Niggle Watch

On a recent long run, I felt like my body was falling apart. It was my third run of the week on uneven footing: areas of lighter fluffy snow, areas of packed slick snow, and areas of ice. My body was feeling pretty beat up from the unevenness of it all. The run started with some knee annoyance (oops! I shouldn't have skipped my recovery run after my tempo run, surely this is remaining from that! I told myself), at some point I had some icky sensations in my left low back, knee annoyance swapped to the opposite knee (shit!), during the final mile I had some discomfort in the back of my left knee (gah!), [guys, I had so much going on that I just had to reference my training log because I knew there was more that I was forgetting, this is obnoxious], but the thing that worried me the most during the run was my right hip flexor.

Each time one of these little niggles popped up, I checked in with my body, am I running with strong form, how am I landing, is there anything I can tune into better to allow my body to absorb the running impact better? And within a half mile or so, the niggle would disappear, phew.

But the right hip flexor. Yuck. We had been going about a mile and a half before I brought it up to Toni. At this point we were about a mile from home with 2.5 miles to go. I was unable to utilize a strong running form because the hip flexor was catching with each drive of the right leg. SHIT. If you've followed my blog forever (because apparently it's been around forever, and no one is even reading these things anymore, but I think writing is therapeutic and looking back on things is so important to me--oh I should just get a diary, you say? That might be a good idea! :P) you know that I am injury prone. I had a solid 2 years of running in late 2009-early 2011 where I was injury free, and since then, nope.

So my brain is hyper focused on injury. But at what point can I not be considered an injury prone runner? Over the last two years, I haven't needed to rest more than 2-4 days for something going on. That's pretty good right? I think strength training has been the biggest thing my body was lacking. Teaching the body how to best absorb the impact of each and every step of the run, utilizing all the muscles to propel the leg forward so that nothing is overstressed.

But on this Sunday night, my brain panicked. I finally filled Toni in that my leg hurt and it was freaking me out. As my BRF she is trying to teach me not to panic. So the fact that I left 15 minutes pass before I started to panic, I see as progress. :P I asked if we could stop to stretch, we calculated our options as I stretched. Would it be smart to just finish up the final 2.5 miles? I wanted a crystal ball to see if this was something that would be NBD tomorrow, or if I'd look back on this run two months from now and say, "damn, I wish I would've just called it quits that night." Which is totally a part of running, by the way, a total gamble. And I freakin' hate gambling.

After I stretched, we started out again, determined to get to our one mile from home marker, to decide the plan from there. And shockingly, the hip flexor pain was gone. And around this time I realized that we were running on a road that had melted. Oh. That might have some significance. We tried really hard from then on to to stay in that area and on roads that were more densely packed with snow, and that helped immensely.

I was really thankful that we stuck with it to get in the miles, as it was a mentally tough run to get through those pretend ouches. Have I mentioned lately that I'm ready for it to be spring??

Becoming a Yogi

When I first started going to yoga classes regularly again, for the first time in probably four years, I made it clear to myself and anyone I'd have general chit chat with prior to class starting, that I was a runner who was coming to yoga to better myself as a runner.

Somewhere along the way, that has shifted.

I find myself scouring the yoga studio's class schedule and booking my classes weeks out to ensure I get a spot to my favorites. There's enough variety in classes that there is almost always something that fits my mood and daily level of fatigue. When the weather is nice, I'll look for a ~30 minute spot of time to head out for a run. No distance in mind. No pace locked in. No heart rate data to obsess over. Speaking of data, my garmin refused to charge for months, so often I had no idea how far or how fast I was going.

And it was freeing.

And maybe that's the yogi mindset: freedom, less rigid, jumping off the severely Type A train, with an emphasis on fun and enjoyment. Running to me is fun when I'm doing well at it; it makes all the hard work worthwhile. But dedicating myself to a sport only to get knocked down by injury again and again is not fun, and clearly something I've struggled with.

But I'll be lying if I said that I didn't hope and expect all of the increased strength and flexibility that I am gaining will benefit me as a runner. I have high hopes that when I get back to running consistently, I will be able to continue attending the yoga classes that I l-o-v-e and keep injuries at bay, and maybe, just maybe finally see some breakthrough progress in my running.

