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Running Therapy

10 Oct

Combined with a very busy month and pains in my left heel that I think are the makings of plantar fasciitis, I hadn’t run in almost two weeks.

For a girl in the midst of a new job, planning a wedding and still getting adjusted in a new home, not running was becoming torturous. You see, I need running to deal with my stress. I need the pounding of the pavement to drown out my worries. And I most certainly need my running ladies to talk me off the bridal ledge. I need running.

So yesterday, me and my plantar fasciitis went for a 5:30 AM run with the ladies. We took an easy pace and ran four miles.  At first I struggled to keep up. I frowned thinking how out of shape I was with a half marathon just around the corner.

But then we began to talk about my recent woes, and suddenly my pace picked up. With every word I said, my feet landed with more determination. When I got angry, I got faster. And when I let a tear slip down my face with the sweat, the weight of the world seemed to melt off my shoulders.

Then the ladies gave me sweaty hugs. These are best accepted when you yourself are sweaty as well (which I was).

Let’s just hope my friends don’t start charging me by the hour. :)

As for my heel pain, I’ve been stretching my foot and calf daily to help relieve the pain in my heel and I’ve got my foot rolling on a frozen water bottle as I type. I need to run and I’m hoping my foot can get on board with me on this one.

If you’re wondering why I’m not doing the yoga (as I like to now call it), we can blame the new job for the late hours. I’m hoping that things will settle down soon and I’ll actually leave the office and make it to class when I say I’m going to. In the meantime, I just ordered the AM and PM Yoga dvd with Rodney Yee and I plan to put it into good use when it arrives this weekend.

How do you relieve stress?

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The 30-Day Yoga Challenge :: Days 8 and 9

11 Jun

This weekend was packed from beginning to end, but I somehow found time to get my yoga on.

Day 8: Ashtanga 1

I was up bright and early for the eighth class of the 30-day yoga challenge. The class is quickly becoming one of my favorites. The pace is good for me (not too fast, not too slow) and I always leave feeling challenged, but not reconsidering my decision to participate in the challenge. Perfect.

On a side note, I went to class wearing a leotard used for my Black Swan costume last Halloween and some old Victoria Secret sweatpants. I should’ve popped on the Black Swan make-up, tutu and crown to complete the look:

Me and Donnie Halloween 2011

I was obviously overdue on doing my yoga laundry. I managed to squeeze in washing some clothes somewhere in my crazy busy Saturday. Otherwise I would’ve been doing yoga on Sunday in my old Adidas breakaways.

Day 9: Hatha 1

The slower pace of this class was perfect for winding down in the middle of a busy, busy weekend. And lucky for me, I had clean laundry!

The instructor for this class has been out of town the last couple of weeks but finally returned. As soon as I saw her face, a smile appeared on mine. I’ve only taken her classes a couple of times and hardly know her, but every time I see her I just feel warmth and happiness exuding from her. It’s hard for that to not be contagious.

After class she hands out hugs. I gladly took mine just before I headed off to meet my childhood besties for lunch.

IT Band Update

A few friends have asked how my IT band is doing. It no longer hurts to walk, or take the stairs, but I can tell that my right hip is much tighter than my left and I’m still aware of pressure by my right knee when I walk or sit a certain way. The yoga is certainly helping with the stretching and strength part, and I continue to roll my leg with both the foam roller and the stick. I’m still not running on it. I’m going to give it as much time as I can to heal so I can start my half marathon training session injury free (and hopefully stay that way).

Rest of the Body Update

Tonight’s class will be Day 10 of the challenge. I can’t believe it I’m so far in!

I spent my first week pretty much being sore everywhere, but now I just feel… stronger. My muscles everywhere are feeling it, which I find has me standing and sitting taller. I’m also feeling a bit drained, so I keep reminding myself to watch what I eat. The healthier option is always the better option when I’m going to spend my evening bending and twisting my body. :)

I’m off to start a busy week, planned around six yoga classes.

How are you sweating pretty this week?

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Wednesday

16 May

The highlights of my Wednesday:

  1. Woke up at 6 AM so I could give myself a pedi and shave my legs. Which I had to do before I…
  2. Went to Doc for an 8 AM appointment to check out my leg. Glad I completed said pedi and shave. It seemed like everybody and their mother (Doc, Nurse, X-Ray tech) touched my smooth legs and had their faces near my nicely polished feet.
  3. Received bad news: I can’t bend my right leg because my IT band is tight and overworked. Apparently it thinks I’m the bitch and is refusing to work with me.
  4. Received good news: This confirms that it is just my IT band, I didn’t tear anything and that I will one day be able to run again.
  5. Had a slice of lasagna pizza for lunch. Not to celebrate. Just because this is an every Wednesday occurrence for me and my co-workers. It’s the pizza of the day every Wednesday at Pizzeria Valdiano in Winter Park Village. If you’re ever in the area on a Wednesday, I strongly suggest you stop in for a slice of sausage, sauce and ricotta cheese deliciousness! Trust me on this one.

