I ran!!!!!!

Look at all those photos of hanging out like lumps, just sitting-- just depressing lounging. Animals sitting, pets lounging, no motion. I got sick of all my sitting in a lump of non-running bla.
So, I decided to start running again! Physical therapy be damned!

Those last two photos are from a Halloween party this year, around the time I started all this sitting-- I dressed like Athena and brought a very sturdy, long, wooden sword to use as a crutch and spent much of the night sitting and still in pain. Of course, I didn't feel very warrior goddess like, more like Mark, dressed as the infant.

I have come a ways since then and I'm so happy! My Rotterman is so happy! The world feels right again! A few days ago I decided not to even try the half marathon, especially after a particularly hard day of pool running. I thought, if my hip and thigh hurt "running" in the pool with no weight at all on my leg, what the heck am I thinking trying to train for a month and week away half marathon?

Well, I decided to let stubborn rule and made the final decision that I would do this race. I had even emailed my Team in Training contact to tell her I had to bow out. She assured me that I could put the funds I raised toward a future event and was understanding. I thought and I thought and thought how darned unhealthy and just bla in general I have been not running for nearly two months and I just can't stand my non-running self anymore. So here's what I emailed Sarah back again yesterday:


"thanks for touching base. My leg is feeling better, I have been off the crutches and I will leave here soon to go water run.

I've decided I'm going to particpate in this event. Even if that means I have to walk the whole way, I'm going to do it. My main goal was to raise money for victims of blood cancer-- you may not know, but I started w/ TNT because of a student I am very close to who at just 16, despite being very athletic, very healthy, and very spiritual, came down with non-hodgkins lymphoma, which went on to invade her ovaries. This young woman had been on the newspaper I teach/advise for three years and I when I wen to see her for the first time in the hospital, she told me she would not let them remove her ovaries so she could have kids. That meant many rounds of very aggressive chemo. Yet, every time I visited her she beamed and asked all about me, the newspaper students, and my training w/ TNT. She so selfless. I got her a TNT bracelet and she told me on the phone after Bayshore that she never took the bracelet off.
Anyway, she is back in newspaper this year (her treatment was last year) and looks just beautiful. She still has the TNT bracelet and asks me about my training.

In short, I finally realized that if she can be stubborn and let her will get her through this, so can I. I might have to slow walk the darned thing, but I will do it. Yeah, it won't be as glorious as running it, but I have future races. Right now, I still have Austyn in class. She willl graduate this year and after that I'll start running more for my own glory.

so, in short, yes. I'm sticking with this event and I hope to start a little bit of training this week.

I would love to get a training schedule from a coach for starting back after an injury. I have from tom until about Jan. 3 to taper-- that means just 4 weeks to get up to my longest run. I'd like a new schedule--keeping in mind that I have to start really, really, really slow not to hurt myself or make the stress fracture worse.

Thanks again,

Laura
oh. ps, can I drop off my checks directly to the office since it's less than two weeks to deadline?
Thanks"


-----Original Message-----
From: Cowlbeck, Sarah (MI)
To: lauraredm@aol.com
Sent: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 9:41 am
Subject: Status Update

Laura,

I wanted to touch base with you and find out if you had made a decision regarding staying with the winter season or transferring to another. I hope that you are healing up well. I feel so bad that you are going through this!

Sarah

Sarah R. Cowlbeck
Campaign Manager
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
Team In Training

So, after officially deciding to do the race, I decided I had to see if I could run it. I haven't been able to get anything from the coach, so here's what I did:
I went to my calander and wrote out my own schedule
This week: Tuesday: 1.5, wed. and yoga 2, thursday 3, Friday bike, Saturday 5, Sunday 2and yoga
Next week. Tuesday: 2, wed. 3 and yoga, thursday 4, Friday elyptical, Saturday 6
Sunday 3 and yoga
Week after: Tuesday: 3, wed. 3 and yoga, thursday 5, Friday: just yoga, Saturday 8
Week after: Tuesday 4, wed. 4 and yoga, thursday 6, Friday: swim, Saturday 10
Week after: Tuesday 4, wed. 4 and yoga, thursday 6, Friday: rest. Saturday 8
Week of race: sunday 3, Tuesday 4, Wed. 2, thursday 2, rest Friday and Saturday
Race: Sunday.

