A focus on form

I've been consulting Dr Google and Nurse YouTube about my not-quite-plantar-fasciitis, looking for different stretches and strengthening exercises to do (as well as looking for - and finding - people who say, 'Of course you can run through it!').  During my searches, I came across a different application of KT tape for arch support, a video by a foot doctor which demonstrated the massage techniques that Adam used on me last week, and advice from Danny Dreyer, Mr Chi Running himself, to walk barefoot on gravel for 5 to 10 minutes.  (This apparently acts as a mini-massage to break up any adhesions in the plantar fascia.  Really.)  I also kept reading about the importance about decreasing both distance and speed while you are healing.  Bummer.

Poppity poppity pop

Still, I am nothing if not sensible.  I have been doing my stretches religiously but last night I also used the cross-friction massage technique; I used it in a much more gentle and tentative way than Adam did but damned if I too didn't feel the bubbles along the plantar tendon that he had quite merrily popped.  So I popped them too.  It didn't exactly hurt but it did make me shiver.  Not quite as much as the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard might do, but it was close.  However, whether it's coincidence or not, my arch didn't wake me up in the middle of the night with major aching and cramping.

Today, then, was my long run.  I used the new taping configuration and found it much more comfortable than the previous one, which was so irritating that I stopped in the middle of my 5 mile run on Friday to rip it from my foot.  I'm not enthusiastic about decreasing my long-run distance - I have a half-marathon to train for after all - but I did stick at the 8 miles that I've done for the last two long runs and did drop my pace by 60sec/mile.  It felt like a really, really slow jog but rather than grumble about this to myself for 8 miles, I used the time to focus on my form.

Chi running is big on body sensing, which involves doing a series of scans for any areas of tension or stress in your body and then relaxing them.  Body sensing also helps you to keep track of what your posture is doing and of where your feet are landing.  What I discovered was that, as long as I kept my strides short and my turnover high (as a good Chi runner is meant to do), there was no tension in my ankles and feet at all.  The first sign of a heel strike made my arch tighten; reverting to midfoot striking made it relax.  I also carry a huge amount of tension in my shoulders and neck, and relaxing them also meant that my lower body relaxed too.

So I finished the run - on a beautiful cold, crisp, windless day - with feet that felt relaxed and that certainly weren't hurting.  Even now, almost five hours later, my arch feels okay.  I'm aware of it being a bit stiff but that's about it.  The big test is how it feels in the next 48 hours, but I am cautiously optimistic that I've now turned the corner.

Just to be sure, though, I'll be out walking barefoot along my neighbour's gravel driveway tomorrow.

Return of The Bumblebees

The ache in my left medial arch has been a fairly constant niggle since my last post.  It doesn't bother me at all when I'm running - and I even completed a quick(ish) and strong 8 miles before Christmas - but it had begun to ache so much at night that it was keeping me awake.  I decided to take some days off running, but this didn't help and the ache kept getting worse.  Finally, on 30 December, I broke down and texted Adam.

When I saw him a couple of weeks ago, he couldn't really find anything wrong aside from some plantar fascia tightness and was confident that things should resolve themselves fairly quickly; in fact, he was so confident about this that we arranged our next appointment for well into January.  Fortunately, he had a cancellation the afternoon of the 30th and I went along with some trepidation, fearful that he would diagnose plantar fasciitis and tell me to stop running.

Thirty minutes of towel-bitingly painful massage later, I got the good news.  While there is 'plantar fascia involvement,' this has not YET developed into the dreaded PF.  Adam found some scar tissue this time (Adam:  'It feels just like the bubbles in bubble wrap; time to pop the bubbles!'  Me:  'Aaarrrggghhh!') and the usual tightness, but nothing that unduly concerned him and nothing that made him think that I needed to stop running.  There are, however, some adjustments to be made.

I need to diligently use my therapeutic rolling pin to roll out the plantar fascias on both feet on a regular basis.  I need to stretch my calf, achilles, and plantar fascia several times a day.  I need to keep my long runs to single digits for the next couple of weeks.  And I need to break out The Bumblebees, with their 12mm heel-toe drop and better support, at least for the next week or so, to give my foot a bit of a rest.

