Sally Effin' Forth

I am happy to report that I am really enjoying my post-Trials recovery.  After sitting with the outcome for a while, I am content with all of my decisions and the result.  My choice to finish the race and end up DFL was a good one for me.  I look at my finisher's medal with pride.  It symbolizes a journey that started back in 2006, when I first began to dream about running in the Olympic Trials.  I didn't have a choice but to finish the race and fulfill that dream.

For the last 6 years, I have either been training with the intent of qualifying for the Trials or attempting to train for the Trials race.  I have not had a break from that.  I recognize that this is one of those brief moments in my life, like the window right after graduating from college or being in between jobs, where I have the opportunity to truly rest and reset.  I'm taking advantage of this moment.  It hasn't been easy to let go of those ingrained reflexes that require me to rate every daily decision based on how it will impact my running life.  None of that matters right now.  I eat the candy bar my co-worker offers me.  I have 1-3 glasses of wine with dinner every night.  I do not feel guilty that I didn't do a lick of exercise all week.

I will admit that this process was made easier when I got my post-race instructions from my coach.  He didn't advise me on the eating or drinking, but these were his instructions for running for the month starting January 15th:

• Week 1:  do nothing;
• Weeks 2 & 3:  jog a little if ready, but not more than 4 miles per day, no cross training; 
• Week 4: 35 miles per week of jogging if ready, no cross training.

Overall Goals: let my body get out of shape and enjoy the break.

I'm meeting these goals.  In fact, you might say I'm exceeding them.  I didn't do my first post-Trials run until this morning.  This wasn't because I was hurt.  I just didn't want to run yet. A year ago, I would not have been able to do this because I would have been too paranoid about allowing myself to get out of shape.  It was refreshing to be told to get out of shape.  This takes practice and a small leap of faith to trust in the fact that 1) I won't lose my fitness forever; and 2) it will come back relatively quickly.

I spent 17 training cycles worrying about losing fitness every time I completed a marathon.  I hated taking any time off and was always anxious to get back at it.  I hated the fact that my tempo, marathon and 5k paces had to be dialed back following the race and then I'd have to work on getting my speed back to the same pre-marathon level before being able to get any faster.  I always had a voice nagging in the back of my brain telling me that I wouldn't get back to the same level let alone become faster.  I ripped out her voice box the other day when I realized that the old approach left me stuck in a continuous training loop that was limiting my potential.    

I am in Arizona presently, enjoying some wonderful weather and fantastic hospitality from the Camberg family.  Kerry Camberg is an inspiration to me and is someone I would not have met had it not been for our common goal of making it to the Trials.  We were both part of Julie Threlkeld's brainchild called  Houston Hopefuls.  I'm not quite sure that Julie knows how this pet project of hers connected so many of us masters' marathoners across the country.  One big regret in Houston was not getting to meet Julie in person.  She had to leave the day before the race because of a tragic death in her family.

Aside from getting to visit the Cambergs, I am here in AZ to see Dr. Ball.  Before the Trials, my biggest fear was that I would come out the other side of the race injured and unable to run for months.  In order to placate my inner worrywart in the weeks before the Trials, I made plans to come to Arizona post race to try to knock out any of the shiznit left in my hizzouse.

Lucky for me, the two treatments that Doc Ball did in Houston left me feeling pretty darn good post race. I actually felt better 3 days after the race than I did as many days before the Trials.  I was also fortunate in Houston to meet Doc Ball's friend Tim who designs strength training plans for athletes.  I took his card and told him I'd contact him after the race to talk about designing something for me.

Tim works with Doc Ball and his team by first addressing any functional strength issues.  Tomorrow, I'll go through a series of strength and flexibility tests to identify my weaknesses and strengths.  Tim will develop a strength plan for me, and I'll give him feedback as I implement it.  He will also help me figure out when to do the exercises based on my run training plan both within a weekly schedule as well as within my training blocks.  Once my functional strength is good, he'll help me develop a strength program to improve my performance.  I'm pretty excited about this next phase of my training.