And if that doesn't happen, I'll be bummed. But it's not such a bad thing to be a yogi that runs for fun, right?

Non-Injuries (ish)

I have been working like a beast to keep myself injury free as I'm ramping up the miles on Pfitz' marathon training program.  And so far so good.  Sort of.

The number of NON-injury-injuries I've had this past week are through the roof.  It started on Wednesday's early morning mid-week long run.  10 on the schedule.  It was one of the most amazing runs I've had in a long time.  I had some minor chafing (or so I thought) towards the end, but nbd.  Until I got home, and realized my right thigh was absolutely shredded.  I wore a skirt to work, and it was unbearable.  I complained so much that a co-worker found a gauze pad for me to throw on top of it.

(This was the LEAST angry it looked. Finger included for size reference.  Owie.)

I took a rest day Thursday to let it dry out and scab up.  Friday I wore my super shorty short booty shorts for my tempo run before work.  I know a lot of people go with longer shorts to keep chafing away, but my legs rubbing together don't cause issues.  I have enough natural lubrication in the form of sweat to keep that from happening.  (I also used body glide to be safe.)  (Did I just use the term natural lubrication in my blog?  Yes... yes I did.)  My issues is from my legs rubbing with any sort of fabric or seam in between them.  Needless to say, I had a stellar tempo run, no thigh issues.   However, I ended the run with a plethora of blisters on my feet.  Most were small water blisters.  But one on the inside of my big toe was ginormous.  And partially a blood blister.

I did some doctor work on the blister Friday after work--poke, drain, bandage, only to find it was full again a couple of hours later.  Usually my blisters just look bad, and don't hurt at all, but not this bugger.  Ouch.  I continued to pop and re-drain before and after runs throughout the weekend.

Saturday I wasn't thinking when I set out for my recovery run.  I threw on shorts and a tank because it was sunny.  Since my thigh chafing had scabbed, I figured I'd be fine with whatever.  I still used body glide, because clearly I learned that all important lesson.  Well wouldn't you know it, I managed to chafe OFF the chafing scab!!  Holy effing ouch.  Fairly certain I will have a nice scarred reminder on my inner thigh of the time that my Lululemon shorts and I were above body glide and chafing.  We were so wrong running gods, plz forgive.

THEN Saturday night I started to feel something tight in my neck.  I tried to massage it out.  (And coerced Kyle in to giving it a hand.)  But no success.  I went to bed with dreams of a delightful long run swimming through my head.  I woke up in the middle of the night in so much pain, I couldn't even lift my head without using my hands to do the work.  I popped some ibuprofen and tried to fall back asleep.  My alarm went off at 5:30am, and my neck was still throbbing, so I turned off my alarm and fell back asleep.  9am I woke up, popped some more ibuprofen and worked on getting ready for my long run.

Naturally since I'd waited to mid-morning to get out there, it was super steamy and miserable by the time I actually started to run.  But the good news, other than not being able to look left for oncoming traffic/bikers/etc without turning my full body to the left, it managed to loosen up a bit, and continued to loosen during my shower after the run, and I was able to sleep through the night without ibuprofen.

But hey, at least it's not my IT band, hips, and/or knees, right??

2013 Plan

As I've mentioned on here before, I'm VERY type A, plan in advance, hyper-in-control, Jerbear.  Turns out the amount of time required for grad school success + lingering injuries = suuuuuuuuuuuuckiness.  I love to plan races eons in advance, but that's not something I can do until I'm completely healthy and am able to devote the amount of time I find necessary to race at a quality level (aka somewhere near a PR).

I've been thinking a lot about what's next for my little legs, but it's hard to plan with these unknown (or I guess in some case, known) variables.  For spring 2013 I have decided that I won't be training for a marathon.  For the first time since 2009.  Whoa.  Granted, I didn't run a marathon in spring 2012, but I did spend a good 8 weeks training for one.  Hah, oops.

