Semper Gumby*

*a play on the official Marine Corps motto Semper Fidelis, usually abbreviated Semper Fi, which means "always faithful". "Semper Gumby" refers to the cartoon character Gumby and means "always flexible." (Wikipedia 2011)

In my last post, I revealed that I have not been stretching after I run.  Am I the only runner in the world who doesn't know how important it is to stretch right after you run?  I have pretty much never done this, so it's no wonder I have such freaking tight muscles.  I started doing this after running the last couple of days and felt like even more of an idiot because it actually works!  Live and learn.

My tight areas are probably common to most runners: calves, IT band, hips, butt, lower back.  So these are the stretches I use after every run now.  It takes about 10 minutes to do all of this.

Calves
I mostly focus on stretching out my soleus, but I like to stretch out the muscles and tendons of my toes and foot too.  For the soleus stretch, Spidey demonstrates how you do your regular calf stretch but, rather than keeping the stretched leg (left) straight, bend the knee of the leg you're stretching (Spidey's left leg) in order to hit the soleus.  For more detailed instructions go here.  To stretch the muscles/tendons in the bottom of my foot, I use the stretch pictured on the right.  I press my toes up against a wall or pole like our biker chick is doing, and then I bend that right knee, moving it toward and away from the pole/wall to get a good stretch on the bottom of my foot.  I hold each stretch for 10-20 seconds and do each stretch 2-3 times on each leg.

IT Band
Hopefully, everyone already knows that you can't actually stretch your IT band.  You can possibly deform it, but that takes a lot of work.  So, what you're actually after when you do an IT band stretch is stretching out or lengthening the muscles that control the tension in the IT band like one or more of your quads, tensor fascia latae, gluteals, etc.  The first of the two stretches I do for the IT band is complicated to explain, but I'll try.  It is sort of pictured on the left, except that you don't use a band.  You start lying on your back with one leg, let's say the right, outstretched straight on the ground and pull your left knee up toward your chest.  You then position the left knee slightly right of center line (so toward the right leg) and then start to straighten the left leg to get into roughly the position the fine gentleman is demonstrating except that you're holding your leg with your hands rather than a band.  I usually put my left hand on the outside of my left quad and hold my lower leg with my right hand.   You're pulling the straight leg toward your torso and to the right the whole time.  You will feel tension along the entire outside of the leg if you're doing it right and it will be uncomfortable.  I hold this one for 10 seconds, release by bending the left leg, then stretch for 10 seconds, release and then bite my lip and stretch it for 20 seconds.  This is the stretch that is supposed to keep my IT band sliding smoothly over my quad muscles, so I give it extra special attention.  I also do the old standby stretch pictured on the right.  I feel that more in my glutes and lower back as I twist to touch the opposite foot.

Hip flexors

This is the only stretch I do for the hip flexors.  It works.  It hurts.  Enough said.  Sometimes, I will alternate a nice hamstring stretch by simply sitting back on my back foot and leaning forward to touch my toe like the young fawn on the right.  For both of these, I hold the stretch for at least 10 seconds, release and go into the other stretch, repeating this cycle 3 times.  I'm not sure if that's the best way to do this, but I like it.

The big bad gluteals

These bad boys are giving me problems lately for some inexplicable reason.  So, they are also getting special treatment.  There are really a number of stretches that you can do for the glutes.  My favorite is the sitting glute stretch shown on the left, but I also sometimes do the lying glute stretch shown on the right.  You can modify this one to attack other areas like the piriformis as well.  I have done and still do the one below, but I swear I just don't feel it as much in my glutes.  With each of these, I tend to like to just hold and continue to hold for 20-30 seconds each leg, pushing or pulling more as I feel the muscles release.

Twisting side stretch

One stretch that seems to get at a lot of key muscles is the twisting side stretch demonstrated by the foxy lady on the left.  A few things to keep in mind with this one: you're actually sort of lunging with your front foot (left in this case), pushing your right hip with your hand out to the right, and reaching your right arm toward the left as far as you can go.  Rather than just a simple side bend, this is more of a twist.  You should feel this in the lower back and glutes and even down the outside of your leg.  Try twisting more or less and lunging more or less to see what other fun muscles you can engage in the stretch.  I hold this one for 20-30 seconds and then do some 5 second pulses to finish it off.

