Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow

AM - biked to the chiropractor and back

PM - biked to the gym. 45 minutes on elliptical, 15 minutes on the arc trainer.

The shin is still hurting, but in general feeling a bit better today. I tried jogging around the parking lot of the gym today, and was able to run some. Walking hurts a lot less. I probably have at least one more day of cross training, maybe more. Lots more ice, massage, and scraping in days to come.

Today would have been a perfect day for a track interval workout. Instead, I was stuck on the elliptical. I manged to somewhat simulate my planned workout. Rather than doing 8x1000m with 200m rest, I did 8x3-minutes hard, with 1 minute rest. I was drenched by the end, and lost 2 lbs worth of sweat (131 lbs before the workout, 129 after). I biked to the chiropractor and back as well in the morning. Mustn't forget that.

Fortunately, things are looking up. I jogged around the gym parking lot a bit, and didn't feel much pain at all. Perhaps Cody's suggestion of using the TENs unit paid off? 

It's pretty messed up that I am currently on the first page of the mileage board, evening with being hurt. Hopefully nobody will get mad at me for counting cross training mileage, but it's their own fault for tapering.

AM - ran the dog around the block

PM - walked out to the LHS rec fields and ran laps in the grass. The first lap was completely pain-free. The second lap a felt a twinge in the shin just on the very short stretch of blacktop, then pain-free again on grass. Same with the next few laps. By lap 6 I could feel "it" the whole way around (although certainly better on grass than on blacktop), so I called it good at that point and walked home. 3.25 miles total, at about 7:30/mile pace. All in all, I was quite encouraged by the progress, since I certainly would not have made it that far yesterday.

First off, great job to all St. George finishers. It sounded like absolutely terrible conditions, but persevering through tough weather makes a runner stronger. That said, I'm not sorry I missed it. I found full results on active.com. Not sure if the St Geo web page has it posted yet.

http://results.active.com/pages/searchform.jsp?rsID=70542&orgID=234624&pubID=2

I think I am the only person on the blog who did not run a marathon this weekend. But if it's any comfort to St. George runners, the weather in Logan was just as (if not more) miserable than what you had down south.

Today I did a forced march from Blind Hollow up to Tony Grove and back. I call it forced, because it was my job to take down the flagging and glow sticks from last week's Bear 100, and I had 7 days to do it, based on Forest Service permits. Today was Day 7. Needless to say, with the cold, wind, and rain, plus my bum shin, I was not looking forward to it.

The route is 2700' worth of climbing on single-track trail, 6.5 miles each way. I was not sure if my shin could handle more than just a few miles of running, so I was envisioning hiking 13 miles in the rain, and taking up my entire day. I considered shuttling my bike up to Tony Grove and riding back to the car, but in the cold and rain that sounded worse than running.

Well, the run turned out well. I managed to run all the way up and all the way back (except for walk breaks on steep stuff). I made it up in about 1:37, much faster than the last time I did it, and then down in about 1:15. The trail was an absolute disaster: total MUD PIT. I chose to wear my Montrail Hardrocks, which was a mistake. By their namesake alone, they are much better on rocky terrain, and completely useless in muddy terrain. I should have gone with my other trail shoe, the Brooks Cascadia. Like their namesake suggests, they have massive tread, and good for soft, dirt trails. The mud was gooey and thick, and going down was flat-out dangerous. It was more of a slide than a run. I manged to avoid any superman dives, which is good for me. But the descent was much slower than it should have been. Nothing faster than 10-minute pace. But hey, I was able to run, so I was happy with that. No shin flair-up, and that alone made it a great way to end my week.

My other regrets were not bringing more dry shirts and more gloves. I brought an extra long-sleeved shirt and 2 short sleeved shirts, and one pair of gloves. All were soaked by midway. Did I mention that it rained the entire time, and I was out there for 3 hours? And it was under 40 degrees? It took me over a minute to take my camelbak off and open the car at the bottom because I couldn't get my thumbs to work. Then I just sat in my car with the heat going full blast for about 5 minutes before my hands were functional enough to drive. Then I went grocery shopping and tracked mud all over Fred Smith's.

