Miscellaneous

This article was originally posted by Charlene at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Last night I took my 2 youngest children, 9 and 6, out for a mile run. They impressed me so much that this morning we headed to the local county park and ran the roller coaster trails along the river. Of course my son decided that with all the woods and shade that we were actually in the rain forest and made monkey noises as he ran. My daughter likes a steady pace while my son likes to surge. Every few minutes we walk for 30 seconds and then they are off again. They both really enjoyed the tactical aspects of the trail and went out of their way to leap over woodchuck holes and roots. Both really enjoyed the section that was a tad bit muddy and sported mud splattered legs like cross country runners. We even went back and ran the trails with Daddy tonight so they have now completed their first double. It is only about a mile or so of running with 2 stops at Artisan wells so I hope to work up to 2 laps by later this summer.

I hope this is the start of a lifetime of running for both of them. It was a good day.

My own running has been getting better this week. I have done a few mini workouts within runs and have had a few glimmers of hope that the runner I once was is still there. Monday I did a short tempo on the track followed by a few 1000s and was very happy with my pace for both. Tonight I did a 3 mile hilly tempo in the middle of my run home from the park and was satisfied with how it went. It will be awhile before I can do the workouts I once did but I am hoping that with just 40 miles a week instead of 60 for the summer that I can focus more on quality and…those sunshine splattered trail runs with the kids

This article was originally posted by Charlene at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

I wrote up a super long post. Preview post ate it.

I admit that it was a long self pity party of a post. About how my little pile of dreams and goals for racing has met their end. It is hard and emotional to let go but emotionally and physically I am tapped out. It is just not worth it to train for months and months without a niggle to just get injured or sick right before a race. It is also not fulfilling to me to train conservatively and safe just to run endless half marathons with no improvement. Or to just run more miles and harder workouts to hit the same plateau I have been at for years now. I really enjoy training but am so very weary of the failure at the end. This year I had high hopes that everything would come back together as I was finally able to train like I needed to to make a breakthrough. But things did not work out and my return to running after my last injury has been really horrible. Every run is like a horrible recovery run and I hate it. It is clear that I will not be able to return to normal training and mileage anytime soon and this summer is over as far as any racing goals. This is a final blow that really broke me.

I will still run but I am not really sure where I am going anymore. For this summer and perhaps for good it will just be for fitness. I will still do workouts but not to get ready for a race but to just gain some sense of fulfilment over little victories where I can somewhat control the conditions. I need some new goals in my life. It is really hard to give up racing as I used to love it so much.

This article was originally posted by Charlene at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

I don’t have a lot of running to post about lately as I had to take 2 weeks off after Green Bay. If you remember I was having trouble with my left calf for almost a week before the race and managed to get it to run properly after a lot of TLC and Biofreeze. Race was not bad but not great either and I naively thought that my left leg problems would just magically disappear post race.

Not so much. I was a little sore in the quads as normal the day after the race. I noticed that my calf had tightened up again. When I tried to run a mile 3 days after the race I found that my gait was just as awkward as it was the Thursday before the race. I tried a few stretches and noticed that my left foot would not dorsiflex at all. Some quick google research told me that in all certainty that trying to run when one cannot dorsiflex will cause horrible injury to one’s leg. Not that anyone would choose to run like that anyway as it is more of a hobble than a stride.

I made an appointment with Suzie, a sports massage therapist specializing in neuromuscular therapy. She worked on the calf for an hour and prescribed that I not run on it, relax, do gentle stretching, and stop living on Diet Coke. I was pretty worried after the appointment as after an hour of intense work the calf muscles still would not release.

But the very next morning I was able to dorsiflex!!!! I was so relieved. Each day I got back more range of motion and I went back to Suzie the following week and she suggested some more specific stretches that have really loosened up the entire leg.

Yesterday, I went for my 1st run in 2 weeks. It was super slow and just 3 miles but there was no pain at the back of the ankle and I had full range of motion from the start. Today I ran 6 miles and it was again frustratingly slow. Part of this is that I am terrified of hurting myself and cannot break out of a gentle jog. Also I think the leg was slowly tightening up in the weeks before the half and I need to figure out how to run with a leg that works instead of whatever I did to alter my gait to compensate beforehand. It sucks feeling like I am starting over just when I wanted to be gearing up for summer races. But I can run and that is what is important. I just have to keep telling myself that but I admit that my failure to improve for so very long now is really weighing me down. I am 35 years old and the clock is ticking. I trained all fall, winter and spring with hardly a twinge and now just as the racing season starts I am back at square one.

I do have some really good news and it is that my daughter’s 4×400 relay was 4th at State this last weekend. They ran a great time of 4:01 and we were so happy to see them on the podium. I had a great time at the State meet and got to watch a lot of really exciting and dramatic races. The level of competition was really high this year in all events. Over a dozen State records were broken.

This article was originally posted by RandyS at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

In a couple of days it will be 3 years since I last had a day without a run. I wasn’t planning that; it just happened. For the past 15 years I’ve been nothing but consistent. Usually missing a few days a year, often going 16 or 18 months between days off.

This streak owes more to the fact that I switched my weekday runs to the early morning than to any other factor (perhaps luck, life hasn’t gotten in the way either). Little stops me from going for a workout at 5 or 6 in the morning!

At 55 I’ve come to accept that my PB’s are in the past. Yet, I step out the door every morning, without racing goals, able to enjoy the act of running for its own sake. It took a long time to accept that! I struggled as I slowed; thought of giving up on the sport.

In a way I did give up on the sport; I haven’t raced in 3 years, but I didn’t give up on the activity (logging 2-3 thousand miles a year without a goal race in sight). And after struggling with the frustration of slowing as I age; I’m starting to feel motivated to race again, my new age group means new pb’s. I may race again I may not, but I’ll still get out the door every morning.

Randy

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

I just had to drop a quick note on how great the running community is. I was out yesterday doing some half mile repeats. Late in repeat 6 of 8, a couple of runners were approaching me and I recognized one as Dan Held. As we approached each other, he began jumping and yelling at the top of his lungs "COME ON RYAN! COME ON MAN!" You’d think he was cheering for his own kid at the state championship track meet the way he was getting into it.

Here I am, just some average Joe doing repeats at a pace that is pedestrian by his standards and a guy who has run in World Championship races, who was 7th in the Olympic Trials my freshman year of college, is going ballistic cheering for me. Yes, the running community is amazing.

By the way, on the one in a million chance that he reads this, thanks Dan for getting me through it. I was hurting and at that turning point I’m sure we’ve all experienced in hard workouts where you either battle through to a great workout or give in to the fatigue and figure it was still a good workout. I believe I still would have battled it out but that lift just at the right time definitely helped assure that result.