End of January

January 2009 has already come and nearly gone, unbelievable!  I am always amazed with how quickly time passes when you keep yourself busy.  The days literally seem like they are flying by.  I seem to be pretty much recovered from the mysterious shin pain that showed up last week.  I owe the super speedy recovery to a couple of days rest, lots and lots of stretching and some amazing training advice from a fellow PA student Leslie McGovern.  Leslie was a trainer for a lot of years and she was quickly able to recognize what was going on and give some great info on what to do.  For any interested, Leslie told me that runners are extremely notorious for only running, the strengthens many muscles but it does leave some of the antagonist muscles lacking.  Particularly the anterior tibialis.  When the AT is weak the lower leg compensates by overworking the soleus (the deep calf muscle), and this can result in an array of problems including an aggravated posterior tibialis tendon, extremely sore soleus muscles and many other common maladies that runners face.  Leslie recommended, in addition to stretching, pop-ups.  A pop-up is basically a calf raise where you quickly raise to your toes and then very slowly lower back down.  This directly targets the eccentric motion of the anterior tibialis. Also she recommended using a theraband doing very similar motions to strengthen the anterior part of the leg.  When doing the pop-ups the should be done with a straight leg and with the knee bent, this allows for better targeting of the muscle.  In later discussions with Leslie she explained that lot of runners whose feet slap when they run have a weak AT muscle.  So if your friends are slapping when they run they you should recommend this to them so they avoid problems down the road. 

On a side note I took a quick trip to Las Vegas this weekend to help a friend set-up for a tradeshow and I got in an awesome run on the strip early in the morning.  For the first time in my life I really wish it would just warm up and get to summer.  It was great to run in shorts and a t-shirt without gloves, tights, hat, and without slipping all over the place on the ice.  With the demands of school this year I am only skiing a fraction of what I have normally been able to and to compensate I run more.  Running is my escape, it is my dear friend that is always there when I need him, running is the answer to my problems.  I love it.  And even though I love it sometimes it is a relationship that is strained, sometimes I don't have the time I need to dedicate to it, sometimes it is really cold and I want to tell it to wait for another day, sometimes it hurts when I do it, BUT it is always there waiting and ready to go, it forgives and forgets, running loves me back. 

A little pain

Once again I find myself pondering about what I am certain that runners everywhere commonly do.  How much is too much? How can I tell if I am overtraining? Well from my experience the body speaks, it tells you how it is doing, the trick is learning how to listen.  For many this is a very difficult task, including me.  This post is somewhat bittersweet, it was only days ago that I posted about completing a big training goal and now I was forced to take today off.  By forced I mean that I was feeling what I perceived as a possible serious injury and I decided to sideline myself for a couple of runs so that it didn't become a major issue.  

For quite some time now I have had an array of problems with achilles type pain; I had a real minor achilles tendonitis, followed by an injury involving my posterior tibialis on the same leg, and now I am faced with what I thought was perhaps shin splints, but after a visit to a trained professional, it turns out to be an extremely tight soleus (insert deep sigh of relief here).  All of these problems are related to tight calves, and a tight posterior leg in general.  I am glad that I wasn't given a 6 week jail sentence today yet I am somewhat uncertain of what to do to help clear up this myriad of problems that I seem to have trouble escaping.  I was prescribed lots of stretching and massage.  Jared Campbell shared an awesome study about eccentric calf lowers and how effective they can be in relieving these problems which I am doing somewhat religiously.  What I do want to know is what else?  I know that there are a few that have started to follow what's in my brain through this blog, and any feedback would be very appreciated, I am still pretty new at this and any advice would be welcome.  Hopefully, I can figure out what my training is missing and get things back on track sooner than later.

Great Week of Training

This last week was pretty big for me.  It was the first week of back to the grind at school, new format this semester at the PA program that is pretty heavy but I think I will manage.  The big thing for me is that I met a specific training goal that I had for when school started... I broke fifty miles this week.  I know, you might be thinking that 50 miles, that's not that far, but take into account my schedule: class 8-5 monday through friday, with only a one hour lunch break.  School typically requires 3-4 hours of reading and studying every night (there are quizzes every morning over the readings from the night before).  Add to that mix family and I love to spend time with my wife and daughter, all of these things combined and all of the sudden where is the time to run?  I set a goal at the beginning of the year to more consistent with my training and to reach certain weekly mileage goals, in addition to the typically weekly routine of types of run, and I got it this week, actually a little over... 56 miles.  My plan is/was to run a distance run in the morning before class and then do my specific workout during my one hour lunch.  This my be rough on the classmates that I sit by after lunch because I am typically pretty sweaty, but oh well.  

