Leg strengthening

Been busy at work so not much time to post or read. I was trying to cram all the work in so I'd be able to take my day off tomorrow, but I didn't finish so I have to go in tomorrow :(. I was able to move my day off to next Friday, so I still get a long weekend.

Did 5 km yesterday a bit quicker than last time, but still fairly slow.
Did 10 km today at about 9:15 pace.

My left knee was hurting a bit after my run on Thursday morning and I thought it might help to do a leg strengthening workout. Perry had posted this link to some leg exercises a while back. I tried to do the test they suggest but couldn't even do a single "flawless" repetition on either leg. So I did the exercises as best i could and woke up on Friday extremely sore. I guess it's a sign that it's working.

Starting slow

Went for my first run in two and a half weeks. Did 5km at very slow pace. Just trying to make sure that the ankle/shin didn't start complaining. Got through it okay. Probably will try another 5km on Friday and then something a bit longer on the weekend.

Mass update

Tried an elliptical machine on Monday for the first time. Didn't like it. Went back to swimming on Tuesday, Thursday and Today. Will probably try the elliptical again tomorrow. I'm still kinda fearful of the ankle. It doesn't hurt, but it's probably a bit weak. I'm worried about reinjuring it if I restart running which sucks cause the weather is really nice.

I was on the fence about signing up for Chicago again, but the decision it seems was made for me. It sold out. Last year I signed up a little after mid-May. Oh well. On another note, I got an email from one of the Toronto marathons pointing out that they're changing the course this year. As it stands right now, I'm going to be looking to one of the two Toronto marathons for a possible BQ time this fall. They're spaced 2 weeks apart and coincidentally are sandwiched around the Chicago marathon. I had this crazy thought of maybe trying to do all 3 in three weeks which would allow me to qualify to be a Marathon Maniac. There are still quite a few marathons on the same day as Chicago so it might still be possible.

It looks like I won't be doing a spring marathon which I was originally going to do on May 13th. Up until now, even with all the weeks off, I still intended to do one as a long run, but think it's better if I cut back to the half.

And now for news on a slightly different endurance event. We started a silly pool at work for the Great Turtle Race. They've attached GPS trackers to the backs of leatherback sea turtles and are tracking the turtles as they cross the ocean. Half the money from the pool is going to the turtles so it's for a good cause. My money is on Genevieve who is currently in 5th place. Don't know what's up with Sundae as she appears to be going backwards!

One more week...

of no running. I went to swim today for about 40 minutes.

I went down to the home show on Saturday which is basically a trade fair where companies sell stuff for the home. Usually appliances and furniture, but they also sell all the nifty/weird gadgets you see on television. I bought a bamix blender for my parents since they broke the one that they've had for about 10 years. I also bought a sonic relief ultrasonic thingy which supposedly is supposed to help with pain. I tried it out a couple of times. I'm not sure if it's actually doing anything, but I guess time will tell.

I haven't figured out what I'm going to do tomorrow on my day off. It's going to rain so going to the zoo is out of the question. I had wanted to watch the Boston marathon, but there aren't any channels that I'm aware of in my area that are showing it. (Go Ryan and Jen and anyone else who's doing Boston) I still have to do my taxes this year, but that would be a perfect waste of a vacation day. I'm going to try and head to the gym at 6 am tomorrow to see if I can handle the logistics of heading out that early for a work out. Since I won't have to go to work, it won't matter if I run a little late.

Does anyone know what happened to Bob?? His blog seems to have disappeared and I'm suffering from haiku withdrawal. Also it seems that Ms. Rabbit has also disappeared.

Swim

45 minute swim today after work. I overheard some guys talking in the locker room that the gym which is owned by a large chain is being sold to another chain. Not sure if and how this affects me. Hopefully I'll get a discount out of it.

Unscheduled rest day

Went to the gym today to try and get a swim in but arrived only to find that they were replacing the filter and the water was this nice turbid consistency. Rest day it is.

My leg is still a bit tender in the one spot but it's much better than it was on Monday since I can massage it without grimacing in pain now.

I got a bulletin in the mail today from the local zoo. I'm a member there and go there quite frequently, or at least I used to. I think it's probably been a year since I last went. I go there to generally unwind and take pictures which is a bit of a hobby of mine. With the training last year I just never got around to going there. I think I'll probably go on one of these Mondays coming up when I'm taking my vacation days. Hope the weather gets better as it's pretty crappy right now.

Here are some of the pictures I've taken over the years.













And in case you were wondering those macaques are not having sex in that last picture...

Off to watch Lost now.

Day off

I took today off (from work). I had a 4.5 vacation days from last year that I was supposed to take by the end of March of which I was able to take zero. I was told I had to take them in April or I'd lose them. Rather than take a week off, I'm just going to take each Monday of the month off. I headed to the gym this morning to get a swim in.

