Injury Pains

This post was written by Andrea...
2012 seems to be my year of injuries. As if right on cue to the new year, I developed forefoot pain that bothered me from January until the beginning of March. I was able to train successfully from then until April, but then I re-aggravated a distal hamstring strain during an interval workout. I decided to train through it until the Half Marathon Championships in June. After that, I slowly ramped my training back up. I finally got my mileage back up... only to begin experiencing hip pain in July. I decided to take more time off..

...and here we are now - its September and I've hardly run in the past month. The hip pain got worse over the next six weeks. In that time, I tried ART, physical therapy, and a round of oral corticosteroids with no relief from the hip pain. Just last week, I got MRIs of both my hip and my spine. Results = inconclusive. A little displacement in a nerve in the spine area, a little unusual labral characteristics, but nothing that couldn't show up as a false positive on someone that was 100% healthy and asymptomatic as well.

One of the most frustrating things about an injury is not knowing: 1) the root cause of the pain, and 2) how to recover from/fix it. I was given the go-ahead to exercise again as long as it didn't cause the pain to get worse.

So this week I started running/cross training a little more. The hip pain actually seems to be getting better with exercise... but at a cost. The biceps femoris muscle of the hamstrings, from the distal attachment to the short head, is painful when I run. So the million dollar questions - are the two injuries related? Is one causing the other? Are the problems I am experiencing coming from a completely different source? Could all this be related to the chronic back pain I had up until May of this year?

It is so hard for me to be injured. I like to be as active as possible, whether it be running, hiking, skiing, cycling, etc. I'm trying to stay positive with all of this, but I NEED my exercise to keep me sane, to relieve stress, to clear my mind, and to feel like I've accomplished something every day.

I'm at the point now where I just want to be healthy again. Forget about training for a specific race, forget about high mileage and tempo runs. I would be perfectly content to get up every morning and go for an easy 30 minute run and be able to have fun adventures. For a while, at least :-)

Layton Classic 5K (then a weekend in the mountains)

2 mile mark of the Layton Classic 5K

As always, I ran a shorter tune-up race on Saturday, a week before the marathon. I decided to head up to Layton for the Classic 5K and that was a great choice - its a very well organized race on a honest course - some rolling hills at altitude made it a good test. I didn't have anyone to push me and won easily, so I was happy to run 15:17 and feel pretty good doing that. You can read a more detailed race report on my running log - Layton Classic 5K Race Recap.

After the race we headed up to Alta, went for a hike, hung out with friend at the post-Peruvian Dash BBQ, then spent the night at the Peruvian Lodge. It was fun to get up in the mountains... the weather is beautiful right now.

Andrea is on the mend and starting to run a little bit more - its been great to have her company and run with her again the past couple days. She'll have an update on the blog in the upcoming week.

Less than a week until the TOU Marathon - Guess its taper time... 

About 1/4 of a mile into the race

2 mile mark

Approaching the finish line

Hiking up at Alta

Andrea hanging out at Cecret Lake

We spent the night at the Peruvian Lodge - what a great location!

We spent a lot of time in this hot tub over the weekend

We had the Peruvian Lodge pretty much all to ourselves

Oktoberfest at Snowbird
Last year we went up here for Oktoberfest with my Dad and took a tram ride

Andrea being awesome as usual

The last major order of business for the weekend was to melt a bunch of chocolate and dip stuff in it!

Saucony Fastwitch 6 Sneak Peak

March 2013 Update: I've run two marathons in the Fastwitch 6 since writing this original review (TOU 2012 and PHX 2013). I won both races, so its gotta be the shoes, right? :-)  In all honesty, I've been very happy about how these shoes have performed over the marathon distance. My feet and toes have held up really well both times. No blisters, no pain. I wouldn't even think about wearing anything else for the marathon. 

My favorite racing flat for marathons (and my primary "fast workout" shoe) is the Saucony Fastwitch. I got my first pair of Fastwitch 5s last fall, wore them for the Philadelphia Marathon, and have used them for about 300+ miles worth of tempo runs since then. This past spring I picked up another pair in bright blue that looked pretty snazzy on the streets of Boston.

Saucony has a new version (Fastwitch 6) coming out in early 2013, and they were able to get me a pair ahead of time for the Top of Utah Marathon on September 15th. The new FT6 is a very slick shoe - Saucony didn't change the midsole/outsole (which is good - no need to alter something that is awesome!), but they revamped the upper - changing it to Flexfilm, which reduces the overall weight of the shoe by about an ounce. So its the same great Fastwitch, just a little bit lighter.

I took the FT6s out for their first test-spin this morning - a fast 10K tempo run. They felt perfect and I'm excited to lace them up for the marathon next weekend! I'm a big fan of how outrageously bright orange they are.

I should also note that Andrea has had a pair of FT6s since we visited the Saucony HQ in April. She had been wearing the FT5s for the half-marathon and marathon with great success, and is also big fan of the "upgrade." She raced in the new version when she ran 1:17 at the USA 1/2 Champs in June.

The two men's color schemes from Saucony Racing (check out their Facebook page)

Another sneak peak from Running Warehouse.