Extra credit

If you can find a partner willing to torture you, you can do the stretch on the right for extra credit.  Look how much fun they're having!  I won't often get to do this one right after I run unless the Genius is handy or I can convince a girlie to lend me a shoulder.  The key here is for the helper to push the lower part of your bent leg (rather than the knee of your bent leg) toward your torso.  Dr. Lau was happy to hear that the Genius and I were doing this stretch for each other, but he was concerned that it might become a competition.  I, of course, win every time.


So, that's about it for stretching.  I covered my rolling routine last summer in this post.  According to Dr. Lau, I need to roll daily and can do this in the evening if I want to rather than right after running.  One major difference is in how I use the little massage ball.  Instead of sitting upright to roll my glutes and hips, I lay down, placing the ball under the muscle I'm trying to roll and wiggle or work back and forth on hot spots until they loosen up.  You don't want to mash down on those spots and kill them, you just slowly work them free.  A couple of new areas that I roll out with the grid are the peroneus longus muscle on the lower leg and my latissimus dorsi muscles in my back. I hope this helps you, and please remember to stretch after every run!!!

Busted

As predicted in my last post, things started happening to me.  They weren't good things.  No sooner did I press the "publish post" button on that blog post than my butt started aching and my illitobial (IT) band started tightening up again.  Bummer, right?

I conferred with Coach Tom after a painful run last Wednesday where I did the walk of shame home from about 2 miles out.  That is clearly one of the more demoralizing experiences for a runner.  You go out intending to run out and back and only get out.  I was cold, in pain and very disappointed when I arrived home.  It was hard to stay sad, though, when greeted by my two excited, slobbering dogs when I opened the door.

I rolled the crud out of my butt muscles on Wednesday night and gave her a shot again the next morning, deciding to run a short loop around my neighborhood.  After a mile, I knew it was a no-go.  So, I contacted Dr. Lau to try to get some advice about what I should work on, and Coach Tom decided to have me cross train for a couple of days.

I was cleared to run on Saturday but I didn't bother to ask what that run should consist of.  I thought, while running along feeling great, why not pick up the pace and get in that tempo workout that was scheduled on Friday so I don't miss a workout for the week?  I felt great throughout the 7.5 miles run at just under 7:00/mile pace and sent a note to Coach Tom telling him what I had done.  He was not exactly thrilled with my judgment stating that, in the future, when I have a problem that keeps me from running for a couple of days, I should come back with a 20-30 minute easy effort and start from there.  I felt the wisdom of that approach the next day when, during an easy run, I felt my IT band start to tie up again at the end of 5 miles.  And, it got sore on Monday after 4.5 miles.  I sent Coach Tom a message and quickly got a phone call where his first words were, "How pissed are you?"

Coach Tom explained that I have to be a lot smarter with my training and start thinking like a professional athlete.  He explained that I am making a huge investment in this running thing and, if I want to continue to improve, I have to be more disciplined.  He reminded me that I am never going to be lazy with my training.  My challenge is to be more conservative, and if there is the slightest chance that something might hurt me, then I should opt out.  Certainly, I should contact him if I have questions rather than relying on my own judgment.  This is why I have a coach.  I can't be trusted to make decisions for myself when it comes to my training.  I will always tend toward the "more is better" end of the scale.  While I have spent 6 years training pretty hard and remained almost completely injury free, my body is clearly going through some sort of adjustment period right now and I have to respect that.  I guess I'm just not used to thinking of myself as breakable.  I'm not fragile, God damn it!

The good news is that Dr. Lau was able to explain what's going on with me right now, and it's just your basic IT band shizzle.  I will be butchering the physiological explanation he gave, but essentially what I feel is the IT band becoming locked up or adhering to my quad muscle.  This is partly due to tightness in my gluteal muscles and some of my back muscles.  He also confirmed that this is a different problem than the one I dealt with earlier this winter.  The pain along the outside of my left leg is from the IT band tightening up and pulling because it can't slide freely over the quad muscle.