It's all eminently sensible and I'm happy to comply.  I've been rolling and stretching away the last couple of days, and dug The Bumblebees out from under the stairs for today's 3 mile easy run.  (I was taken aback all over again by how yellow they are but, hey, this is a medical emergency; fashion gives way in the face of not-quite-plantar-fasciitis.)  Everything felt fine, and my legs felt fresh after their 5-day holiday from running. 

Post-run, my arch still feels okay which is a good sign.  Fingers crossed that whatever Adam did has put me on the road to recovery...Here's to staying below the Running Gods' radar in 2014!

Tempting fate

Since August, I've been running without a training plan.  No speed work, no hills, no specific mileage that I need to do each week, and no focusing on my Garmin.  Just running for the joy of running (with a few 10k races thrown in for fun).  My legs were happy with this approach and let me know this by staying injury- and niggle-free, as well as by being a bit more nippy than they've been in the recent past.  I was feeling optimistic about my running future.

And then I registered for the Malta Half Marathon.  And booked non-refundable plane tickets.  And booked accommodation.  And started to follow a training plan.  Yep, nothing like sending up a gigantic flare to the Running Gods inviting them to take their best shot.

In the last week, I have 1) tweaked my right ankle during a 7-mile run in high winds (I went over on it when blown off-balance by a particularly vicious gust.  Why was I running in such horrible winds?  Because I'M IN TRAINING, DAMMIT.)  and 2) tweaked my left medial arch - no idea how this happened, but it was a constant low level ache for days and days.  I'm walking a fine line between ignoring my fear that this could be the start of plantar fasciitis and making sure that I don't turn something low level into yet another race-stopping injury.  Oh, and 3).  The winter gales have arrived so EVERY SINGLE RUN now counts as resistance training.

Sheesh.  Who would have thought that booking one small race would have such an impact on my feet as well as on national weather systems?

In the interests of balanced reporting, I should say that I successfully completed a 4 mile run on Friday and a 7 mile run today with no pain or achiness whilst running and only a bit of medial arch grumbling afterwards.  Still, to be on the safe side, I'll take more care than usual in the weeks to come.

Just in case the Running Gods are paying attention.

You learn something new every day

One long run to go, and I'll be at the end of my first week of training for the Malta HM.  So far, so running-in-the-winter-in-the-Highlands.  One 3-mile run that started mild and dry and ended up with torrential rain and a freezing wind.  Several unplanned rest days due to gales, gales, and  more gales.  Today's 4-mile run with snow all around and a temperature of -1 (which meant that I got to wear my lovely pink Gore winter jacket) but with a blue sky and no wind...roll on Sunday's 7 miler!

My legs feel fine.  However, because they feel so fine, I've become less fanatical about doing a cool-down walk at the end of each run and have noticed that my hip flexor has started to tighten up again.  This could be because of the diminishing cool-down or it could be because it's so cold outside but, regardless, I resolved to go back to a 15-20 minute walk after running as this really seemed to help during my recovery from injury phase.

Today gave me a chance to test this out in a totally unplanned way.  I was doing an out-and-back for the last mile, part of which passes a cottage where some very large, growling, barking Hounds from Hell live.  They've chased me before but I haven't seen them in ages and had begun to hope that they had moved on.  No such luck.  As I passed their house on the way out, they came thundering to the far end of the garden to have a go at me.  There is a fence there so they couldn't get onto the road but, on the way back, they can get out of the garden via the drive to the house.  So, what to do...

Rather than deal with the dogs, I chose to run up the long hill to Balblair and then make my way home from the main road.  A bit longer but it would give me the chance for a proper walking cool-down and would allow me to avoid confronting my dog phobia.  Result!

Now, I've NEVER run up this hill - down it, yes, lots of times.  But up???  My head has always said TOO STEEP, YOU CAN'T DO IT.  But I'll do just about anything to avoid dogs and I only had 0.5 miles left to go at this point anyway.  How hard could it be?  The answer:  erm, not that hard at all.  Major anti-climax.  It wasn't as steep as I had expected and I would have been quite happy to continue on if I had had additional miles to do. 

