Slacker

Another solid week of training and I'm really pleased with how my body has handled it. My goal last week was to increase the daily volume that much more, and hopefully feel good running long on the weekend.

Everything seemed to go very well all week with 5 days of running twice a day. I had one planned recovery day of 45mins, and then ended up cutting back to only 45mins on Sunday (instead of a long run) as I started to feel like I was fighting a bit of a flu bug on Saturday afternoon.

The big highlight of the week was my two physio appointments. It seems as though I've finally discovered the final piece to the puzzle of the past 10 months of injury. There have been a number of little things that have been addressed one at a time, but I seem to have the big picture now and through a combination of stretching, strengthening, rolling, sticking and physio manipulation, I have noticed very big changes just this week. The result in just a very short period of time has been that I now feel that I am running smoother and with equal strength and range of motion on both legs. This has been largely generated from freeing up much of the tightness in my right hip/psoas, which had been causing the knee pain, and indirectly the achilles pain.

The only drawback to all of this is the time that I need to spend daily doing rehab. I really just want to be out running, but realize the importance of the rehab work and have been hitting it hard.

I feel that right now I still need to be patient for a while, but am definitely in shape to start getting into shape....meaning that I'm not ready to think about racing to my best yet, but I can see that after another month or so that I could be in a better place to consider testing the waters.

Aside from running, we enjoyed a nice weekend with a couple of meals around the campfire in our backyard. We also set up a slackline between a couple of trees as a fun challenge to work on our balance. Brennan and Heather have also enjoyed giving it a go and I expect that we will be having yet another friendly competition in our house with this new activity.

Training Summary:

Total # of hours last week: 10:38
Total # of hours this year: 353:12
Streak (# of consecutive days of running): 7,552
Training Log Details for the Week

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Heather mastering the Slackline...

Mr Happy Sore Legs

Woke up this morning with tired, sore legs....but in a very good way!

I can usually tell during the first few steps upon getting up how my little nigglies are and if my knee and achilles are happy or not. Today, both were not barking in the least. In fact, they are probably in the best place that they've been in months. The fact that I've increased my training a bit this week has me feeling fatigued, but certainly very optimistic. The added volume has rewarded me with only sore legs from the 'in training' variety, but not the injury kind. That makes me happy!

Recovery between bouts of training will continue to be very important as I move forward, but I'm feeling in a very good place in my current state of soreness.

Onwards!

Dreaming of WS100 and Racing

The Super Bowl of ultra running occurs this weekend with the Western States 100.

I had put my name into the mix last fall, but unfortunately did not get selected. In hindsight, it's probably just as well with the recent injury flareup. With not feeling structurally sound at this point, trying to run 100miles doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense.

Western States is looking to be an incredible race. The men's race is shaping up to be a four man race between Anton Krupicka, Geoff Roes, Hal Koerner and Killian Jornet. The women's race seems a little more wide open, though Nikki Kimball is probably the favourite. Anything is possible in a 100 miler though, so it is going to be very interesting to follow along. Not as fun as actually being there and taking part, but still it will be fun to follow. There is also a strong contingent of Canadians taking part as well with Gary Robbins, Ryne Melcher, Glen Redpath, Tracy Garneau, Tamsin Anstey and Nicola Gildersleeve. You can follow live updates from WS100 here.

With spring now behind us, I'm a little frustrated that I have nothing to show for it. For the past month I have tried to tip toe around the knee relapse and achilles flareup with the hopes of it coming around. I'll get a few decent days and then have a minor setback. I feel that if I could take a short period of really light days, then I'd be fine. Whether that is in the form of a down period or taper, I'm not really sure what makes the most sense right now. My heart is wanting to run in a race, but my gut is telling me it might not be wise. My body is sitting somewhere in between...though probably leaning a little more towards my gut. Finger Lakes 50 is a race that I would love to do again next weekend and salvage something out of the spring, but I haven't fully decided yet one way or the other. I'm just going to take it one day at a time. If I'm feeling good early to mid next week, then I'm going to consider running. If not, then I'll put a little more effort into rehab.

On the topic of rehab, I had my final appointment with Greg Lehman on Wednesday. Kingston has been very fortunate to have Greg in town for a number of years now. Greg has worked magic for Sara and I on countless occasions. Unfortunately for us, Greg is relocating to Toronto to set up practise there. He will certainly be missed by us and others in the Kingston area. I'd like to say a huge thank you to Greg for all the years of help and encourage those in the Toronto area to check him out if they need some help working through or getting past an injury. Check Greg's website for an announcement about his new clinic hours soon in Toronto.

Racing on my Mind

I am a sucker for my training log. Probably no surprise to most who know me as I've kept a detailed training log since I first started running year round in 1982, and have documented every run that I've done. I love going back through it and reviewing it from time to time. The training log doesn't lie and you can quickly tell if you are ready to start thinking about specific goals for a race.

Looking back to this past January, I was in the worst shape of my life due to the knee injury that had hampered me since October. I was still running 20mins very easy each day, but this was certainly not training and things were not looking optimistic. I had gained weight, lost all fitness and was not in a good place. I was even at the point where I was thinking that I might have to take a day (something I hadn't done in over 20years), or extended period of time off of running to get healthy. Looking back on it, I probably should have put a little more emphasis on doing some cross training to maintain cardio fitness, but I really don't enjoy it. For me, it's all about the run. That's what I love. Getting out on the trails daily, exploring nature and feeling alive.

Fortunately, things finally started to turn around in late January with a renewed focus on doing everything possible to get better and I began to see some improvement. Through a combination of laser treatment, Active Release Therapy, acupuncture, foam rolling, Stick Massage, strength training/rehab exercises, Tanda SLD light therapy and even diet changes, things started improving.

February was a bit of a transition month, then I finally began to feel like I was actually training again in early March. March and April have been great months with the past 7 weeks all being over 11 hours of running each week with a high week so far of just under 17 hours. My long run is now up to 4:30 and I feel like I can further increase this as well as I felt really strong on this one.

The one thing that I am a little surprised with is that some of the times that I'm running on my standard routes have gotten faster than I remember ever doing them before in past years. I am at a bit of a loss on this with all of the time that I had to cut back. As much as I don't want to admit it and don't want to go there again, maybe some downtime is what my body needed to recharge itself a bit.

With the way that I'm feeling right now I am anxious to do a race sometime soon. I haven't decided what yet, but whatever I do I want it to be a very low key event and just get the time in as more of a training effort and not think about racing it. I had thought about Pick Your Poison 50km next weekend, but am probably leaning more towards waiting until the end of the month. Sulphur Springs 50km and 50mile is about the right timing, but I'm not sure I want to run that course (jinxed as I am there).

There are a few races in the US that have peaked my interest in May and June, with the Laurel Highlands Ultra being one of them. Any suggestions of other races are certainly welcome.