Marathon Race week, hardware, and randomness

2012 MetroPCS Dallas Marathon Finisher’s medal

Yep, here it is folks.  Another runner that I follow on Twitter posted this pic of the finisher’s medal for this year’s MetroPCS Dallas Marathon.  I finished my last long run yesterday for my training plan and only have a few short easy runs and some rest days before race day on December 9th.

In addition to getting ready for this race and thinking back over all the training I’ve done, I thought some this week about my cross-training.  After having several injuries mostly relating to over-used or inflamed muscles and tendons, I learned about cross-training.  Of course, as a cyclist, I was cross-training already, but since then, I’ve added in swimming as well.

My cross-training with running really helps with my muscles.  I can always tell after riding, spinning, or swimming how much looser my muscles feel.  This has to be good for my running and I think it has helped.  Along with remembering to stretch after long or hard runs, I haven’t (knock on wood) had any issues this year after my swimming injury healed.

I’m getting just a little bit excited to run come Sunday.  Now the really obsessive part of racing takes hold.  Checking on the weather every five minutes.  Pouring over the race map to visualize the race neighborhoods and where I’ll be at about what time.  Figuring out six days in advance what I’ll wear and need, then changing it several times. Fretting over meals and calorie counts.  If I forget anything to be obsessive about, please send me a comment and remind me.  I don’t want to miss even the smallest obsessive detail you know.

I pulled the marathon card on my algebra teacher this week.  I signed up to take college algebra this semester as I need more discipline hours in order to be able to teach on the college level someday.  Wouldn’t you know I’d pick math, right.  I have this saying, “Dave always has to do it the hard way.”  And, I’ve proven it with math.  I’ve really struggled this semester with this course, which shouldn’t be all that hard.  I took algebra in high school, right; thirty something years ago.  Mostly, I seem to have some kind of numerical dyslexia.  My difficulties are often in getting all the numbers written down without transposing something.  In any case, I spent all day yesterday doing two tests, and I do mean all day.  I’ve been close to giving up and withdrawing.  Instead, I sent my teacher an e-mail and told her I was a marathoner.  We don’t give up.  And, I wont’.  Might go down in flames, but I wont’ give up.

If you already have a follow for me on Twitter, I’ve set up tweets while I’m running next Sunday.  If you haven’t and if you’re really that bored for tweets on Sunday, I’m @abigmanrunning over there.  Strangely enough I do have followers on Twitter as well as here on WordPress.  I thank you for that.  I started writing this for practice, but I realize it’s writing and we do like for folks to actually read what we’ve written.  I found out how important that was this week when I helped out another writer.

Discovered a new app to use this week.  Another friend messaged me about using Strava for cycling and running.  My garmin has been broken for all of this Fall.  I just haven’t wanted to spend the money on a new one nor mess with it while training.  Mostly, I just need an easy way to record my miles, times, and paces.  I’ve been using another app on my android phone, but it’s really a power hog.  Strava so far doesn’t seem to be.  I’ve only gotten to use it once, but it’s really simple.  It works while my phone is in airport mode.  The GPS signal still receives during that mode, but it really lowers power usage.  I’ll keep everyone posted on it.

Well, I told you it was going to be a bit random.  It happens every now and then.  I just heard today there are chances of rain showers for next Sunday.  I don’t need to hear that after last year’s race.  I sure hope that goes away.  I’ll be updating on the post race recap next week, after I rest up a bit.  Remember, the first 20 miles is a training run.  The last 6.2 miles is the race.  I think I said that somewhere before.  Merry Christmas, and Happy Running!

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Where to go from here…

You will be lucky today as I’ll get two posts out on the same day.  Actually, since I’ve already posted a short update on my tech blog, I think I might be setting some kind of record on productivity.  In any case, I wanted to jot down some of the important things from the past week and I also wanted to do a review on Premier Protein’s shakes and snack bars.  I didn’t think the two would go together, so I’ll just write up two for the day.