John and Paul (if not George and Ringo) have advised me to learn to embrace hills, which I have scoffed at with all of my smug laziness.  But on this run, on this hill, on this particular day, albeit with the Dogs of War nipping at my heels, I kind of understood what they've been talking about.

Santa Run report:  Lizzie and I successfully completed the Inverness Santa Run on 1 December!  Although we wore our Santa suits with pride (and with numerous safety pins holding up our Santa-sized trousers), we didn't wear our Santa beards as beards.  Too claustrophobic (hey, Claus-trophobic!  Get it???) and just a step too far in the unattractiveness direction.  We opted instead to wear them around our necks so that it looked like our Santas had some very nice chest hair action going on.  In our part of the field, everyone was chatting, laughing, and generally seeming very relaxed.  However, photos of the front of the field showed some very competitive Santas who were taking it very seriously indeed...Next year, Lizzie, that'll be us!

We're in there somewhere!

Change is good

Ever since the Culloden 10k at the end of October, I've been pondering my running plans for the rest of this year and next.  Part of that pondering has involved taking a clear-eyed look at what has and hasn't gone well in previous bouts of training and I've come to the conclusion that even though I WILL run another marathon at some point in the future, I'm not going to be running the Edinburgh Marathon in May 2014. 

London was the third marathon that I trained for.  The previous two attempts saw me crash and burn with calf tears half-way through training.  London was the first marathon that I got to the start line of but, even then, I was running with an injury.  Looking back, my pattern has been train for a marathon, get injured, recover, start training for another marathon, get injured, recover, etc.  There were some 10k races interspersed in that pattern but really, most of my time in the last five years has been spent either training for a marathon or recovering from that training.  Why why why am I even considering the possibility of starting that cycle all over again???

I want this next year to be a year of learning from past mistakes.  I want to get stronger, to address muscle imbalances, and to keep working on my form.  I want to have at least a year of running injury-free at distances that my body can handle before I try to train for a marathon again because, the next time that I do one, I want to feel that I've done it to the best of my ability.  Even more importantly, I want this next year to be a year of fun running and, at the moment, having six months of my running year taken up with training for just one race does not feel fun to me.

So, I put together a new plan but didn't want to write about it until I got the official seal of approval from Adam.  We had a chat about my new goals today during my massage and he thought that I was being incredibly SENSIBLE and that the new goals are definitely ACHIEVABLE.  Here's what I've come up with so far...

1 December 2013:  Inverness Santa Run (5k, to be run with Lizzie; mulled wine & mince pies to follow)
23 February 2014:  Malta Half-Marathon (a reward for training throughout the winter)
23 June 2014:  Reykjavik Midnight Sun Run (half-marathon, hopefully to be run with Cathy & Paul)
12 October 2014:  Aviemore Half-Marathon (not as exotic but hey, it's all downhill!)

I'm sure that there will be some 10k races in there too as I continue my search for the elusive sub-60min...and maybe I'll try a trail race to see what that's like...and there are a couple of interesting Scottish 10-mile races over the summer that could fit nicely into HM training...

It makes me happy to look at this schedule.  And, for the foreseeable future, that's enough.

The Culloden 10k (or, I'm really glad that I showed up)

I almost decided this morning not to do this race.  My training hadn't gone the way that I wanted due to knackering my back (an inflating-the-tyres injury, nothing to do with running), and a recce by car of the course a couple of days ago left me feeling seriously concerned about how hilly the course is.  The 'exciting, fast, mostly flat route' described on the website didn't bear any relation to what I saw on the ground.  Because I had it in my head that this was going to be THE RACE in which I was going to prove to myself that I could still run a 10k in under an hour, it kind of didn't seem worth doing because I knew that I couldn't achieve what I wanted...but I did the race anyway and, even though I didn't break an hour, I had a great time trying.

Bassman again very kindly acted as chauffeur, bag carrier, and (reluctantly) clothing consultant.  It was almost impossible to decide what to wear:  it was sunny but with a biting cold wind, and rain was predicted about half-way through the 10k.  Vest versus long-sleeved top?  Jacket and vest combo?  Long-sleeved top with vest underneath?  Hat?  Sunglasses?  Gloves?  Aaarrrggghhh!  Bassman stayed calm through all of the deliberations, although I suspect that the distant look in his eyes as I wittered on meant that he had gone to a Happy Place inside his head to help him cope.

