Finally...the Sun

Today, it rains....again. However, last week we had some lovely, sunny days. Thursday I took my Garmin Forerunner 50 out to finally calibrate it with the foot pod. I ran around the reservoir in Central Park which is a known distance of 1.58 miles. Why is it that the first mile I run feels like it should be the last? It takes me a while to get in the "zone", for lack of a better word, where I feel like I can run without having the urge to poke my eyes out with a stick, which always feels like the less painful option. I hate running. I know I should embrace it, but I dread every run and get that sick, twisty feeling in my stomach just before I head out. Once again, I go wandering off on a tangent. My Garmin. At the end of the "known distance" it came up as 1.61 miles. It was only off by .03 miles. Not bad for out of the box. I decided it was too nice to head home and have been wanting to do some speed work, so headed to the "track" that loops around Sheep Meadow. This also happens to be a known distance; twice around = 1 mile. I did two miles of 1 minute sprints (80%) alternating with 1 minute walks (I'm not at the jog for recovery level yet).

Saturday was my Bike GTS and we were slated to do a BRick. Fortunately it was a great day. Riverside Park was filled with kids finally out for their first baseball and soccer games. There were so many people who showed up that morning. We ran a mile then did push ups to failure, jump on our bikes and head to Central Park. We rode for an hour which, for me, resulted in a 13 mile ride. Then we had to ride back, off our bikes and then run 2 miles (over a nice big hill, for good measure and stairs at the start). No surprise, I felt like I was dragging ass. After I completed the first mile, I seriously considered stopping. After all, no one would know. That annoying little Pollyanna of a voice inside squeaked out, "you'll know and your only doing a disservice to yourself. How will you improve if you cheat?" *%$@#!! So I went on for another mile. Towards the end I realized I was essentially running 2/3 of a sprint tri. Granted the run was broken up, but the distance was all there. Suweet! Even if I was running slower than a heard of turtles stampeding through peanut butter.

My day was long from over though. I still had to head downtown for my bike fit. I think I don't need to tell you that my bike ride that morning was slightly uncomfortable. I need to mention something here. When I reached the northern part of the park, there was this great downhill, you are just flying joyously until....Until I realized that was the hill I would be running up in the actual race.

**(Here is where I took an extended break to deal with my son, who ran into the dining room table and split open his brow. Don't worry Mom, he is fine!!! It bled a lot, but stopped pretty quickly. And in case you were thinking I was being negligent, he was with his sitter, so mom's conscience is free of guilt)

That afternoon I headed to my bike fitting. This was a 5 mile trip downtown. One of my coaches did the bike fitting for me. He spent a good two hours measuring distances and angles, video taping and had my bike on the trainer hooked up to some other computer contraption so I could see how I was pedaling. It felt better right away positionally. I'll know better once I've had some recovery from Saturday; my elbows hurt, my neck hurt. I rode the 5 miles back. I was exhausted as I haven't really had much saddle time. I was in bed by 9 pm, but my body was "buzzing" and I couldn't fall asleep despite my extreme fatigue.

Here is a pic my hubby took on Saturday. I don't love it, and he likes it even less, but I'm not vain, so what the hell.

Keep On Keeping On

Saturday was a disaster. At least by my standards. Clearly my Asics (neutral) are not going to cut it as long as my ankle is still screaming bloody murder on the medial (interior) side. I don't really have an issue when wearing my Saucony's (stability) I guess because they have firm support under my arches and thus my ankle. It really is the damnedest thing; the ligament I damaged is fine (slightly swollen, but not painful) and then inside of my ankle is so not fine. I must have impinged something. I spent Saturday gimping it.

My parents came to visit on Saturday and organized an egg hunt in our living room (it rained on Saturday) much to my son's enormous delight. Easter morning I awoke to "poops in the potty" as is usual. What I wasn't prepared for was the innocent looking, chocolate covered cherub that greeted me once I could manage to open my eyes. "Did you eat the entire chocolate bunny?" Reply, "Yes." (as if to say, of course, what a stupid question, mommy). It was true, the evidence was all over his face. I had meant to mention the night before that he should wait until we were up, but had completely forgotten and left the contraband in the basket, out in the open. It is no wonder he didn't eat his breakfast. The big mystery is how he managed to remain "normal" under the circumstances. I expected to have him bouncing off the walls. Clearly he can hold his sugar (like his mom, makes me so proud...sniff). I had to hide the other bunny my parents bought for him...for his own good....not that I would ever eat it.....I'm only thinking of his well being.....