As mentioned in my previous post, I'm amped that I finally figured out what's wrong with me.  To shed more light on the subject--uber tight hip flexors and weak as shiz glutes.  My plan for much of January to May is to gradually build up my mileage, work on my speed (<--speed, what's that?  I currently haz none), and stretch and strengthen.  Until I'm done with school, training for a marathon is not feasible.  I was able to luck out with Philly last fall, because I had an incredible base going in to marathon training, and only had to actually TRAIN for 6 weeks before I tapered.  Will I run a marathon in 2013?  Meh.. I don't know.  Maybe.  I wouldn't put it past me.  But I sure as heck won't be training for it until I'm done with school.  August 3rd.  Who's counting?

I've found local-ish half marathons for January, March, April and May and am tentatively planning to have the March and May races be "goal" races depending on how quickly I'm able to get back on track.    I won't pull the trigger on a 26.2 race registration fee unless I'm soooo jealous of all of your 3 hour long runs (not likely), even if Jenn and Megan plan a BFFF race weekend and beg me to come (ok, I would have to think very hard about passing this up, let's be honest.  Someone just remind me of limping through NWM, k?).

I also want to get back in to yoga.  I can attend a free yoga class weekly at work, and I'd like to continue to keep that in my schedule.  Megan and I are planning a 30 day yoga challenge post-Dallas which includes some at home www.myyogaonline.com classes and meditation, and some meet ups at local yoga studios.





Hip flexor stretches, glute strengthening and ab work (apparently it helps keep your hips in alignment, so maybe I should focus on that instead of wanting Jessica Alba Abs, harumph) will be high on my priority list.

Falling back in love with running is priority one, but I realize that being able to run uninjured is at the root of my frustration.  Some goal-less, watch-less, runs are definitely in the cards as are lots of buddy runs.  Running buddies... hit me up!

Running Form

It has been made abundantly clear that I have issues with my form and/or muscle imbalances.  I had issues with my IT bands post-Green Bay marathon, and after the Sioux Falls half last fall.  I had hip issues shortly after Green Bay and during Vegas and Fargo, and I've had random knee issues........ for the last year or so.

Exhibit A-D:  The Heel Strike. Like Whoa.

A couple weeks ago I finally utilized my groupon'd massage certificate.  My first official massage!  I gave the masseuse a brief background to my running and injuries, and she got to work.  When she finally got to my piriformis, I almost started sobbing.  She said she hadn't felt that tight of a piriformis muscle in a long time.  Afterwards she showed me a couple of stretches to help alleviate some of the tightness and I was on my way.

A few months back I actually noticed that I had some tightness and pain in my piriformis muscle (left one) but didn't really give it too much thought because it never bothered me while I was running.  Rolling over at night, leading with that leg, OUCH!  Certain yoga across the body stretches, OUCH!

I did some research on the piriformis and realized that **shocker** when it's tight, it can pull the hip in the wrong direction and can cause knee issues.  Hmmm.... perhaps I should've given it a bit more thought when it hurt while NOT running.  One of the primary causes is over striding.

Next I took to looking at some race pictures.  It's very clear that when I'm tired/hating life while running my form starts to s-u-c-k.  I start to rest on my back side and have my legs do all the work.  The over striding evidence is very clear in most every race finishing picture when I'm tired, but still trying to do some work (see above A-D).

Another interesting factor is that it is almost impossible to not heel strike when you're over striding (hello knee and IT band issues!).  Back in high school when I would've considered myself a "runner," I only raced 13-27 seconds at a time so you don't think about form.  You just ran...hard. 

Since realizing this, I've made a very conscious effort to work on my form, particularly on my easy paced runs, because the form seems to be worse the slower I run.  My knee is almost to the point where I can ditch my knee strap, and I have had zero hip pain and only a little IT band pain.  Turns out the treadmill really brings out the over-striding in me... oops! 
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And clearly I wrote this blog post before I ran a 13.1 mile training run and failed to stretch after.  Uh... oops.  I took a rest day on Monday and did some hip opening yoga which got rid of the creakiness.  Phew.  Since the heat index was 112* I wasn't too sad I had to put off my run.  Eew.