A sh*tty run

As I did last Friday I went to the gym after work yesterday (Friday) with plans to run. I think we were on 8 consecutive days of rain come yesterday. It was raining pretty hard in the early afternoon but stopped by 5:30 when I stepped out of the gym ready to run. I turned on my Garmin watch and stretched while I waited for the GPS to pick up my position. Following that I headed down the parking lot to 148th ave and then North for maybe half a mile until I reached a dirt (mud now) trail that went due West for about a mile. It's mostly flat and muddy which makes it very slippery to run on. The trail has a couple of short very steep climbs and drops. Nothing that you'd have to walk but enough that my pace really slowed as I was working my calves pretty hard to grunt up it or bouncing side to side on the edges of the muddy trail on the way down so that I didn't slide down it on my butt.

Eventually after about a mile and half I hit the NE corner of Bridle Trails State Park. I finally found a trail map online of the basic layout of the area and where the major trails went. My plan was to run around the entire perimeter of the park depending on how well I'd memorized the shape of the park from the map. With all of the rain lately the trails were a bit slow (Did I mention that it was muddy?) and on top of the frequent mud puddles there were frequently piles of horse crap. It's funny that people give you a hard time if you don't pick up after your dog but no horse owner would ever think of picking up after their 2000lb animal and the giant piles that it creates right in the middle of the trails. The downside of the mud and crap was that I had to zig-zag across the trail frequently to avoid the mud that was deep enough to pull my shoe off as well as the horse flop.

I had the place to myself it seemed. I only saw one other person the whole time I was there, a young woman running the opposite direction. It was really nice to just jog around these deserted trails with my iPod in one ear and nothing but trees around me. No houses, no wind, no cars, no horses. I got a little lost coming around the southwest corner of the trail and a little mixed up when I hit the gravel path that bisects the park but was able to make it up as I went because of the orientation of the park. It's a rectangle with a few bits cut out of it and the edges point N/S and E/W. I always knew roughly where I was and what direction I needed to go. Eventually I got around to the South East side where I'd exited the park last week and this time continued North back to my starting point. This was by far the worse section when it came to the mud. The tree cover was the lightest here as well. There were plenty of sections of trail that were all mud and water and I did my best to run along the edges of the trail or slightly off-trail to avoid getting too muddy. Eventually I completed the loop which measured about 4.8mi. I then followed the same path back down the path to 148th ave and back to the Gym.

Oddly I ended up with 8.0 miles right as I stepped foot in the Gym parking lot. This isn't a true measure of the distance I ran though. I was stopping the watch when I'd stop for anything (stoplight, lost, traffic) and then I wouldn't start it up again until it registered a sub 10min pace for me. I do this because my pace/speed graphs get completely skewed otherwise with brief spikes for 1mph input points from the GPS watch. I probably had another 1/10th - 2/10ths of a mile that wasn't accounted for on the watch.

I did keep rough track of my splits for a change though:

Lap Dist Time AvgHR
---------------------------
1 1.00mi 8:03 138bpm
2 1.01mi 9:35 155bpm
3 1.00mi 9:09 149bpm
4 1.00mi 9:23 149bpm
5 1.07mi 10:09 151bpm (hit the lap button late)
6 0.93mi 8:32 150bpm
7 1.01mi 9:20 152bpm
8 0.99mi 8:31 150bpm

T 8.00mi 1:12:48 149bpm


I got back to the gym and had to go to the showers and wash off my legs before going to the weight room for the rest of my workout. Great place to run, I look forward to running there after a few days of Sun when I'm not struggling to find a path through the slop. Great way to burn 1200 calories.

Back in business...

but for how long?

I've been quiet for almost a year now. Here's why:

Knee pain forced me to stop running. I could barely run at all without pain. Here's what happened last summer:

I got Xrays of my left knee: nothing wrong.

I went to a Physical Therapist: It's because of your arches. Come do exercises at my office while I pay no attention to you and buy Orthotics from me. (no change)

I got an MRI of my knee: Torn meniscus.

Knee surgery last July: 25% of my right Meniscus (Left knee) removed. Vicodin sucks.

Knee pain and scar tissue continued until near the end of the year.

I started walking then running 1/4 of a mile at a time at 10min pace. Slow progress.

In January I was up to 1 mile on the treadmill at 9min pace a couple of times a week. I've gone up a bit from then and started doing some outdoor runs as well as treadmill runs. I'm still having pain in my Left knee where the bottom incision port is scarred internally but I can run pain-free every other day.

