Back in Business

Hello friends! Long time no see …

Hopefully this will be the last of the “injury update” posts. Overall, I am feeling so much better this week! I feel like myself again, which is nice. I didn’t feel like myself for about 2 weeks and that wasn’t fun at all.

The one nagging issue that was holding me back was my knee. It was still swollen and I didn’t have much range of motion in it. I was doing everything that I knew to do (i.e., the RICE approach), but that didn’t seem to be getting me anywhere.

• Resting the knee
• Icing the knee for short periods with cold packs
• Compressing the knee gently, such as with an elastic bandage
• Elevating the knee

I saw my sports chiro and ortho doctor last week. I had some tangled fascia around my knee that Dr. Justin was able to release, which immediately helped my range of motion. They also did an X-ray of the knee to make sure that there wasn’t a fracture (and there wasn’t … Praise the Lord!).

What they did determine was that I had a sprained PCL (posterior cruciate ligament). The PCL connects the thigh bone (femur) to your shin bone (tibia). PCL injuries are often due to a blow to the knee while it is bent (which makes sense in my case). The good news is that both doctors gave me the blessing to run, as long as my pain wasn’t more than a 2/10 and as long as the pain didn’t increase when I ran.

I enjoyed stalking tracking friends and bloggers at races over the time that I was out. Last weekend was a jam-packed race weekend. Indianapolis, Savannah, Disney and NYC … oh my! So many awesome races and now so many recaps to read. I love it. I am more than ready to be back out there racing myself. I also seem to have come down with a little bit of marathon fever. I don’t have any immediate intentions to act on it, but my wheels are turning (slowly).

Since I don’t have a lot of current running to discuss (I do have a little bit though so keep reading), let’s take a quick walk down memory lane and talk about two of the races from last weekend that I have done in the past. Savannah (2011) and NYC (2015).

Savannah was the 2nd marathon that I did. I was still in the “winging it” portion of my training (i.e., not following a plan or using a coach) and my goal was 3:10. As it turned out, 3:10 was a little rich. I ran super consistent 7:15 pace until mile 19 or 20. I crossed 20 miles in 2:26 (7:18 average). I finished the race in 3:21, which means that I averaged 8:51 (!!!) for the last 10K. I’m not saying that 8:51 pace is bad by any means, but when your pace per mile slows by 1 minute and 33 seconds per mile for the last 10K of the race … you aren’t doing it right! I’m sure you’ve heard of hitting the wall or bonking in the marathon, well this is a textbook example of what that looks like. You live, you learn.

I ran 3 marathons in between Savannah 2011 and NYC 2015 (Boston 2012 (4:37 (my personal worst (thanks to tax season for the lack of training and mother nature for 90+ degree temps)), First Light 2013 (3:23) & New Orleans Rock N Roll 2015 (3:03)). New York was an amazing, but difficult course. You can read my recap of that –> here. I came away with a little bitty PR (that I am darn proud of).

I think it was more fun watching the coverage on TV this year than it was running the race itself last year! Watching a marathon is one of the best things in the world. It’s amazing to see the determination of a marathoner. Needless to say, I was very inspired and motivated after watching NYC!

I bottled up some of that motivation and did my first workout post-fall Tuesday (insert super excited, very happy dance!). It was a 4 mile LT progression tempo (with each mile getting a little faster than the previous mile). This was a good “comeback” workout because the pace for the first mile wasn’t as intimidating as if it had just been a regular LT tempo workout. I decided to do the workout on the treadmill to minimize the chances of falling. Ha. Seriously though, I am still a tad gun-shy about running outside, especially at a faster pace (i.e., during a workout) on the roads or sidewalks in the dark.

Side note: I had a workout buddy while I was on the treadmill. It was Daniel. He was being a good little runner and doing his P90X yoga DVD. He is so much better at yoga than me! 

P.S. He didn’t know about this picture until it ended up here on the blog. He then requested disclosure.

I did an easy 2 mile warm up and jumped right on in to the quicker miles. I averaged 6:23 for the 4 tempo miles (6:30, 6:24, 6:21, 6:16) and I was thrilled with how that went. My knee didn’t bother me at all (if it had, I wouldn’t have done the workout). Woo hoo! My coach and I had decided that there would be no racing until I was back feeling 100% and after this workout, I have the green light to race!

There is a 12K (not a typo, just an odd distance) nearby this weekend and I am really looking forward to it. It is a point-to-point race that runs across Mobile Bay to the USS Alabama Battleship Park. This is the second year of the race, but will be my first year running it.

My goal is to get back to a quasi-routine with blogging. It can be tough to come up with content for a running blog when you aren’t really able to run. Hopefully that will no longer be the case (fingers crossed)!

Talk to you soon! Gotta run!