No Pain!

Two months to the day of Ironman Arizona, I enjoyed my first truly pain-free run. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah!

This wasn't any run either.  For those of you who live near Sherman Oaks, I climbed Woodcliff St. all the way to Mulholland Drive.  And ran back down, a beating on the quads.

Did I mention it was pain-free?

The best part? I re-discovered a near eight-minute mile, clocking an 8:20 with my new running form and what felt like minimal effort. Glutes were firing.  Legs were kicking. Forefoot was striking.

Hallelujah!

Here's my Garmin run data below.  I know it's not that impressive from a distance or speed perspective, but the progress alone was the best Friday gift I could get.

To top it off, I made it out of work early enough to attend the Black Dog Yoga deep stretch class tonight.  This opened my hips up wide, along with my smile as many of my Fortius teammates joined in the fun.  Some of whom I haven't seen in weeks.

Now I'm going to take Steph out to dinner.

In short, this weekend is starting off just right.

151 days and counting.

Graston (Torture) Technique

See these instruments? Do they kind of remind you of these instruments?

Yeah, me too.  That's what I thought this morning before work when I first saw Dr. Ben pull a device out that resembled a butter knife and told me, "this is going to hurt a little bit."

At least in surgery you get an anesthetic.

The device Dr. Ben used is called a Graston tool, one of six that encompass the Graston Technique, which helps alleviate adhesion in soft tissue muscle.  From what Dr. Ben explained, an adhesion occurs when soft tissue or fascia crosses over onto itself or becomes knotty.  It should be smooth and run parallel to muscle.

One of the by-products of the Graston Technique is bruising of the affected area on your body.  It's done on purpose to help restore blood flow and dissolve bad tissue.  Dr. Ben told me to expect a fairly heavy amount of bruising over the next two days.  I'm starting to bruise tonight, 10 hours later.  Let's see what happens when I wake up.

The pain is manageable.  It feels like a sharper version of a rolling pin moving across your affected area, though the Graston tool generates a hot sensation on your skin from the friction (though gel is applied first).  If you've had a lot of massage work done, the pain is similar to a deep tissue massage.  On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being screaming in pain from a brutal massage, my first Graston session was a 6.  Not comfortable, not pleasant, but I've faced much worse.

The reward?  A lunge stretch with Dr. Ben immediately following the treatment and feeling no pain in my hip area at all.

Was that because of numbness?  Maybe.  Did I care?  Not at all.

In fact, I rewarded myself with breakfast across the street.   It's not unlike being a little kid when after scraping myself I'd beg for chocolate ice cream as a "reward" for my bravery having alcohol rubbed on the wound.

I'll post pictures of my bruise tomorrow if it gets nasty.

And now, bed time.

152 days and counting.

Hips and a New Workout Regimen

Before jumping into what amounted to a fairly important two days in my training and tri-writing career, I wanted to share my second "Mind Games" column for Lava Magazine online.  I'm pretty proud of this one, and hope it somehow helps you in your training if you've ever gone through or are going through some tough times right now. If you haven't already, check it out and let me know what ya think or if you've found other methods have helped you overcome disappointment. OK, now to our regularly scheduled blog post.  Apologies for not writing last night -- Steph and I had a wedding-related class and got home late.

So here below is an unedited IM chat my physical trainer, Shannan, shared with me that she had with a grad school professor of hers.  He’s a Ph.D. in biomechanics and doctor of physical therapy.  This conversation occurred after I described to Shannan my ART therapist's analysis of my hip area problems, which were initially diagnosed as psoas-related, then we moved to the hip flexor, and now we've been looking at the gluteus medius.  This of course relates to all the post IM Arizona problems I've been having.

Shannan thought the problem may be something else.  And she's been right about me before.  Shannan's the one who attributed my early IT band troubles in my running career to flat feet and advised I get fitted with orthotics.  I did, and my IT band problems went away. So, Shannan has accurately predicted things in the past.

Here's the IM chat:

Shannan: Hey- I have a case study for you, 90% sure it’s  trochanteric bursitis or G. medius tendonitis; abnormal hip pathology is primary symptom.

Male; mid-30’s; fine-boned; ironman finisher; significant pronator (wears bilateral orthotics); confirmed leg-length discrepancy; palpable abnormality at the greater trochanter.  His ART guy thinks it’s an overactive G.med but unless he strained it there’s no way…I can visually see a mass and I can feel the difference.

Doctor: History of back injury? Lower back problems, glute insufficiencies?  What are his running habits (trail, road, treadmill)?