Here's some video previews from Running Warehouse and Outdoor Retailer if you want some more information...

How I got my start in running - Part 2

Two weeks ago I wrote a post about how I got my "start" in running (check out Part 1). It ended up getting pretty long so I decided to split it into multiple parts... here's Part 2:

After my junior year of high school I was "all-in" with running. Over the summer I made the decision to tell my basketball coach that I wasn't planning to play anymore, and I began training more seriously for the first time. I also started to read every book about the sport that I could get my hands on. Running with the Buffaloes opened my eyes to a whole new level of what hard work really was.

The first order of business that summer was qualifying for the Empire State Games (sort of the New York State scholastic summer olympics). I decided to try out for the 10,000m despite the fact that I don't think I had ever even gone for a singlerun longer than 6-7 miles in my life at that point. Long story short - I made the team for the Adirondack Region, and at the ESG I won the 10K.

I went into my senior year of cross country as a man on a mission - I wanted to be the best XC runner in the state. The year started off awesome - I broke course records in my first 3 meets, but then my performances started to slip off. In hindsight, I lost a little too much weight and my strength decreased. Mentally, once I lost my "edge" I couldn't get it back. Going into the Class A Sectional Championships as one of the 3-4 favorites in the race, I completely fell apart and ended up finishing in 26th place. It was ugly and a rough way to end the year.

August 2001 w/ Bill Rodgers before the Old Chatham 5K

2001 Amsterdam XC team

With my sister, Jenna, after the Big 10 Championships

The start of the 2001 Sectional Meet - the worst I've ever fallen apart during a race

My high school didn't have an indoor track program, so I was on my own to train through the winter and prepare myself for the outdoor season. A lot of people probably wrote me off after my implosion at the XC sectionals, but I made my goal for that spring even bigger than before: win sectionals in the 1600m and 3200m. Over that winter my parents and sister started to get more involved in running and racing, which was really fun. My parents and I ran a marathon relay together and won the mixed division. Of all the old newspaper clippings I have, this one below is my favorite:

The spring of 2002 was one to remember. I shattered the school records in the 1600m and 3200m, running 4:17 and 9:16. I won the sectionals and qualified for the state championships in both events, achieving the very lofty goal that I had set for myself. The "believe in your training" philosophy became my go-to mantra.

2002 Niskayuna Invitational - the first time I ran 4:17 for the 1600m

After high school, I went to Colgate University with dreams of being a star college runner. Things didn't quite turn out the way I had hoped. I had a couple so-so years of XC and a few decent track times, but didn't run up to anyone's expectations - especially considering the tremendous upside I had (running 4:17/9:16 in high school). I was hurt a lot, became frustrated with the sport, and during my junior year I didn't want to compete w/ the team anymore. I focused on my academics, ran for fun/fitness, but my college racing days were over before I accomplished anything of significance. Mentally, I was not anywhere nearly as strong as I am now - and that was a very big part of my lack of success.

Freshman Year, Cross Country team

NCAA XC Regionals - Boston, 2003
(Don't ask about the hair!)

While I was living in Maryland/Delaware/Washington DC from 2006-2008 after graduating from Colgate, I sporadically competed in road races - running some decent but unspectacular times - 15:39 for 5K, 26:02 for 8K, 52:22 for 15K, and 1:12:28 for the half-marathon. I kept trying to train for a marathon but always got myself injured... part of it was stupid training, part of it bad luck. At best, my running and racing was extremely sporadic during these years.

During the summer of 2008 I started to get my old track legs back - racing in open meets in Washington DC. I was running some quick times (4:20ish miles, low 9:20s in the 2-mile), but then wouldn't race again until 2011... a 2.5 year break from competition. Somehow, despite never intending for it to happen, I came out of this "hiatus" as a completely different runner - strong, resilient to injuries, mentally tougher - and would start running faster than I ever imagined I was capable of.

I'll save Part 3 - how I got re-invested in racing - for another post, the last in this series. I'll try to get it posted by next week.

DC Summer track meets, August 2008

Wildcat Half Marathon

Start of the Wildcat Half Marathon in Huntsville

This morning I ran the Wildcat Half Marathon up in Huntsville, UT as my last longer/harder workout before the marathon coming up in 2 weeks. After running 1:06:03 at the TOU 1/2 last weekend, I wasn't looking for an all-out effort, just a steady marathon-paced run with a slightly faster finish. I accomplised that goal, coming through 10 miles in just under 54 minutes and then cranking down the pace a bit over the last 5K, finishing in 1:10:12 for 2nd place. I was satisfied with the effort - I got what I needed out of this race and didn't push myself too hard.

A more detailed race report is on my running log - Wildcat Half Marathon Race Report

This was a nice small-town race but with very good competition, mainly because its on the USATF-Utah Circuit this year.

Andrea was out on the course taking pictures...

Course elevation profile

The pack at around 1.5 miles

The valley up by Huntsville is a beautiful area

Running w/ Riley around mile 6.5

Around mile 12

Heading towards the finish

It was humid outside during and after the race!