Today, Doc Ball dug in hard and I'm not walking quite right at the moment.  He also had me run through a set of exercises designed to maintain/improve my range of motion.  As he explained it, our bodies respond to the way we use them.  Most runners, myself included, spend the vast majority of their training time running at a pace that utilizes a very limited range of motion.  So, our muscles adjust and tighten to that limited range.  This generally leads to cemented hip capsules and hamstrings and quads as tight as a tick.  This range just gets worse the more we run unless we introduce that full range of motion often enough in our training to maintain or improve it.  These exercises are not easy, and I have a feeling that I will resemble Quasimodo in the morning.  But, I believe they will work.

I plan to spend the next few weeks jogging around aimlessly in order to find my joy in running again.  I have run with pain and fear for so many months that I lost that spark.  I started to see it glimmering in my short run today.  These next few months will start to lay a strong foundation off which a mighty progression of training will be built and will culminate in.....

Nah. You'll have to wait to hear about that!            

My Trials

That's one big ass medal!

By now, many of you have seen the results for the Olympic Trials Marathon, and you probably saw my name listed next to the slot for the 152^nd female finisher.  I am proud of the fact that I met my goal of crossing both the start and finish lines of that race despite the emotional and physical costs associated with that accomplishment.  However, I will not lie to you and say I am happy with my performance.  An entire marathon cycle of mistakes and lost training played out along that 26.22 mile course yesterday.  It took every ounce of focus I had to refrain from succumbing to self pity as my legs became heavy very early in the race and my undertrained body wasn’t letting me run as fast as my heart wanted to go.

The experience was absolutely bittersweet.  I was excited and overwhelmed to be part of this prestigious event and to share that experience with friends and family.  I had to pinch myself when I saw elite runners like Ryan Hall, Desi Davila, Magda Lewy-Boulet, Deena Kastor and Shalane Flanagan in the same meetings and warming up in the same starting corral as me.  I felt like I had a ridiculous grin on my face walking around the Hilton and Convention Center Friday and Saturday.  At the same time, I was running this race having just four weeks of good marathon training out of the last 16, and all of those were in October and November.  My legs both hurt and weren’t working the day that I left for Houston.  I knew the best I could hope for was to try to manage the pain from my injury and try to run a pace that would keep me from further damaging my body.

The Pre-race Crazies 

I was very excited to have my family and The Genius in Houston to experience the race with me.  My Mom is my number one marathon travel buddy, having been to six of my previous marathon races to watch me run including my qualifying race in Chicago 2010.  My sister came for her first marathon spectating experience and has been my number one fan, though my Mom might argue with that.  My brother and my sister-in-law have always given me tremendous support, and I was excited that they made the trip as well.  My family and The Genius knew what I had gone through these past few months and were understandably tentative about the trip until late December.  This was especially the case after I sent them a picture from the hospital of my full-leg cast in an email with the subject line: “Houston, we have a problem.”  

Friday night, my brother told me that he remembered several years ago when I first mentioned my goal of running in the Trials.  He said he nodded and smiled at the time, but thought it was a bit of a stretch.  He said, “and now, here we are.”  My family assured me that, no matter what happened the next day in the race, they couldn’t be more proud of me. 

In addition to a fab support crew, I was also extremely lucky that Dr. Ball was in Houston and available to treat me on Thursday and Friday.  He had numerous athletes to treat, and I was extremely grateful to get some of his time.  I had two main issues on Thursday.  The first was that horrible pain in my shin that caused me to limp along for the first 2-4 miles of every run but loosened up later in the run as long as I didn’t stop.  The other problem was a right leg that wouldn’t work.  My test for this was hopping up and down on one leg. I couldn’t get lift off from my right leg at all.  I had pain low in my hip, but pain wasn’t really the concern.  I suspected whatever was causing my hip pain was keeping my leg from working.  If I couldn’t push off with my right leg, all kinds of bad compensations followed as well as major inefficiencies that meant I couldn’t run very fast for very long.

