Looking Forward to Hawaii and Healthy Knees

Taro farm outside of Princeville, Kauai. (Elisa Michelson)

Five weeks is a long time to go without writing a new blog post. It's not long enough, though, to heal a knee. I haven't done any running since the last time I wrote, but this week and last, I did some dead lifts at the gym. The first session was fine, but this week the knee wound up sore for a couple of days. It didn't feel bad for long though, which makes me want to try some light squats next week, just to see if a little bit of easy lifting will help to build strength and aid recovery.

In travel news, well ... there isn't much. And there won't be much until January, when I go with my girlfriend and her family to Kauai for two weeks. That should be an interesting trip, to say the least. I get along well with her family, but the thought of spending two straight weeks on an island with a small group of people intimidates me. As an introvert, I need time by myself to collect my thoughts. And as a task-oriented, independent person, I have trouble avoiding the need to check things off of my mental and written lists. In fact, this blog post is something I'm checking off of a list right now. I'm always open to personal growth through new experiences, but at the same time, there are certain personality traits I have that will never change, and I'm at an age where I know who I am and I'm comfortable with that person.

Most of the traveling I've done in my adult life has been by myself. Some has been with my family, which doesn't always work out well, because of the vast differences between my brother, sister, and me. And some has been with friends, which is usually OK, as long as the others in the group don't spend too much time hemming and hawing over what to do, avoiding activities I suggest, or doing activities I have no interest in (e.g. attending The Phantom of the Opera in Vegas, 2006).

My hope, of course, is that everyone on this upcoming trip will get along swimmingly, and we'll have nothing but fond tales to tell upon our return. And really, I'm sure this trip will be a lot of fun. So that's what my outlook will be in the 74 days between now and takeoff. And if the trip is a disaster, at least I'll have more to write about than "well, my knee still hurts and nothing new or interesting is happening that's worth blogging about. Boo hoo hoo."

A Sad but Wise Decision

The 2012 Bellingham Bay Marathon will not be the first marathon I run, as I originally planned. Thanks to two persistent injuries (one on the inner part of my left knee and one on the outer part of my girlfriend’s left knee), my girlfriend and I have opted to sit this marathon out.  It wasn’t an easy decision, but we both felt it was the wisest option.

Sure, we could have run in pain and then limped along as far as our legs could carry us.  But we both agreed that our chances of finishing this race were extremely slim.  So, rather than tearing up our tendons or ligaments or whatever, we’re choosing to rest until we’re completely healed.  We’d prefer not to ruin our legs for the future.  This way, we’ll both have a better chance of crossing the finish line at the next marathon we train for.

When will that next marathon be?  Right now, we don’t know. What we do know is that after our initial injuries, taking two or three weeks off and then easing back into short distances and a run/walk routine didn’t allow either of us to heal.  So it might take a couple of months worth of rest (read: no training at all) for us to properly heal and be ready to begin training again.  We’ll both know more after our visits to the doctor in the coming weeks.  We also know that when we do begin training again, we’ll have to take it slow. No more forcing ourselves to run faster than we’re able.  And no more four-month marathon training. We’ll have to ramp up the distances slowly, over the course of about six months, I suspect. That will be a better way of going from 0 to 26.2. (Maybe a gait analysis would serve me well, too.)

I want to make sure we have this in writing, so I cannot renege. Elisa and I will run a marathon. We’re not giving up on that. We’re just postponing it so that we can actually finish the race. Make no mistake: it will happen.

Wine Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse

Humans aren’t the only beings that love to throw parties centered around alcohol.  And we’re not the only ones who sometimes reap physical harm from such Epicureanism.

Earlier tonight, as I quietly sipped down a glass of merlot, I was unwittingly setting the scene for a raucous fruit fly soiree.  You see, after I finished my drink, I left a drop in the bottom of my goblet and set it aside on the counter.  Twenty minutes later, I walked past the counter again and was astonished by the scene there.  Inside the glass, near the drop of wine at the bottom, was a small crowd of three fruit flies mingling and drinking.  On the rim, another fly had found a partner during the evening’s events, and the two were humping away, oblivious to their cohorts below.  I could be wrong, but I thought I heard R&B music and caught a faint whiff of marijuana.