Friday I took a run through the Bridle Trails park near work. It's a beautiful forest with dirt (some muddy) paths zig-zagging and intersecting through it. There are a few signs but I had no idea where to go so I just headed in a general direction for a while and then turned and headed another direction. I was trying not to get too muddy and avoid hitting any trail-side plants with my healing tattoo on the side of my leg. Great run overall. I ended up exiting the trail and heading south for a bit longer than I wanted to and ran the long way around and back to the gym for a total of just over 7 miles in 1:02 most of it on the trails. I got to the gym and didn't feel winded really or sore for that matter. I'm surprised and happy about this.

My knee was sore on Saturday however. Today though was another story. I got out and ran 2.5 miles in light rain with my daughter in the jog stroller. My daughter didn't care much for the experience all bundled up in her fleece jacket and hat with a warm blanket. She dozed off a couple of times which would have been nice but the rain was starting to pick up when we were heading back home. Right after dropping her off at home it really started to just dump hail. I'm glad that I wasn't caught out in that with her. I waited about 5 minutes for the hail to calm down and then ran the One Store loop with my iPod in the varying rain. Again I tallied up just over 7 miles in just over an hour.

I have to say that I like the Garmin Forerunner GPS watch but the accuracy is crap. I download and view the data and there are spikes galore in my pace / speed graphs. I assume it just loses signal for a second, assumes that I haven't moved for 10 seconds, marks my pace as 1mph and then jumps right back in to sync. Awesome Garmin.

At least I'm running again.

short test run

Now that my wife is cleared to run again she asked me if I wanted to go out on a 3 mile run around the 'habba with her and the baby. My first thought was "no, what a stupid question, I'm injur....." I thought about it for a minute and figured "why not?" what am I going to do, have more knee pain? I didn't think that it would be too bad at my wife's pace either. She runs a 2min / 1min ratio of run/walk.

We loaded up the baby in the B.O.B. jog stroller with the rain cover and went on our way. The run went smoothly, the baby didn't cry and we both got pretty wet from the rain.

Here we are 3 hours later and my knee isn't much worse than it was before. If I notice much more pain it'll probably be in the morning. I was stretching before I took a shower and noticed that my knee caps aren't even close to level. My left kneecap (the painful one) is a good bit lower than the right. I'm betting that the orthotics take care of some of this when I'm wearing them. It lends some credibility to my cousin's (who's a physical therapist) theory that the knee pain relates to my PS/SI problems from a few years ago. I'm visiting her next weekend in CA so I'll have a chance to ask her about it in person and show her my kneecaps.

I need to get some new running shoes that are better suited for my orthotics as well. Maybe in a few weeks...

Therapy of the physical kind

I went to Physical Therapy twice last week. The office is in Bellevue so I've been taking morning appointments, working out there for an hour and then going to work afterward. So far it works out like this:

20 min. walking backwards on a treadmill at 2.5mph with a 12% incline.
hamstring stretching exercise
really hard hamstring stretching exercise
Hip extensor balance exercise
partial squats with a 25lb Kettle Bell
Pulse Ultrasound
Ice

Walking backwards on a treadmill with a steep incline was hard to get used to initially. You can't see how close you are to the controls of the treadmill and you don't want to bump into them so you end up walking on the bottom/back half of the belt. You end up getting closer than you'd like to be to the edge of the belt so you're constantly adjusting where you're walking. I'm still struggling to walk backwards without either looking down at my feet or looking at the mirror across the room and watching my feet. Walking backwards also exposes my tendency to pronate my left foot pretty badly.

I've read blogs and books that recommend walking backwards uphill to help with runner's knee. I guess it's good for stretching out the hamstrings, which are typically severely under-worked by athletes (esp. runners). I'm surprised that I work up a decent sweat in 20 minutes walking backwards uphill. I suggest you try it some time... no holding on to the treadmill either. :)

The two Hamstring exercises are good for me and something I'm now trying to do at home as well. The first is just laying on my back with one leg up against a wall as high as I can go and still keep it straight with my toe pointed. The other leg is on the ground and I lift it (keeping it straight) up higher than the wall leg.

The second one (much harder for me) has me standing, feet together with a small rubber ball between my knees. I put my hands above my head and bend over slowly sticking my butt out so that I can keep my back straight. I bend over until I can't keep my back straight any more, then squeeze the ball with my legs and bend the rest of the way. I also come back up to standing keeping my back straight.

The other exercises aren't too hard, but the hamstring ones give me the most trouble given my lack of flexibility.

After PT on Friday my knee was sore the rest of the day which worries me. I'm a little scared that I won't be able to run for a while on my knee if this is how PT goes for me.

Still 2.5 weeks away from getting the Orthotics in any case.

Ouch.

PT visit

I went to see the Physical Therapist today. He listened to my history and based on what I described and what he saw by examining my feet and knees he recommended Orthotics. He said that I could be running in shoes that had more motion control / support but said that Orthotics were really the answer. My arches are pretty flat apparently and this is causing my knees to turn inward, putting more pressure on my ankles, tibia, and knees.

