Tag Archives: injury recovery

5 Shades of Gray

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5 miles
Hilly Silly Strides

Wait, were you hoping for a dirty post?   Read further…you’ll see :)

I don’t know how you see the world, but I spent a better part of my life living in black and white- avoiding every and all shades of gray.  Being afraid of uncertainty drove me to see everything from one radical perspective or another.   Luckily, I have a much healthier perspective on things but it leaves me with lots of questions.  So here are 5 shades of gray I’m wrestling with right now

Saturday’s Race – To run or not to run - I’m signed up to run the SheRuns half marathon on a “very challenging” (their words) course.  I decided to test out my preparedness by running 5 miles of hills in the 89 degree weather today.  Ankle seems okay, but I was dragging at an 8:30ish pace. This could likely be my first 2 hour + half marathon since 2003 when I ran a 2:01 in Chicago.  Can someone say “personal worst”?

Pic from the trail race on Saturday. I’m all Dory from Finding Nemo – “soooo pretty”…. Source

I’m feeling about as prepared to run this as I am to sing the national anthem at a Monday Night football game, so going into a race a physical and mental mess is asking for trouble.  Normally I’d be all “small race, let’s take the age group!” about this, but here I am hoping to avoid a DNF and not take longer than 2.5 hours to run the darn thing.

Running Shirtless – To wear or not to wear – At what age and temperature is it not appropriate to run in just your sports bra anymore?  Somehow I think I’m starting to fall into that category and need some sort of formula for this.

For the love of the land Heather said it best – we’re in a So Cal heatpocalypse right now…and I’m constantly torn between trying to cool off and having to put Body Glide under my chin to prevent chaffing from my post-baby stomach skin rubbing on my chin with each stride.

Boston – To run or not to run – I’m a mom on a budget and somehow dropping $1,000 for a weekend of racing is hard to justify.  I’m starting to feel like it’s going to be, “Hey kids, sorry you’re eating canned beans 3 meals a day for the next 4 months, but Mommy really wants to check this off her bucket list.”  Somehow doesn’t seem right.

Can you put a price on this? Honestly, I need to know… Source

White Sports Bras – To buy or not to buy - Are they even worth purchasing?  It seems like one run through the wash and mine are 3 shades of gray already.  I looked like a dirty athletic hippy trying to get dressed this morning.  I told you this post was going to be dirty ;)

Silly Chili – To cook or not to cook – NFL season started and I was sent home from my aunt’s with some leftover tri-tip and a BUNCH of fresh tomatoes.  If that doesn’t cry – “Make chili”, I don’t know what does.  My children are still confused as to why we were eating piping hot chili when it was 92 degrees out but whatever, let’s just pretend it’s fall.

I hope this post lived up to it’s title – I did talk about being shirtless and got down and dirty after all.

Do you have any advice for me on these categories?
Is Boston worth the dinero?
Will I ever pass go and collect $200?

Communicating With Herring

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4 Miles
Reflective Strides

You don’t have a ninja reading the Sunday paper at your house? You’re missing out!

This evening I was running errands and heard Strawberry pipe up from the back seat.

Strawberry:  [reading National Geographic kids...'cause let's face it, only he would] Mom, did you know herring communicate by passing gas.

A little time passes…and apparently much gas because eventually I hear yelling from the other room.

Strawberry:  Hey Mom!  Check it out, I’m the great herring communicator.

This, my friends, is my life.

Which got me thinking…about thinking…

With my post-ankle sprain recovery here I’m having to go slow…suuuper slow which means I have lots of time to think while I’m running – not just obsessing about my watch and speed.

This morning I found myself rewriting the “Night Before Christmas” to the “Night Before the Race”, praying, dreaming about bagels and wondering when Pumpkin Spice was showing up at Starbucks (good news -the answer was today!).

So maybe going slow isn’t all that bad.  I had a breakfast planned, a plan of attack for a work project, some monster processing and reflection about the “big things” in my life right now…and the sun was barely peaking over the mountains by the time I was done.