So, I basically tried to go as slow and easy as I could w/ varying days and workouts and some cross training to get up to at least a 10 mile long run before the half.

Here's the stats from Tuesay:
distance: 1.87!!!!! Yeah!! I went over my 1.5
stops: 2 because Robbie's collar came off and I realized i was running much lighter and when I saw collar in my hand and no dog attached I had to go back and get it on him--otherwise, just as I was getting to my house, I realized I just felt warmed up and could have kept running another few miles
Lungs: feel awesome-- hardly out of breath
Hip flexor and thigh: another story. It was mild pain-- more like a pull or ache, esp. in my hip flexor. I made sure to warm up before the run by running/marching in place in my kitchen as my I-pod recharged. Then I did some yoga stretches. Then, when I got back I did a bunch more yoga on my driveway (it was dark out) while my dog tried to sit on me while I was in pigeon. I swear I love that dog but he has no sense of boundaries. I streched my calves good on a nearby powerline pole, I also did downdogs for my calves and thigs as well as lunges and triangle. Pigeon seemed to stretch out and help the most. Oh and I also tried running on as much lawn, park grass, etc as I could for softer landing! I made sure to have my headlamp on to see where the possible leaf covered pitfalls might be.

I went inside and spent at least a half hour icing my thigh and hip flexor. And, I am walking fine today. My hips a bit sore but not too bad!
I feel like I'm just starting to live again.

Giving Thanks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neM-PuW3_jY



This Ohio cross country runner is amazing! I hope the clip above works--it shows her nearly at the finish line, when her left leg breaks in three places, and, rather than forfeit the race, she literally crawls nearly 50 feet to the finish line! Amazing. She ran fast enough earlier in the race that she only came a few seconds slower than her PR--even w/ crawling that far to the finish.

I am so thankful for people like her, real people who are so inspiring, and to show me that I don't have it so bad with my little bone stress.

Happy, wonderful holidays all!!!

Like brother like sister

My brother has had stress fracture like symptoms same time as me--lucky for him he is an amazing tri-athlete so he doesn't mind focusing on swimming and biking. I just love the running. This is a photo of us racing last July for the fourth of july race in Berkley. He can go much faster than me but stayed w/ me as we did this more for bonding than for competition. Notice our stride-- same. We both supinate. And we both have similar muscles. We actually sprained our ankles the same day in two different countries: I fell down a flight of stair in October 1994 and he was training for Race for the Cure in Boston- same exact day and we both sprained our left ankle same time. Odd huh? Well, he started w/ same type thigh/hip flexor pain as me same time a month or so ago. So, like the good doctor he is, instead of seeing his own ortho, he just asked me what my ortho found in the bone scan and determined that was good for him. My doc told me I could do "active rest": weightless workouts. My brother took that as something he could do too for rehab since his symptoms were so similar, and he's been swimming and biking.

Well my recovery has been slower than anticipated and I just started the pool running on Tuesday. I LOVED IT!!! Oh my-- I had to talk my physical therapist into it but it was sooo fun. They put this weightless belt on you and your arms pump above the water while your legs pump below. Oh my-- it was the closest I have come to running in sooo long I can no longer keep track. I just kept going from on side of the short pool to the next and she finally told me they were closing the pool (I was over my session by 30 min). Well next day went to my land physical therapist.
So, here's my stats:

warmth on hip flexer (hurting me more than femur now): 10 minutes
weights: 7 pounds 3 reps 12 per rep for 5 exercises just injured leg
I talked him into treadmill by brining my running shoes
2 minutes at 4 miles per hour
5 at 4.5 (average)
2 at 4 miles

My physical therapist was literally at my elbow the whole time telling me I had to tell him if it hurt. Well, it ached more than hurt, and it was mostly in my hip flexor-- he seems much more happy about hip flexor than femur fracture so he said okay.

I cannot wait to water run again!!
by the way, getting fatter than a thanksgiving stuff turkey w/ all this non-running. Wow, it's just not the same fitting into my size 0 bathing suit in a size 6 body--- yuck!!!!!! Must diet hard core while I'm not out there burning 1500 calories per run.