Shannan: He has spondy, little scoliosis, glutes are pretty insufficient but no L4-S1 acute injuries that I know about; in other words nothing that would prevent building them up.  He does a lot of trail running…

Doctor: I would do a Trendelenburg test to check out his abductor reflexes.

Shannan: Yeah, I’m thinking it’s an abductor weakness (not overworked as the ART therapist suggested), but I stopped the abductor exercises because I don’t want to provoke the inflammation??

Doctor: Right, usually an ultrasound is needed to determine exact etiology; however, bursitis will not cause pain upon resisted abduction, but G. medius will hurt like a mo fo (well, mo fo point tenderness pain).  Keep off the abductor exercises until pain goes away a bit, but you’re correct in diagnosing the abd weakness.  Build up his glutes, too.

Shannan: What about stretching?  Deep tiss massage?

Doctor: Massage is good to deliver blood flow; stretch all he wants, but it’s not going to help if it’s articular.  I suggest he gets those orthotics checked; at the rate he trains he may need a new set every 6 months.  Also, until the condition improves I do not recommend trail running because the uneven surface does not help- both conditions are caused by some type of asymmetry, and trail running is contradictory.  I understand the training demands, but he should run on flat surfaces.  ART is fine, never hurts.  What’s his size?

Shannan: He’s 5’7” and probably around 137-140 this week.  Fine-boned

Doctor: He’ll have a double hip replacement at this rate…

Aside from being mildly annoyed with being called "fine-boned" (what am I, a herring?), the last sentence obviously got my attention.  It's what occupied a good portion of discussion today in my personal training session with Shannan.  Fortunately, she doesn't think I'm on track for such a dreadful fate.  It was the doctor being off-the-cuff and dramatic, in her words.

Instead, after doing some mobility drills and balance tests where I stood on one-leg and resisted pressure using my legs to push outward, Shannan thinks the problem is tendinitis or bursitis in the hip joint that connects the femur.  That would explain the puffiness as it's likely fluid build-up.  The solution, in her opinion, is getting an ultrasound at my MD office and then a shot to reduce the inflammation.

That sounds a LOT better than replacing two bad hips!

To combat the problem, Shannan produced the following workout regimen.  I'll be doing this twice a week for the next few weeks and will let you know how it goes.

153 days and counting.

PS: I have contacted Newton about reviewing a pair of shoes for the blog based on your passionate feedback about how much good they've done some of you. So far, Newton has been amazingly responsive and open.  I'm embarking upon this experiment against the wishes of my coach and ART therapist.  But that's where the potential lies for a great story.  I'm thinking of it as the Newton Challenge.  If they're good for me, they're good for anyone.  Newton's up for the challenge and I'm up for the risk.  I'll use the shoes exactly as intended in the ramp-up period and share what I find at the end.  I'll drop a few snippets here on the blog to give you an idea on how it's going.

Monday Blah

Short post tonight.  We've got company over and now Steph and her girlfriend are watching The Bachelor.  I have a few minutes to jot down some thoughts. Remember the other day when I said I enjoyed biting off more than I can chew?

That caught up with me today.

Long day of work.  Long hour of isolated leg training exercises on the stationary bike, and a lifting session at lunch.

Monday feels like Friday.  And to top matters off, I've got a meeting set up with Coach Gerardo  (at his suggestion) where we're going to revisit my training goals and workout priorities.  Apparently my last few blog posts have set off an alarm. I guess I understand why.  I know I'm overcompensating for my long recovery period by trying to get back into shape that much faster.  But I know it doesn't work that way.  Still, like always, I want it all now even though I know patience rules the day.

Sometimes we're our own worst enemies.  Heck, maybe not just sometimes, but perhaps more often than not.  Lately, maybe I've been just that.  I know I'm my own worst critic, that's for sure.

I've got a 6 a.m. swim tomorrow followed by a trail run.  Not much time to dwell on anything but putting today behind me and moving on to the next.

155 days and counting.

Biting Off More Than I Can Chew

So here's my first pass at a video blog.  Please excuse the loud gusts of wind, I'm not sure exactly what to do about that outside of telling The Man Upstairs to keep things quiet when I'm trying to record! I tried capture the emotion of the bike ride while it was happening, instead of writing about it after the fact.  I think I failed miserably but the bright side is I will get better.  Hope you enjoy it, if you can get through watching it!  The scenery is gorgeous, when I'm not screwing it up.

Today's training made me realize just how much more I bit off than I could chew this weekend.  I ran nearly eight miles and climbed about 900 feet in around 1:25:00 today in 75-degree weather.  The good news is that my knees felt fine the entire run, and I was able to remain (mostly) on my forefoot in my strides.  I think the key to forefoot striking that has really helped me is not the avoidance of heel striking, but rather placing more of an emphasis on the forefoot than usual.  This is allowing me to find an acceptable middle ground (no pun intended) while running instead of potentially shredding my knees and Achilles.