My half eaten slice of lasagna pizza from Pizzeria Valdiano

I’m off to stretch every single muscle in my legs and show that IT band of mine just how bitchy I can be. :)

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I Can Never Run Again

15 May

It’s been just over a week since my second marathon and this is the thought that crosses my mind several times a day: “What if I can never run again?”

Even after my first marathon, I had rejoined my running group after just one week. I was restless. And I’m terribly restless now. And did I mention that I’m scared I’ll never be able to run again??

I’m on a serious icing, rolling, stretching, and absolutely no running regiment for a month. I even made a new frenemy:

Meet my frenemy: The Stick

The Stick is coined as a “toothbrush for muscles” on its website. However, I can’t remember the last time I was screaming in pain as I brushed my teeth. I picked this bad boy up at Track Shack last week.

Almost nightly I’ll lay down and ask Donnie to roll my leg. He said he barely uses any pressure, but when he rolls around my knee I swear he’s getting me back for something. Since crying while getting one’s IT band rolled out is out of the question, I instead scream and laugh while gripping a pillow and pretending this is good for me.

And all the while I think, “What if I can never run again?”

Coincidently, when I roll my own leg in the AM’s it’s a lot less painful, though I’m pretty sure it’s less beneficial too.

Since I’m starting to get scared that it’s been a week and I still have to take the stairs one at a time, I’m going to make an appointment with a doc to confirm that this is just my IT band. I tend to heal better when my mind is at ease.

Once I hear what the good doc has to say I hope to start my yoga back up again. Until then, I’m enjoying being a couch potato. And I’m totally thankful that I’m blessed to have two good legs, with a flare for the dramatic.

Have you had an injury that kept you from running? How long did you have to take a break for?

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Dance Marathon

29 Apr

Saturday morning I ran ten miles. According to my right IT band, that was about four miles too many.

I woke up at the awful hour of 4:30 AM, tossed on my running clothes and headed to the kitchen for a quick pre-run breakfast. Due to a lack of planning, here’s what I ended up with:

The Real Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast pretty much went like this: one bite of banana followed with a lick of peanut butter from a spoon and repeat. I learned this nasty (yet delicious) habit from my gluten-sensitive boyfriend, who gave up bread late last year. The fortune cookie was not a part of my breakfast, rather it was remnants of my pre-run dinner, chicken lo mein.

Our group was extra small this week (there were only three of us). We took off on a 10-mile loop.

Less than five miles into the run, I started to feel that familiar IT band nagging me. Around mile six I tightened the straps on my knee (I had two IT straps on one leg). That surprisingly relieved the pain for a mile or two. I managed to make it the entire 10 miles, but not without wondering how in the world I could do another 16.2 miles like that.

Here are the stats from our run:

  • Distance: 10 miles
  • Time: 02:10:13
  • Avg Pace: 13:01/mile

I’m going to stick to strength training and yoga for taper this week and rest my leg. I’m also going to ice my leg three times a day, and foam roll my legs and hips twice a day. In fact, I’m icing as I type. My leg is mighty chilly.

Healing feels like a full-time job sometimes. Let’s hope this does the trick, or I may have to reconsider switching to the half marathon, which I really don’t want to do.

Last week a friend sent me a link to the video below. Not long afterwards, I tried to dance walk across 17-92 on our way to get coffee. However, I stopped when my co-workers shunned me. I’m now considering dance walking (or running) all 26.2 miles of the Flying Pig Marathon.

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A Letter to My IT Band

29 Apr

Dear IT Band,

I ask you to please quit playing games with my heart. One day (Thursday) we’re all buddy buddy and I think we’re getting along just fine and we might just have a beautiful friendship after all and then two days later (Saturday) you’re being a bitch again.

I prefer the good ol’ days when we used to run the streets in glee. When together we would conquer our mileage, one step at a time. The days when we would skip off into the sunset laughing. Where did those days go? How do we go back to that?

I hope that we can work out whatever it is that is causing this tension between us. I miss us.

Best Regards,

Hemarie

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IT Band Update

27 Apr

Yesterday I slept in and skipped my regularly scheduled run with the group. Instead, I woke up late, threw on some running clothes and my new shoes, grabbed my borrowed Garmin, saw the battery was dead, put it back down, grabbed my iPod shuffle and was out the door for a quick run on my own.

I ran 3-ish miles in less than 35 minutes. And guess what? I felt no pain in IT band. Granted it was a short run, but it was sans the intervals I’ve become accustomed to and at a quicker pace. Afterwards I did some squats while I waiting for my breakfast smoothie to blend.

Let’s see how it fares during tomorrow’s run, my last long-ish run before Flying Pig Marathon.

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Testing the Waters

18 Apr

Okay, so I know that I said that I wasn’t going to do any running this week in efforts of healing my IT band, but I couldn’t stop myself from taking the ol’ legs out for a test spin Monday night.

I was riding my yoga high when Donnie came home from work and said that he was going to run one mile. Yes, that’s correct. ONE mile. He is currently coming back from an almost-stress fracture in his foot and is starting on his long road back to recovery … one quarter of a mile at a time.

Wanting to be the ever supportive girlfriend and feeling good from my yoga, I volunteered to go with him. I brought along our pug, Tank to make sure we didn’t go further than that. Pugs aren’t exactly runners, but this one is always looking to run some laps in.