Who were these little hell-raisers?  I hadn’t invited them, and yet here they were, getting drunk and fornicating on my countertop.  I snatched the glass and rinsed it out in the sink, intending to send each of the hoodlums down to a watery grave.  But only two of them went down the drain, while the others flew off in loopy, erratic patterns.  I wasn’t going to let them get away, though.  These flies had insulted me with their shenanigans, and they weren’t going to get away with it. (And frankly, they’d been floating around the kitchen all evening as I made dinner and ate it, and I was pretty annoyed. This whole wine party thing was just the last straw, and I was also bloodthirsty after having them all in the same place and coming so close to extinguishing them.)

I stalked around the kitchen, trying to keep my eyes unfocused, ready to pick out any movement in the air between me and the cabinets.  Clap! I got one!  I jiggled the fruit baskets on the counter, sending another right toward me. Clap! Another one dead!  I hunted some more and found a sixth fly sitting on a wall.  This one hadn’t been involved in the revelry, but I wanted him dead anyway.  I tried to stub him out on the wall where he was resting, but he flew away too quickly.  I saw the last of the partiers, and clap! Nothing but air between my hands. I’d lost him, so I took a break from the hunt.

I got distracted by other chores, and a few minutes later came back to the kitchen. There, on the top of my cork, which I’d turned upside-down to plug my wine bottle, was the fifth fly—the one that got away earlier.  I tried to crush him on the cork, but he evaded me.  Clap! Clap! Two misses in a row. I had to admit, he was good.  I lost him again, and then jiggled the fruit baskets.  He flew toward me and I clapped again but missed again.  He zigged and zagged, and my eyes lost him and then locked onto him, and just as he was almost out of reach, clap!  Victory!

Now, as I sip on my second glass and write of these heroic feats, I see the sixth and final fly floating in my periphery. Did he just land on my glass?  He buzzes past again and I clap once, twice. Two misses in a row.  Is there only one of them left, or are there more?  I can’t tell.  I might have to give up. I’m getting tired of this game, and there is more wine to drink.

P.S. The title of this post comes from a song by Minus the Bear. You can hear it here. (Warning: Vocals don't start until about 1:30.)

Two Steps Back?

I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll even finish this marathon.  The doubts are circling inside my head, and they have been ever since my last run.  You see, on Sunday my girlfriend and I went for a three-mile run/walk.  It was supposed to be easy.  We started with a five-minute walk and then began running for four out of every five minutes thereafter.  The pace was slow, at about 11-minute miles.  Despite all the precautions (I’d also stretched beforehand), my knee started getting sore a little past the halfway point.  We slowed to a walk for a few minutes, then I decided to try running again.  We continued that cycle one or two more times until we were home.

The knee never hurt enough to warrant a full stop, and it seemed to recover fairly well along the way, but it never felt completely sound.  Afterward, and throughout the next day, it still felt a little off.  Not sore, just not quite right.  Even now, as I write this, I’m pausing to massage the affected area, just because I feel like I should whenever it crosses my mind.

My girlfriend suggested I visit a doctor, but I can’t see the point.  A doctor will only tell me what I already know: I need to rest.  Which begs the question: How can I possibly prepare for a marathon that’s less than five weeks away, when I’m resting, and when run/walking more than a couple of miles hurts my knee?  Do I just tough it out?  Do I just give up?  Will a strap help?  Do I rest all the way until race day and then see what how far I get?  Do I give in to the lady’s advice and see a doctor, because he might be able to give a specific diagnosis and recommend therapy?

I think I’ll try the strap first, and then go with the last option if that fails.  But I still have to wonder, would it be wise for me to just be a cheerleader during this race, and take a long rest before attempting a marathon next year instead?

Progress, More or Less

It’s a safe bet that I won’t feel prepared to run 26.2 miles on September 30.  Three days after my longest run in a month, I was out on the road again this Wednesday.  This latest run went about as well as Sunday’s run, more or less.  More, if you focus on the distance (5.2 miles, up from 4.5).  Less, if you consider the way I felt afterward.  I walked whenever my knee began to feel even the slightest bit sore, tense, or wobbly.  And I kept walking until beyond the point when I was sure it was safe to run. Then, I would jog until I felt something in my knee, and the cycle would continue.

After the run, though, my knee felt a little tight in that spot just below and to the inside of my kneecap.  It was just the tiniest bit sore last night and today.  I was originally planning to run again tomorrow, and then again this coming Sunday, but I’ve decided it would be best to skip tomorrow’s run. If I am unprepared for the marathon in five weeks, it will be because I don’t have the endurance, not because I’m too hurt to run.  It’s not an ideal situation, obviously, but it’s one I’m going to have to come to peace with.

