Update time

Ok, here is the story, I was hoping to run the Med City Marathon after the failed attempt at Chippewa. To do that I needed to be able to run relatively pain free. So I bought some new shoes, Brooks Pure Cadence and I love them, I have enjoyed running in my Pure Grits as well except they aren't good in mud, snow or anything that requires traction and they weren't really intended for pavement. Over the weekend I figured if I was going to do Rochester then I needed to be able to do a 20 mile run. I was going to wear my new new shoes but I had decided to head to the river bottoms and thought that my Pure Grits would work better.

First I should back up just a bit, the night before I had run the Rave Run with my wife and the running group from church, not exactly an event that I want to do again. Although I do have to admit it was entertaining in it's own way and it only caused a little pain. The morning of my planned long run I ran 3 miles with the church group and intended to run another 17 miles afterward. Since it was windy, very windy, that was why I had decided to head to the River Bottoms. I parked along 13 right at old and new 13. My plan was to run to Lilydale as I figured running on pavement would be easier on the foot initially and I do like looking out over the rivers from the bike trail. I figured I would then come back and head into the River Bottoms at the Sibley house. I made a decision to instead just run on the bike path, it's 4 miles from 494 to Lilydale so if I ran it twice I would be at 16 miles for this run, 19 for the day which would get me close to what I wanted. I felt good for about 9 to 10 miles, ok good should be defined as being able to manage the pain. I had twinges in the early miles and then it got worse, I tried to walk and run through it but finally admitted defeat after a couple of more miles.

The next day walking hurt, frankly just sitting the foot hurt, so as I was continuing to do the ice, compression thing, I had a light bulb moment. It occurred to me that the tendon seemed to get more painful when I either ran on uneven surfaces or went longer than 10 miles. Ok, not a great revelation but then it become clear, my problem had to be my shoes. Now I have been only wearing 0 to 4 mil drop shoes and I have enjoyed them but the foot has been an issue for a while. In my mind the pain started at Surf the Murph, in looking through my logs, turns out that wasn't all together true. I did hurt my foot at STM but that is not where I have pain now and I did note some pain especially when I wore my NB 110's where I have pain now.

Turns out it's the leg I tore the calf muscle. That was my moment of clarity, I am wearing shoes that require my calf to stretch further, my calf was torn and since I do no stretching it probably is a bit shorter than it used to be . I did PT on the foot and the calf, when he resolved the calf this foot pain went away. So the last two runs I ran in some older shoes, and I was pain free. Ok maybe not pain free but reduced pain and I may be on to something. Thankfully I didn't follow Wayne's advice and throw out all of my old shoes.

Have I given up on minimalist running, nope but until I am pain free I am going to go back to old shoes for longer runs and see if they help me continue to run longer with less pain, if they don't work then I can always go to PT. Am I doing Med City, maybe but probably not. If I do it I will have to finish as I can't tolerate another DNF.

Chippewa 2013

It's been awhile again between posts. That's because our weather hasn't been good and I have had a lot going on which has kept me distracted from my blogging and to be honest my running motivation has been poor because of the weather. So with that in mind, it's no surprise that my training has been sporadic, I had managed a couple of long runs and went into Chippewa under-trained but trained enough to get through the event.

The one issue I was nervous about was my left foot and my lack of specific training on trails. My foot is tender right under the ankle, it's a carry over from Surf the Murph and whether I like to admit it or not, damage done in the past say at Superior and some issues with some of my minimalist shoes. I went through PT in January and he fixed the muscle issue but the tendon and ankle were still occasionally sore. I should say though after PT, it was about 95% pain free, the pain came back as I increased my mileage and of course I blamed it on a certain pair of shoes. The pain was not enough to cause major issues on the roads, some pain during my runs but I was able to get in an 18 and 20 mile run and manage the pain. On one of my long runs, I wandered through Lebanon and the snow-ice, unevenness caused enough pain that I left the park quickly.