Swam for about 40 minutes. Then spent 10 minutes in the whirlpool massaging my calf. Kudos to Kristi for the massaging tip. I was able to find this really tender point in my calf that is about 6 inches away from where the pain in my ankle is which I wouldn't have found unless I was looking for it. I tried to massage it for the first time last night and it was agony. My whole calf seized up after that. I think this tightness or whatever it is has been causing me to run kind of funny putting extra strain on muscles/tendons that aren't used to the strain. Anyways, the warm water from the whirlpool helped to stifle some of the pain that I was feeling.

Well I'm off to downtown to have lunch with an old university buddy. I called up the authorized Polar Battery replacement centre who happen to be about 2 blocks from where I'm going and they indicated they'll replace the battery for me while I wait which means I won't have to ship off my watch and can get it replaced today. Yeah!

Damn ankle

I've decided to take more time off from running. I've realized that trying to recover while running isn't going to work. I tried to go out for a run yesterday and it was pretty clear that my ankle was not going to make it. I was altering my stride to compensate for the pain which will probably lead to knocking something else in my body out of whack which would lead to more pain. I've been reading up on this injury and especially others that have experienced it in the Runners World forums and think it's best to lay off for a good solid two weeks with constant icing and compression. I'll try an maintain the fitness by other means most likely swimming and trying out those elliptical machines at the gym. At the same time, I'm going to try and strengthen the legs to try and avoid this from recurring.

My Humps Parody

Check this out.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W91sqAs-_-g

I think this is cool, but I like anything acoustical that relies primarily on a piano so I may be biased. Plus Alanis is Canadian!

This is the original:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj9swNR5-lY

Intervals are hard

Well this is getting to be a theme. I had wanted to follow the plan of doing intervals on Tuesday and a tempo run on Thursday. It rained on Tuesday and due to a last minute request to get some work done by the end of Wednesday, I had to shift everything. I got home yesterday after work and ate a bit (actually quite a lot since I had a light lunch) and two hours later I headed out to the track to try and do the intervals. The plan called for 1km intervals with a 400m recovery. rather than do it at the ridiculously fast pace that they recommended, I decided to try and do them at 5km pace. I got through one, but started cramping up bad. Guess I shouldn't have eating so much. I headed home and decided to do them this morning. Went back to the track this morning and did 4x1km at about 4:08min/km. Quite tough. Panting like a dog after each interval. I had wanted to do another one, but my ankle was starting to get sore again.

Happy Easter Everyone!

Kicking is hard...

Swam for about 45 minutes yesterday which included 20 minutes of just flutter kicking which is supposed to help build up the hip flexors. My legs were quite sore after that, but it felt like a really good workout. Then swam for another 25 minutes so with various strokes. Tried a couple strokes of butterfly, but my shoulders are still to weak to do them properly.

So I've re-diagnosed myself with Tibialis-posterior tendinitis. I'm pretty sure this is what I have in my foot as the symptoms are all in the right spots.

Running fast is hard

Headed out for my first attempt at a FIRST plan long run. Had planned on doing 15 miles @ 8min/mile but was able to only struggle through 12 or so. I hadn't eating much all day and I definitely hit the wall. My shin was also starting to act up after mile 10 so i called it a day after 12 and ended up walking most of the way home.

This FIRST plan is hard. The paces are faster than I'm used to but I'm hoping that in the long run, it'll make me faster. I just hope that it doesn't wear me down before then. Cross training is an important part of the FIRST plan since the running mileage is relatively low. There are only three days of running a week, two cross training days and one rest day. I'm going to try and swim on one of the x-training days and then do leg workouts on the other to hopefully build up some strength in the lower body.

Lap	Lap Time		Lap	Lap Time
1	08:07.8		8	07:53.5
2	07:45.3		9	07:55.9
3	07:59.8		10	08:16.3
4	08:02.2		11	08:15.2
5	07:45.8		12	08:21.0
6	08:14.1		13	11:36.7
7	07:59.6

Now I lay me down to sleep...

So this is what my HR looks like while I sleep. I had no idea why my HR was spiking throughout the night. I didn't have any nightmares or anything so I was beginning to wonder if it may be a problem with my heart. I surfed around this morning and found someone else that also posted a chart of his HR while sleeping (see I'm not crazy. you can find ANYTHING on the internet) and he had the same HR spikes. So it's good to know I'm not alone. My average for the whole night was 48 bpm. The parts where there were no spikes were either 45 or 46 so I'll assume that my resting HR is about 45 bpm. I think I'll do this again sometime, cause it'll be interesting to see if things change.

One interesting thing I noticed for the amateur meteorologist in you is that if you notice the altitude graph, it appears that I was climbing in my sleep. My watch calculates altitude based on air pressure which means that the air pressure was steadily decreasing over night (higher you go, the lower the air pressure gets). A steady decrease in air pressure means rain is on the way and what do you know, it's currently ... raining.

My training plan has 15 miles @ 20 s slower than marathon pace (about 8 min/mile). I had wanted to do it this morning except that it was raining. It's supposed to clear up for a few hours late afternoon, so I'll do it then.

Thanks for reading.