After some screening tests from Dr. Ball, he was ready to start working on me.  He stopped at that point and told me that we needed to be clear that what he was doing was not going to help me magically run a 2:40 marathon.  At best, he was patching the boat so I could stay afloat through the finish, hopefully with minimal pain.  He wanted me to acknowledge that I understood going out fast would likely lead to an epic failure and possibly unnecessary damage.  I explained that I wanted to finish and that I would run whatever pace allowed me to do that with the least amount of pain and lasting damage.  In short, I had to check my ego in the start corral and accept the fact that I was going to be at the back of the pack.

Dr. Ball treated my gluteal area and had me do test runs in between tweaks to check for progress.  By the end of the night, my test runs felt better, and he sent me away with instruction to return the next day for more treatment.  I was a bit surprised by this, but acknowledged that he was the doctor.  The Genius and I got back to the hotel room around midnight and ordered room service for dinner.  We got to bed around 1 a.m.  So much for getting a good night’s sleep two nights before the race.

These were Effin' easy to see.

The next day was full of tasks that included registration, water bottle decoration, athlete meetings, uniform check and other pre-race preparations.  This stuff was really fun.  It definitely helped get me into the marathon mindset.  Up to that point, It hadn’t really registered that I was running a marathon on Saturday.  This race had been tentative in my mind for so long, that I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that I would actually be in Houston getting ready to run the race until it was happening. 

I was excited that my friend Kerry was in town to watch the race and that she was able to join me and my family for dinner Friday night.  We had a great time chatting about running.  She is an inspiration to me, and I felt supercharged after our conversation.  I still needed to see Dr. Ball at that point, but the logistics were a mess.   His hotel was pretty far out of town, and he had limited time to see me. 

I was trying to find a cab to get to his hotel when the bellman told me that the hotel shuttle could take us there.  I questioned this since it was so far out of town, but he assured me that the shuttle could go there.  We got in the shuttle and suffered through traffic to drop off another couple headed to the theater.  Soon after dropping them off, we started to slow in front of a hotel.  The Genius quickly realized that he misunderstood which hotel we were going to and then the shuttle driver told us that he wasn’t allowed to take us where we needed to go. 45 minutes wasted!  He dumped us off at a McDonald’s, where we found a cab to take us to Dr. Ball’s hotel. 

I was frantic.  It was now 8:00, and I was anxious that I wasn’t going to get to see Dr. Ball.  Luckily for me, he was still able to work on me that night. I’m convinced that second treatment was the key to my being able to finish the race the next day.  He worked on the hip more but also worked on a tendon in my shin--a big source of my pain.  When I told him that my arch was hurting during my test run, he pressed on the place where the tendon attaches to the foot, and I jumped off the table.  He said, “Looks like we’re going to need some tape.” 

He pulled out his supplies and called The Genius over to watch as he did a mock up tape job of my arch and shin that he would need to replicate race morning.  He gave me the supplies I needed and sent me on my way.  We got back to the hotel around 9:30 or 10:00 and I was feeling pretty stressed out.  I made my final preparations for the race, got horizontal and tried to sleep.  I didn’t do much of that.  My mother became a lumberjack in the middle of the night and sawed logs all night long.  The Genius either caught a nasty virus or ate something bad and was up all night losing his stomach contents.  It was quite a party in the Marty suite.

Race Day

My 5:30 alarm came quickly, and I hopped out of bed to get ready.  I put on my racing costume, foraged for food down at the breakfast buffet, painted blue stripes in my hair and got all of my race gear together by 6:30.  The Genius replicated the tape job Dr. Ball showed him the night before, and it actually really helped with the arch and shin pain.  I tried hopping around a bit and the right leg was working.  

Those Crazy Impalas!