We didn’t run far, and my legs were feeling tip top. However, I’m going to stick to my plan and do yoga instead of my run tomorrow just to make sure. And it looked like we wore Tank out. He was napping soon after we returned.

Yesterday morning, I woke up and did another yoga class from YogaVibes.com in the Yoga for Runners series. This time I took the class appropriately named Yoga for Runners. Like the day before, I set up shop in the Florida room and it was perfect. Our Florida room has two of the four walls covered with windows so you almost feel like you’re outside. And as I was doing my breathing, the sun was rising and the birds were chirping. It was amazing.

I went to work feeling completely relaxed. At one point we had a meeting where my boss brought up something that normally gets me stirred up. But yesterday I just sat and smiled and said “I did yoga this morning. You’re not going to get me riled up today. ” Ha!

How’s your week going so far?

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Making Decisions

14 Apr

When training for a marathon (or half) you come across a lot of decisions you have to make. Sometimes there’s the small decisions like “What should I eat for dinner the night before a long training run?” or “Which flavor energy gel should I buy?” Then there’s the bigger decisions … the ones that can make or break your race day run.

Currently I’m dealing with the latter.

After last week’s failed 20-mile run, I knew I might be in trouble. Usually when my IT band starts hurting towards the end of a long run, I’m okay after some ice and a few hours. But this was “I just ran a marathon” pain, yet I had only run 12 miles. It hurt to walk on the beach the next day. It hurt to roll and stretch my right leg. It just hurt.

Tuesday morning I woke up for a 4-mile run in the morning. The first thing I did was stretch and immediately knew I wasn’t ready. I texted my group and went back to bed.

Wednesday night I went to yoga for a Hatha class. It felt like my instructor knew what I needed, and every muscle in my legs and hips were stretched. I felt amazing!

Thursday I woke up for a morning run and again stretched. I thought I was ready, and met my group for a 5-mile run. Three miles in, I felt that old familiar twinge and as we were nearing our ending point (a conveniently chosen Starbucks), I started to feel sharp pain. If you’re wondering why I didn’t walk it in as soon as I felt any pain, it’s because I was on a schedule. Not only did I have to go into work early that day, but I also had to pick up bagels for a friend’s birthday. If I walked it in, I would be late.

As that run was ending, I knew a second attempt at running 20 miles wasn’t going to happen today. I made the hard decision of skipping this morning’s training run.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the advice “It’s better to run undertrained and injury-free on race day than trained and injured,” and how many more times I’ve actually told fellow runners that.   Oh, how that’s easier said than done.

Not unfamiliar to IT band issues (I’ve blogged about my pains here and here and here and here and here), I know two things:

  1. The irritation might not go away before my marathon. It’s only three weeks away.
  2. But if I’m diligent with my icing, Advil-taking, stretching, rolling and strength training, I may delay the IT band irritation and limit how many miles I run in pain.

So I’ve made two decisions:

  1. No running for one week. That means I didn’t run this morning, and Tuesday and Thursday are out as well. I will do yoga, stretch, roll and strength train in it’s place.  On Saturday I may join my group for a short run.
  2. I am still running the Flying Pig Marathon!

Mind over matter. Who cares if I can’t run today? Who cares that my longest run this training season was just over 18 miles and it will have been over a month before race day?

I can let myself (easily) go down a road of self doubt or I can focus on the positive. I choose the latter. Before my right IT band acted up I had two great runs!

And I hope it makes all the difference on race day. Weeeeeeeeeeee!

Have you gone into a race undertrained and healthy and/or trained and injured? Tell me about your experience in the comments.

I could stand to be reassured that I’m not alone. ;)

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Testing… 1, 2, 3, 4

23 Oct

Thug style

Yesterday morning I strapped on my ankle wrap (suggested by my doc and also a fellow runner), my kicks and hit the road for a quickie 2-mile test run. Aside from seeing if there was any pain or discomfort, I was looking to see if my injury was causing any change in my gait. The good news: I didn’t feel any pain during the run and my gait felt normal. The bad news: the lack of pain might have had something to do with my foot going numb approximately one mile in. I don’t think I loosened my left shoe enough to account for the brace so my circulation was cut off.

So this morning I strapped on my ankle brace, my kicks (looser on the left shoe this time) and hit the road for a quickie 4-mile test run.  The good news: I didn’t feel any pain during the run and my gait felt normal. The bad news: while exploring a new park near my house I ended up running through what seemed to be a never-ending swarm of gnats.

For what seemed to be forever (but was probably only 3 minutes), I had to run with my head down, my mouth closed and waving my arms around like a mad woman. If you’re wondering why I didn’t just turn around, the answer is simple. I thought to myself “surely this disgusting swarm of gnats is almost over” and by the time I realized this was not fact, it was too late. Retracing my steps or continuing forward was equal distance and there was no way around this swarm. Needless to say, I will not be returning to that park any time soon.

So after my two short test runs, I’ve decided to rejoin the ladies for our morning runs this week. After all, I am a marathon runner. I must run.

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