always be there, though.)

Not what I need

Or should I say "kneed"?

I've been feeling great and itching to get out for my next run, which I decided would be on my "regular" hiking trail -- approximately 2,000 feet up over 2.5 miles. I was also excited to have G with me for this route, to get an idea of exactly the distance and elevation involved.

Though I waited, in typical fashion, until the day had heated up, I decided to run to the trail, less than a mile from home. What I didn't see coming was that my knee would start complaining again. @$#*&!

I hoped my need just needed to loosen up or something, so I kept going right onto the trail. The steep hills kicked my butt, some forcing me to walk a little, but my knee made me turn around about a mile in. I hobbled down the steep hills and walked home very unhappy.

After pondering things, it seems that simply resting my knee hasn't worked, so I've decided to do some frequent, flat (and hopefully fast) running for a little while and see what happens. I hate the idea of having to drive to the track to run, but maybe the pounding from the hills is the problem. Which, of course, doesn't reconcile well with me wanting to do some crazy trail runs over the next several weeks. But I don't have any better ideas right now and I'm not ready to blow off my goals for the fall.

Marathon = Aches + Pains?

During my long run Wednesday, I made a couple brief hydration stops, and on the second one, I noticed my left knee was sore. This made me walk a few seconds longer than I'd planned, and for the three miles after that, I felt the soreness a little here or there. Then for the rest of that day, I limped around at work.

This got me realizing I've had some minor ache or pain pretty much since the marathon. After the race, it felt like every muscle, tendon and ligament in my legs and feet were sore. I got that part -- there were going to be things that had never been used as much as they were in those roughly four hours. In the days that followed, the soreness gradually went away, though maybe I would still feel it in my ankles or Achilleses-es when I first woke up or the first time I would go down the stairs outside. (I even still had that this morning.)

Once I started running again, it was a slight balkiness in my right knee, or the same ankle thing. Or both. But the just-plain-sore left knee I got on Wednesday was a different injury than I've had since I got semi-serious about running. So I knew I had to take a few days off.

Sunday morning, I was feeling good and really wanted to go running -- and very nearly did. I thought my sore knee was better. I even ate a PowerBar (Honey Roasted Nut -- pretty good) and went outside to test the knee with a minute or two of jogging. Fine AND dandy. Perfect.

Then as I was letting the food digest a little while more, I came downstairs and heard a faint whisper from my left knee. "Ouch," it said ever so quietly, or maybe a different four-letter word. A less perceptive person might've missed it, but not me. I called off the run and ordered more rest. I second-guessed my decision all day until Sunday evening, when I was going down some stairs at work -- and then heard it again.

So it'll be a couple more days off. Wednesday or Thursday seems like the smart move now. I'm definitely feeling a little impatient and wanting to keep making progress, but I know I can make up a few days I might lose now, but if I have these niggling (am I allowed to say that?) injuries drag on for a while, not only will I not make progress in my training, but I could miss out some of the "events" I want to do. The storms become more regular on Mt. Whitney toward the end of September, and I don't want to miss my chance for a second ascent.

If I must be lazy for the next few days, so be it. All in the name of healing my bum knee, right?

Behold! The wonder of technology!

Yesterday begat my first long run since the marathon, but it also marked a huge upgrade of my training tools. I broke out my new Dick Tracy Garmin GPS watch, strapped it on and took off.

I had been wavering between the Forerunner 305 and 405, but when the 305 went on sale for less than half the price of the other one, I made the call and told Mrs. Tola it would be a nice early birthday gift. Now I just have to figure out how to use the dang thing.

The watch kept track of my time, pace, distance -- all handy information. Not bad. When I had time later, I intertransconfigurized the thing to work with my laptop (you guessed it -- USB cord) and "supposably" had access to tons of great data about my run.

Umm, not quite.

So far, all I've been able to see are some not-so-useful graphs of pace, distance, elevation. I can't quite seem to find anything about any splits. Maybe I need to manually keep track of those. Maybe I need to do something called "reading" involving a so-called "owner's manual." Or maybe I need to temper my expectation that my Garmin would be up there in the sliced-bread league of useful things. (Let's face it, that's a tough standard. Who doesn't like sliced bread?)

More bad news: The Garmin said my 13.1-mile course, which I had recently suspected of being more like 12.9 miles, is actually 12.56 miles. Jeez, talk about making a bad first impression. First, you're not 100% intuitive to use, then you're chopping away at my acccomplishments. (That's right, that's 3 C's.) On the plus side, I did run this course nearly 8 minutes faster than in my leadup to San Francisco. More detailed numbers will come if and when I can get Garmin to spit 'em out.

For now, any Garmin tips are welcomed, and I'll keep wearing the thing while I try to learn to use it. That'll be me with the giant watch. The yellow trenchcoat and fedora are on order.

Back to 'The Hills'

No, I’m not writing about Kristin Cavallari or L.C. or even Heidi and Spencer’s wedding. Despite the unmistakably crystal-clear fact that I am what the kids call "with it," I will skip past discussion of any MTV reality shows and stick to my running. (But if any of y’all bee-otches out there wants to talk some Snoop Dogg’s Father Hood, I'm down with that shiz-nit.)

Anyway, when I woke up this morning, I wasn’t sure if I was going to run today. I’d been feeling an occasional weakness in my right knee, including when I tossed and turned during the night. So I thought I’d reschedule my run for Monday. But after a couple hours up and about around the house, I decided to hit the road. Part of this was so I could hopefully do a long run on Wednesday instead of Thursday (because, don’tcha know, I’m in demand on Thursday), but also I was just feeling good.

So I leave around 12:45, which happens to be smack-freakin’-dab in the heat of the day. But despite being just four days removed from my overly wussified performance on intervals, the fact is I’ve been running in brutal SoCal heat for most of the past two months. And for the 6 miles I ran today, it ended up being no problem.