He didn't agree with the Sacroiliac theory, which will be interesting to talk about with my cousin who is also a PT. (I bet she's heard of him) He measured me for Orthotics by taking a cast of my foot with some sort of plaster soaked fabric that he'll send off to Brea, CA where they'll be made according to the molds and the notes that he took as he examined my feet. He recommended against the Carbon Fiber orthotics, saying that they were too rigid for me. Mine will be some type of ABS plastic. I'll see them in 3 1/2 weeks or so. He recommended that I don't run until I get them.

He was surprised at the lack of flexibility in my hamstrings even though I told him how horribly inflexible I am. He gave me two exercises to do for my hamstrings and set up a couple more appointments for me.

I hope my health care covers some portion of the Orthotics, they're expensive!

two-fer

I haven't been running much lately. My knee has been in pain for a while so I've been using the Elliptical machine at the gym. It's not nearly as satisfying as the treadmill, which itself is boring. The Elliptical doesn't burn nearly as many calories as running at 7mph with a 2% incline on the treadmill does either. Not that I expected it to, but people tell me that it's the best way to burn calories. Nope. I'll put a hard 30 minutes on each machine head to head. I think people just don't like running and aren't in shape to run hard for 30 minutes when they can hang on for 30 minutes on the Elliptical.

In any case, I saw a sports medicine doctor last week who has a pretty good reputation for treating athletes. He listened to me and gave some theories as to what could be wrong, but otherwise didn't really do anything. He did send me down for Xrays and give me a referral for Physical Therapy. I could call this "exactly what I wanted" I guess. I made an appointment at a sports medicine physical therapy office that's about 10 min from work for tomorrow afternoon.

To prepare for the PT appointment I ran on the treadmill on Monday and Wednesday. Both runs were 3 miles at an 8:30 - 8:50 pace. Nothing too stressful, but I do now have knee pain to go in there and tell them about. I'm going to ask about Orthotics. I hope my health care plan can at least help me out with the cost of Orthotics.

I've been stretching and doing a few core exercises and pushups at night and at the gym on M/W/F. I'm doing okay with my flexability everywhere except for my hamstrings. They've always been really tight. I think I was able to touch my toes with straight legs when I was going to Yoga 2x a week but never before or since. The joy of being 6&1/2 feet tall.

More info after the PT appointment I guess, but hey: another 6 miles in the book this week. /sarcasm.

Short Sunday run

My knee was feeling fine today after forgetting to run on Friday at the gym. I was still pretty sore from lifting weights on Thu and Fri though. I'm just getting back into lifting weights after several years off so not only can't I lift near what I used to be able to, but it hurts after I lift now. My arms and chest were sore, but more than anything, my hamstrings were sore from 3 sets of Deadlifts on Thursday. I was surprised about this because I barely used any weight. The Deadlifts are supposed to be good for strengthening my Hamstrings to help with this knee pain I'm having.

My wife just started training for the Vancouver half marathon, so today was her first weekly long run. She's a beginner so it was only 3 miles. We drove out to the local convenience store in Gig Harbor and started there. I plotted out a 3 mile course that was basically the One Store Loop that I do so often only starting at the store instead of the house. We ran together at her pace, alternating 2 min of running and 1 min of walking. It was comfortable and a good pace for her. The route had a few hills so we tried to time it to walk up the hills for the most part. We enjoyed the run and she had no trouble completing it. She'll get faster and build her endurance as her training continues.

When we completed the loop, she got in the car and drove back home while I ran another mile farther and up a private road to a dead end and turned around and ran home. I started to get a little bit of discomfort (not quite pain) in my left knee at about the 4 mile point in the run. This really disappointed me as I've taken 4 days off of running now and have been icing and stretching. I think I might need to start looking for a physical therapist who knows about these things. I talked to my cousin about it, and she thinks that it's not a muscular imbalance as most Runner's Knee diagnoses describe. She says that it's more likely due to my existing Sacroiliac problem, and more related to my hip extensors. I didn't have time to really get into talking about it with her on the phone unfortunately. Doing some research online seems to support her theory. I just don't really know what I can do to help, other than keeping my S.I. joint aligned and maybe doing some hip extensor exercises. I need to find time to talk to her or someone else familiar with the problem.

I completed the run without a problem other than some soreness in my knee. At least getting out for a run got the blood flowing and helped loosen up some of the pain and tightness that I had from weight lifting.

The forecast for today was rain and some snow, both of which happened for about 30 min. this morning, leaving the rest of the day partly cloudy and ~43F. Not bad at all for the middle of winter.

My route:

one store loop starting at arletta plus private road at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail:Share GPS tracks