Feeling better

Okay, I took the rest of the week off. I could rattle off the excuses reasons I didn't run (it was cold, my ankles hurt and it was CHRISTMAS, for crying out loud!), but I wont. Except that I just did...

It's true, though. My ankles and knees really were bothering me for most of last week, and that helped nudge me into inaction. It works out, though, because on tonight's run, I felt pretty good. Even afterwards, I don't feel as tense as I did after last Monday's workout. So hooray for me. Hopefully it will last...

In other news, I got an iPod Touch for Christmas, and have been busy looking for apps that will help me in my efforts to not be such a slug. The one I want to mention tonight (because I actually used it) is Chronolite. It's a free app that allows you to set up to 4 separate timers. (The paid app allows more, and has some more flexibility, but I'll let that be for now.) So I set timer 1 for 2 minutes, timer 2 for 1 minute and timer 3 for 5 minutes (warm-up and cool-down). They worked pretty well, except that a couple of times I had a hard time resetting or starting the timers. I think that was mostly due to the fact that I have a screen guard on my iPod, and it was in an armband with a protective cover, as well, so the sensitivty was a bit low. As a result of that, I had one run and one walk session where I'm not sure how long I actually ran/walked.

The breakdown for tonight's workout: 2.36(ish) miles in 30 minutes, using 2 minutes run, 1 minute walk. Depending on walking speed, my running pace was somewhere between 8:30 and 10:45 per mile, and my average pace was around 12:45 per mile.

Hopefully, I'll be able to run 2-3 more times this week. I'm going to remain at the 2/1 pace since I missed last week entirely, and depending on how I feel, I may extend Saturday's run to 45 minutes... but we'll see.

2/1

First things first. I missed my run on Saturday. I walked out the door and to my staring point, jogged about 10 steps, and realized that my knees were screaming, "Don't you DARE!!!" So I stopped, turned around, and walked home, thus missing what should have been my last 1:30/1:30 run.

I did get out tonight, however, even though I was completely exhausted. Rather than try to make up for Saturday's run, however, I decided to plow on with my schedule, moving up to 2 minute run / 1 minute walk. My knees protested again when I started, but I thought, "Meh, I'll keep going and see what happens." Sure enough, by the time I'd been running for about 30 seconds, my knees weren't bothering me at all. (Wish I'd thought of that Saturday...) I did find myself adjusting my gait throughout the run. Every now and then I'd sense myself hitting the pavement too hard, or trying to cushion the blow too much with my toes (which seemed to bother my knees more, interestingly enough), so I'd tweak it slightly and move on. It seemed to work for me. My exertion level was on the high side of "medium" - with most run segments being 3 steps in, 2 steps out. I may decide later that this level is too low for a good workout (I haven't bothered to check my pulse yet), but for now I'm fine with it. Remember - three weeks ago, I hadn't run furher than 50 feet in almost 5 years.

I checked my numbers, and if my distance (found at USA Track and Field association) is correct, I did about 2.25 miles in my 30 minutes. Depending on how slow my walks were (between 2 and 3 miles per hour), my running pace was between 9:00 and 11:30 miles. I figure I'll get a more accurate read later on, after I've been doing this for a while. Right now, though, the focus is still on just getting out and going, rather than speed.

Ouch.

Today has been pretty busy. I worked late, then when I got home MB had to walk out the door, so I was stuck babysitting the wee one. By the time MB was home, it was nearly 8:00 - too late for a regular run, I thought. In fact, I almost bailed on today's run altogether, but I decided instead to go out for 20 minutes and work on speed a bit.

I kept up with my 90-second rotations, but I pushed myself much harder during the runs, usually getting down to two steps per inhale/exhale by the end of the segment. I felt pretty good, but only because I kept telling myself how awesome I was to keep pushing like this, even when it's tough.

Then I finished my run. I got home and my lower back was completely tensed up. I took every type of pain medication I had and laid down on the floor, but I was still really tight. I turned put the massager on my back and took a hot shower (not at the same time), and that seemed to help somewhat, but I'm still rather sore. My legs seem to have recovered (or the pain killers are working on them), but my back still hurts. I think I can feel one bunch of muscle fibers in particular that are still tight, but I don't massage my own back very well.