I’m lucky enough to live in a very hilly area, and my regular course starts out with what I call “the loop.” It’s roughly 2.25 miles, and starts out downhill for ¾ mile, losing 220 feet. Then the next 1.25 miles are uphill, the first part at a 20% grade, gaining 260 feet. The last quarter-mile takes things back to where they started. So I do this twice, turning off at that last quarter-mile to add another 1½-mile out-and-back, which naturally involves more hills. All in all, this is about 700 feet of elevation gain and loss over 6 miles. (We’ll get more precise as soon as I get my early-birthday-present Garmin on the case.)

I made the first 2.25-mile lap in 18:21, an 8:09 pace. By the time I made it around to my turn, at 4.25 miles, I was at 36:23, a 9:07/mile split for that second lap. Yes, I knew I was moving slower. I finished the run with a time of 53:58, giving me a split time around 10:00 on the last 1.75 miles. I did lose 15-20 seconds as I encountered some red lights and waited for cross traffic, but it really didn’t seem I was going THAT slow those last couple miles. My estimates of the distances may be a little off (for example, I think “the loop” is actually about 2.2 miles), so who really knows. But I figured out that I can measure my progress on this route. If I can get my time down under 50 minutes on this route (48 would be better), then I’ll probably be making a big step forward on my marathon time.

After I was done, I learned the temperature was 88 degrees, which, again, hadn’t seemed to have overly affected me. By the end of the night, my right knee was sore again, along with some muscles. We’ll see how I feel the next few days, but for now, I’m planning to go back to a long run (13 miles) later this week before mixing in a healthy dose of mountain time into my training.

A little sore -- that's OK

So one day after my first post-marathon workout, and I've got sore hamstrings and calves. A little, but not too much. (FYI, I don't expect to post this often going forward, but today I've got time.) I also have a bit of a not-so-good twinge in my right knee, which started after I drove home from the track yesterday. It doesn't seem like anything serious, so I'm still planning on my next training run for Sunday, or Monday if necessary. A tempo-ish run is sounding good right now.

Easing back into it

You can only take so many days off after a marathon. The soreness everywhere below the waist (well, almost everywhere) had gone away in less than a week after the 2009 San Francisco Marathon (shamless SEO alert!), and as of Monday (eight days) I only had a tiny bit of tightness in my Achilleses-es.

I had to start training again -- if you can call it that -- sometime, and today was that day. Actutally, yesterday was that day, but, as a highly adaptive individual, I revised my plan based on new and timely information. (On the surface, this might share some characteristics with procrastination, but the trained eye can make the distinction fairly easily.)

So anywho, Wednesday started out much like Tuesday, with me weighed down by weariness (as opposed to wariness). Again adapting, I decided my intervals would have to wait until after the doctor's appointment I had scheduled. On the other hand, the high school track is literally across the street from my doctor's office, so there was no escaping this one.

This was my third time ever of running intervals. The first, I did 800s, three or four, between 3:30 and 4:00 each. The second occasion, which was about two weeks before San Francisco, I ran three 1,600s -- at 6:52, 7:15 and a very unpleasant 8:00. This time, I was looking for four 1,600-meter intervals, ideally all under 7:30.

I got two. Not just two at the speed I wanted. Two intervals. Then I quit, just like a quitting quitter quitting quittily.

It was approaching 90 degrees when I got on the track, but I was confident enough. I jogged a very slow 600 meters to warm up, then hit the ground running (ah, so clever). Halfway through the second lap, my lungs were getting a workout and the legs were fine. I kept going and clocked 6:56. Good start. After one rest lap, it was time for interval #2. Not even halfway through this one, I got the ol' back-of-the-diaphragm pain. But I still managed a 7:30. Then I walked my rest lap. It didn't help. About a 150 meters into interval #3, my whole body told me to stop, and I listened. Just another training failure. I guess I'm picking up my training where I left off.

Was it dehydration? The fatigue I've been feeling all week? A lack of caffeine? Excuses, all of them, but just you try to take them away from me!

Seriously, I've got to get better at intervals. As I'll write more about another day, speed is going to be my major focus before my next marathon. I can be a baby about it for a little wihle, but soon I'll have to grow up and be a man.

Gaa gah goo goo!

Coming soon: My training for San Francisco, also a race report

Welcome!

Greetings, salutations and a big friggin' hola! Welcome to Untitled Running Blog.

I imagine right now you might be asking, "What is Untitled Running Blog?" (I'm imagining that, because clearly you're not ACTUALLY asking it.)

However, to answer the aforementioned unasked question, URB is many things, not the least of which is my blog. It's something born out of my first marathon. It's something to track the progress of my training for future races. It's something borrowed, something blue.

URB is designed to help me stay motivated and maybe even help motivate others. It certainly will help relieve me of some of my precious spare time. I'll be sharing the assorted minutiae of what passes for my training, my reflections on said minutiae, and whatever other random thoughts I feel like spewing forth (again, my blog) as I make my way toward my running goals.

If we cross our fingers and I keep up on my EPO shots, perhaps there even will be an original or semi-interesting morsel every few months. As for humor, if this inaugural post is any indication, the only jokes will be my split times (rimshot).

Which is fine with me. If I should find the inspiration to be funny on occasion, so be it. If you want reliably funny, the best you can expect from me is the bathroom humor, because, let's face it, poop is usually reliable (for most of us, at least) and ALWAYS funny. See what I mean?

But, above all, URB is about my self-amusement. I don't expect to be amused by being some ego-stroking, super-sarcastic jerkwad blogger who has to cut down others to feel better about himself. (But if it works, I'll take it!)

So keep pace with me, if you like. Just don't be surprised if I ask you to massage my calves.