Perfect view to end a slow & steady run…there’s mountains back there somewhere….

What consumes your thoughts when you’re running?
Are you a herring communicator?  [you don't really have to answer that]

The Labored Day

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Secret Strides

Wanna know my stride count?  Gotta read ’til the end. ;)

I’m not sure about you but my 3-day weekend was a big ol’ roller coaster- filled with hellos, goodbyes, and some good natured laughs and cries.  That said…it’s nice to feel human once in a while, eh?

I started things out up in LA sending off my cousin to college.  I feel like the not so little butthead can hardly be going off to college since he was pretty much born a few years ago.

#classypants  Here I am photobombing a pic with my cousin & his girlfriend.  The only other pic I have of us of late involves a failed synchronized swimming attempt.  He’s off to play baseball on the East Coast – you’ll do amazing Mikey!

Apparently Saturday morning I decided that come blue moon or high water I was going to show my ankle who was boss and headed to one of my fave running spots – Santa Monica.  I went out REEEAAAALLLL slow.

Might I add I am so not good at this.  Like. at. all.  Every time someone passed me I got crabby and silently wished them grains of sand in their shoe.  Not really – well, at least most of the time.

I just remembered that pushing it now could mean more non-running time and dealt with the slow 3.5 mile walk and then 1.5 mile splashy cool down in nature’s biggest ice bath -the Pacific.

Total mileage – 5 glorious start up miles.  Pain after – minimal.  Runner’s Happiness Quotient (RHQ)- 6/10

And Monday…glorious Monday.  After a day of rest I used my Labor Day to wrangle down a [once again] very slow 7.5 miles with a 1.5 mile walk to cool down, ice and recover with a banana and latte.

Ice on my foot and in my cup – sweaty, salty and blissfully satisfied.

Oh the humanity I felt real again.  It’s amazing how a disruption of even a few weeks can totally throw me from my game.

Total mileage – 9 slow but steady pain-free miles.  Pain after - negativo.  RHQ – 8/10

To celebrate a few friends visiting in town and I took the top off my cousin’s (another cousin, I know it’s hard to keep track) jeep and headed down to Laguna Beach to one of my favorite restaurants The Beach House.  Food – B, View & Ambience – A.

I *heart* Cali

To continue with the laboring on my day I had to finish up some work projects so I spent most of my afternoon/evening working.  I have a planned day off on Wednesday to celebrate the last day of summer with the boys so it was totally worth the adjustment!

Injury recovery blows.  It’s so hard easing back in…but I keep remembering how happy I am to actually be running again and not having my ankle swell up like a balloon every time I step on it.  Here’s to no more twisted/sprained ankles and *hopefully* recovering enough to pull out the half marathon in 2 weeks.

Did you Labor on your day?
Any exciting news from the weekend?

The Unsoccer Mom

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35 minutes on Stair Master
Stupid Steppin’ Strides

I felt good so I hit the stair master…which was really stupid.  I have more thoughts on that in the future though.

Remember when I was complaining about the chronic lack of wrist sweat a few days ago?

I’m never doing that again.

On Wednesday I realized my ankle wasn’t swollen – winning!  I dug out an old ankle brace, took a sniff and decided it didn’t smell too bad.  I compressed the crap out of my foot and hit the bike for 30 minutes at the gym.  Minimal pain, no swelling when done so we’ll take it as progress.

Not too shabby.

Then the text came.  THE text.

Soccer Coach:  Hey Sheila, I have to be at my daughter’s school, can you run practice?

Uhh…sure I guess.  It was a cool, crisp 90 degrees so I can’t imagine anything else I’d want to be doing right now.  (sitting in the air conditioned Starbcucks sipping an iced latte)  

Plus, I know a lot about soccer.  You use your feet and kick the ball inside the lines.

Kidding.  I love it when my kids score touchdowns playing soccer!

My experience with soccer can be summed up in a few rules.  So here’s my runner’s guide to soccer.

#1 – Make awkward faces and strut around like a chicken.  The other team will be confused they will avoid you at all costs.