Anyway back to Chippewa, my reality is I dropped again, the course was terrible at least for me, snow, ice, mud, sloppy, treacherous, if it had been normal, I think I would have gotten through it, if I had been healthy it would have been extremely hard,  but with the foot it turned into impossible. To the right is a picture they took the day before I think but it is symbolic of what the course was like, I got it from the Chippewa 50k Facebook page.

Around mile 7, I rolled the right ankle for a second time, I had done it earlier and had tripped on a root, gotta love trail running, anyway this time it was an inward roll and as I compensated, it caused significant pain in the left foot. Up to that point I had been just taking my time, I was with a group of other runners and we were maintaining an ok but fairly slow pace. I made the decision that I should pick up the pace a bit to give me a bit more margin with the cutoff and sure enough it was only a few minutes later where I had the misstep. I initially thought, no big deal and figured I would walked it off, after a minute or so the right ankle felt ok, but the left foot did not, I tried to run, not good, I tried to walk longer but to no avail, each mile got slower, I tried packing snow into the shoe, that made it feel better but not good enough to run in such crappy footing, I laced the shoe as tight as it would go, better but not good enough.

I got to the Plummer lake aid station and it was a struggle running on the road but with the even surface I was able to ease the pain, I debated dropping but continued on hoping the pain would settle down even more and the course would get more runnable. It was such a nice day and I so wanted to finish this race. No luck, the course stayed crappy and we had been warned that the section into the turn around was even worse. The highlight of my day might have been when I crossing over some foot bridges and just plopped down on the bridge with my foot soaking in the running water. It is such a pretty spot, I wished I had thought to take a few pictures. I felt like staying there but I knew that I still had 4+ miles to the turnaround. It felt good after the soak but the course continued to punish the foot and I had to face my reality so I called my wife and said I needed to drop.

Disappointing yes but it was  beautiful day,on a beautiful course and I got to see some friends who I have not seen in awhile. Being injured and not being able to do what you want just sucks.

Over the last week, I have iced the foot and am walking better and I have tried a couple of short runs. I have pain so running a gnarly trail will need to wait for awhile. I will work to strengthen the foot, ice, ibuprofen and if things don't get better, see someone.

One thing that I was thinking about during the race kind of helped me keep things in perspective. Two weeks ago my brother was diagnosed with lung cancer, they removed part of his lung and said he is at stage 2A then on the Thursday before Chippewa I found out that an old friend, someone I have known for 30+ years,  was having surgery for prostate cancer the next day., So when I thought about the pain I was in during the race and the fact that I haven't been able to do the distances I want to do, I basically said what are you doing, this is stupid, get the foot healthy and get your rear back out here the right way.

Right now, I am thinking that I might try to do Med City and then if the foot/ankle feel ok maybe do Chester Woods 50k and then Grandmas and if that all goes well, then maybe Afton 50k. I will know in the next 2 weeks whether I can make progress on the foot to attempt Med City, if do great, if I can't, so be it. The main mission is get the foot healthy before Grandmas.

Finally getting a post out

Well it's been a while since I have posted and there are a number reasons, some good and some not so good.

I have been running but not as much as I should be, it's been the weather (snow, ice and cold), work (too many crisis's), life (volunteering for robotics and I2TMC conference, procrastination, sickness, snow, ice and cold), you know all of the normal excuses but it means insufficient running as I head into the spring races. I did get through a slow 15 miler today and do still have plans of running the 50k at Chippewa. My foot is back to causing pain but it is different than it was. I went through 3 PT treatments and he seemed to fix the issue until I irritated again but it is in a different spot than where he worked on it. He got rid of the injury from Surf the Murph but I am again convinced it is a sore posterior tibial tendon, irritated by my NB MT110's so those are on hold for now. 