I’ve been getting busy this week on the job search front.  I have a good friend that is helping me with that process.  He and I talked this past Saturday and now I have a good bit of resources on what to do next.  I’ve spent the week going through a process guide he gave me and it has helped.  I’m trying to get my resume done up correctly.  You wouldn’t think it would be that hard, but I happen to be trying to switch careers.  I’ve done a lot of IT work over the last four years, and a lot of similar type of work in the years before that.  I’d really like to keep it going.  I have some disadvantages in that I don’t have all the little alphabet soup certifications after my name.  I just happen to know how to do the work.  I’m kind of weird in that respect that actual experience and merit count for more than just tests, exams, and paper.  Not that I haven’t done those either.

However, today, I thought I’d spend a little time just doing things I like.  I have a web site of my own that I run and it needs some work.  It’s kind of the “cobblers children never have any shoes” syndrome.  If you sit on a PC all day doing coding and IT work, you don’t often wish to do it when you get home.  Therefore, my little site is kind of drab and needs some sprucing up.  It doesn’t do much and unless you’re a serious geek it may not mean much.  However, if you just want to see what happens, look at it every now and then and you’ll see it start changing as I work on it.  You can find it here, it’s called the T.A.R.D.I.S. Server Project II; mostly just an information type page.

Running has gone well this week.  My foot’s tendonitis is still acting up a little, but I’m trying to take good care of it.  It hasn’t cost me any days yet.  I have almost finished my second week of marathon training and I guess this week is the week of forgetfulness and loss.  Twice this week, I’ve forgotten to plug in the garmin and had to use my smartphone’s abilities instead.  One of those was my tempo day, so no HR controls.  And, my SmartCoach plan on Runnersworld.com got messed up again.  I got it back, but it’s off a little so I am adjusting as I go.  I’ll run my 12-miler on Saturday and that will finish out a good week of running.

Next week will be triathlon week.  Yeah!  I only go round to setting up and planning for just one triathlon this year, so it’s kind of a big deal for me.  It’s the same sprint tri I did last  year in September.  This will make my second tri and I’m hoping to see improvement over last year (which wasn’t bad at all BTW).  I will once again take the Fuji out for the bike portion (do not fix what ain’t broke).  I’m also making some last minute decisions on how to handle some other issues with transition.

The transition area at the Rose City Tri is very sandy, so I’m concerned about my bike shoes.  I wear Speedplay pedals and I know I won’t have time to put on or take off the covers in the bike out area.  I also haven’t learned how to lean over and do my shoes up on the bike (I don’t balance well).  The reason it’s of a concern is that the cleats on the Speedplays are big open holes that can easily clog up.  We’ll have to wait and see on that point.

I am also taking a hat with a bill this year for the run.  Last year, I just turned my cycling hat around and wore it on the run.  But, the run portion has a lot of east-west running and it’s right in the face of the sun.  I’m not a fan of that on or off the bike, so a hat will be a help.  It doesn’t take long to put on in transition.  Finally, swimming should be better since I can do the whole distance with freestyle strokes now.

I started with “where to go from here”, but I think I have a good idea where that will be, or at least I have an inkling.  I will say, as I did earlier on Twitter, that it feels very odd not going to work every day.  Yes, it’s only the first week.  However, in thirty years or so of work, I’ve not had very long between jobs.  It feels as if I’m breaking some kind of rule.  As if there is some rule encoded in the Universe that says we are supposed to be at work every weekday.  There is one like that isn’t there?

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My New Triathlon Tool: Strength Training

Back this January, I injured myself while swimming.  Yes, while swimming.  The injury put a real cramp on my training; no running, no swimming, no cycling for a few weeks.  I didn’t want to stop training altogether and looked for something that wouldn’t aggravate my injury while it healed.  I found I use our city’s senior fitness center’s machines and work on strength training.