Thanks so much to my fellow runners w/ kind words of encouragement.
I'm going to admit, though, that stubborn runs in my family. Just like my brother still plans to race his triatholon, I still plan to do my half marathon in January. I will start slow, first w/ lots of water running then land running--even if I have to start at 2 miles and work my way up to 10 before the half.
Have wonderful holidays everyone!
Sincerely,
Keeping dream alive runner!!!

Dead runner walking

Attended the Scriptor newspaper fundraiser on crutches--colleagues laughed at me while I kept crowd control with the crutches. Photo is of me and Ben Harwood, adviser for Seaholm's newspaper. We raised almost $4000 that night for our newspaper and Harmonize for Hope.

I started walking without the crutches this weekend and my leg hurts. I am so upset. The physical therapist said that I would be training again by Nov. 20 but I had to stay on the crutches. It's just so darned hard, esp. when I can walk w/out them and it takes a day or so to make the pain come back. I'm getting truly worried. Not that I have been good about rehab. I've been on deadline week which kills every thing else in my life--so I missed wed and friday physical therapy with Ken and all week of water running. Arrrggg. I was looking back at my training log for this particular marathon and realized that it took me a while just to get up to 3 miles!!! So, let's see, today is Nov.11 and I have not run since the Detroit Free Press relay marathon. That would be about 3 weeks no running. Enough for my earlier training to die. Last night I saw the Electric Six at St. Andrews. I talked to one of the singers for an opening band and he said, "we are all dead bands, here tonight." I asked him what he meant, and he said "Still playing but not going anywhere anymore."
Ah, I said, "Dead band walking."
So, as I lay here having had little to no cardio in weeks much less running, I feel like dead runner walking. It sucks big time. And I am so busy, it's just a pain to use the crutches-- having hands to do things other than lift your body from place to place really does save time.

I wonder if I'll have to push back my retraining date. Coach Kyle said he would have a new/improved schedule for my now half-marathon by Nov. 22, but I wonder if he'll have to change that again.
If I start training in earnest December 1st I will only have 4 weeks before taper. Can I get up to 10 miles injury free in that time?

Here comes the pool . . .

Bone scan results:
I got the scan done on Sunday, and I asked the technician what the results were. My brother is an OBGYN and my sister-in-law, his wife, is a nurse, so I know better, but I did the following anyway: I threatened her into to telling me the results when she said she was not allowed to.

After the second scan was done, I told her I planned to run a good 10 Miles that day. She advised me not to, and I told her I would assume that all was good and I could continue running unless she told me what the results were.

She sighed and said, "The doctor looked at the images and said it looks like you have shin splints except they are in your femur bone. DON'T run 10 miles today."
"So it's not a fracture?"
"I'm just telling you what the doctor said. Your femur looks like it has shin splints."
Huh? Okay, so is this worse news? better news? I assumed better but I anxiously called my orthepedic Sunday (I guess they don't consider my bone scan emergency enough to page the doctor on a weekend--the nerve:) then I called him a few times on Monday. Finally got a call while grading papers, not by the doctor, but by someone who works in his office. She read the results and explained that I had "a stress reaction in my femur". I asked if that had anything to do with shin splints and she said they were similar. I guess, basically, I have a weakening of the outer layer of my femure bone-- a pre fracture condition. I started physical therapy yesterday--had some ultra sound done to my thigh and some manipulation tests where the therapist twisted, pushed, and pulled on my right leg and gauged by my reactions where and how bad my injury was. I'm pretty expressive so it was an easy test for him. He determined that it was more bone stress than soft tissue (muscle, etc.) because when he pulled by right foot towards him and asked me to resist I "expressed" the pain I felt. He said that the test had put pressure on my femur and the muscles in the back of my leg. Since I felt pain on the top of my thigh, he said that just flexing caused my femur to react and that I should put no weight on it all and maybe wait for pool running until, earliest, this Saturday and maybe not then cause I would have to use my muscles which would put strain on the femur.
So, he said to be an angel today and tom (angel meaning absolutely no weight--darn it, already broke that rule-- crutches are just so annoying) and he would see when I can start pool running.

Well, I already contacted another physical therapist to do some pool running starting next week for 3 days a week :) SO, I'll really try to stay off of my right leg entirely for at least the rest of today and tom, get more ultrasound and then start my pool running next Monday.