Dr. Lau unstuck my IT band, adjusted some other body parts, and said I'm good to go run.  No real damage done.  We also went over all of the things I should be doing to prevent this from recurring since I felt like I was doing a lot of stuff but didn't know whether it was helping or hurting me.  The main thing I was missing was stretching right after I run.  I like to lump all of my "maintenance work" into a chunk of time reserved in the evening.  Dr. Lau explained that, with stretching, doing it at the end of the day was sort of worthless.  If I don't do it while my muscles are warm, the muscles just harden in place (my words, not his).

I typically finish my run and then sit in my car or at a desk or do something that is probably the opposite of stretching.  I need to stretch my IT band and glutes while my muscles are still warm within minutes of running to have the greatest effect.  I need to keep that IT band sliding over the muscle rather than sticking to it.  Dr. Lau said that stretching does this and that rolling won't help much with that issue.  I remember reading a quote from Meb Keflezighi a few months ago related to stretching right after running.  He felt it was the key to staying injury free.  He suggested cutting your run 5 minutes short in order to get it in.  He's a smart athlete!  And, he's a professional!

I also showed Dr. Lau the various core and other strength training exercises that I do.  He helped me work on doing them properly or not at all so I don't exacerbate my hip and lower back tightness.  This requires modifying the yoga workouts I do to eliminate "boat".  Apparently, that move strengthens abs but also tightens up hip flexors, and we runners don't need tighter hip flexors.  I was doing many of the other core strength moves like pointers, bridges, and even one-legged downward facing dog in a way that tightened up my lower back and wasn't targeting the right core muscles.  This stuff is going to take some serious work!

While I need to think like a professional athlete, I am not one and working to get all of this right is exhausting.  I am learning, though, and will be a stronger, faster runner as a result.  Luckily, I have professionals like Coach Tom and Dr. Lau to help me out!

Things are going to start happening to me now

I have come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to be a professional runner in this lifetime.  I think I missed the window for that opportunity by a couple of decades.  Instead, I've tried to do the next best thing: integrate my running with my work and vice versa.  A great example of this is the interest that my employer, The Nature Conservancy, has taken in profiling me as both a scientist and a runner.  At first, I was surprised by this combination, and was unclear about how these two seemingly unrelated aspects of my life could be integrated.  However, they found a top notch multimedia firm that revealed that connection and brought it to life on film.  I posted some pictures from the video shoot they did a few weeks back and am pleased to present the video product of that effort here.  

 

While some of my colleagues are concerned that this profile sets unreasonable expectations for personal fitness in the organization, I am excited by the thought that my passion for running and science might somehow compel people to care more about protecting nature.  I think many runners make that connection on a daily basis, using running routes that go through parks and natural areas whenever possible.  The majority of the rest of the public is not getting out there to see how awesome these resources are and they need to be shown.

Of course, I've also managed to incorporate running into my military career, representing the Air Force and United States as a marathoner in national and international competitions.  This is something that makes me a little giddy when I think about it.  The experiences are ones that I truly cherish and feel incredibly lucky to continue to have.

So, it's good to be me.  Most of the time.  These last few months of being sidelined by injury have reminded me how hard this running gig can be, both physically and emotionally.  While I still think I'm headed in the right direction, the road is bumpy.  Those bumps remind me just how emotionally invested I am in this hobby.  

Last week, I ran every day for a total of 61 miles.  I had a track workout on Tuesday, a lactate threshold workout on Friday and a long run on Saturday.  That was a really big week for me, and I was worried the entire time about making it through in one piece.  I was conscious of every little niggle I felt and worried that it was the genesis of my next injury.  My aches and pains have rotated around my body during this comeback starting with really bad soreness in my calf muscles for the first few weeks, followed by a wicked ache in my right glute muscle and now my IT band and outer shin muscles are sore.  I realize that these are the pains that come with my body adjusting to running again after a 3-month lay off, but they are really nerve wracking!  They also take a huge commitment of time.  I can't slack off with stretching or strength training for even a day.  Dr. Lau has also been an amazing partner in my treatment, and I feel really lucky to have him as a resource.  