#2 – Choose to play against a team that is half your size.  And smile.  People always wonder what you’re up to when you’re smiling. 

#3 – When in doubt use air quotes.  It totally psychs out the other team.

#4 - And wear a cup. You never know when some unsuspecting 4 year old is going to cleat your special place.

I wish I were kidding, but that sums up my soccer knowledge.  I’m pretty sure the kids learned a lot from me.  Plus courtesy of the unrelenting heat – I got my sweat on, and then some.

Let’s just say that these studs were bending it like Beckham and likely disappointed by my appropriately short, undoubtedly failure ridden soccer coaching career.

The good news – after the kid chasing, biking and general silliness my ankle was okay, not great, but okay.  Methinks a short run is just a couple of days out.  And I think the soccer team only needs about 4 sessions with the real coach to undo the damage done.

Advice:  How do you say no?

Unplugging and Rocking Out

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Weekend Miles:  14
Explorin’ Strides

This weekend was a mixed bag of unplugging running style and rocking the house with the family.

Rockin’ it out at a family wedding. Yes, it was about 90 degrees and my son is wearing a sweater vest.

I got in 14 miles this weekend which gave me a 19 mile total for running (lots of other activities, fitness too).  Given that I’m now in the rehabilitating phase of the injury I’ll take that.  I finally got a read on my fitness from the injury fiasco and learned that while my short-distance speed may not have been affected, my mid-long range speed certainly has.

So Saturday morning I ditched my mom and the kids at the beach (they were obviously devastated by this) and explored some of South South Orange County’s (like Dana Point to San Clemente) finest ocean front trails.   This naturally meant watching everyone else have fun while I was sweating my little toosh off.  It was perfect.

This picture has nothing to do with my run other than the fact I am feigning excitement about something. The dichotomy between a fun run and seeing slow splits. The answer: an ice cold beer.

No pace time yelling at me, but I did record it to see what my “comfortable, but not pushing it” pace was and it was a progressive run with paces ranging from 8:00-9:00.  While I swore I didn’t care about the times while I was running, I was none to pleased when I saw the results.  I had to remember it was a fun run – and sometimes speed doesn’t always equal fun.

Nothing says multi-tasking mom like giving a wedding speech with a child on your hip. That said, they only interrupted me about 3 times.

But unplugging it and taking easy was not the name of the game this weekend.  We had a family wedding so this meant my boys literally partying until the wee hours of the morning.  Somehow they found themselves dancing and photoboothing until about 1am.

Oye!  The teenage years are going to be rough if they can pull this out now.

That said, the babes finally starting shutting down towards the end of the evening, but not after about 4 solid hours of non-stop dancing.  I secretly think people were feeding them rock candy from the “Candy Bar” to keep them going.

And finally, I tried looking up how many calories you burn an hour or what a good heart rate is for dancing with a 45 pound weight strapped to your neck, but didn’t find any results.  Any ideas? ;)

Just a few minutes before midnight and while it looks like I might be be holding him up, he’s actually trying to thwart the process from which I will turn into a raggedy princess and my car a pumpkin just a few short minutes later.

Any fun weekend plans for any of you?  Any good workouts?  How do you fight unplugging vs. slow runs?

Misdemeanor, Miles, Meals & Merriment

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The biggest news of the weekend:  I got myself some DD’s.

Yep.  It’s about time.

Since my craptastic injury I went from about 40 running miles a week to 0 back in May, and spent a better part of the month hanging out there in non-running land.  But if you haven’t noticed, things have been slowly changing and progressing…and this week….

I got myself some Double Digits baby!

Why yes that is 10 lbs of cheese on my plate(s). Don’t worry, I had a salad first. And gelato.

Not only did I get a 10+ mile run in (my first since May), but I also hit a 20 mile running week which makes me feel like I’m progressing along.  I also got to take care of a little unfinished business on the last 3 mile stretch from Surf City.

But this weekend was so much more than running.  My aunt came down to visit and we hit the Laguna Arts festival and ate far too much good food, including a trip to my fave Javier’s.