In the end, I opted for just my vest, no  hat (too windy; it would have blown away), and no sunglasses (too pretentious; it wasn't that sunny).  And my tights - which I had changed 5 minutes before we left the house for the race - were the capri compression tights that I wore for the marathon to remind myself that I can face and overcome challenges.  You'll be pleased to know that all of my choices were the correct ones.  Anyway, the race...

View across the Moray Firth

As always, I was in the back of the pack.  As always, a brisk pace was set.  But this time, I kept up because I felt fine.  My race plan was to run at a pace that felt good without relying too much on my Garmin.  This worked for me in last month's River Ness 10k, so no reason why it shouldn't work here, right?  The first 3k were a joy:  gorgeous views across the Moray Firth to the Kessock Bridge and the surrounding hills and mountains.  We were running into a headwind the whole way and there were some gentle but long inclines, but on the whole I felt strong physically and cardio-wise. 

And then we took a sharp left turn onto a side road and started the climb up the almost 2km long hill that had looked bad enough when I drove up it in the car but felt endless on foot.  I really really didn't want to walk for any of the race but at 4km and struggling to keep my breathing under control (and feeling a bit sick), I gave in and walked for a minute or so.  This did help, and I managed to shuffle my way without stopping to the 5km point where there was a water station.  Normally I don't drink anything on 10k runs but I was so thankful to have a legitimate chance to stop and catch my breath that I accepted a plastic cup of gloriously cold water.  A few sips later, mostly taken standing still and pretending that I couldn't drink while running but really because I needed a break, and I was off again.

The next kilometre was a steep downhill section that I initially was cautious about, as I worried that my back might feel jarred by the impact but, aside from my lungs which were lagging behind, everything felt good so I picked up the pace.  At the bottom of the hill, there was a sharp left turn onto another small road, with lots of undulations appearing in the distance.  Sigh.

How it felt, not how it really was.

Now, I had spent some time last night reading about how to run up hills and the advice for short undulating sections was to run up the hill at your 5k pace and coast down the other side.  I don't really have a 5k pace - I have slow, normal and a-bit-faster-than-normal - so I tried to keep to the pace I was running (rather than slowing down as everyone else was doing) and powered up the hills using my arms for momentum.  And damned if it didn't work.  I didn't exactly float up the hills but I didn't struggle either.  Of course, there weren't really downhill sections - the pattern was uphill, level section, uphill, level section, etc - but I seemed to be coping better than a lot of the people around me.

At about 8.5k the road leveled off to a very gentle incline which I really felt in my legs, and I had to have a serious talk with myself about not walking.  Going slower was okay; walking was not.  With 1k to go, we were back on the main road heading for the finish.  I had miscalculated my iPod playlist - I was expecting to take about 70min to finish and had my songs arranged to fit this - so wasted a bit of time faffing about until I found my Finishing Music (Queen's Don't Stop Me Now).  My tired(ish) legs and heaving lungs perked up and I managed to run at 9:09min/mile pace for the last 0.2 miles.  Don't believe me?  Here are my official Garmin splits:

                                                 Mile 1:        9:30
                                                 Mile 2:        9:43
                                                 Mile 3:      11:33
                                                 Mile 4:      10:04
                                                 Mile 5:        9:39
                                                 Mile 6:        9:53
                                                (0.2 miles):  9:09

Finishing chip time was 1:01:28.  I was 22nd out of 40 women in my age group and 115th out of 184 women of all ages, and 252nd out of 332 overall.  Not the speediest, but not last either!  And faster than my River Ness time on a hillier and windier course.  AND if I hadn't had to slow down and then walk on that bastard hill, I'm convinced that I would have finished in under an hour.  I was (and still am) thrilled!

It's now six hours after crossing the finish line and I'm feeling okay.  I feel like I pushed myself but nothing feels like it's injured.  We'll see how I feel tomorrow but maybe, just maybe, it's time to change my view of myself from someone who is injured to someone who is...a runner!

Finally, a happy runner again!