My workouts have gone really well so far.  Last week, I did my first track workout of 7 x 1000m @ 6:00/mile pace with 1 minute rest.  I love 6:00 pace.  It is a benchmark pace for me and allows me to gage my fitness.  Right now, it's my 10k pace.  When I'm really fit, it will be my lactate threshold or even half marathon pace.  I was happy that, in my first workout back, I felt comfortable holding that pace throughout the workout.  Last Friday, I incorporated some short, 100m repeats into my tempo run and was pleasantly surprised with my turnover.  I was really worried that my first bout of fast running would feel like I was in some sort of cartoon, trying to run fast but not being able to control my legs.  I was whipping along at sub-5:00 pace without a problem and felt very comfortable and smooth.

This week, I'm incorporating double days into my schedule and bumping my mileage over 70.  I did my very first Michigan workout late last night in the pouring rain.  The Genius was kind enough to accompany me so I didn't have to run it by myself, and it would have been miserable by myself.  It was hard for him to slow to my paces, but I appreciated having someone to follow so I could zone out and forget about my shoes sloshing with every step and my legs tightening up at the end of each fast lap.  We treated ourselves to some Willie's burgers and fries after the workout.  I think we earned it.       

      

My Boring Routine

The whole fam damily.

I am looking forward to getting back to my boring routine after two weeks spent traveling for work.  I wouldn't call my work strenuous.  However, there's just something about being away from home, sitting for 8-10 hours per day, eating out every meal and trying to fit workouts into an unfamiliar schedule that I find exhausting.  While I did get to see my family this last week while working in Seattle, I am happy to be home again staring at a few weeks of normality ahead.

I saw Dr. Lau last Monday, the first visit in over a month, and he found some good stuff to work on in my glutes and back.  My body is holding up fine with the increased mileage, but it is still trying to stabilize itself by tightening up my left side.  I have felt this off and on as tightness in my left IT band without any associated pain.  It is something I haven't worried much about because it feels like my body adjusting to the increased mileage more than an outright rebellion for the pounding it's taking.  I say this because the tightness has come on late in each run since I started back.

For example, when I ran 5 miles for the first time, it came on at about 4-4.5 miles into the run.  The next time I ran 5 miles, I didn't feel it.  When I ran 7 miles, it came on at 6-6.5 miles and then not again.  Yesterday, I ran the Lake Natoma Loop (11.7 miles) and it came on at 9-10 miles.  The longest run I had done before then was 9 miles, so this seemed to follow the same pattern.  I think I am doing everything right to keep this in check, but I also plan to see Dr. Lau regularly as I continue increasing mileage and intensity over the next few months.

This is the nerve-wracking balancing act that we crazy runners face.  When we train hard, our bodies get sore.  But, when is the soreness normal and when is it a prelude to an injury?  That's what each of us has to divine for ourselves.  We'd clearly never train if we backed off every time we became sore.  I have my little high-wire shoes and a bright pink tutu on right now and am working hard to stay firmly planted on that wire.

This week I ran 52 miles in 6 days of running.  I had one workout of 9 miles with 30 minutes at about 6:52 pace, and that felt easy.  My next "workout" was a tempo effort on Friday where I ran 8 miles total with 4 miles at 6:19 pace.  It was humbling to run my marathon pace from Chicago for the first time since October and have it feel "comfortably hard".  Rather than mourn my lost fitness, I decided to record this as a baseline condition that I can use to compare my progress over the next few weeks--a trick I learned during my brain training extravaganza last year.

Next week, I have a real track workout on Tuesday: 7 x 1000m repeats!  I also have a tempo run again on Friday followed by a long run on Saturday.  This will also be my first 7-day running week.  Bring on the boring!

Here we go

I am so excited to finally be at the threshold of a new training plan with real workouts and higher mileage.  It seems like it has been a long time since I thought about doing an actual workout.  I find it a little scary but mostly thrilling.

This week was a real test for me.  My training plan had me running six days, 39 miles total, with two longer runs on Friday and Saturday.  After running the first 4 days in a row--a post injury streak--I knew I was healed and asked Coach Tom what was next.  He reminded me that the hardest part of the week's plan was yet to come, and that we would talk about my next training plan after I had gotten through the week unscathed.  I ran 7 miles on Friday at 6:57 pace followed by a 9 miler on Saturday at 7:15 pace and felt great.  No. I felt better than ever.  I sent Coach Tom a note that said, "Bring it!"