I went to swim on Monday morning at 6 am. I hate getting up, but I love it once I finally do. I did a mile in the pool working in some drills. I also decided to try a 400 mtr (1/4 mile) continuous swim just to see if I could. It was no problem. We haven't been training for any distance so far, mostly drills so I wasn't sure whether I could. I didn't time myself, I just wanted to see if I could swim that long without calling for help.

Last night we had our group run in Central Park. It ended up being a trail run on the bridle path. In the rain, no less. UGH! All I could think was how I was going to twist my ankle yet again. This was an out and back (OAB) run for a total of 40 minutes. The "out" had stops at every 4 minutes to do squats for a minute then repeat up to 20 minutes, then turn around and just run the return with no squats. A couple of things here. As soon as I started running I felt the urge to pee. Sorry, but there it is. Now, normally, this might be ok if I was someone who had never been pregnant or given birth. As anyone who has knows, there is a certain point in which you enter the "Danger Zone". By this I mean, you seriously need to consider where the closest bathrooms are in any given radius. Once you have given birth, your ability to hold your water has become severely compromised. And ladies, don't think that a C-section provides you an escape from this curse, I had one, and there's still an issue of leakage if pushed to the limits. Add the fact that I am running on top of this urgent feeling....I think you can imagine my distress. I was mentally trying to calculate where the public facilities were, just in case, and plotting my emergency exit from the park based on my location and the street I live on, if this became my only alternative. The good news is this kept my mind off of the running I was doing. The bad news....well there really isn't any. I know you were expecting me to say next that I had peed down my leg or something. Given the rain, I would have gotten away with it. However, that didn't happen, although I had a couple of "that was close" moments. The kegels are paying off.

Blindly running. This was my other distraction. I should not have been wearing my glasses in the rain. Note to self: contacts when it rains. They were fogging up, it was getting dark, they were wet. I kept having to wipe them off to see where I was going. I didn't want to land in a rut and twist my ankle again. All of these things were enough to keep my mind busy and I managed to finish the run without too much trouble. Ok, there were a couple of hills that were killing me, but I soldiered on while others stopped. I ended up running for 4.02 miles. The pace on my last two miles were 9.5 minutes. This is amazing to me because that is where the big hills were. I am pretty proud of myself for finishing the run without stopping, and managing to get that kind of pace despite hills. I hope one day I can look back on this and think, "that was nothing." For now, I'm stoked.

I have to mention something else here. I recently bought some compression socks, right around the time I effed up my ankle. I love them. I should also mention, these are not recovery socks. I am not sure I can rationalize spending $30-60 for a pair of socks. I decided, maybe wrongly, that the medical compression socks, which cost me $14.50 on Amazon, were just as good. I run in them, I sleep in them, I sit and work in them. My calves feel like they are being hugged. I need to try them with the magic tights. Perhaps I'll be "faster than a speeding bullet" then.

Slow and Steady

No long, drawn out literary metaphors today. Unless you really want to count the "Tortoise and the Hare" nod in the title, and hey, it is Easter after all, so what the hell, we need some rabbit reference. I prefer that over the religious ones...those can be contentious, but just to make some of you happy, my title could have also been "The Resurrection". Ok, a Biblical metaphor then. Is the Bible considered literature? Susie? Anyway, I digress.

I seem to be back in the saddle again despite some minor niggling in my ankle. The strange thing is, I had a lateral sprain, however any pain I experience is on the inside ankle just behind the malleolus (ankle bone). I feel it most when I just start out in a run for about the first 5 minutes, then it subsides and it isn't too bad to begin with, so I keep going. I also wake up to a very stiff ankle and need to "walk it off". This morning was much better though. I have been icing and wearing a compression sleeve after running as per the PT. I'm on the mend.

My last week has been pretty good, although not stellar. Saturday I did my bike GTS. It was so windy and cold that morning, a bit unpleasant. I am meeting my bike coach next weekend to better fit my ride; it's set a bit too aggressively for me at the moment. My side plan is to shine a bright light in his eyes, followed by a series of questions aimed at garnering as much information as possible ie., the NYC Triathlon. If all else fails, there is Medieval Torture Devices (see below).

And on the 7th day, I rested.