Being woefully unprepared for this kind run shows that I'm both out of touch with trail running (I used to do it a lot more), and not mentally ready for fall and winter. I like 80 degrees better.

I hope my shin will be ready for a full week next week. I have a 90 minute massage tomorrow, and will also be getting my compression sock and a portable ultrasound machine soon. Along with the improvement I've already had, I'm pretty optimistic.

AM - biked to the chiropractor and back

PM - biked to the gym and did 60 minutes on the elliptical. 

After a good Saturday, my shin was hurting all yesterday and today. Back to work on it.

Rode my bike to the gym, then hit the elliptical. 20 minutes at normal effort, then 20 minutes at "tempo" effort, 10 minutes normal, then 10 more "tempo" minutes. Then I did 10 minutes on the arc trainer before hurrying home to watch the debate.

Rode my bike to the gym and did 50 minutes on the elliptical and 10 minutes on the arc trainer. The shin is almost back to where it was at the end of last week. Fortunately, I don't have any death marches on trail this weekend to mess it up again.

AM - biked to the chiropractor and back

PM - biked to the gym, did 15 minutes arc trainer and 50 minutes elliptical. Checked in at 130 lbs, check out at 129 lbs. Time to rehydrate.

I'm a little frustrated that I'm not running yet. Hopefully I will get my compression sock soon, and hopefully it will help.

Went to the gym and did 45 minutes on the elliptical. All this cross training is making me tired, so I made it short today. Tomorrow will be a 90 minute workout.

Hit the gym, and did 60 minutes on the elliptical, followed by 15 minutes on the arc trainer, and 15 more minutes on the elliptical to cool down. The middle part of the workout was at "tempo" effort.

I find cross training to be mentally grueling. Dispite having an iPod and about 12 TV's around me, I was incredibly bored. I find it amazing that people choose to do this, even when they are not injured. I personally would much rather face the cold. Fortunately my race is in a week, so I don't have to do this much longer.

A note of sadness: the local fruit and vegetable stand is closing down for the year. I've been going there about 3 times a week lately to stock up on local peaches, apples, melons, and other goodies. Since I don't eat bread, rice, pasta, or grains anymore, I eat a massive amount of fresh fruit instead. And now it's all gone. Sigh. Well, except for the 40 pounds of peaches I just bought. That might last me until Thursday, then it's all gone. On the menu tonight: gluten-free peach crisp. Yum!

AM - ran the dog around the block. Didn't feel much pain.

PM - went out to the LHS grass fields to run some laps. However, the shin started getting some pain early on, so I bailed and jogged out to the gym, did 30 minutes elliptical, then jogged back home.

Ran the the gym, then did 45 minutes elliptical (with 5x4-minute "fartlek"), and 15 minutes arc trainer. Ran home. The shin feels a bit better while running today, although I kept it very short and mostly on grass. Still, at least it's not getting any worse.

took it easy today and did some running in the grass. I tried some barefoot running and it didn't feel any worse than running with shoes. Did about 6x200m strides, and it was nice to open up a little bit. I wish the whole half marathon is on grass, rather than evil blacktop. But even with the grass, my shin gets sore pretty sick. Hence, the 1.5 miles.

biked to the gym, 45 minutes on elliptical, 10 minutes on the arc trainer. Off to Moab tomorrow.

Travel day to Moab. No running, no exercise. Good dinner.

In Moab. No running. We drove up Hwy 128, scoped out the race course, and enjoyed the beauty of Castle Valley. We drove up a little BLM road to a trailhead, hiked around a little, but not much.

Today was The Other Half, the October half marathon event in Moab. I've been wanting to run this race since it started a few years back, but never had the chance due to my marathoning habit. Since I was not in shape to do a marathon, this year was the year to try it out. I was looking forward to running one of the few "fair" half marathon courses in Utah. By "fair", I mean, "not a screaming downhill". The course profile shows easy rollers during the first 6 miles, and then some bigger hills during the last 7 miles. All in all, there is no net elevation change on the point-to-point course.