My new training plan is very different from anything I've done in the past in a number of ways.  I won't get into the details here, but will report on my workouts as I work my way through them.  I will say that, in the next three weeks, my mileage will bump back up into the 70s (assuming my body handles it), and that my hard workout paces will start off relatively slow, while the bulk of my miles run will be faster than I would have run in the past.  Also, hard days are not necessarily followed by easy ones.  This is fun stuff, and I am really curious to see how my body responds.    
  
I finally have the confidence in my health to start thinking about upcoming races.  While I haven't committed to anything yet, my first focus race will likely be Bay to Breakers in May in San Francisco.  I have never run this race, but I have always wanted to.  There are usually some fast Masters competitors in the race since prize money is on the line.

My big racing news is that my top-US-female-finisher status at the Athens Marathon earned me a spot on the US team to run the marathon in the World Military Games in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil being held in July 2011!  But, July in Rio?  It's actually their winter and the coolest time of year.  So, my effort in Athens and associated time away from running due to injury were worth something really great.  I will wait until the deadline (mid-April) before committing to this event, but it is really exciting to think about representing the US Military in another international marathon.  Victoria para América!

RAM dump

This week marked a post-injury milestone for me.  I made that mental shift from gratitude for being able to run pain free to frustration with how hard the paces feel compared to how they used to feel.  I am actually taking this as a good sign.  It means that I'm thinking less about walking home in pain at the end of a run and more about getting back into harder training.

Actually, this is kind of a fun time right now.  Each time I run, I feel a little stronger, and I feel my body subtly adjusting to the reintroduction of running.  My comeback has been slow, and I think that has made all the difference.  However, while my muscles are adjusting to the pounding of running again, the biggest adjustment I have had to make is mental.  For starters, I had to forget how I used to train--wipe the brain clean of all training memory.  It was very difficult for me to think of 3 miles as a long run, but that was the longest I got for the first couple of weeks back.  Here's what my training schedule has looked like for the last four weeks.

Cross training details: You'll notice a lot of yoga and core strengthening workouts these last couple of weeks.  I am convinced that core work is the key to stronger running, and I am trying to fit a little in 4-5 times per week.  The strength training routine is one that Coach Tom prescribed and includes exercises targeting the core but includes some good stretches too.  Two of the yoga workouts are podcasts that I downloaded from yogadownloads.com.  The short versions I use are free.  They are called yoga for runners and core yoga #1.  They are short and sweet, but very effective.  The longer yoga routine I do is called Yoga Conditioning for Athletes with Rodney Yee.  I have been using this video (3 separate workouts that take about 50 minutes) on and off for 4 years now, and it is still the best overall yoga routine I have found.  I wore out the DVD actually, but was able to save it as an MPEG-4 file. I now play it on my iPad when I travel or through my Apple TV at home.  Geek alert!  

You might be thinking that it is killing me to run so little, but it really isn't.  Once I got past the fear that I had lost my fitness forever, I was fine.  Last winter, when I was injured, I was paranoid about losing fitness and my cross training workouts were very intense.  I did intervals nearly every other day during my bike rides and pool runs to help maintain my fitness.

Coach Tom mentioned something to me a while back that has stuck with me.  Back in December, he saw that I had done some crazy bike interval workout, a hold over from the last injury cycle, and he tried to explain to me that this was not necessary.  He said, "there's a time for intensity, and it's not now."  It struck me that I was used to training at that high-intensity level all year round.  I would give myself a week off here and there, but most of the time I was doing something hard either on the roads or in the gym.  I think Coach Tom is right.   There is a time and place for intensity and too much of it is a recipe for (re)injury and/or burnout.

I ran 7 miles today, and it felt like a breeze.  This week, I will run close to 40 miles in 6 days.  I like the confidence in that statement I just made.

In other news, I was quite blessed to have a couple of fabulous photographers/videographers follow me around last week on a shoot that will highlight the work I do as well as my running.  Ian Shive took some amazing stills that I thought I'd share with you here.  Enjoy.

Running amongst the majestic oaks along the American River Parkway.