I really prayed that this was NOT a stress fracture, and I am thankful that it isn't.
Perhaps this is fate helping me learn how to cross train and become an even more effecient, stronger runner.
I also had to give up my marathon dream. I will now be running only a half marathon in Arizona. ARRGG-- I'm slowly coming to grips that this year will not be the year I run my first marathon. It's so hard, though, when you dream of this for months, work at it nearly every day, get better each run, feel good, and then just before you start really getting into some PR's you realize you have to let go of everything you psyched yourself up for. I am known to be stubborn and I'm even stubborn w/ myself. I can't help sort of beating myself up for not being smarter about my training. I really wish I could find a sports doctor who could analyze what I did to cause this. I gave Dr. Jurist all my theories but he said I was over analyzing that this just happens to runners. From what I've read, though, it doesn't just happen. It's usually the wrong shoes resulting in improper biomechanics while running or not enough strengthening of oposing muscles or following a training schedule that adds too many miles too soon, etc. I just want to know how I can prevent this from happening again after I recover and I can't do that if I can't figure out what I did wrong this time.

Okay, off to grade.

The Last Leg

The Flying Falcon Relay team for the Detroit Free Press Marathon last weekend-at least three of us-- Science teacher Michelle Tindall, Math teacher Jason Kong, and me.

This was my first race relay and it was exhilarating: watching members of other teams waiting on the tips of their toes as another runner raced in the hand off chute to pass the timing chip. One sprinting in, the other sprinting out, barely touching as the Velcro bracelet switched hands. My blood swirled with anticipation as I went from window to window on the bus, gawking at the elite runners.

I saw, for the first time, the glorious Kenyon Bird. That's my name for the elite Kenyon runner--so fast they are exotic. My lord did those first and second place winners of this marathon fly, sprinting at mile 20 so fast, by the time I got my camera phone to photo they were accepting their winner medals. I crouched on the steps of the relay bus in awe, and they ran by close enough I could have touched them. I think I actually tried to.

I did some jogging along the beach (near Belle Isle) while I waited for Judy because I couldn't sit on the bus watching anymore. I couldn't wait to run.
Our team had gone to dinner the night before to estimate timing-- Michelle did a full half-marathon, Judy's daughter did the second leg, Jason the third, and Judy handed off to me (we estimated the earliest possible times and she got there around 10:50, later than we estimated but earlier than we thought she would, and, when I saw her, I knew we were doing better than we hoped.) I ran the last leg of the race.

Well, it was my last leg in more than one way.

The Saturday before the marathon, I did something unpleasant to my right hip and thigh on my long run with TNT. After the run, I took an ice bath, felt better, and ran the next morning. This further did something unpleasant to my hip and thigh, so I stayed off of my legs, at least running-wise, until the relay marathon. All the runners I complained to about running on cold, untrained legs said that was perfect, that I would be well tapered for the race. I was. I also took mucho vitamen IB (Ibuprofin) and some muscle relaxers the doctor gave me so my leg would not bother me on the run. And, for the most part, it didn't.

The last leg was about a 10K length, starting a little after mile 20. I planned to go almost a minute faster with each mile (I started at an oh so brisk pace of 13 minute per mile) so I could slowly warm up my legs, esp. my right hip and thigh.

I was starting to feel really good around what I thought to be mile 24 of the race and what my Garmen assured me was around my fourth mile of running. Someone on the side of the road was cheering for us and I had passed a few of the runners I saw at the hand off chute. Someone, well or ill intended, I don't know, but someone yelled: "Only one more mile to go!!"

Well, almost unconsciously, everything in my body surged forward, I pushed myself as in a fartlek and dropped two minutes from my pace--which had speeded up to an 11 minute mile. I was now sailing at a 9 minute per mile pace (for me that's sailing; the Kenyon bird probably sleeps at this pace.) I envisioned seeing the finish line and my team any minute. I think this image made me even faster as I passed a few more people I recognized from the hand off chute. This surge strained my leg and my lungs a bit past where I thought I could go. No worries though, because soon I could gulp down some water and collapse beside the finish chute. My legs felt like they were on auto-pilot but that the circuits were going to break and shut them down any moment. Just a few more minutes, and I'm there. When I saw it.