My original goal was to break 1:12, break the course record, and win the race. However my shin injury messed up those plans. Some fun stats: in the last three weeks I've logged a total of 27 miles running. And 12 of those came in one trail run. So that comes out to an average of just over 1 mile/day, about a half mile/day if you eliminate the trail run, which was done at about 12 min/mile pace. This did not give me confidence.

What did give me some confidence was that before my injury, I was training very well, logging good overall mileage, and completing high-quality workouts. And although I could not run during the month of October, I put in the equivalent time on the elliptical (and quite a few buckets of sweat). But I doubted the effectiveness of elliptical training compared to running, and was a bit nervous about my fitness. And was more than a bit nervous about my shin and my ability to even finish the race. Think of it this way: I not run a half marathon worth of distance combined in the last two weeks, and now I wanted to run a half marathon continuously, at 5:30/mile pace? Yup, I was a bit nervous.

I didn't even bother testing the shin on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. It was quite a taper for a half marathon, especially considering I don't even believe in tapers. I was not sure of my fitness, I was not sure of my health, but I was sure that I would be fresh!

Sunday morning rolled around. I got up at 5:45AM, ate an apple, a homemade power bar, and a Larabar. I left our hotel room and walked over to the bus pickup area. Occasionally I would jog for about 20 meters, but decided to save a proper warmup for the first couple miles of the race.

The bus arrived to the start line with just over an hour before the race. I kept myself occupied during the wait by earning two stars, and exploring some of the area. The race started on Dewey Bridge, right over the Colorado River. It is a very beautiful spot, and the course only gets better from there. Again, I did some very light, short bits of running, no more than 50 or so meters at a time, and all on gravel and dirt roads near the start line (I was happy for those dirt roads).

They lined us up on time, and I scoped out the competition. This was an odd race in that I knew not one other runner. I was getting used to having a swarm of friends and bloggers at all my races, but The Other Half, being a Sunday race and only two weeks after Utah's main marathon, draws a completely different crowd. The field of 1500 was almost half from Colorado, and those from Utah I did not know. I figured the skinnier guys wearing singlets and racing flats might be fast. Isn't that the only clue? I recognized Bernie Boettcher from photos, and knew him to be a very good runner. He had won The Other Half the first three years, and took second last year. He also took 12th at St. George with a 2:37 two weeks ago in terrible conditions, so I knew he was in good shape and should give me a run for it.

The race starts, and our lead pack separates out pretty quick. It's not a deep field. Myself and Matt Hill from Boulder, CO, and Bernie stays on our heels. Matt and I talk some and enjoy the scenery. The road has no shoulder and the river is right below us, and I am tempted to push Matt, who is running on the inside of the curve. I inform him of this urge and that I am resisting it, and he agrees that is it is for the best that I resist. Mile 1 clicks by in 5:40. I feel good (I am fresh after all), with not much pain in the shin. But it is definitely there, even after only 1 mile.

Not much action for the next several miles. Matt and I share the lead, running side by side. Bernie trails a couple meters behind, content to draft. I can't hear anyone else's footsteps. It was an absolutely perfect morning: sunny (but lots of shadows in the canyon), no wind, and a starting temperature in the mid to high 40s. My shin hurts some, but is holding up fine. What a relief! I figured if it was going to be bad, I would know within a mile or two. We keep on the 5:40 pace through Mile 3, then hit a couple sub-5:30s. It felt like easy cruising, but I also knew that feeling good through 5 miles was an indicator of freshness but not necessarily fitness. The hills on the second half of the course would peel the onion and show what stamina I really had underneath the initial layers.

Although I didn't want to make any moves until Mile 9, after the first big hill, I suddenly found myself alone during Mile 6. When I think back on it, I realize that I was getting warmed up and finding my stride during the first 3 miles, and then really hitting a rhythm the next three. Mile 6 was a net uphill (but not too noticeable), and I must have subconsciously upped the effort to maintain pace, and dropped Matt and Bernie in the process. Perhaps I was distracted by the utter beauty of the course during this section and inadvertently threw a surge. Through the first 5 miles we follow the river in a redrock canyon (very similar to the Canyonlands Half), but then it opens up into Castle Valley, with amazing views of the sandstone monoliths and the LaSal Mountains in the background. Very awe-inspiring. I just hoped my separation did not come too early, as the real race was about to start.