As I walked into the athlete gathering area in the Convention Center, I finally started to feel the race day excitement.  Everyone was busy pinning on numbers, listening to their theme songs,  and slathering on Body Glide.  I met up with many of my Impala Racing Team mates and our Coach Tony Coffey.  We sat around taking pictures, smiling and laughing a lot.  Before I knew it, we were being called to the start, and we headed down the stairs to the starting corrals.  We were allowed to run around a bit to warm up, and elite runners were zooming by me left and right.  It was all a little surreal.  I stood at attention as the National Anthem was sung and heard the gun go off for the men’s race.  We had to wait for the men to clear the first 2.2 mile loop of the course before we could start.  That happened right on schedule, and we were suddenly headed to the start line.  I glanced over my left shoulder and saw my Mom and Sister standing on the sidelines holding up my now beautiful bi-valve cast, painstakingly decorated by my sister the night before.  It made me smile.

Jill decorates the cast.

Minutes before the start, I started frantically looking around for my race buddy, Susan Loken.  Susan had also suffered from injuries that kept her from being able to train the last couple of months.  We also shared the same goal of getting across that finish line come hell or high water.  We were blessed to have Ruth Perkins running with us.  Ruth has a sacral stress fracture that is healing but isn’t fully baked yet.  She wanted to run as much of the race as possible but knew she’d likely have to stop at some point.  She wanted to enjoy every minute that she was out there running. 

The gun indicating the start of the women's race went off and the pack charged forward.  Ruth, Susan and I were at the back of the pack immediately.  By the time, we crossed the finish line the first time, our pack was clearly established.  We would run together for the first half of the race, lose Ruth and then Susan and I would stay together more or less until mile 23 where I started to fall behind her.

The three amigos-me, Susan and Ruth.

I felt absolutely blessed to be running with these two women for as long as I did.  Ruth was infectiously positive and her enthusiasm for 1) being able to run at all, and 2) running in the Olympic Trials was viral.  The crowd loved her arm waving and wide grin.  I appreciated the electricity she was giving off because I was hurting within the first two miles.  Susan kept us going, reminding us to be positive. Ruth kept yelling to the crowd that injury wouldn’t stop us.  She would yell, “We are running in the Olympic Trials!!!!”  It was awesome. 

I so needed this energy around me.  I felt like Debbie Downer.  I was not feeling good from the start, and my instinct is to turn inward and focus my energy on gutting it out.  As much as I could, I tried to free my mind up and relax so I could take in the moment I was experiencing.   Susan and Ruth kept snapping me back to the wonderful reality of how incredible this experience was.

The crowd support was ridiculous.  We couldn’t see the rest of the runners after about 2 miles, so we were alone. After a bit, Ruth asked someone on the sidelines if we were winning.  That visual helped me later in the race.  I started to pretend that we were the lead pack as the miles got tougher.  Ruth was a ball of energy and Susan was a metronome with her pace keeping.  The fans cheered us on, calling us the three amigos as we ran by.  Around mile 5 or 6, I promised Susan and Ruth that I would write a rap song about our experience.

As we rounded the corner to complete the first 8 mile loop, Ruth informed us that she would be needing to drop around 10 miles.  She said that she wasn’t feeling horrible, but she wanted to be smart.  We passed through the finish line the second time and spontaneously sped up from the electricity being generated by the crowds screaming our names and urging us on.  Ruth decided to stick with us longer saying that she wasn’t feeling any worse and thought she had more in her.  So, we kept chugging along.

Around our mile 12 or 13, we heard cars coming up from behind, and we knew the lead pack of men was gaining on us.  We tried to clear a path to allow them to cut the tangents on the course. The next thing I knew, Ryan Hall was brushing my shoulder as he, Meb and Abdi sped past at break-neck pace.  Ritz followed a few minutes later but was clearly still in the hunt.  I could not stop smiling after that close encounter.  How awesome was it to see the race in progress from the perspective of a runner in the race?  The rest of that lap, we continued to try to reserve the tangent for the other men who were passing us as they completed their final loop. 

Susan and I lost Ruth around the half point and continued to soldier on.  I was clearly hurting and was just trying to keep up with Susan for the second half.  She would get ahead and call back to me to be strong.  I would put in a little more effort and catch up, feeling my muscles congeal just a little more with each step.  More than anything, I was feeling the lack of training in my body.  I actually had very little real pain for the first 20 miles or so—none in my shin or my hip.  Mostly, I was just sucking wind.

