Physical Therapy Ch. 9

Next week, I get to run. Outside. At my full body weight (obviously).

I met with my physical therapist, Cathy, for the first time in more than a month today. My sacro-iliac joint was stable and responded as a healthy joint should to all of her tests. I told her that I am still not pain-free, particularly in the mornings, so she wants me to do a week of heavy ibuprofen and icing. She believes the ligaments and muscles around the joint are still inflamed, despite the stability of the joint itself. She thinks the requirement by my new coach, Darren, that I wait another week to do this first longed-for run outdoors is a good idea. She dry-needled some of the more tender lower back muscles on the left (and yes they do feel much better--I can honestly say I am an advocate of dry needling after these experiences).

Physical therapy isn't over. I have another appointment with her in a month to check in with my pain. I'm going to be religious about the icing and the ibuprofen because it sounds like I may be in for a steroid shot or something equally unpleasant if I'm still in pain by then. If that's what it takes to be pain-free, I'll do the shot.

For now, though, I'm not worried.

On Tuesday, I'll be here:

This is a park in my town that Darren recommended because it's flat and all-gravel but has lots of room--the kind of place where I'll be doing those first few runs. Cathy said to first add slow and easy on flat gravel, then add ups and downs, and then and only then can I add speed. I think this fits in well with Darren's plan for my comeback.

I'm feeling nervous but excited. I can't wait for Tuesday!

A New Chapter

When my husband, Dan, decided late last year that he wanted to re-learn the violin, he knew almost immediately that he wanted to hire a teacher. He had started playing when he was in third grade and he played through high school, dipping into it again in college, before dropping it entirely as his working life got underway. But everywhere he moved, his violin went with him.

When he started again, some things came back to him quickly. But he knew that to fine-tune his technique, to keep him accountable and to get him going at the right pace (not too hard, not too easy), he wanted professional guidance. He found a teacher and has been working with her since late winter. His first recital is planned for this fall. His ultimate goal: to play in a community orchestra.

For similar reasons, today I hired a coach.

I'm on the cusp of recovering from this back thing. I'm to the point now where I....just know I'm better. I still have bad moments, but now they're almost always limited to the mornings, when I'm stiff from being still all night. Some gentle yoga moves and a sweaty cardio workout usually are enough to deal with it. On really bad days, I might also need an hour or two in my sacro-iliac belt. And that's it. My next appointment with Cathy, my physical therapist, is Tuesday. I've been faithfully doing my PT and Pilates exercises. I'm feeling very optimistic.

But I'm truly clueless about how to ease myself back into running in a way that's not too hard (so that I re-injure my back, or injure something else) but not too easy either. I still have goals for this year.

I have two races already booked, the Detroit Marathon on October 21 and the California International Marathon on December 2. I thought about buying another custom plan from McMillan Running. I'm a huge fan of these plans as a cost-effective way to get some personalization in your training. Greg McMillan (he of the calculator) is a fantastic coach.

But with my back an unknown, with all the usual unknowns like illness, plus the fact that I'd really like one of those two races to be the One where I reach my Boston Marathon qualifier goal, a static plan, even a really good custom one, just wasn't going to offer me enough guidance. Many other bloggers have had great experiences with coaching. So I talked to Dan about the cost issue, did some research into what the going rate is....and made up my mind that now is the time.

I'm really happy with the coach I've found. His name is Darren De Reuck. He's the husband and long-time coach of Colleen De Reuck, who has been in the Olympics four times and still wins races at age 48. He's also coached my friend Cynthia, who came to running recently as cross-training for mountain biking, fell in love with it and, with Darren's workouts, has achieved all of her running goals up to this point.

My new coach, Darren, and his awesome wife, Colleen. I've run well behind them in many a local race. It's nice to say I have Darren on my team now!

Darren's also local, and I really wanted someone local because the other thing that's been lacking in my training has been group workouts. I'm working with him through Boulder Coaching (which also coaches runners and triathletes remotely), but the $90/month package I went with will allow me to join his elite group, the Boulder Striders, in their weekly track workouts when he thinks I'm ready (he assured me they have pace groups--a big relief given that I know how fast those Striders are!). After years of being intimidated by the Boulder running scene, I'm excited that I'm now going to put it to work for my own running.

I sat down this morning with Darren and mapped out a plan for the summer and fall. Here are the highlights:

1) Even if Cathy OKs me on Tuesday to run outside, Darren wants me to stick with the recumbent bike and the Alter-G next week. If I get the OK, the following week he'll incorporate some easy 20 minute runs outside. He wants me to keep outside runs on relatively level gravel tracks indefinitely.

2) I will be running the Detroit Half-Marathon instead of the marathon. The California International Marathon will be my goal race.

3) Local races will be sprinkled throughout my training, but we're waiting to see how my return to running goes before I actually sign up for any of them.

4) Once I've got a good four weeks of recovery runs under my belt and have proven that my back is truly stable, Darren's going to have me do a lactate threshold test (in the form of an all-out 3,200 meter run). This will determine my heart rate ranges for the workouts he'll be prescribing.

Cynthia was right about Darren. He's very nice, and un-intimidating despite his amazing resume. I really appreciate that that he asked about my kids and told me about his kids (he has two daughters) and that he said helping mid-packers is just as satisfying to him as a coach as helping Olympians. I joked with him that if I actually get to run the Boston Marathon, I plan to wear a tiara. To which he said--and he was serious--"No, you won't. You'll be racing Boston, too!"

My kind of coach!

I know hiring a coach is no guarantee that I will meet my goals. In the end, I'll still be alone out there in Sacramento with a marathon in front of me. But I feel like I have an ally now, someone else who will see my success as his own success.