Then came Sunday which was a very special day.  My aunt and I continued your family bonding with committing several misdemeanors.

Yep that’s me. Law abiding citizen. And a special thanks to the shadowing that makes me look like I have man-hairy pits. Sweet.

Our family puts the fun in dysfunction :)

Yes that might just be me breaking into a 18×12 inch window 6 feet off the ground with a temporarily stolen chair.

Don’t worry the neighbors came by and did not ask to call the cops, but simply asked if we needed help.

FTR, this was my cousin’s house (so technically no laws were broken) where my aunt got locked out with the dog.  My tiny hiney got her (and the poor pup) safely back in the house.  And we have a story and laughs that will last a long time.

Anyone else partake in breaking and entering this weekend?

Oh and I got some other fun news this weekend….stay tuned :)

The Good, The Bad and the Fugly

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15 miles on the bike
1/2 mile swim
1:02 total
Serious Lack o’ Strides

So I had another nice little visit with Dr. Scott - Active Release Technique Artist & Saddist Extraordinaire.

We had a nice little chat during my appointment.  And by chat I mean, a somewhat normal conversation laced with yelps and me biting my hand using everything in my power to not drop the F-bomb like snowflakes in Chicago in winter.  Our conversation:

Dr. Scott:  Have I bruised you yet at any of your appointments?
Me:  Nope (through clenched teeth)
Dr. Scott:  Well today’s the day.

Here’s a little racing gem. True story, I remember finishing the race and thinking I had to look like a total bad ass in the pictures. Instead my pain shows. I probably made this face for most of my appointment with Dr. Scott.

Actually, as painful as it can be, I’m a HUGE Active Release Technique (ART) fan.  That stuff works.

The Good:  Contrary to those googling me, I am not naughty and have been really good for the last month.  I have stuck to the Dr’s orders to a tee (this is new for me!) and am definitely on the road to recovery.

We discussed that with SUPER warmups (like I should be dripping sweat before I’m running anything over a 8:30 min mile) and easing into things so I can gradually start increasing my distance.  Big win!

The Bad:  I’m still needing more time to recover.  We discussed my biggest problem right now:  Speed kills.  It’s not the long, slow runs that are aggravating my adductor insertion (or whatever the heck is making my crotch/groin hurt), but it’s the actual speed work, track running, etc. that’s doing the most damage.

The Fugly:  His words- “I think you can hit the track and do speed work again in August or September.”

SAYYYYYYYYYYYYY WHAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTT?

The man’s got a point though.  I’d like to actually not face a major injury and squelch this killer inflammation in my adductor.  Speed work aggravates the crap out of it.

You see the woman to my left? She’s seen the best and worst in my for over 30 years and STILL calls me several times a day. And the dude on the left – my biggest cheerleader.

He seems to think an October half is reasonable – so we shall see.  I’m still eying the Zooma Great Lakes race so I can spend some time with Mumsie Dear (yes when my phone rings that’s what shows up with an angry face)…but it’s so hard to justify the cost of airfare from the Left Coast, travel from Chi-town, and race costs.

I love my family, I love running, and I love doing special things with my mom…but yeesh – a girl only has so much pocket change laying around.

Back to the topic at hand – injury recovery.  I’ve actually learned a few things during this hiatus.

-The bike is your friend.  I raced this weekend without any real training in a month – no traditional speed work, sprints, or even tempo runs.   But I have had an intimate relationship with whatever bike happens my way.  And I’m not talking all So Cal beach cruiser style either.  I’m talking straight up hills, high intensity, sweat beading on my wrist, crazy intense biking.  It’s actually kept my endurance up surprisingly better than I ever could have anticipated.

My race wasn’t stellar but it wasn’t abysmal either.

-Taking the plunge.  I wasn’t a huge fan of swimming (read here).  But it’s getting a little better.  Some days I’ll even accidentally say I like it.  Don’t worry, I correct myself really fast afterward.

-Readjusting goals is not failure.  I’m having to shift my goals and expectations a bit with this news.  The fact of the matter is, I don’t want to be entirely sidelined for months from doing anything.  Right now, I’ve got a pretty sweet (albeit it not perfect) workout thing going on.