Balance is difficult to maintain.  It feels pretty awesome to be able to have a more than full schedule and pull off training goals on top of that.  I think I will shoot for around that mileage for the next coupleof weeks until I get used to a little less sleep, then start upping it until I reach the 70-80 mark by the end of March.  Hopefully I can keep my life in balance and order, while still improving as a runner and student. What really matters is that Brynlee is excited!!

Alone

It has always been intriguing to me how solitary endurance athletes tend to be.  Sure there are good friendships, people we see regularly when we are out training, and familiar faces that we see at races and events.  When you put the casual relationships aside endurance athletes are solitary creatures.  The majority of the time we train, we do it alone.  When we race, we race alone.  Many times when we go out to recreate or cross train, we do it alone.  The exception to the solitude comes to has one exception; dogs.  My dog, Pedro, is the most reliable and trusted training partner I could ever hope for.  Still, when it comes down to it, even in the company of Pedro, I am alone when I am out training.  

This whole post comes from a disappointment I experienced this past weekend.  I was planning on racing the Grand Targhee Randonee Race on Saturday, which I was unable to do. The primary reason why is because of the team nature of the race, racers are required to have partners.  I could not find a partner.  I tried everything that I could, I called favors, I called strangers, I even begged, but to no avail.  I was alone.  So in place of a race I went backcountry skiing near Pebble Creek, alone.  I contemplated on the reasons behind my solitary nature and as I pushed and pushed to near exhaustion, I found myself smiling, the smile got bigger and bigger as I realized I liked the feeling.  I found delight in being alone, being self sufficient, self reliant, depending and waiting only for myself.  It seems a little selfish to say, but I think  I prefer to be alone when I am out, no one to wait for, or to wait for me, no one to complain or to complain to (other than Pedro who always smiles back!)  This is not to say that I don't enjoy the company of other people, I really do and I enjoy running and skiing with other people especially when I have the rare opportunity to do it with my wife.  But I do have to have my time, it allows me time to reflect, think, forget, to go to my sanctuary.  It is good for my soul to be alone, I find clarity when I go there by myself.

Poor luck with computers

Another gap in updating my blog, this time it comes from my poor luck with computers recently.  I had to send my laptop back to apple to get the wireless card replaced, I had it back just a couple of days and I took a spill on a very icy set of stairs at the university... as you can imagine a laptop in a protective case in my backpack should have been well protected, it was not enough for this fall.  I managed to crack the lcd screen which made my 13" macbook more like a 6" macbook, so off it went back to apple for what I hope to be a not ridiculously expensive repair. 

Besides my woes with my laptop things have been going very well here in Pocatello.  Despite balmy winter conditions I have still been able to maintain my training goals and get in a few days of more than exceptional skiing.  If there is anyone actually reading this that is interested I am looking for a partner for the Grand Targhee Randonee Race this saturday, up until now I have been unable to pin down a partner.  If I can't find one I'll just get in a long run so either way it will be a great day.  I only have a few more days before school kicks off again for the semester, so I am going to make the most of them.

Ok, seriously I really am going to keep up with this blog, I made it a New Year's resolution.  I guess the I have plenty of excuses why I haven't posted in a while, the craziest finals week I have ever had, putting in a few too many hours in at Scotts Ski and Sports just before Christmas, and then the flying the 23 of December trip of holiday insanity to my parents house in New Mexico for the holiday with my family. We got back late tues. night and spent all day yesterday catching up with life at home in Pocatello. 

I do have a couple of pieces of good news: La Sportiva has invited me to be a member of their Mountain Running Team for the 2009 season, which I am absolutely ecstatic about!! They make a wonderful product and from what I can tell from their athlete packet they take great care of their athletes.  This means I will be able to race more than last season and do it style as well.  Second bit of big news is that the registration for the Pocatello 50 opened today, it is going to be an awesome race to get the season started right. Check it out at www.pocatello50.com.   The third bigs news is that I was able to get good grades during my first semester of PA school and I get to keep attending!! 

While we were in New Mexico I got to spend a Christmas day skiing with my beautiful wife, ust me and her.  It has been a long time since I have been able to do that, it was great to spend that time together.  I snuck in a few runs while we were there as well.  Both around 8 miles in warm temps and sunshine.  I did realize however that it is probably time to start to kick things into gear and ramp up the training for the upcoming Randonee Race season, while also putting down a solid base for running this spring and summer.  That's all for know but look forward to a glimpse into my 09 race schedule and some training ideas that I have been putting together.