I hit my lowest point in the race when I began thinking about missed opportunities for cross training and strength work that might have left me in better shape for this race.  I had to admit to myself that I had given up on my training over a month ago.  I was only able to run 11 out of the last 35 days, mostly in pain, but I could have come into the race fitter had I cross trained when I couldn't run.  Never mind the cast I had on my leg, and the week that I couldn't walk.  Maybe I should have used the hand cycle.  At that low point, I told myself I had become defeated in the face of setbacks, and I was embarrassed about that.  These were the moments that I wanted to quit the race.  I felt like I hadn’t given everything in my training and here I was in last place in the Olympic Trials, exposing my laziness to everyone watching.  

Good thing I’m not a quitter.  A friend of mine told me that he knew I would cross that finish line even if I had a bone sticking out of my leg.  I will be the first to admit that I have a healthy ego, but quitting to preserve that ego was absolutely unacceptable.  So, I charged on.  Susan and I passed through the finish line a third time, and a huge grin stretched across my face and I started to cry watching the men’s Olympic Team celebrating their accomplishment wrapped in an American Flag.  Then I heard the crowd yelling, “go Jaymee and Susan,” and that put the spring back in my step. 

By far, the most emotionally difficult part of the race was the final 8-mile loop.  By this time, Susan and I were a good 4-5 minutes behind anyone else and the spectators had started to disperse.  Thank goodness for the ones that remained to cheer us on.  Susan became even more critical to my race at this point as she pulled ahead, and I tried to hang on.  As long as I saw her ahead of me, I had something to aim for.  The crowd kept telling me to stay strong and reminded me that I was in the Olympic Trials.  They said I was their hero and that I inspired them.  I believed every word of it.

My right hip flexors started to grumble around mile 15 and by mile 20, it was painful to lift my right knee to propel my leg forward.  I think sheer force of will and momentum must have kept me going those last few miles.  By mile 23, I was worried about making it to the finish.  I slowed more to see if I could get some of the pain in the right leg to diminish and that worked.  Both of my legs were like cement blocks from sheer muscle fatigue, since I hadn’t run longer than 18 miles in 6 weeks.  By mile 24, however, I knew I would make it to the finish. 

I was in last place at this point and had the rest of the course to myself.  I would get there when I got there, and I was going to finally let myself enjoy the final moments of this amazing experience.  The dedicated crowds continued to cheer for me and told me to be strong.  I waved and pumped my fists and smiled at them to let them know I was not defeated.  I was proud to be on the streets of Houston, nearing the finish line of the most memorable race of my life.  I started to connect with the spectators’ faces around me and began to hear the shouts from friends and family who had nervously awaited my arrival, wondering whether I was still out there on the course. 

I heard mad screams from my family as I turned the corner to cross the finish line for the 4^th and final time.  I heard someone yell, “Yo Houston.”  I laughed and repeated it as I crossed the line.  I was immediately wrapped in the arms of my race sister, Susan who told me she couldn’t have gotten through the race without me.  My eyes welled up with tears as I told her how important she had been to me.  We made our way through a gauntlet of race officials and escalators and finally, somewhat unceremoniously, were handed our finisher's medals.  I have never been one who cares much at all about medals, but this one, I wanted more than anything on this earth.

Major big hugs!

So happy!

Susan and I donned our medals and smiled from ear to ear looking at each other just slightly surprised by what we had been through.  What an amazing experience.  Susan told me this race bonded us for life.  Yes, indeed it did.  What a wonderfully amazing ride.  

Proud Olympic Marathon Trials Finishers! Thanks for the photos Bill!

 Thank you to each and every person who has supported me along this journey whether I've met you in person or know you from the internets.  Your support and encouragement has meant the world to me, and I would not be wearing that finisher's medal without it.

Here we go!