River Ness 10k Race Report

What a brilliant day!  I laid some ghosts to rest, had an amazing time while doing so, and even finished in a time that I'm not embarrassed to share.  Here's how the day played out...

Bassman drove me to the start line at the Inverness Royal Academy so that I didn't have to faff about trying to find a place to park my car.  I got impatient waiting for the queue of traffic to inch its way to the drop-off point so I leaped out of the car to walk the last 10 minutes under my own steam.  Once I got to the IRA grounds, I jogged to the portaloos, ostensibly as a warm-up but really because I was desperate for a pee.  I did my mobilising stretches whilst waiting my turn and then, on the back of some discussion on the Facebook Chi Running forum about what constitutes a proper warm-up, jogged slowly up and down the lanes of the car park for 5 minutes and then did a couple of strides to further wake up my legs.  And then I queued for the loos again.

I made it to the starting area with five minutes to spare, plugged myself into my iPod, and switched on the Garmin.  While we were waiting to start, one of the super-whizzy runners came tearing through the ranks (perhaps from his own last-minute toilet stop), hurdled over the fence keeping us all corralled, and kicked the runner beside me square in the face.  He didn't stop and she was more stunned than hurt, but his behaviour was a stark contrast to the banter and support going on amongst the mid-pack runners.

But I digress...I crossed the start line almost 8 1/2 minutes after the starting horn, at the usual mid-pack too-fast-to-be-sustained pace.  The first quarter-mile or so is up a steepish hill and there was much stopping and walking by overly-enthusiastic participants.  But not by me!  I settled into a very comfortable pace and made it to the top of the hill feeling fine.

I should perhaps point out that I did not have any kind of plan for this race and no particular finishing time in mind (although I did hope that I would finish faster than the 66 minute 6-mile run that I did in training).  The point of this race was to get an idea of my level of fitness in preparation for training for the 10k at the end of October, but I also just wanted to enjoy myself.  So, even though I had the Garmin switched on, I didn't really look at it.  I wanted to allow myself to run at whatever pace felt comfortable without holding myself back or forcing myself to speed up.  This was my 'Woo hoo, I'm running again!' race, and that was all that was important to me.

I had the race that I wanted.  The sun was shining, there was a slight breeze, and I allowed myself plenty of time to notice the gorgeous hills across the river.  I had small chats with various people - the guy running with his black lab, who wondered where the next water station was (the guy, not the dog, although I'm sure that the dog was wondering as well); the woman wearing amazing purple & green patterned tights that I had to express my appreciation of; the two women who ran the same pace as me for over a mile (until I pulled away - no, I'm not competitive at all!).  My legs were filled with Chi Running happiness; for the first time in a while, I knew that I was landing on my mid-foot and, for the first time ever, I really felt that I was floating my heels up behind me.  No twinges, no pain, not even any tiredness.  Wowzer.

The only small hitch was that I struggled a bit cardio-wise from mile 4.5 to mile 5.5 but, with hindsight, this needn't have been an issue at all.  I think that what happened was that I moved from the 4:3 breathing that I had been doing in my easy training runs (and, let's be honest, they all were run at an easy pace) to 3:2/pushing-myself-a-bit breathing but I interpreted this as 'Oh no, I'm going too fast, I can't make it, my hip/calf/achilles are going to get injured, I'd better slow down.'  Sheesh.  Running...it's all in your head.

I perked up for the last 1/2 mile and crossed the finish line with a total distance of 6.22 miles and a chip time of 63:07.  This puts me almost exactly half-way in the rankings for women in my age group, which I feel is a reasonable position to be in.  If I could figure out how to import the table of my splits from the Garmin, I'd put that here too, but that's a technological step too far.  So, in  a slightly less official format, here they are:

Mile    Average Pace

1             10.14

2             10.17

3             10.02

4             10.06

5             10.11

6             10.17

(0.22)       9.23

I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with my consistency as well as with my burst of speed for the last quarter-mile.  

So that's it.  I ran a race and didn't get injured (although, as Adam is fond of pointing out, what counts is how you feel the day after).  More importantly, though, I ran a race and had fun doing it.  I think that I had forgotten how much fun running can - and should - be.