What I'm really worried about, though, is the possibility that I've gone and screwed up my back yet again and will have to go in for round 3 of surgery. My one hope right now is that this doesn't feel like sciatica, it's just overly tense muscles.

Suggestions?

Just a short note...

...to document my last two runs. I ran for about 36 mins on Saturday (50% more than any other day, qualifying it as a "long run" in my weak workout book), putting in just shy of 3 miles. Again, not a very fast pace, but that's not my point right now.

Tonight I changed my run/walk ratio to 1:30 each and ran about 2 1/4 miles in about 30 minutes. I plan to do the same on Wednesday and Friday, then keep the same ratio for 45 minutes on Saturday. Here's hoping.

One thing I noticed about my workout tonigh was that by the end of it, I wasn't running all that fast. Let me clarify. I wasn't pushing myself as hard. When I first stared tonight, I was pretty tired after 90 seconds. I measure relative tiredness by how many steps I can take with each inhale/exhale. So "pretty tired" is when I reach 2 steps per inhale, 2 per exhale. That's where I was after my first couple of sets. So to keep from killing myself, I consciously slowed down. But by the end of my workout, I was still at 3/3, even after extending my run an extra 45 seconds. I obviously slowed down more than I meant to - at least on those last couple of sets. The question is, how do I find the balance between not pushing myself too hard, so I hate doing this, and not pushing myself hard enough, so I don't actually get any better?

Today's Run

I was copying some documents for work today, and since it was going to take upwards of 30 minutes to copy, I decided to knock out today's run. I took more-or-less the same route that I did Monday, but I had to take a very small detour due to work on the running trail (probably .1 mile extra). But I was more disciplined with my stopwatch, so my run time was almost exactly 24 minutes, rather than 25-26 minutes, like it was last time. So I think I may have run a little bit faster, but I'm not sure. (Speed isn't really my goal right now, so I try to avoid thinking about it as much as I can, squashing down the little voice that's constantly saying, "Hey, I think you ran faster last time. Speed up, or this run won't do you any good.")
Anyway, it went well. I'm pretty tired, but my joints are still feeling pretty good. And more importantly, I've now run three times in less than one week. Now, I just need to decide whether to run on Friday AND Saturday, or just Saturday.

I'm not dead yet.

I realize it has been 7 1/2 months since I posted last. It has also been just about that long since I last exercised, too. There's definitely a correlation there, possibly even causation. (I'm not sure which way causation might run, though.)

But I'm back, and I've got a new fitness project - running. I've never really been what you'd call a "runner," though at a couple points of time in my life I ran fairly regularly - mostly when I was on active duty in the Army and I either had a physical fitness test coming up or a drill sergeant ready to pounce on me if I didn't. When we first moved to Arizona, I ran several times a week, but that only lasted for a month or two. Then I stopped. Then I got out of the National Guard. Then I really stopped running. I don't think I've actually had a workout based on running since, oh, January 2005. Until now.

I read recently about some new research that seems to indicate that a lot of the problems people get from running are because all the running shoes we buy change our gait from a natural one (leading with the toe and allowing the bones of the foot to absorb the impact) to an unnatural one (leading with the heel, causing the impact to be sent straight up through the ankle and into the knee). The idea is that if we all ran barefoot (or, at least, with less padding), we would be able to run with fewer injuries, and therefore be able to run more.

So, I decided to give it a shot. Tonight was actually my second run (my first was on Saturday). Since it has been so long since I've run at all, and since I'm actively trying to change my gait, I'm going with a regimen where I run for one minute, then walk for two, repeated 8 times. I haven't purchased new shoes - the ones I'm using are about 18 months old and were bought at Payless for about $25.

Past experience tells me that my shins and knees should be killing me right now, for running in such awful shoes. But I actually feel pretty good. My calves are rather sore, having to absorb a lot more motion than they're used to doing, but they don't feel injured - just sore. My knees and feet feel fine. And the kicker is that when I run (as opposed to when I'm just walking), I'm running much faster than I used to. Tonight I did just shy of 2 miles in about 25 minutes - which is not too much slower than my firs-ever 2-mile run at Basic Training. (Remember when I said I've never really been a strong runner?) If I assume that my walking speed was about 3 mph, and my math is correct, that means when I was running, it was at about an 8-minute-mile pace. Not amazing, I know, but not too shabby for someone who has had 5 years and two back surgeries since his last workout.