First Steps and Thoughts on Form

  Yesterday was the first day I was allowed to start weaning off the crutches.  I was supposed to start putting more weight on the leg while using the crutches and to spread about 20 minutes of unassisted walking over the course of the day.  I have been religiously following the guidelines for my return and as such I have definitely been chomping on the bit the last few weeks to take some steps.

  My first unassisted steps came when I was carrying my morning tea and oatmeal to the table.  I am at best uncomfortable being waited on and not being able to carry liquid unless it was in a container has been very annoying.  As I have been  doing exercises and getting around and feeling very little if any pain it was shocking to put my weight on the leg and feel how stupendously weak it was.  I could only walk with a shaky slow limp and my upper body tilting heavily on the bad leg stride.  The best thing I can relate the feeling to is when you are lifting weights and you get to the last few reps of a max set and suddenly you can't seem to make the muscles do the task.  I was right on the the edge of that.   After only a few steps when I sat I could feel noticeable fatigue.   It cleared quickly though and I was able to keep mixing in bits of walking through the day.  I had no real pain just the occasional burning feeling around the scar.  As an aside I really should take a picture of that thing and post it, not really safe for work, given that it would basically be a pic of my ass, but it is about 8 inches long and not too pretty.  Melissa gagged the first time she saw it, which was a great reaction to get from a beautiful woman!

  The limp had me really thinking about my muscular cross training plan for re-balancing my muscles, and myself neurologically.  Imbalance and running are not good.  Honestly I'm of the believe you can generally get away with doing a lot of stuff wrong with your form if you can do it in a balanced way but if you are out of balance it is very hard to stay healthy.  To say I'm out of balance now is an understatement and a half.  I am entirely unaware on a conscious level that I am standing with all or nearly all my weight on my left leg and I can barely step on the right without some pretty funky upper body movements to get through the process.  This is all expected but experiencing it really has been hyper aware of the job ahead.

  My plan for neuromuscular work is two fold.  First more for the neuro side is feldenkrais.  I have been doing this for a year or so and am a huge fan.  These strange "exercise" sets are basically a rewiring of the connection from your brain to your muscles and cause you to run very differently, and much more naturally, without really thinking about it.  Teaching yourself to make even a small change in form is generally a long hard nearly impossible process and often the outcome is unnatural and not at all what the goal was.  This is the complete opposite, it is fast, it immediately feels natural and it looks natural and un-strained.   The one draw back is that it teaches you to move a certain way but then basically expects you to just do it and be better.  My experience, and in all fairness this could be largely caused by the volume and speed of the running I generally do, is that this doesn't work too well.  My muscles fatigue out and I end up falling back into bad habits and this really slows the change.  So part two is muscular work.  I will be slowly adding back in my functional muscular exercises.  These range from Olympic lifts to drills and jumping exercises.  These along with a ton of massage to undo the knots in my back and hips from crutch-ing around for two months will be key to avoiding setbacks once I can get running again.

  In terms of timing I will start the feldenkrais long before I can run as that is movement stuff, not even body weight lifting.  However I do need to be able to do a resistance-less clam before I can start and that is still a while coming. I follow an 8 exercise series of feldenkrais exercises from https://www.balancedrunner.com/ .  I'll do the main longer lessons, 50 to 80 minutes each,  only once or twice each.  I'll do the follow up lessons, 15 to 40 minutes, 1 to 10 times each depending on where I'm needing to make improvements.  Then I'll do the very short 3 to 4 minute lessons pretty much daily.   These shorter ones are more about maintaining good form and slowly touching up your form but they are super easy to mix in and they do a great job of preventing me from slipping back into old habits while ever so slowly actually helping my form improve.

  The muscular side will be largely under the control of the PT and then Anna.  This is not my area of expertise and I am a believer in finding good people and doing what they tell you when you don't know too much about something.  I have some basic things I'd like to do.  I would like to be back to dead lifting around 300lbs.  I want to be doing around 60 front squats, broken into sets, with around 100lbs and I want to be squatting my body weight for sets of 6 to 10.  Additionally I would like to get to doing sets of 10 to 20 pull ups, as I feel these really help my weakest point, my lats.  Which I think impacts my form and may be putting undue stress on some of my trouble areas. 