Normally at this point in the training cycle, I would be reminding myself that the hay is in the barn and that I've put in all of the hard work to carry me through the race.  That is not true this time around.  My body hasn't allowed me to put in any hard work for over a month.  Each time I've pushed myself to get in some good miles, I end up barely being able to walk let alone run the next day.  This is a new experience for me and one that leaves me pretty anxious about Saturday's race.  If my body functions normally, I can pull off a sub-3 hour marathon.  But, I can't use my right leg right now and that might be a minor factor influencing how fast/if I can actually run.  Rather than continue to torture myself, I've decided to just rest these last few days.  I did take a stab at using the Alter-G yesterday, but I was in pain even at 80% of my body weight.

I know that rest alone will not heal my mystery injury, only a good diagnosis and treatment will do that.  I do know that running will only exacerbate it.  My Hail Mary pass will come when I get to Houston and get a chance to see Dr. Ball one last time before the race.  He's worked magic before and hopefully can again.  There's nothing he can do about the lack of fitness I have right now, but to be able to run most of the race without pain, and maybe use my right leg for a bit, would be a true gift.

My goal remains to start and finish this race.  There are women who will toe the line that are in worse shape than me and many more who won't even make it to the start.  I am lucky to even be going to Houston and know that there are women out there that would give their eye teeth to be in my position, bum leg and all!  I am blessed and will not forget that.

My sincerest thanks go out to everyone who has supported me along this journey.  It has been an amazing ride and I look forward to soaking up the experience in Houston.  One thing you can be certain of is that I will do my very best on Saturday.

Yo Houston!      

  

Oly Tees

I'm on my third taper this training cycle and was thinking I could:

A) throw a tiz fit about the fact that my damn leg still hurts if I run too much
B) rap about my unfortunate situation

The following is the product of that decision (you can also access the video via this link if the the embedded one doesn't work):

Of course, I expect this song to go viral soon on account of my mad rappin' skillz.  If you want to add this song to your playlist and send me an email, I'll share the MP3 version with you for free!

Yo Houston!  

Must. Have. Plan.

Get this cool journal and other fun stuff from Believe I Am

I am lost without a running/workout plan.  I have a really hard time taking things day by day without some sense of the bigger scheme that it all fits into.  I don't have to actually follow the plan.  I just need to have one.  I think that's one of the things that's been so mentally debilitating about this injury: I want to plan my workouts for the next 3 weeks, but I haven't even known whether I would be walking without crutches the next day.

I ran 6 miles this morning.  I had all of my fingers and toes crossed that the acupuncture treatment I had yesterday would help with the pain.  It worked!  My lower leg did not fall off and didn't even hurt.  My hip was still acting up, but that was minor and lessened during the run.

Given how good I felt, I thought it was safe to make myself a plan.  Rule 1 for this plan is: I will not go overboard with running mileage.  Rule 1 refers to goal 1: crossing both start and finish lines in OT race.  I will supplement my running with my Elliptigo this and next week just to keep my muscles strong.  I will also continue to get acupuncture treatment as needed.  I also made an appointment for a sports massage on Thursday with a not so gentle man that my girlies have been raving about.

If nothing else, I will be the most rested runner going into the Trials race in 3 weeks.  That's right, it's only 3 weeks away!

Merry Christmas peeps!    

Charlie Foxtrot

Monday came and went with no call from my HMO to schedule an MRI appointment.  I pretty much sat and stared at my phone most of the day, willing it to ring.  Tuesday morning was more of the same.  Nada.  I finally called them.  I was told that the request must first go through protocol screening by a radiologist and then they could call me to schedule.  She told me there were still appointments available for next week, so I was lucky.  Yes, that made me feel really lucky.

Frustrated, I decided to take matters into my own hands and find out where I could get an MRI on the cheap.  I found a place close to my house that charges $500 for uninsured patients including the radiologist report and could get me in at 1:45 that day, no doctor's referral needed.  Music to my ears.

I asked to listen to Mumford and Sons on the headphones they gave me, though I couldn't really hear the music over the loud clunking and thudding going on inside the machine.  In about 30 minutes, I was done and received a lovely red rose from the technicians for my troubles.  Okay, that was a bit odd, but nice nonetheless.  I got a hard copy of my pictures and a CD with a viewing program on it.