The 25 mile mark.
OH SHIT! That liar!! Why didn't I trust my Garmen??? I looked down, sure enough, I had only gone 5 miles. I had an entire mile left to run on flagging, auto-pilot, felt like tree stump legs and squeezed in the fist of a giant lungs. There is a law; a law I am sure no runner has broken. That law is simply this: you do not run your last mile slower than your first.

In fact, I think there is a related law: you run your last mile faster than any of your previous--esp., idiot, if you are only running a 10K and you have smartly paced yourself to have left over energy for a surge at the end. So with these two laws in mind, I dealt with auto-pilot legs and squeezed up lungs and surged a bit more just to show them who was boss.

I have seen a video of me finishing and it is not pretty. Everyone else seems to have their arms raised, shouts of joy carried on the wind, babies held in their jubilant arms, streamers of celebration emanating from their pores. Then I come bounding in, no smile on my face, just grim determination. The minute my feet pass the timing mat, I stop--not slow down. Just a stop and a sigh, my face red, my legs about to collapse under me and I hobble off camera. It's as if I didn't even know I finished and I think that's how I felt. When I got home, I slept all day, all night, and woke up nearly late for work. That's when I realized something was not quite right with right leg. I hurt so bad I had to crawl up my stairs to get my clothes for work. I went that night to Dr. Jurist, the sports doctor for our school, and he gave me news I can barely think on. He took X-Rays and said that it looked like I have two stress fractures: one on my right hip and one on my right femur--yup that oh so important, weight bearing femur.

Tomorrow I go to Troy Beaumont for a radioactive bone scan. Yippy, I get to drink nuclear shake and then sit in a tube for 90 minutes. I am praying that it is soft tissue damage and not bone fracture. I must get back to training. I will run that marathon. I will not let my early nightmares come true. The doctor said I should pick another marathon. No. I told him I couldn't. I had raised money for the Leukemia society for this particular marathon. He said I should reevaluate how I "participate". I will participate and I will run it, I thought, but didn't say cause he had already looked at me like I was a lunatic about three times during our discussion of how I might have gotten injured. He especially didn't like my comment about the fists fulls of vitamen IB I took before the Free Press race.

Blog Action Day

A runner's temperature (only when running--unless they spend ALL their non-running time in a hot tub) is about 20 degrees higher than the air temperature. This is why you see those "crazy" runners out in shorts and a singlet in 50 degree weather--that's nice and balmy. I prefer winter running myself--and I used to HATE the winter! I learned when racing my first 15K last April in Flushing, MI on an unseasonably hot (read 80 degrees!) day how much I love the winter!!! I didn't understand why I kept getting so out of breath, so dizzy, why my time was so ridiculously slow, other than the fact that the race is set in no-where-village, and I got lost. I couldn't believe there were signs as the labyrinthine course wound around farms, through sub-divisions (where the nonchalant suburbanites simply continued mowing or watering their lawn as we ran by without even looking up) around middle schools and back into another subdivision. Few people to flag where to go next, no blocked off roads. Just some orange cones every now and then. I finally asked a runner near me, "How do you know where to go???" "hhm," she was puzzled at the very question. "I live two streets down from the finish and I've done the Tax Trot for five years." Ah, I finally realize everyone (except me, that is) lived in Flushing or knew somebody from Flushing.

Well, here I was, someone who trained in winter weather and wearing a black turtle-neck and long black running pants, huffing my way to the finish--screaming, "Where's the finish line?!!!" There were almost no markers the last mile or two of the race, so I just I ran back to the start line and realized the start was not, in fact, the finish. Oh no, the start was in front of Flushing High School but the finish was behind the school on the other side of the parking lot. Silly me for thinking the finish line should be in a clearly marked, obvious place. Well, I was one of the last ones in and the heat was killing me.
I worry about the increasing frequency of these "unseasonably" hot days. What if they don't become so unseasonable anymore?

Here's what this means for runners:
Temperature Heat-stress risk 75º-85º
Heat cramps or Heat Exhaustion possible 86º-105º
Heat cramps or Heat Exhaustion likely. Heat Stroke possible. 106-115º
Heat Stroke highly likely after 120

Now add 20 degrees to each of the above. Tragedies like the Chicago Marathon may be more frequent if global warming continues at the rate it is.
No amount of PowerAde will help us then.