Monday I was set to go swim in the morning. I started feeling a little under the weather on Saturday and even took a (shocking!) nap. I was still exhausted and icky feeling when I woke up Monday morning and it stayed with me until Monday night. I didn't make the swim, but hey! I could start running again. I decided to go to the gym to run as I wanted a "softer surface" on the treadmill to test out my ankle. Oh! and my new pair of Asics-neutral shoe. I was supposed to only run 1-1.5 miles....I ran 4. I also had to take a break and walk at the halfway point for about a minute. This brings me to.....

Tuesday's group run. I knew we were running for 40 minutes. After not being able to make it on the treadmill the day before, I felt doomed. In retrospect I wasn't feeling well until Tuesday morning, so maybe that is why it went so badly on Monday. In any case, I decided my self defeating attitude wasn't going to make this run any easier. The power of positive thinking. I talked myself into believing I could do this run on my way to the run. I also had my new Garmin and was ready to test it out of the box without calibrating it. The run took us through about 2/3 of the race course for the tri. I managed pretty well in my group; definitely near the front runners and all seemed well....until.....the last 8 or so minutes of the run. For some reason I just suddenly wanted to stop. I didn't and I really had to dig deep, then deeper, and deeper still until I found myself in China...ok, not funny. Seriously, I have no idea how I kept going. My legs just kept moving, albeit, sluggishly from my perspective. We were told if we got to the finish early to do an out and back until we reached 40 minutes. I'm sorry, but I got to the finish in 39"+ and was not going to turn around for 30 seconds to then turn back around for the last 30 seconds. I was done. I made it without stopping. My Garmin recorded an average speed of 6.1 mph and I ran 3.97 mi. I mapped the mileage later and it said the same. I guess they were right it was a 4 mile run. Woo hoo!

Wednesday I did weights in the morning. My shoulders were killing me and my legs were shaking during this workout. I love to kick my own butt. That night was group swim. Love, love, love swim. I love the drills, I love the lengths. I am always disappointed when it is over.

Thursday was my first brick. It was a beautiful day, but I didn't do it outdoors. I'm still not comfy on my bike yet. Meaning...I need it to fit better as noted above. Once that is taken care of I'll try to plan my bricks outdoors. This will take some planning as we don't have garages to just pull up into and leave our bikes. In fact, my bike would last all of 10 seconds on the street, locked up, before it got boosted. That is the sucky part too about the pool situation. I would love to be able to ride to the pool and then leave my bike, go swim, then bike home. Unless I buy a junker bike, it ain't happenin'. They do have a lovely track though outside the pool house which I am considering for tomorrow or Sunday. Off on a tangent again. Any who....I did the bike at the gym for 30 minutes at 90 rpm's, then jumped on the treadmill for 10 minutes at 1% incline and 5.5 mph. Cut me some slack here. I am no runner. I hate running. It was my first brick. Geez...

A note about the stationary bike. It is so terrifyingly boring, as is the treadmill for that matter. I get so anxious even listening to music. So I listen to podcasts. Usually it's "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me", "This American Life" or "The Moth". This day I found something new that was right up my alley. From the annals of "Stuff You Missed In History Class", I bring you Typhoid Mary, The Black Death, Medieval Torture Devices, The Spanish Inquisition and Prohibition. Just chock full of all kinds of interesting facts and information to make the time go by. I found The Black Death of particular interest, but now that I think on it, Medieval Torture Devices had it's own charm.

Today I took the my little man to the Museum of Natural History to see the butterfly exhibit. Last year he was keen on going and was terrified of them once we got inside. I am a bad mother. I teased him mercilessly about the "scary butterflies" for the last year. He begged me to take him again. I did. The butterflies were of no issue, however the heat and humidity of the environment in which they are kept, proved to be too stifling for the young fellow. He kept asking to leave. The fastest spent $38 I will ever see. Along with no hope of moving to FL., as if....no offense Sherry!

On another side note. I have met my fundraising goal and then some. However, I am going to keep harassing my friends and family and my gyno, when I see her next month! After all, my dentist and CPA coughed up. Enough, is really never enough when there is no cure, so I keep on keeping on. My mom did a nice post on me in her blog. Complete with embarrassing photos from high school; the fat and thin stages of my life. Here is a sneak peak.