After all, the goal is to finish any way possible. Like my girlfriend’s T-shirt design idea conveys: run, walk, crawl, roll, finish.  Conquer it! 

How to Screw Up Your Marathon Training, Part 2: Slowly Fixing It

As I mentioned yesterday, I haven’t been able to run much lately because of an injury four weeks ago. This injury could’ve been prevented or at least not exacerbated if I’d been more careful and stopped running sooner, and if I hadn’t chosen to run another mile and a half after I finally did stop.

Alas, I made some unwise choices, and am still paying for them.  As I said before, my knee felt fine at the end of my 12-mile run.  But later that evening, it started to get sore again. It wasn’t the sharp pain I’d felt during my run, but a dull soreness and tightness.  I hoped it would feel better if I just let myself get a good night’s sleep and avoided moving it too much for a day or two.  If only it were that easy. 

A few days (and a few good night’s sleeps) later, I was still sore.  It felt like my all the stuff in my knee—the kneecap, the muscles and ligaments and tendons surrounding it—were a little loose in addition to being a little bruised. Like they needed something to hold them together, and they needed more rest.  I probably should have gotten a brace or strap or something to make it feel better, but I didn’t.  Walking seemed to help a little.  Time was the main ingredient for healing though.  So I waited until my knee felt better, and then I went for a wimpy run.

It was 15 days after my injury when I finally ran again.  My lungs were still in good shape, but my legs were lacking, as could be expected.  I jogged through 1.8 miles of semi-hilly Bremerton streets before my knee started to feel tight and I got worried.  I walked after that, for about a half mile, jogged a few blocks, then walked another half of a mile until I was home.  It was pathetic, but at least my knee hadn’t exploded.

Another six days after that run—three weeks after my injury—I did 2.3 miles and felt mostly fine. A little bit of tightness, but nothing too bad.  I didn’t even slow down to walk. Sure, I stopped and rested at two separate stoplights, but I still felt accomplished.  A few days later, my girlfriend and I talked about her plan to run/walk the marathon in light of her own knee injury.  I begrudgingly started to accept the fact that I would have to take the same tack.  So, on Sunday, as I previously wrote, I ran/walked (but mostly ran!) 4.5 miles in my longest training session (I can’t say “run”) since my injury.  I have to admit, it worked pretty well, and the most important thing now is not shrinking my time, but building my distance. 

I don’t know if I’ll be satisfied with run/walking a marathon instead of simply running it, but I’m willing to let my pride take a backseat to my health for now.  And if I’m not satisfied with the race, I’d like to rest for a few months, heal completely, and then run a marathon for real. But we’ll see how I feel at the finish line on September 30. 

How to Screw Up Your Marathon Training, Part 1

Today was my “long run” day in my marathon training, and I did about 4.5 miles. That’s about 15 miles shorter than where I’m supposed to be at this point in the training, and I didn’t even run the entire time.  Nevertheless, this run marked a little bit of progress. 

You see, four weeks ago I hurt myself.  About 5 miles into a 12-mile run, I started getting sore in the calf of one leg and the hamstring of the other.  I probably should have stopped to stretch, but I figured it was just muscle soreness so it wouldn’t turn into a long-term problem.  I kept going, thinking I could overcome the pain and finish the 12 miles before taking a break. Then, at just past the 10-mile mark, my left knee began to hurt. Badly. This wasn’t muscle pain, and I couldn't run through it. It felt like a ligament on the inner part of my knee was hurt. I don't know if the soreness in my muscles had caused me to alter my stride, leading to this knee pain, but I was starting to wish I'd stopped sooner. 

I stopped and walked for a minute, then found a good place to stretch by the side of the road.  The sharp pain in my knee didn’t persist after I stopped running, but my calf and hamstring were still very tight and sore.  I spent three or four minutes stretching, then tried walking again.  My leg muscles were still tight, but slightly less sore than before, and my knee felt fine.  I looked at the GPS watch I was borrowing from my girlfriend (who has also been suffering from a knee injury), and saw that I was trotting along at a 20-minute mile pace.  I thought about the prospect of taking 30 minutes to get home, a mere mile and a half away, and began running again.

I was just over a mile from home, and my iPod shuffled randomly to “Your Disease” by Saliva.  I started trucking along faster and faster as the music played.  I was going to get home and have a great time to show for it.  And I did.  I finished that 12-mile run in great time, despite stopping and stretching.  And the knee wasn’t a problem.  And then, an hour or two later, it was.

to be continued …