My First Comeback Run!

Today I ran! Outside! For a little more than three miles! Here are eight seconds of video proof:



The video, taken during the first of eight strides I did mid-run, also gives you a good idea how I was feeling. It's not much of a stretch to say that this was better than any finish line I've experienced. A big part of it was that Cynthia joined me, bringing her confidence, her camera and her good humor (also her gadgets; I was watchless, having lost the Timex on a walk last month and having loaned the Garmin to Dan). Her presence made the run feel like a real celebration.

Everything's better with friends! Cynthia and me post-run.

It also helped that the run, while not pain-free, was nothing like the rusty slog I'd forced myself to envision because I'm a hope-for-the-best-prepare-for-worst type of person.

We arrived at a park called Golden Ponds at 8:30 a.m. The day was on its way to 100 degrees, and you could tell already as we started walking to get off the concrete before our first running steps. Egrets drifted on the pond surfaces, and at one point a great blue heron wafted up from the shore and flew to the opposite bank. I didn't care that it was hot. I didn't care that my tailbone spoke to me as we started running.

Graceful egret swimming

The first few steps felt a bit labored, but once I warmed to the rhythm, I realized that my legs, the raising of each knee, felt lighter to me than I remembered from earlier this year. It could be I was just overtrained at that point, but I prefer to think that this says something about my core muscles being stronger, doing more of the work expected of them than they were able to do before.

At the beginning of the run, legs feeling good. I wore my pink "Run" shirt from Kathy and my Brooks PureFlows.

Fifteen minutes into the run, we launched into strides, as Coach Darren had spelled out in my plan for today. We were supposed to do seven, but somehow I lost count and when Cynthia checked the data later she found we had done eight. Running faster felt wonderful. A breeze had picked up, and I pictured myself slicing through it like a knife through silk. On the last stride, I repeated "BQ by 40" in my head. Really, though, for this run I didn't think much about the Boston Marathon. I enjoyed this run for itself.

During a stride. Cynthia was nice to pause and take pictures.

After the strides we had about four minutes to cool down running slowly, and then we finished up the lap around the pond by walking. All told, it was a bit over three miles in 30 minutes. I'm not a demonstrative person, but I was elated with how this run went. My cardiovascular fitness is about as good as it could be given the lay-off from running and the tedium of the recumbent bike, and my legs didn't let me down at all. At the end, I felt hungry for more (my next run is on Friday).

Cynthia and I hugged and said goodbye at the cars. I wish we had had time to go out for a celebratory iced tea or coffee, but she had a work meeting to call into and I had a Pilates appointment. There wasn't a lot of time between arriving home and needing to leave again for that appointment, but my back and my left flank had started talking to me again on the walk to the cars. It wasn't much worse than I've felt on occasion post-Alter-G, but I wanted to nip it in the bud so I took some of my shower time to take a mini-ice bath and then drove down to Boulder with a package of peas stuck down my pants.

I think I am headed toward having a shot to finish off the inflammation, but I'm going to see how the month of bringing back running goes. At Pilates, Patty and I discovered that my IT bands and hamstrings are REALLY tight, much worse than I would have guessed. She gave me a new exercise called leg circles (mine are just like the "intermediate" ones in the link, where the model is using the band to help). This felt wonderful. And I'm going to attend Patty's class next week, so there's more Pilates in my future.

Today, though, was about one perfect run. It was about being outdoors, an understanding friend by my side, wind in the trees and on the water and the mountains above us like the beautiful but indifferent sentinels they are. It's a feeling I haven't had in too long.

Apologies to Maya Angelou, but this caged bird got to sing today.

Pilates

When I last left you riveted by the Chinese water torture that is the story of rehabbing my back, I was feeling down in the dumps because it still hurts, more than I think it should after almost three months of physical therapy, no outdoor running or spin class and lots of strengthening exercises for my abs and glutes.

It's like one of those never-ending video games, where you achieve a new level or find a new token....only to learn that the ultimate Holy Grail remains elusive.You start to wonder if you'll ever get there, or if you should even be bothering.

Well, no video game addict would ever stop looking....and neither will this running addict. Yesterday I received a new token, a new tool in the quest: a one-on-one Pilates lesson with Patty at Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, who is also one of the physiotherapists who supervises me on the Alter-G. I don't want to be overly optimistic (that's not really in my nature anyway), but I'm feeling good about this for two reasons:

1) Patty is not only the only Pilates instructor that Cathy, my physical therapist, wants me to see, but she is also a Boston Marathon qualified runner, a mom and a recovering sacro-iliac joint issue survivor herself. She understands this problem not only academically, but personally (in fact, she says hers still bugs her if she overdoes it working in her garden). She also has a good sense of humor and hung up my kid's picture of a train at her desk at work.

2) Jessica of Pace of Me and Dimity of Another Mother Runner both say Pilates done right was THE magic spell that freed them from the curse of their own back and hip issues. First-hand endorsements from athletes I respect....you can't beat that.

Patty had me warm up with some Kegals. Pregnant and formerly pregnant ladies will remember those. Apparently, not only do they help with incontinence issues (thankfully I don't have those, though I know some runners do), but they improve pelvic floor strength and thus support the back. I need to be doing them all the time, boosting them as I go by imagining my sit bones moving closer to each other with each squeeze.

As I lay on my back doing Kegals, we talked about which exercises in my current routine seem to exacerbate my pain. This was easy for me to answer: the standing glute exercises and the seated-on-a-Swiss-ball leg raises. Patty counseled me to do only one of the standing glute exercises per day until I identify the one that truly makes my pain worse. She suspects it's the one where I swing my leg out to the side--but time will tell.

She then modified one of the exercises Cathy had given me for my abs. For the "laying on my back marching" one I am supposed to slow down and really concentrate on two things: 1) using my abs to lower the leg as well as raise it (this already makes a HUGE difference in how this feels to my back) and 2) exhaling on the raise and inhaling on the lowering. I'm supposed to do the Swiss ball lifts (carefully) with the same focus. She said to think of there being a puppet string from my lower abdomen to my knee. I have to really concentrate on this--my quads really wanted to help.

Patty also suggested I do this exercise lying length-wise on a foam roller. This makes it harder, but also more obvious when I arch my back.

I also have one new ab exercise: the Pilates Hundreds. If you Google this exercise, you'll see the more advanced "real" version, done with legs straight and elevated. That's not the one I'll be doing. My version has me on my back, knees bent in sit-up position and feet on the floor. I then raise my torso to about bra level and do the pulses. I'm also not doing a hundred pulses. Right now, I'm to do four sets of five inhales and five exhales.

The breathing is key for all of this--and I'm very bad at it. Patty says learning breathing control will help my running, too. That makes me more likely to stick with these latest modifications. I've gotten really good at visualizing finishing a strong marathon, or crossing the finish line in Boston with my new abs and buns of steel. It's still a fantasy, but with each squeeze I feel a tiny bit closer.