Hey, don't be hatin', it was the 80's...headbands were in! Along with some other ill advised fashion miscalculations. A Blue Moon awaits me....ahhhhhh.....

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst Of Times...

I'm beginning to wonder if I am actually writing a literary blog here. First and foremost, I want to send my thoughts and prayers out to my hometown of Binghamton, NY and the families of the victims of the senseless violence that occurred there today. I heard the citizens speaking about the area and how friendly and welcoming it is and you can believe it to be true from someone who grew up there. The residents there are very warm and kind and truly, you could never imagine anything this horrific happening in such a nice community. It is, as of late, a particularly sleepy area of mostly blue collar workers. Most of the industry has left including IBM for whom my father worked for 20 some odd years. This morning my mother happened to be at one of the hospitals where they were bringing the wounded. She said when she arrived that already the staff was running around in a sort of frenzy. Apparently the violence started around 10:30 am. I received a text from my sister, who lives in LA, about 1:30 pm, asking if I had heard about "Bingo"? Less than a minute later my husband called to tell me what was going on (he is in the news biz). I immediately turned on CNN (sorry Tommy) to get some info. It is such a senseless crime and there is no way to rationalize it. I just hope the victimized families can find some peace; I know the good citizens of Binghamton will come to their aid and help them heal and rebuild their lives.

It is hard to follow bad news such as that with some good news of my own. However, this is a blog about my training and progress (or lack there of). I went to see the PT today about my ankle. The same PT office that hosted the injury prevention clinic of last weekend; cruel irony. I wanted to go for two reasons: to get an assessment of my ankle and the severity of the injury and to be sure I really didn't need to go to the doctor. I really don't like to go to the doctor unless it is really necessary. I met with Jonathan, who was extremely nice. He had me sit down and took a look at my ankle. He could see it was still swollen. He said he noticed I wasn't limping and I told him it really was at it's worst in the morning, I have to limp around until it loosens up. He asked lots of questions: how did it happen? When did it happen? How did I treat it? etc. Then he said he was going to manipulate it a bit. I cringed. Although I am able to walk on it without any pain I have been consciously avoiding any lateral movement; this was gonna be bad. Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit! It didn't hurt at all and it didn't matter which direction he manipulated my ankle. The swollen part of my ankle was still sore to the touch; the anterior talo-fibular ligament. He had me do some more things: walk to check my gait, walk on my heels, stand on one foot, toe raises. After doing quite a number of toe raises he asked how my ankle felt. I told him it actually felt fine, but my calf was getting fatigued. He told me that I actually had pretty strong calves to do those toe raises for as long as I did. That said, he (and I) were particularly surprised how tight my calves and Achilles are. I do stretch them always, but apparently not well enough (see the bottom left two) He showed me how to do those stretches more effectively with a foam roller that is cut lengthwise in half so that my toe is resting on it and then trying to step forward. I know, hard to visualize, but I couldn't find anything on the net like it. I will say this, my calves aren't just tight, they are super tight! I have some serious stretching ahead of me.

He also took a good look at my feet, checked my gait again, had me do some squats. He asked what running shoe I was using. I told him the Saucony Hurricane which is a stabilization shoe. He told me that I had a neutral foot, in fact he said I had really good feet (thanks Mom & Dad). He said that I didn't need to run out and get new shoes, but that if I started to feel any kind of knee discomfort that I should consider a neutral shoe. Truth is, I had been feeling a little bit of niggling discomfort after running on the inside of my knees, but chalked it up to old joints. So I decided to stop by the New York Running Company on the way to pick up my little one from pre-school. The woman at the store was very helpful and took a lot of time with me. I didn't tell her what I was currently running in until she had determined that I had a neutral gait. I left with a pair of Asics Gel Landreths and a 10% discount for being a member of TNT (membership does have benefits!).

The ultimate good news is that I can start running next week. Although he cautioned low mileage to see how my ankle feels. I was warned that there will probably be swelling and I should put a compression sleeve on after running and elevate and ice. In fact I am to elevate and ice all weekend too. Hope is restored!

I also contacted one of our coaches who does bike fittings to see if he can check me out on the bike and see what, if anything, needs to be tweaked. I really don't trust the bike stores around here after they let me walk out with a $750 hybrid a few years ago that was too big for me. I also don't trust those ergo/bio fit machine things they seem to have in all the stores now. Call me old fashioned or just a jaded New Yorker, but that's me.