In my distant past, I had tried weightlifting on a couple of occasions.  It seemed boring and I didn’t have a way of measuring the effectiveness.  I tried and then quit.  I figured I could use strength training as a filler for not getting to swim, bike, or run and then dump it when I could go back to my previous workouts.

I don’t use a complicated workout.  Our fitness center has four machines that work on different upper body areas and another four that target legs.  I start with one of the machines for upper body and then switch off to one that works legs; back and forth until all are done.  I only do 10 reps (repetitions) of three weight levels.  The top weight level is just about at exhaustion for that machine.  It’s hard to lift all 10 reps of the highest level.  I only move up in weight when I can lift 10 reps on the highest weight with facility (not when it’s easy).

I kept that up for a month or so while I healed up.  Because my injury was a little complicated, it took a little longer and I’ve had to slowly work back into full workouts.  So, I kept doing the strength training twice weekly.  Then, I started to notice something.

I noticed that my running paces were starting to get quicker.  I noticed that I could run my longer distances a bit easier.  I also noticed that my swim speeds were getting better and my strokes were more true to form.  My swimming was getting easier.  Apart from the fact that I liked the improvement, I wanted to know what was going on.

It was actually my sweetie that noticed the connection.  It was the strength training.  Because I had kept my strength training up, I had increased my weight levels three times over a few months.  As I increased the lifting, my upper body and legs were better able to help me swim, bike, and run.

I have read a good many articles touting the good results of strength training.  Guess what? They’re right.  It does actually work.  With only a half hour of strength training twice weekly, I have improved my running pace by two full minutes per mile on a good day (11 min/mile down from 13′s).  My swims are still getting easier to do and more close to form.  I am currently working on getting a total of 600 meters with only freestyle.  I usually only was able to do that distance with half freestyle and half breaststroke.  I am almost there.

Therefore, my injury and the subsequent downtime did me a lot of good in my training.  Not that I would wish any injury on anyone.  It just took the injury for me to look for something different in my training and to focus on quality instead of just quantity.  While I’ve still got a ways to go to get back to my original distances, I know now that when I get there, I’ll be doing them faster and better than before.  Don’t leave out the strength training if you can help it.  Happy tri-ing.

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Going forward…

It’s been busy round here.  And, dealing with an injury that comes and goes makes things more fun.  My work has been busy.  It’s actually moving.  No. Really.  My job is moving its location.  I work for a church and we are moving soon.  Lots of things to do.

Yes, it’s true.  I do something besides just run, ride, and swim.  I have a life.  I have a family.  I even have grandkids.  Folks like us aren’t odd or different.  We are people just like everyone else.  Except, for some odd reason, we like to do things that “normal” people don’t even think of doing.  Or at least, it seems that way some times.

With all the things I do regularly, it often takes extra effort to stay motivated, stay patient and work out when I’m supposed to. Now, I have an injury that I’m not 100% where it came from and it doesn’t seem to match up exactly with anything known.  So, I’m working on figuring out how to manage both.  Or all three.

It seems that the one thing that doesn’t affect my foot is running.  I haven’t done any speedwork lately, but some of my runs have been at 11 minute/mile pace.  Even those don’t seem to be a problem.  I am slowly building miles and will add a 4-miler this week.  If I have had struggles in running, it has been things other than my foot.

Last week, I had one morning on the trainer that set my foot pain off.  But, now I recognize the onset and get my foot in some ice and wait for a while and the pain goes down.  I thought maybe that was the trigger, but I’ve been out on a bike and not have any pain.  Go figure.

I’m still only swimming a little, just 16 minutes at at time.  I’m doing roughly 300 meters at at time and most of that is breast stroke.  I’ll add some more freestyle this week and see if I get any changes.

My most recent bout of pain with the foot happened just like the one that sent me to the ER.  Sitting in my chair and move my foot just so (whatever that is) and there it goes.  The knot swells up on the top, near the ankle.  The pain is horrible.  I can’t put weight on the foot at all, but just get it in some ice, give it some time, and I’m fine again.