During today's run, when it got really sore I walked and then was able to resume so that will be my plan for Chippewa. I have given up any hope of having a decent time at Chippewa, my goal will be to finish and to have a good time being out there again. I am running just enough to still consider myself a runner and my hope is that as spring arrives I will really get into a consistent patter. I do have to admit though, I am very concerned about running on trails as I have pretty much gone back to running bike paths. I did so as I am sick of running in snow, have I ever mentioned how much I really, really hate snow :-). I was in San Jose last week and I ran 3 days in shorts in 60 degree weather, what a delight, my take on that is if spring gets here I will get in additional runs. Another reason for hitting the bikepaths is I am running Grandmas this year, it will be my 13th Grandmas (in 2013) and is coming 20 years after my first Grandams in 1993. 

One reason for not posting is I am co-leading a running group at my church and have been writing posts for our weekly newsletter (which are posted on our blog called Runners of Hope - feel free to read them, they have been written by me, Tracy or Karyn). The group runs on Saturday mornings and we have around 25 folks signed up but most are fairer weather runners which means we have had anywhere from 1 to 12 runners showing up on Saturday since the club started. The group has a wide range of running abilities from beginners to experienced. Some of you would be amused to watch me run with the faster folks, the truth is they have to slow down a lot but it is helping me get faster.

I am still running in minimalist shoes but have a mix from zero drop with cushion (Altras) to no cushion (Trail Gloves or VFF's) to 4 to 5 mil drop shoes with cushion (PureGrits and MT110's) or no cushion (MT10's). I have a couple pair of size 13 Inov-8's (295's with around 150 miles and 330's with around 50 miles) that I would be happy to donate to anyone that would want them otherwise they are heading to charity. See Wayne I am retiring some shoes that have caused me issues, unless of course I don't give them away ;-).

I will work to get back to consistently posting as I am planning on a few races this year and posting on my progress helps me to keep making it and I do have a few things to say about shoes. So stay tuned.

2012 Review

I started my year in review post about a month back but I struggled to sum up 2012 with a positive view. Then I listened to a podcast from TrailRunnerNation titled "Unpacking Pandora’s Box with Ashley Walsh and Jimmy Dean Freeman", and it caused me to pause. It was kind of a rambling conversation but then at one point, they were talking about DNF's and when and why you should and how we all need to remember that even a DNF means we tried to do something most people do not. I have heard this before but it never really registered but for some reason it did this time. So although I didn't accomplish everything I wanted to do in 2012, I did get out there and I improved over 2011.

Summary:

• 1016 miles, number 9 of 22 for the most miles (counting year 1 which only was a month of running back in 1991)
• 117 miles in October, most of any month for the year
• 51 miles in November, fewest of any month as I worked through the injury from Surf the Murph
• 5 events entered: 1 DNF (injury), 1 drops in distance (injury), 3 went as planned, kind of
• Converted to minimalist running and zero drop shoes
• Ankle injury resolved and appears to be in the past

Executive Summary: Injuries, setbacks, motivation, weight yet hope, changes, new initiatives and focus regained.

• Injuries - continued to have issues with the ankle through mid year, led to me dropping at Chippewa, after that I went minimalist, the ankle is sound again but torqued a foot at Surf the Murph and finished the year once again working on getting healthy.
• Setbacks - calf issue, foot and ankle, gained back weight that was loss after injury setbacks.
• Motivation - without it, I don't get out the door. Work drains it, anticipation of races rejuvenate it.
• New Initiatives - went minimalist in May, felt good, ankle proprioception improved. Working on zero drop 
• Focus - work life balance is critical, I need to commit to keeping work in perspective and meet my families needs and my running needs as I need to get in my runs which should lead to weight loss and motivation gains.
• Changes - Focusing now on more road runs with a speed twist to build strength and finishing the conversion to zero drop.
• Hope - Altra shoes, love them.

The goal for 2013 is take what I can when I can and to cherish every event, run and moment that I will experience on the trails and the roads.