Is this a slice of meat for our Christmas dinner or the inside of my right leg?  

The next two days were a bit of a blur.   I learned to read MRI images thanks to the profusion of information on the internets.  From my readings of the images, I had everything from gout to cancer to edema of the periosteum.  Oh, and of course I saw a stress fracture somewhere on there too.  I thought I had become quite savvy at reading these things and had my diagnosis ready to go waiting for the real doctor to tell me what was wrong.  The result that was supposed to come Wednesday afternoon did not.  I started to get really impatient.  I began worrying more and more, looking at the images in various levels of saturation and contrast to pick out new and unusual features that I hadn't been able to see before.  I'm pretty sure I forgot to shower for a couple of days too.

Couple all of this with the fact that I'm doing absolutely no exercise, my leg still hurts to stand on it, and I have taken the entire week off from work.  I can't concentrate on anything but this pain in my leg and the consequences of that pain.  If it is a stress fracture, should I wear a boot and still line up at the start of the race as some suggest?  Wouldn't I feel like a complete idiot hobbling over the starting line only to quit the race in the first few feet?  What if I just went for it anyway?  I had heard many remarkable stories of people with worse pain than mine showing up at the start line and running completely pain free.  Then I recalled the stories of those who didn't heed the warning signs, ran anyway and ended up with a nice full fracture.  I didn't want that.

Thursday late afternoon, I finally received the report from the radiologist letting me know that there was nothing remarkable on my images.  Nada.  Soft tissue was even "unremarkable".  I got this news after being fit for a walking cast (thanks Mike!).

I am clear to run.  Well, there's the small matter of still having pain in my leg when I walk, but staying off of the leg has reduced that quite a bit.  In celebration of the news, I rode my Elliptigo last night in the dark for an hour, pushing my heart rate up into the high 150s.  I felt awesome and was so much happier.  Exercise is indeed a great mood booster.

I could sit around and bemoan the last week of nothingness and whine about the fitness I've no doubt lost.  That's not my style.  My body was definitely telling me it needed a break.  More than anything, this last week has given my immune system a chance to fight off whatever the hell infection I have going on.  I'm 6 days into the antibiotics and just now starting to feel slightly better.

I learned one other thing that I think is worth noting for those of you who push yourselves as hard as I do.  I had started regularly measuring my resting heart rate a couple of months ago and keeping record of it.  I had never really done this before.  It's just so easy to do now that there are iPhone apps available that can take a fairly accurate reading in a matter of seconds.  And, they record the number for you too!

I was a little surprised when I started doing this that my heart rate when going to bed was about the same as when I woke in the morning.  I was also surprised that my resting heart rate was in the low 50s consistently.  I thought it was in the low 40s, but I thought maybe I was mistaken about that.

A couple of days ago, my resting heart rate plummeted: both the nighttime and morning readings and they've stayed there ever since.  My resting HR is in the low to mid 40s.  It has been elevated for the last 2-3 months.  I had dismissed those who say that resting HR is a good measure of overtraining, but I have now learned the lesson for reals.  The other lesson learned is that a baseline needs to be established during a time when you're rested and healthy!

What's next for me?  Hopefully, I'll be back to running.  I plan to start a very long and drawn out taper from here, listening to my body the whole way.  Goal 1 is to cross both the start and finish lines at the Olympic Trials.  If I can do that in a decent amount of time, then that's icing on the cake.  Given the fact that I'm still in a fair amount of pain from this injury, whatever it is, my next few weeks will be about pain management.  I'm going in for acupuncture today to see if that relieves it at all.  I'm taking Tylenol for the pain and icing as needed.  I will attempt to wrap the leg in various ways to see if that helps.  And I will keep my fingers crossed that nothing else crops up these next few weeks!

Thanks to everyone who has reached out to me throughout this ordeal.  I really appreciate all of the support and well wishes.  You have reminded me that it is truly a privilege to be invited to this race.  You inspire me to get past these setbacks and run my heart out on January 14th!