Yes, of course–I should see a doc.  And, I probably will eventually.  However, even that seems like a hit-n-miss situation.  I’ve had two docs look at is so far and several x-rays.  Nobody seems to know anything.  Since it appears and disappears, I need to be able to see the doc when it appears.  Not that I want to make that happen.  For now, if I manage the pressure on the foot, it seems to keep it at bay.

I’m going to build things slowly and continue to manage the pain when it appears.  Maybe, if I keep watch on it, I’ll find the actual trigger.  Then, I’ll have something for a doc to check.

So, for now, I’ll be patient and I’ll be thankful to God that I still get to work out.  I’ll stay busy with my family and my work and just watch out for the foot until I can put things together so that a doc can do something worthwhile.  You have to help them out, you know.  Happy swim, bike, and run!

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The Three Stooges…

I used to love watching the Three Stooges, until I became one.

So, here we are in the fifth week of injury repair.  I was doing well.  Hadn’t had any “zingers” from turning the ankle the wrong way in several days.  I was walking good.  I could spend 20 minutes on the trainer without problem.  I had only gained two pounds.  If I remained patient and calm, things would be just peachy.

Then there was Wednesday.

Once a month, we set up for a men’s night at my church.  That was this Wednesday.  We start early in the afternoon because it’s a pretty big deal.  There are several scaffolds to set up, TV’s to install on those scaffolds, and lots of things to prepare for.  We were starting with scaffold assembly.

We had one put together and we checked it well, but not well enough.  When I turned my back, the preacher had gotten on the platform and it fell through.  One of the sides was not locked in well enough.  He landed well and only seemed to have a bummed shoulder.  We kept working.

Then, one of the other men working with us put one of the scaffold extensions on and it came down and pinched his arms.  He had two neat cuts where they were pinched.  Two accidents in five minutes.  Not looking good at this point and it should have told me something.  Got him patched up and we continued.

I set the brakes on another scaffold and climbed up and around to put the top together.  Apparently, though I did this the previous month, I did something wrong.  It overbalanced and started to fall.  I went down with it and landed hard and then hit my head on the wall.  Good grief.  Three accidents in less than ten minutes.  I got up and tried to hobble it off.

But, a nice bump appeared on my head where I had hit it.  Not good.  I didn’t want to be one of those that hits their head and then passes out 12 hours later, so I sucked it up and called my sweetie.  It was time to visit the ER.  Of course my daughter already had seen the accident because she works in the office with us.  This just wasn’t going well.

The ER visit turned out alright.  They seemed more worried about my foot than my head.  The head didn’t actually hurt any more, but my heel was very sore.  I couldn’t put weight down solid on that foot.  Which foot was it do you guess?

Yup, it was the one I had already injured.  So, now, instead of being half way through with healing from one injury, I had to start on a second; on the same foot!

I did OK that evening and got up the next morning.  Walking was certainly out, but I thought I would try to ride.  Fortunately, that worked.  Apart from getting the shoe over my bruised heel (Ouch), I could ride fine.  Didn’t need hell pressure to ride.  I did my twenty minutes and got ready for work.  Oh yes, and I drove to work instead of walking.

So, I don’t know what was up in our gym this week, but we are certainly going to have to work diligently next month on finding safer ways of putting things together.  And, maybe I might be near ready to run by then, I hope.  Happy running!

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Running injury, week 2

Yep, the big man is injured.  Really injured.  I am in my second week of not running.  I am not sure which it is, but I either have some torn ligaments in my foot, or possibly a stress fracture.  In either case, it is 6 to 8 weeks of not running.