So I’ve had to let go of some of the longer races I wanted to run this fall season.  I likely won’t be shaving any major time of my PR’s in the foreseeable future without speed work.   And I’ll be hanging out in the pool and on the bike longer than I want.  And that’s not a failure – it’s just my reality.

Funny, before kids I don’t think I would have handled that lesson quite as gracefully, but they’ve taught me to adapt.  Oh and to yell really loud.  But mostly adapt.

Coronado Low Tide Ride & Stride

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Subtitle:  I hate losing.

8.2 Miles
1:01:39 (7:31)
Low Tide Strides

I was supposed to wake up at 4:40 this morning to get my booty out the door to head to San Diego for the Coronado Low Tide Ride & Stride.

Whoops.  I woke up at 5:02 thanks to some super strange dreams. I flew out the door pretty much forgetting most of what I needed but had the essentials:  shoes, clothes (no nekked running today) and a check to pay.

This race is one I’ve been wanting to do for a while – it’s running the length of the Silver Strand from just north of the border at Imperial Beach to Sunset Park in Coronado.  Parts of the beach are never open due to being part of the military base (which they kindly open for the race) and the need for a SUPER low tide to provide a firm, but bouncy running surface.

If you remember, I’m recovering from my groin injury.  And I’ve pretty much not run 8 miles in…oh…say a month.  The longest I’ve done is 6, slow interrupted miles two weeks ago.  I had very little expectations going into this 8.2 mile race except to finish.  I convinced myself that I didn’t care how things went as long as I ran close to 8 minute miles.

Getting prepped for the race. Bikers take off 10 minutes before the runners

Ha.

Rah ha ha ha ha haha.

Toeing the line

Some of the participants were a little crabby at the line.

I forgot one really important thing:  I HATE LOSING.

I started out running a 7:15 – whoops.

Around mile 2 Hank and I (my new running BFF) started running together and talked about how long the race felt and how we didn’t really have goals – except we did.  Around mile 5.5 I started really struggling and told Hank to go on.

Did I mention Hank is about 30 years my senior.   Spectacular way to feel super unawesome.

I took 1 mile to recover a bit (probably slowing down closer to 8 min/mile) then saw the finish line – which is a total optical illusion.  Since you’re running down a singular stretch of beach you see the finish line for about….oh 2 miles.

There were two women ahead of me (White Tankop Girl and Black Tanktop Woman), so with what I thought was the right amount of time to pass them I cranked it up to high gear.  Except that the finish line was much further away than I anticipated.

Whoops.

I kept ahead of BTW, but WTG gave me a run for my money with 100 yard left.

Did I mention I hate losing.

The two of us ridiculously sprinted to the finish.  Everyone was watching and I wasn’t going to let her beat me.

She got 9th place, I got 8th.

1:01:39. 8th in my division-  I hate this large division, since I was pretty much competing against a group of college runners.  As much as I may have the sense of humor of a teenage boy, my body is not the same as it was over a decade ago.  Whoops.

Post-race lounging

Overall – a pretty competitive race for such a small crowd (several hundred runners) but AMAZING views.  There were shells, sand dollars, crabs, dolphins and a well-organized crew.  They had everything down from the shuttle buses to food afterward.  I was impressed.

What to do? What to do?

On the way home from the big SD I remembered I had to hit up the Carlsbad outlet mall to grab some underwear at the Gap Outlet (priorities).

Anywho…I had a difficult decision to make.  I smell disgusting and am rocking my running clothes and compression sleeves.  Do I go in wearing my race bib so people realize that I am not normally this rancid (at least most of the time) or does that make me look like a freaky weirdo.

I took it off and opted to go with the smelly freak option and made minimal eye contact with people around me.

I’m really glad I have a lot of work to do this afternoon/evening to get ahead of the week so I have a great excuse to just ice and hang.

Any fun races this weekend? 
Would you wear your bib in or just go all smelly style on a post-race errand?