Oh, and I finally got that call from Kaiser, my HMO, yesterday afternoon to schedule my MRI.  I'll be getting that on January 5th at 10 p.m.  Great timing.

Merry Christmas, indeed!
        

The thin black line

Thanks to everyone for all of your support these last few days.  I'm sure you can imagine how I'm feeling faced with the thought of having to sit out the biggest race of my life after what happened on Friday.  If this whole ordeal weren't so damned funny, I would probably be crying a lot more.  I thought I'd update you on how my appointment went this morning.  It is a good story.

I was slightly concerned that the orthopedic doc I was seeing this morning might be upset that I had taken the cast off Saturday.  Good thing she didn't know I had made it into that fashionable lamp.  She didn't seem concerned about that, especially since she had looked at my X-rays and didn't see any evidence of a fracture.

It's a major award.

She said she had read through my history, and she knew I was an athlete.  She asked me for the low down on the injury, and I gave her the short version.  She started the physical exam by palpating the bone from my ankle up then from the knee down and asked me if I felt any pain.  I told her I did when she got to the place where I feel the pain when I stand on the leg.  She measured this place with a ruler and told me that she would need an MRI to get more information.  Yay!

She then took another look at the X-ray.  I squinted at the thing, straining to find the thin line I had seen Friday night.  I was perplexed.  Had it disappeared?  She zoomed in on the image, and then, there it was, that thin black line.  I pointed it out (yes, I am an idiot).  She said, something about how the ER doctor was pretty perceptive to have found that when both the radiologist and she had not.  She then told me we didn't need an MRI, because I had a complete fracture.  I was in shock.  Really?  But it didn't make sense. I argued all of my points about walking around on it, running on Thursday.  How could it possibly be a full-on fracture?  She explained that stress fractures are different and that they are very subtle on X-rays at first.  Once the bone starts to heal then they show up.  But, she said this line was a clear fracture.  I was stunned and started to feel like she had punched me in the gut.  She said I could get a follow up X-ray on Wednesday, because by then we might see some change in the bone as it heals.

I then started to cry.  I don't cry much but I started telling her about how I needed to be certain about this because I had reservations to cancel and there were others who were making plans to come see me run.  She handed me a tissue and softened a bit.  She said that the best she could do was to get an X-ray on Wednesday.  Luckily, I kept my wits about me rather than succumb to the sorrow.  They had taken 2 X-rays on Friday night from different angles.  I said, "Well, wouldn't you think that, if this was a full fracture, that it would show up in the other X-ray view they took on Friday?"  She told me this was a good point and zoomed in on that image to the place where the line showed up on the other image.  Nothing.

So I proposed that I should get an X-ray today to see whether or not the line showed up.  She repeated that it didn't matter because the bone wouldn't have started to heal.  She finally got what I was saying when I said, "yes, but assume that it's not a fracture for a minute.  If you don't see that line on the film today, then we know that it was an aberration on the image and that it's not a full fracture, right?"  The light bulb went on and she said, "You're right.  I was stuck on it being a fracture and didn't think of the possibility that it wasn't."  She ordered the X-ray.

I sat in the waiting room wondering if I had been a fool to remove the cast and make it into a lamp.  I thought I must be some kind of tough beast to run on a grade 4 fracture.  The doc sent out an assistant to tell me that the X-ray was negative and that radiology would call me to schedule an MRI.  I don't know if the doc just didn't have time to see me, or if she was fed up with me. Perhaps she was embarrassed to be wrong.  She didn't give any other instructions, so I had to ask the assistant to go back and ask if I should stay off of it or not.  I was told I should not bear weight on the leg.

So, I am being good and staying off of my leg for now, waiting to hear about my MRI appointment.  I'm not even attempting any cross training.  It's no fun.  My dogs are pissed off because they won't get their walk today.  Oh well, we'll have plenty of time for that soon, I'm sure.  I will keep you updated as the saga continues...