I went the first week without doing anything.  I tried spinning on Friday, but that hurt after a while as well. I can walk fine.  I just can’t extend my foot or bend it backward much.  Any real side to side stress also hurts.  And, no I didn’t go to the doc.  I wasn’t bleeding profusely (well, not on the surface anyway), so I looked up the possibilities and their usual treatments.  It doesn’t matter which injury, both torn ligaments and stress fractures are treated most often with R.I.C.E.  That’s rest, ice, compression, and elevation.  I’m hitting well on three out of the four.

Of course, most of the literature says that any non-stress activities should be just fine; like swimming or cycling.  That’s not happening here. The injury occurred while swimming, so the movement of swimming creates the same motions as the injury and so does spinning.  Strike three!

Finally, this week, I figured at least I could do strength training on just the upper body and core.  Sweetie and I dropped in on the Senior Center to sign me up for a month of the fitness room.  I also thought maybe I could just do arms-only drills in the pool.  Those are where you hold a floatie or kick board between your legs and use just your arms to pull.  I might still get in some workouts anyway while I heal.

First night, this past Tuesday, Sweetie and I go to the fitness center.  She does her workouts on the dreadmill and the recumbent cycle while I move about the room and use my old weights routine from loooong ago.  Everything is going just fine.  I spy the elliptical and check it out.  It works!  The movements aren’t causing pain and the pedals keep my feet flat.  I make five minutes and stop just to not overdo it.  Then it’s off to the pool.

I forgot a bandana to tie my legs together, so I had to wrap my good foot around the injured ankle to hold the floating barbell.  It was working.  I could do a lap at a time then stop like when I first started.  At least it was swimming.  I made it 15 minutes and could start to feel the pain again. Uh-oh.

Yep, the pain was back.  OK, either I overdid it or the movements are still causing the pain.  That’s not good.  It hurt that night when I slept, but by morning things were getting back to normal.  I could still walk and the bruise on my foot was dissipating.  Today is Thursday and I’m fine again.

Ok, so just walking and upper body.  That’s all I can do for now.  Tonight is Thursday and Sweetie and I will go back to the fitness center again.  At least, I have a workout I can do.  I’ll just have to learn patience again.  But, you know I’m not good at that.

Cowtown half-marathon is out for me now.  Even if I could run by then, I wouldn’t be ready.  I’m just going to have to work on being cool until the time is up and then build back up again.  But, those are the breaks (maybe I don’t like that word so much now).  At least, I’m getting to sleep later since I can’t get up so early to run.  That’s pretty nice.  Happy running!

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More on gentle pickups and weird injury…

This past Monday, I decided to restart my speedwork again as it groweth closer to Cowtown time again.  None of my speed workouts for my marathon training were pickups, so I had not done any for several months.  I thought it would be a good time to run some (not so) gentle pickups again.  And, as usual, I would run mine with my trusty Garmin and heart rate monitor.

Now, if you’ve read my original post on doing pickups by heart rate, you know that I set a heart rate alarm on the Garmin that is slightly under my max heart rate.  My max heart rate had been running about 180-182.  When I first started running with the Garmin, I calculated my max HR (220 – 50; my age) at 170, but I measured my heart rate going to 180 when running flat out.  For a couple years, I’ve been using an alarm setting of 172.  When my HR gets to 172, I hear the beeps and run out the pickup for as long as I can hold, then slow down.

As long as I have run, that formula has worked just fine.  Until last Monday when I took off on my first pickup and kept going and going and going.  No beeps.  No alarms.  I look down and the Garmin says, “162.”  Ok, so slow down, jog a while and try it again.  My HR drops back to 130 and I start off again.  Maybe I didn’t run the pickup out fast enough?  You’re only supposed to reach about 80% of top speed.  Maybe I am just out of practice.  So, I’ll make this one faster.

I’m waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the beep.  None comes.  I’m going all out now and I look down, “164.”  What’s wrong?  Why won’t my HR go up?  I run the rest of my pickups by feel and just monitor the heart rate.  It never exceeded 167, and that was on the last one.  What has happened?  I know I’m fit.  Has something change?