Mile 7 featured a nice little climb, and I stayed a touch under 5:50 on it. Mile 8 was the challenge of the race: about 125' of climbing. I worked my way up as steady as I could, and hit 6:16 for the split (although still had more climbing to go). Crested the top during Mile 9, and then plummeted down. My shin was starting to hurt more, and I was not able to take the downhill as fast I ordinarily would. I was preoccupied with both my shin, the scenery, and some daydreaming, and was a little startled to hear footsteps behind me, probably 20 meters back. I woke myself up and got focused again, finished out the downhill, and started the next uphill. The recovery mile (9) was 5:36. Definitely too slow.

I don't remember the specific hills for the rest of the race; it just seemed like one after another. Fortunately none were as bad as the Mile 8 hill, and every uphill had a nice downhill on the flip side to recover on. So I managed to keep a steady rhythm. Since I could not run the downhills as well as I normally could, I just focused on recovering and keeping pace on the down, and then working the ups.

My shin kept getting more sore, but by Mile 10 I knew I would at least make it to the finish. And I no longer heard footsteps, so the win was looking good too. I knew from the profile that there would be one more sizable hill that crests at Mile 12, then it's home-free on the downhill all the way to the finish. The last hill felt good, and I worked it hard, knowing that was "it". I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the profile was wrong, and the hill actually crested just after 11.5 miles or so. A line of drummers at the top resounded this fact that the race was basically over. I waved to the drummers and then started the downhill. After about a mile of down, the course made the final (and only) turn, into the Sorrel River Ranch. Here it flattened out for the last half mile. I hit the last mile in 5:22. They put up a finish line tape, and I got to break it. That doesn't happen much, so I always enjoy it when it does.

Mile	Actual Split	Sasha's Course Tool Split	Terrain
1	5:40	5:43	flat/rolling
2	5:39	5:34	flat/rolling
3	5:39	5:49	flat/rolling
4	5:24	5:24	rolling, net downhill
5	5:28	5:37	flat/rolling
6	5:31	5:32	flat/rolling, net uphill
7	5:48	5:39	decent climb
8	6:16	6:17	big climb, ~125'
9	5:36	5:26	finish climbing, then downhill
10	5:49	5:42	nice hill
11	5:32	5:24	rolling, not too bad
12	5:37	5:47	last uphill
13	5:22	5:24	downhill then flat
0.1	0:39	0:36	flat

I ended up at 1:14:02. Bernie ended up about a minute back for 2nd, and Matt was about 2:30 back for 3rd. I was quite happy with this time. I really had no idea if I could even average 6-minute miles, or finish the race for that matter, so was quite pleased to average 5:39/mile and win outright. Not only that, but I learned the valuable lesson that elliptical training indeed helps retain fitness. At no point during the race did I feel like I was struggling. The only downside I experienced was that my muscles lost their ability and adaption to absorbing impact and preventing damage. My quads were shot afterward, and my calves, ankles, hamstrings and quads are much more sore today (Monday, as I write this) than they should be after a half. Much of hard marathon training is to build fitness; the other half is to adapt your body to handle pounding. I had definitely lost that second part over the last few weeks.

It was a beautiful course, and a well-organized race. I would recommend it to anyone. I think I will be back to run it again at some point, hopefully at full health. I loved the hills and loved that it was a challenging, honest course. Much fun. And I ended up winning a really nice duffel bag, and the bag was full of race swag. I like prizes like that; very St. George-like. I ended up with a pair of sunglasses, 2 hats, socks, a t-shirt, and a  metal water bottle. I stuck around for the raffle, but failed to win the treadmill. Bummer.