Yet, by the time the run was over, I was totally exhausted.  My run called for activity between zones 1-4 on the heart-rate monitor.  I took that to mean I could run for extended periods in zone 4 while climbing.  Having the UCLA men's and women's cross country team out on the course with me didn't help me keep my pace in check, nor did the Spanish female marathoner who ran a 2:09 at Big Sur.  Are you kidding me???  Well, I kept up with her on a few uphill climbs, but she revealed at the top that she had turned her ankle and was taking it easy.

Ouch.

Following the run, my day wasn't close to over.  I had promised Stephanie that we'd spend more time this year exercising together, which manifested itself in our first tennis outing in more than a year.  Surprisingly, it went well for both of us!  We had a few rallies, nobody pulled anything, and all tennis balls stayed on the court.  Win!

Then, following lunch together and a nap (in the middle of the Jets-Patriots game!) I tried to fit in yesterday's swim that I flaked on yesterday.

This time, instead of sitting in the parking lot I actually made it into the water.  What a mistake.  I was terrible! I felt like a boulder in the water, and couldn't even complete the full workout (10 minutes easy laps, 5x150 drills and 4x300 moderate pace).  After my second 300, I saw my scheduled workout time had come and gone and decided enough was enough.

So far, that's a big difference between this year and last year's training.  When I'm done, I'm done.  I'm not forcing things perhaps the way I did last year.

Except when I overdo it for hours on end beforehand.

Still, whether it's a video blog that didn't quite turn out as planned, a bike ride gone slightly awry, a run that got derailed by my own competitiveness, or a swim that didn't meet expectations due to exhaustion, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Isn't it great to overextend every once in a while?  To push beyond our comfort zones?  To try and fail?  It's weird, but I think there's pleasure in that. Stagnation is boring.  Following the plan all the time gets stale.

I hope you've been able to bite off more than you can chew a little bit too.

156 days and counting.

Coming Soon...

My first video blog coming soon!  But my editing skills are meager so this may turn out to be a weekend project. My other weekend project is trying to embed Garmin workouts to my blog.  No luck so far.  It's not as simple as cut and paste the embed code into the copy, or if it is, I'm still doing something wrong.  Help?

Anyway, the vlog will be an as-I-go synopsis of the ride.  Should be fun.  All I can say about today's ride is that it was a fantastic place to start this vlogging thing.  I was so exhausted at the end of the trip that I tried to go swim and stayed in the pool parking lot for five minutes debating whether to go inside.  But the views were spectacular, the by-product of killer winds blasting through the canyons, tossing Frank and me around like empty bottles adrift at sea.

I went home and napped for an hour and a half instead.  That fulfilled a minor promise to myself this year, when my body says enough is enough, I'll listen.

Now I just need to do a better job following my prescribed workouts!

157 days and counting.

Flipping Through Memories

Perhaps you've noticed, but my friend and web developer Ward has been adding features to the blog site.  Popular posts,  recommended stories, "Like" on Facebook, and more is on the way. Soon, you'll see my 2010 race results and a 2011 race calendar (it's a small calendar this year!).  Before I could send everything off to Ward at Drawbackwards, I had to search for all my race results last year, along with  my race reports from each race.  I was reminded how great it is to have a blog, where I can just reach back into the vault and relive memories from races that seem to come and go so quickly.  The race ends, but the words live on.  And the emotions come rushing back.

I know some of you have mentioned that you're either just starting to blog now or are about to begin.  I think the archive of blog posts about your training and racing becomes the real trophies, the truest symbols of accomplishment.  The hardware gets put away in a closet, or maybe hung on a wall.  But lots of people get hardware.  Your story is your own.  What better gift to give yourself?

If you haven't done so lately, go back and check out an old race report.  See where you're at today versus then.  How have you evolved as a triathlete?

158 days and counting.

Pain in the Butt

So tired tonight.  The week has caught up with me.  Poor sleep the last couple nights has caught up with me.  Perhaps not eating enough has caught up with me.  The result was a slower than usual swim session tonight with the Fortius team.  I think I just bonked, but it's also hard to go faster in the water when you're trying to constantly implement all the feedback from each drill.  Flutter kick to avoid crazy legs.  Make sure you're making a bow like an archer on your upstroke.  Keep your arm out wide enough so as not to cross over your body on the downstroke.  But not too wide!  Relax!  Your shoulders are tense. Just listening sometimes is exhausting!