Running along the American River Bike Trail in Folsom. 

Me looking out at Lake Natoma.

Out standing in a vernal pool.  My habitat of choice.

Staring at the fantastic critters swimming for their lives in the vernal pool.

Yes, I am using my iPad to record data, and Sara is using hair picks to sift through algae. 

New beginnings

I had to pinch myself today when I got an email from Coach Tom detailing my next three weeks of training and it included miles and miles of running.  Glorious running.  The fact is, I am running pain free after last Friday's visit to see Dr. Lau.  I haven't been back to see him in a week, and the work he did has lasted through four runs.

I had forgotten how nerve wracking it is coming back from an injury.   Over the last couple of months, my running had become rather predictable.  I'd gear up for my run, hopeful that this day would be the day I was going to run pain free. I'd start out with no symptoms only to feel a sharp pain in my knee within a few minutes.  That's when the negotiations would begin. Would it improve with a few more minutes of running or was I doing damage by continuing?  At some point, I would stop and hobble home, sometimes with tears in my eyes feeling absolutely disappointed and helpless.  By far the worst experience was taking a number of complete rest days, thinking I was doing myself a favor only to experience the same level of pain upon return to running. This was the worst because I knew I was losing fitness AND not getting healthier.

Each day that I have run without pain, I have gained a little more confidence.  There are the little decisions: should I be so bold as to run across the Watt Avenue bridge all the way to the bike trail (1.2 miles from my house)?  That's a long walk home if I start to feel pain.  I have thrown caution to the wind these last few runs and crossed the bridge, all the way out to the 2 mile point, then turned around to head back home.  No pain.  Not a lick.

I must admit that I am in awe of my recovery from this injury right now--maybe even in a state of disbelief.  How is it that I can be hobbling around while walking with severe knee pain one day and running pain free on the treadmill the next after just a simple tweak to my back and butt?

The body is a mystery.

While I return to running, I am trying not to lose hold of the lessons from this experience.  A big one for me: we use a lot more than our legs when we run.  This is pretty obvious, yet for many of us, recovery and strength activities are focused mostly on the legs.  In my case, I could have kept rolling my left quad muscles and IT band for a decade and they would have just kept getting the same knots in them despite my efforts.  There is a lot of maintenance to be done to keep me up and running, but at least I now understand the cause and that is worth its weight in gummy bears.

A few months ago, I was talking about how important upper body flexibility was for running to anyone who would listen.  I remember hypothesizing that a lot of injuries were caused by a tight upper body, and now here I am:  living proof.  In addition to core flexibility I have also begun to realize that core strength training is not just about doing planks and crunches.  I got a core strength training routine from my coach recently and was a little baffled by the name since there weren't any crunches and only a few minutes of planks in it.  It started to sink in that the best core exercises are those that challenge your entire core rather than those that isolate your abs or lower back.  Terrance Mahon wrote a great piece in Master The Shift on January 21st that underscores this point and highlights a few of the mistakes runners make with core training.

The word "beginnings" in my blog title is plural for a reason.  I am beginning a new running program, and I made a big decision last week to adopt a new dog after losing my best Buddy.  Buddy left behind his life-long companion, Sadie, but I thought she would be fine as an only dog.  I was wrong.  I have heard stories of dogs dying in close succession out of grief for the loss of their companion, but I always thought it was a wives' tale.  Sadie was absolutely grieving after her loss, and I felt horrible leaving her alone each day.  She is a very good dog, but she doesn't like many other dogs.  So, introducing a new soul into this house was a risk.

I am pleased to introduce Logan, a Coonhound, Plotthound, Leopard Cur mix from Hornbrook, California.  He is six months old and is a very sweet boy.  He has so many of the same characteristics as Buddy (pillow nesting, sitting up like a person, a proclivity for dance) it is a little scary.  The most thrilling thing of all for me is how accepting Sadie has been of him and how much spirit he has enlivened in her.  Whereas she could barely make it through a 20 minute walk a couple of weeks back, now she is romping around the back yard with this little puppy leaping and hurling himself to her left and right.  The other morning, after they were done wrestling I looked out in the back yard to see Sadie sharing her special spot in the sun with Logan, and I knew all was right in the dog world again.