Running, like the violin, requires the right touch. Since I'm still learning, and probably always will be, I'm so happy to have the guidance of a good teacher. I am one lucky girl. Big thanks to Dan for letting me hire Darren.

New Challenges (Good Ones)

Last month, I had hoped to improve my sleep habits and even set up a little challenge to get myself there. Well, I outright failed that challenge, not only not improving my own sleep habits but also failing to help out the others who signed on to this with me (some of them did just fine without me--good for them!--and I apologize for being so little help).

This month will be different. I've set up some new challenges...and I hope not to fail at them.

1. The first challenge: to run again....for real....outside....before midnight on July 1. I believe I'm close. My back has been feeling (dare I say it?) good. I haven't had a pain-free day yet, but the pain I have has been much less. The Pilates exercises that I learned last week are the first that consistently make my back feel better immediately after I do them, and this effect seems to linger. I'm still VERY stiff when I wake up in the morning, but I'm trying to mitigate that with some yoga poses (child's pose and cat/cow) before I even climb out of bed. I've also eliminated the glute exercise that seemed to make things worse (the standing side leg swing) and am trying to hit only the ones that do no harm.

So fingers crossed!

2. The second challenge I signed up for is a formal one. Amanda at Run to the Finish has been leading a healthy challenge every month this year. I haven't been able to do the exercise-specific ones, but June's Green Smoothie Challenge is right up my alley.

Five days into June, I've found this surprisingly painless given how disorganized with eating I usually am. I acquired some greens-enhanced protein powder, a bag of pre-washed spinach, some bananas, some almond milk.....and that's all I've needed. The protein powder I'm using is called Vega One, and it's working for me because it tastes good and has all the needed nutrients but contains no artificial sweeteners. I tried a different brand on the first day and felt terrible; I discovered later that it contained both maltitol and xylitol, which work like laxatives. Sugar alcohols are the reason I can't drink Nuun before or during runs (it has another sugar alcohol, sorbitol).

This is a helpful challenge to me because I start off the day ahead of the game on getting enough vegetables into my diet. Throw in a glass of low-sodium V8 and/or a salad for lunch, and I'm truly good to go. For an indifferent cook (sometimes you could say I'm even hostile to cooking!), it's a lifesaver.

Tomorrow is National Running Day and I'm planning to celebrate with 30 minutes on the Alter-G, hopefully at 90% body weight. I'm glad to be able to celebrate at all! What are your plans for National Running Day?

Book Review: Running With the Kenyans

Being a librarian has its privileges. One of them is my fairly frequent trips to the 796.424 section of our New Non-Fiction shelves (for those who find the Dewey Decimal System worrying, 796.424 is where the running books live).

Last Sunday, my library was closed due to a big festival that takes over our parking lot every Memorial Day weekend. I went in and did some work anyway, because they make those who don't show up take precious vacation time. Without any library members to serve, alone in the giant building, I had some spare time for things like re-shelving...and just wandering while dipping into one book and another. It was on one of my wanders that I saw a copy of Adharanand Finn's Running With the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth.

It's the most tantalizing title since Born to Run, and along the same lines: a Westerner, intent on learning the secrets of a culture truly "born to run," goes and lives among this foreign people temporarily, partly to see if some of their secret sauce can help his own running, but partly just to see, well, what it's like, and what that secret is. Along the way, he meets some true characters, subjects himself (and his family--in Finn's case, family includes three small children) to culture shock...and brings the whole thing to a satisfying climax in the form of a big race (this one with lions).

Since this is a review, I'll cut to the chase: those of you who think there's one key element to explain the Kenyans' dominance of distance running will be disappointed. But Finn does a fantastic job identifying the combination of factors that have made them so unbeatable for so many years. He touches on all of these factors in detail throughout the narrative, and near the end of the book, he summarizes:

"For six months, I've been piecing together the puzzle of why Kenyans are such good runners. In the end there was no elixir, no running gene, no training secret that you could neatly package up and present with flashing lights and fireworks. Nothing that Nike could replicate and market as the latest running fad. No, it was too complex, yet too simple, for that. It was everything, and nothing. I list the secrets in my head: the tough, active childhood, the barefoot running, the altitude, the diet, the role models, the simple approach to training, the running camps, the focus and dedication, the desire to succeed, to change their lives, the expectation that they can win, the mental toughness, the lack of alternatives, the abundance of trails to train on, the time spent resting, the running to school, the all-pervasive running culture, the reverence for running."

A few paragraphs later he writes:

"I've immersed myself in the world of Kenyan runners, living and training with them, sharing their commitment, and following their almost monastic lifestyles, in the hope that some of their magic would rub off on me. Hopefully it has, but in truth, at thirty-seven, after years of living an easy, Western lifestyle, and without anything driving me other than the joy of running and the desire to use my talent, I never stood a chance."

It's a humbling message.

As always, though, actions speak louder than words. There's a lot of hope here, too, for those willing to adopt some Kenyan style in their training. In the wake of his experience, Finn finishes as the first Westerner in the hot and dusty Lewa Marathon, his first, in three hours and 20 minutes. After his return to the West, he takes three minutes off his pre-Kenya half-marathon personal best. And four months after that Kenyan marathon debut, he runs the New York Marathon in two hours 55 minutes exactly.

The book wasn't as funny or smoothly written as Born to Run (a book I loved and recommend to everyone). But it felt more true to me in its "shades of grey" characterization of these extraordinary runners and the reasons for their success. I liked his unpretentious descriptions of what it was really like to run behind a group of Kenyans, and I was particularly impressed with his blunt critique of his own commitment to his beloved sport after a disappointing half-marathon part-way through his African sojourn.

Since finishing this book tonight, I've found myself Googling "ugali"...and I think I might take a walk up my street. Barefoot.