Of course it has.  I’ve dropped 30 pounds!  And, I’m slightly older now.  OK, so my age only drops the max HR by 2 bpm, but when you go in with the idea that I’m now back to my calculated HR (220 – age), which is now 168, almost 167, you see the difference.  My extra weight artificially raised my max HR because of the extra stress.  Now, I need to figure out a new HR limit for pickups and try it again.

Of course, now, I’m not sure when that will be.  Tuesday evening I went for my regular swim.  Every time I tried to fully kick in the freestyle stroke, my left foot hurt.  I eased up on my kicking and could keep the pain under slight control, but at least once every lap, one strong kick would make me wince.

Just when I crossed 800 yds., it got worse.  Now it was throbbing and moving up the leg.  I stopped and made it back to the shallow end to see what was going on.  I could feel a large knot on top of my foot near the ankle.  It wasn’t hard and after a while, the know moved when pressing on it.  The pain was increasing.  My friend stopped to see how it was and I told him I was done for the night.

I hobbled home and put some ice on it.  I took some ibuprofen and wrapped it for the night.  It remained quite painful all night, but when I got up, the pain when down, the swelling went down, and I could walk.  I went two days at work with no real problems at all.  No problem walking.  I jogged a little coming home and didn’t feel anything either.  However, I got up this morning and could see a small bruise down near my toes.  That was odd.  I didn’t have any pain down there.

I thought I’d try spinning and see if that would be a problem.  For 52 minutes, it wasn’t.  Then it started again.  I got off and checked.  Sure enough, the swelling was back and the bruise had gotten larger.  Well, that bites.

Now, I am going to have to stick to my plan to do no workouts until Monday at least.  I can’t find any medical conditions exactly like it on the Internet.  The only one that is close sounds really bad.  I don’t think I’ve ripped a ligament or tendon.  That pain would remain…I think.

Well it happens.  You can’t get everything right.  I’ve gone a considerable length of time without an injury.  I guess you might say I’m overdue.  It’s just not a good time with a race coming up.  I’m going to be patient and wait until Monday.  Then, I’ll have to reassess whether this needs a doc or not.  I sure hope not.  They tend to go overboard when there is an injury.  And, my experience with a lot of docs is they aren’t all great diagnosticians.  But, we’ll just have to see.  Be careful and have fun running.

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Thanksgiving cometh…and so does a marathon.

Tomorrow will be Thanksgiving for those of us in the good ‘ol US of A.  We will celebrate our nations humble beginnings, our connection to our families, our thanks to our God, and some among us will also deign to worship at the altar of football.  So it is appropriate on this occasion to note what I am thankful for in this past year.  However, before I get to all that, it is important to note that it was somehow comical to someone to place a marathon at just such a date as to cause its runners difficulty.  Why?  Because we must go through taper at Thanksgiving.

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First time for everything…

This past July 4th weekend has had its ups and downs.  Down: it was ridiculously hot.  Up: I had a good 50+ mile ride on Saturday.  Down: I also broke a spoke on Saturday.  Up: I didn’t have to work on Monday and got in a short ride also.  See where I am going.

Saturday’s ride went really well for about 50 miles.  At least, that’s what I reckon since I forgot to turn on my garmin until I was several miles away from home.  They really need an auto-start feature for these things.  I am finally getting in some really long rides around town, though I am having to go to the county’s limits to do so.  In fact, I am leaving Dallas county for at least a portion as I enter the Fort Worth part of the airport area.  But, it is working.  I even managed to find a decent way around the safety problem with highway 161 not having any service road part of the way.

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First “Official” Ride…

Yes, I did not go swimming last night.  I have struggled for two days to solve a software problem at my job and it was getting to me.  I hate to be beaten by bits ‘n’ bytes, so I stayed in last evening and worked on the problem.  I would rather have been swimming, but I got my problem solved.  After working all evening, I am now at square one and ready to commence.  Just wonderful after two days of work.

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