Is it possible for words to physically weigh you down in the water, like a rusty anchor?

The one buoyant bit of news today came from my ART guru, Dr. Ben Kleinbrodt. We're getting close to isolating my leg problems.  It seems my right gluteus medius (not quite your butt, but the side part of your butt connecting hip to butt) is puffy and swollen.  It's easy to see when I'm wearing tight shorts.  (Not sure it's appropriate to share a photo, it's not that kind of website haha!)  Dr. Ben thinks it's because I lean to the left, and my skeletal structure forces extra pressure on the right side of the body.  This hip/butt pressure tightens my psoas, which tightens my hip flexor, which in turn can tighten the IT band.

It's kind of a big deal.  Dr. Ben told me to focus on foam rolling my right hip/butt area for at least five minutes a night.  He also told me to increase my running mileage a bit, that my body is responding well to the treatments and exercises.

I'll have plenty of time tomorrow to stretch.  I missed a cycling workout on the trainer today to accommodate my ART session.  And since I'm a bit overtired from the week, there's no making that session up.  I can't stand missing training sessions.

Ah well. In reading this post I sound a little cranky and whiny. Let's call it a night.

Hope everyone's training out there is going well.  Hang in there!  There are days like this that dot all of our training cycles.  It's just part of the journey.  Part of the process.

159 days and counting.

Frustratingly Slow

By trying to run more efficiently lately, I've been putting my body at greater risk. I ran nearly six miles this morning at Griffith Park with my buddy John and Coach Gerardo.  I received some valuable instruction on my forefoot striking experiment, mainly that I've been trying too hard to avoid heel contact on the strike.  This can cause extra strain in the Achilles and knees, as well as the foot itself.  Good thing Gerardo joined me.

I also need to work on kicking my heels up higher, which will activate my hamstring muscles more.  Currently, I'm shuffling too much, which I had no idea I was doing.  Of course, it's hard to run behind yourself and see these things.  One more reason that having a coach makes a lot of sense.

This was John's first time running with Gerardo, and in his words, he had a mental record button just listening to the two of us talk about training, diet, and technique.  It felt good knowing that we were helping John improve even if it was coming at the expense of my trying to break bad habits.  Bad habits I hope John doesn't have to experience for himself.

One downside that I noticed to running with my friends today was that I ran a little harder than what my workout called for.  I was supposed to stay in zone 2 heart rate but was usually in the low zone 3 range.  What's worse though is that now my zone 3, with my new running style, means I'm running 9:30-minute miles.  That's terrible for me!  Last year I was running 8:00-8:15-minute miles regularly en route to my 1:45 Surf City Half Marathon.

I never expected proper form and technique would actually make me slower.  Part of me just wants to go back to running the way I used to.  But I know I need to be thinking of the long-term here, so I'll keep leaning forward at the ankles and pushing ahead. Slowly.

160 days and counting.

Avoiding the Lizard Brain

I don't want to write about triathlon training tonight.  I hope you'll indulge me for a moment, especially if you find yourself strapped to a desk during the workday. I've had a big plan to write at work.  I've been putting it off for the past week, often letting the excuse of  how busy it is in the office derail my best intentions.  After all, I felt needed with all the distractions -- whether they were in the form of people visiting my desk, email, phone, etc.

But the bottom line was that the important work wasn't getting done. One of my favorite bloggers, Seth Godin, refers to this as giving into the Lizard Brain.  This is the part of the brain that is purely emotional and often recoils in the face of danger or anything remotely uncomfortable.  I knew that I had more control over my schedule, but that I was giving into my own Lizard Brain by thinking all the distractions were diminishing my productivity.

So, I tried something new.  It may sound shocking, so brace yourselves...

I TURNED OFF EMAIL.

<GASP!!!>

Yeah, I know.  What a concept!  I'm not gonna lie, I had withdrawals.  I felt like I was missing out on fresh information, that maybe I was falling behind the loop of being "in the know."

That lasted around 30 minutes.  Then, I practically forgot about email.  And while I did check periodically throughout the day, turning off my email enabled me to enjoy one of my most productive days at work in several months. I researched, developed and produced my plan.  Finally.  And I even responded to the most important emails of the day after that, not to mention picking up the phone to call people to cut down on email traffic.  What a concept!

Let's turn this back to triathlon for a moment.  What is your Lizard Brain preventing you from confronting?  What should you be working on in your training that you're avoiding?  How can you reduce your distractions to focus on what's important?  What can you do to control your situation more effectively?

Don't give into the Lizard Brain.  It's slowing you down.

161 days and counting.