So I'm obviously done for the year, since one with better judgment would not have even run this race. I'll give my shin as long as it takes to heal up, so no running until the swelling and pain are gone. It actually doesn't hurt too much today (Monday), but is quite swollen. In any case, once I can run again, I'll take my time and hopefully building a long, slow base over the winter. Patience is key. I won't run a marathon again until I think I can PR, but hopefully I can take a stab at it next year. It's disappointing to have so many injuries and health problems this year, but I am pleased and comforted to end the short season on a high note.

*Tuesday Update* I added Sasha's course tool estimated splits to the split table. As usual, the course tool is quite close in analyzing the effect of topography on pace deviation. Where it was "off" I could explain usually because of my impaired downhill running ability. The course tool estimates this race was worth about a 1:11:10 on flat terrain, based on 970' of climb and 1010' of drop. Runworks.com, which is based on Noakes, predicts 1:12:17 for that terrain. Sasha tends to be a bit generous in some of his time translations, so I'll go with the more conservative Noakes formula. In contrast, Runworks.com normalizes my TOU Half time to 1:13:15, about a minute slower than my aided time on that course. So I would estimate my Other Half performance to be about a minute better than my TOU performance. And perhaps around 1:10 would be doable on a flat sea level course. It's impossible to know, but quite fun to speculate. Either way, I still feel good about it.

Ran the dog around the block. My shin is still quite swollen, but for some reason does not hurt. But the rest of my body hurts; lots of soreness all over, especially the hamstrings and quads.

Ran the dog around the block, and also did some transportative biking. Again, my shin doesn't feel too bad despite being swollen. Still sore in other places, but not as bad as yesterday.

AM - ran the dog around the block

PM - I wasn't planning on running, but my back and neck were really stiff all day due to the A.S. It was driving me crazy. Running always helps it feel better (literal self-medication), so I jogged out to the LHS rec fields and did 4 laps in the grass, then jogged home. Good for 2.5 miles total. Not much pain out of the shin for whatever reason. I find it odd that it hurts less after an all-out half marathon, combined with the fact that the swelling hasn't gone down either. Perhaps I destroyed some pain receptors. I'm seeing Dr. Lyons, the sports doc tomorrow morning just to make sure it's nothing freaky like a stress fracture or compartment syndrome.

Ran the dog around the block. Shin still swollen, but not feeling bad. Later in the morning I biked to see Dr. Lyons, who is a really outstanding sports doc here in Logan (is the USU team doctor). The guy actually runs marathons, which is nice too. Anyway, x-rays looked okay, no stress fracture. He also thought that compartment syndrome was very unlikely. He thought the most likely diagnoses were either:

• Tenosynovitis: the inflammation of the fluid-filled sheath that surround the tendon; or
• Fascial hernia: the bulging of muscle through a defect in the fascia

Ran the dog around the block. My shin felt really good, 0 pain. Still some swelling, but I'll see how it is on Monday.

Nice job on the new Shoe Manager, Sasha. Now the whole world can see how twisted I am. (yes, I have 9 pairs of running shoes).

After several pain-free mornings of jogging with the dog, I decided it was time for a real run. And none of that grass loop stuff. Yes, I was back to the glorious Planet Walk. Averaged about 7:30/mile pace, and no real pain to speak of. It felt good to get out again.

AM - ran the dog around the block

PM - ran the River Trail with Jon and Joe. No pain, so another good day.

Planned day off.

I have registered for my next big race, The Indy Mini Marathon. It's a flat, fast half marathon near sea level, the biggest half in the U.S., and always has top-notch competition. Perhaps I can get in shape and run a nice PR there. Seemed like the thing to do, since I will be visiting my family in the area next spring anyway. They give comps to anyone who has run under 1:15:00, so I figure nothing to lose by signing up early.

A rare morning run for me. We had quite the pack: Ruth, Lisa, Cody, Joe, and myself. We ran around North Logan and the campus area until it was time to stop running. Dark the whole time. My shin felt alright, but got a little sore near my foot for the last half of the run. Average pace was 7:37/mile.

Planet Walk.