  I have started back at the pull ups already but the rest of the stuff is a while off.  Currently I'm just doing some super easy weightless motions or exercises with 1 to 2 lb wights or light rubber bands.  I am improving but I would rate my current fitness/ability with these as active grandma.  I'm hoping to get them to exceptional grandma but the middle of next week but we'll just have to see.

  The two things I see as most critical in this comeback are first the start.  I need to get out in front on some of this before I take a running stride to build the proper environment in my body for running.  Second will be the early stretch when I'm building up from zero running to about 4 miles.  If I can do good work in that stretch so that the running I'm doing is an extension of the good body work I'm doing I think I'll really be able to hit the ground running come October and I think I'll improve much quicker as I'll be firing on all cylinders and not be in a situation where my body is fighting itself.

  So that is where I am and where I'm going in terms of mechanical motion and standing on my own two feet.  I hope your ahead of me in both categories at the moment.

Training Blog May 29 to June 4

Monday AM 9.1 miles with Uta around Phillips in 54:19, sort of an unplanned fundamental tempo

Tuesday PM 5 miles at Phillips with Uta and Melissa, 41:37

Wednesday PM 3+ warm up 15 strides with jog back recoveries, 3+ cool down. Calf a bit tired/sore after this

Thursday PM 4 miles with Uta, 27:28

Friday PM 9 miles around Phillips, 1:06:34, first 5 with Melissa and Uta

Saturday AM 6 miles road with Uta, 40:33

Sunday PM road 10 solo, 1:04:50

This is a pic of me eating pickles, you know because they are delicious and we needed to go grocery shopping.  That is why I'm eating the pickles I'm posting the pic because I feel like the blog needs more photos. 

Summary 52 miles for the week.  Two moderate efforts.  I did a bunch of feldenkrais stuff but didn't make any breakthroughs or anything.  Some of it is very neat/weird.  Tough to describe but you really have this moments when you feel like you are reprogramming your mind/body connection.
  My calf is a bit tired but I haven't had a day off in 16 days so I'll take one tomorrow.   Next couple of weeks are pretty busy but then summer comes and the living is easy.

Oh and least I forget if you want to try some Rabbit gear use this link and you get 10% off

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Training Blog May 22 to 28, 2017

Monday AM road 4 with Uta, 28:04

Tuesday PM 7.2 miles around Phillips Academy, first 5 miles with Uta and Melissa, this felt pretty good.

Wednesday PM 5.2 miles on roads with Uta in 34:29.  Uta was more into this one than I was...

Thursday PM 8.2 on the roads in the rain with Uta, nice run, 52:03, planned strides for tonight but was getting pretty cold/tight by the time I finished up so I decided to skip them.

Friday PM road 5 mile solo, gave Uta the evening off, 32:41

Saturday AM at Chelmsford rail trail, 3.1 mile warm up, strides- this felt really excellent, all between 4:20 and 4:35 pace but felt easy and smooth, 2 mile tempo- this felt less excellent, aerobically ok but my quads were a bit burny by the end and my HR looks to have been through the roof, for what the watch hr is worth, 10:22 (5:13, 5:09), 3.4 miles cool down

Sunday PM I was in VT for a memorial for my Brother and slipped in a jog on the AT, I planned on 5 but this was pretty hilly single track and so after 25 mins, and according to the Garmin 1.88 miles, I turned around, I would guess it was longer than that given the dense tree cover and very windy nature of the trail but probably not all that much longer...

