Marathon Maniac Entry (4-16-2006)

Bloggers ... I'm adding this entry the MM buliten board for continuity.
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So, on April 1st I decided to get out and run Tiger for a couple of hours. It was snowing and there were some blow downs just beyond the T1 hiker's hut on the bypass trail. I was wet and cold, being unprepared for the snow, so I turned around rather than trying to climb through the branches. It worked out well as I was tired and the injury was hurting - this allowed me to get back down in timer to clean up, change, and head over to Issaquah HS where my daughter would be running the 1600 and 3200 races.The following week (April 3-8) found me working the ellipticals hard. I have been using the manual mode, 16 (of 20) on the resistance, and attempting to maintain 75 rpm. This worked my heart at an average of 160 for an hour and burned (supposedly) over 1200 calories. It's a good aerobic workout, makes me sweat a lot, but lacks the feeling of pounding and flexing of the quads that I like so much. I telecommute on Fridays and found myself heading out to Lakes Youngs for a slow run on the 9.3 mile course. It felt so good I decided to go there again in the morning rather than heading up to Tiger. Saturday, I ran 2 loops around Lake Youngs. My hamstring on the injury side hurt terribly in the middle of the second loop but was fine later that day and on Sunday. It was nice to get in 18 miles however slow.I had gone to see a specialist on Wednesday and had an x-ray on my upper leg and hip area. The x-ray showed nothing out of the ordinary for a 20 year old male (I love how the x-ray lies about my age ;-). The Doc wanted to make sure all was well skelitally, so he ordered a bone scan. I had that on Friday but would not receive the results until the following week. My wife has been in San Antonio, TX for a month by this time. My daughter was on spring break the week of April 10th so we headed down to see her. Texas was hot/humid and there was no good place for me to run (soft). Monday was my daughter's birthday and I made her run anyway. She needs to stay in shape even if her old man is broken. We managed only a short 4 miler as she was feeling terrible - she ended up with a fever that night (mean daddy)! We ended up taking her to a local clinic the next day to see if she had strep. Luckily, she ONLY had a virus. She hasn't run since and I found no good reason to push myself on the hard surface, so I took a couple of days off.I spoke over the phone with the Doc on Wednesday and he told me that the bone scan was negative. Phew!!! I had the green light to run the Cap Peak 50 miler but, with the advice of my coach and me lack of enthusiasm (it hurt to run 4 miles for goodness sakes), I decided to bag that idea. BAD APRIL! I managed to get in a painful 5 miler on Thursday (85 degrees / 95 percent humidity). The heat actually didn't feel all that bad but my leg did. We flew back to Seattle on Friday and I got the kinks out by running a 6 miler in 42 degrees / 100 percent humidity (aka rain). It felt so much better. I didn't even wear a jacket or gloves and just soaked in (litterally) the run. The leg felt good too! Important thing I found was that the periformis stretch the Doc had recommened was actually making things worse for me. I didn't stretch it before my Friday run and all went well. Made plans to run a FA loop with Glenn on Saturday (today). The run went extremely well for me. I was so excited to get out there and run with Glenn and felt good too, that I didn't fret about not being able to run Cap Peak. I did think about those who would be out there a better part of the day. I knew if there was snow on Tiger, there must be snow in Olympia. It would have been miserable for me to slog through that course - even if I was able to move along ok, I would probably be so cold as I would be moving slow and not producing a lot of heat.Well, next week is Mt Si. Should I even consider it? The roads don't seem to be smiling on me lately but the trails have been treating me just fine. Depending on what's going on with Danielle (my daughter) next weekend, Mr Mom will either run Lake Youngs (2-3 loops) or a long run on Tiger. During the week, I'm going to try and mix short road runs with the elliptical machine; slowly working back into running full time within a few weeks if possible. I'm pretty certain that I am having more than one issue. The main problem is tendinitis and torn muscle in the same area I believe (as does Glenn). Glenn also thinks that the compensation for the injury is causing my other problems, sore hamstrings and other twinges & pains, generally in the butt area. My next action item is to consult with the sports medicine Dr. that I was unable to make an appointment with originally. I need to find out the "CORRECT" stretches I should be doing and what to do to strengthen the affected area so that I can get back into training mode.Maybe I'll be able to run (not race) a race in May. That's all for this episode.