Summary 43 miles for the week, give or take.  One light workout.  I'm finally to the point where I was willing to write myself a bit of a schedule.  In general I am addicted to having a plan and following a schedule.  I'm pretty good about listening to my body and making adjustments to that schedule as needed.  I would guess I only follow it to the letter in somewhere between 1 week out of 5 to 1 week out of 10 but I do feel that having a plan, knowing how the workouts need to progress and what workouts are going into the overall mix keeps me from training out of balance or from getting caught up in training for training sake.   That said early in a comeback things are so touch and go I find that plans cause nothing but complications, disappointments and artificial barriers.  Far better to just have a general sense of what you are trying to do, is today a recovery day or an increase day or a day I'm going to try to run a 'new' pace.  Then listen to the body.  Many runs I start in the early part of a comeback even as I start the run I don't know how far it is going to be.  I will head out with the intention of trying to run farther then my last 'push day' but that might mean doing 1 minute more or 2 miles more depending on how the body reacts and feels on the day.  I also always end up taking a day off that I don't want to take because I can feel the pressures building in the body and that I'm not as recovered on a given day as I should be before adding new stimulus.
  Beyond that I have continued with one to two Feldenkrais sessions per day for cross training.

Training Blog May 15 to 21

Monday 3 miles in 19:19 with Uta

Tuesday 5 miles with Uta and Melissa, 39:42

Wednesday 4 miles in 26:10

Thursday 6.7 miles, 6 miles in 37:01 then four strides with Jog back recovery

Friday off

Saturday 4.1 miles with Uta and Melissa in 31:18

Sunday 2 mile warm up with Melissa, strides, 30 second fast effort, race Travs Trail 3 mile in 15:38, 1st place. 1.5 mile cool down with Melissa and Kara Haas.

Summary 30 miles for week. 1 race.  I did a ton of the Feldenkrais work.  Which is not hard, all sort of neurological.  Ok why the race.  Basically I love this race.  This and the great bay 5k are my two favorite local races.  Also I have won here for a few years in a row and I didn't want to give up the streak without a fight. Not an ideal point to race but hey sometimes you need to bend the rules.
  Hope you are well.

Rabbit Elite and Training for May 1 to 7

New 'sponsor'

  I joined the Rabbit Elite team.  I'm still running for CMS this is an equipment team like Hurricanes or Volee. I joined because I really like the company.  They are small but they still sponsor some up and coming pros.   They make all of their stuff in the USA and it is really nice kit.  If you want to try it out click on the link below and get 10% off.

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Training

May 1 to 7

Monday bikram yoga

Tuesday 4 miles in 28:50

Wednesday bikram yoga

Thursday 4 miles in 28:03

Friday bikram yoga

Saturday 4 miles with Melissa and Uta in 31:00

Sunday off

May 8 to 14

Monday 5 miles with Uta in 33:04

Tuesday bikram yoga

Wednesday 5 miles with Uta in 33:05- same loop as Monday I think we deserve some points for consistency.

Thursday 2 miles with Uta in 13:37

Friday 5 miles with Uta, first three with a very tired Melissa, 36:32

Saturday 3 miles with Uta and Melissa, 23:29.

                 I also did a ton of yard work, turning two large compost piles, spreading compost and mulch in my garden and other random stuff like that. 

               Before bed I did a half hour Feldenkrais 'lesson', more on that in the summary. 

Sunday 6.7 miles around Phillips with Melissa and Uta, 52:47. 

Summary I'm back running a little bit, so I'm obviously happy about that.  The calf thing is still there but only very lightly.  The key to fixing it was a Feldenkrais routine, which they call lessons for whatever reason, for pelvic mobility.  After I did it the first time I was able to run without pain for the first time.  I have been doing it before every run and at least once on most of the days I haven't been running.  

  I honestly have tried most every type of cross training or injury treatment that you can imagine but honestly up until a few months ago I had never heard of Feldenkrais.  It is different.  The idea is to improve your mechanical running and muscular balance through exercises that improve your running coordination and neurological firing patterns.  The lessons are easy to do physically, if anything the risk is that you push to hard. 

  Melissa has been doing some Feldenkrais stuff that Anna set her up with through Terrence Mahon.  She is the one who found the pelvic routine that helped me get back moving in the right direction.  My plan now is to do a pretty involved program over the next 7 weeks as I slowly build up my running to see if it helps my coordination problem.  Obviously I'll keep you updated on how it goes.