I'm trying to focus on the positives and remind myself that things could be a lot worse. I'm reminded by my unlucky PDX friend who crashed his bike last week and had re-constructive hip surgery, that a calf strain is really not that bad. And while it's not the end of the world, it has me frustrated as hell. If, for instance, I'd had re-constructive hip surgery (which I'm obviously glad that I didn't have) it would be blatantly obvious to me that I shouldn't (and can't) run. But I'm having a hard time figuring out how easy I need to take it. After an early re-tweaking, I'm intensely afraid of another tweak and have been following my massage therapist's advice (who knows a thing or two about running and calf injuries from personal experience) and things seem to be feeling better in there.
The bad news is that I've done virtually no real training in 3 weeks since I initially strained my calf. I ran 5-8 miles 5 days this past week, and have been doing a ton of bikram yoga, with some upper body weights and spinning classes thrown in, so have not been a completely lazy slack. But, I have not been getting in the 70-90 mile high intensity weeks I would have chosen over the past few weeks. Instead of long runs, I do long workouts. Example, on Saturday I ran 4 miles to bikram, did 90 minutes of bikram yoga, ran 4 miles to the gym, and lifted upper body. So, not the same as a 3 hour run, but I was active for 3+ hours (and sweated out my body weight in bikram). But, I can feel that my fitness is not in the same place on the runs I've attempted. And the worst part of the runs is the fear with every step, and those slight tingling sensations that cause panic attacks that the next tweak is near. How does one run without fear again? Thinking about and fearing every step really sucks.
For the first two weeks following the initial injury I was going to my sports med/graston guy(s) twice a week. I really didn't feel like they were getting to the root of the issue in the muscle. They seemed, generally, not too concerned, and I didn't seem to be making any progress. So, I switched to my massage therapist, who was a competitive runner back in the day and who happened also to have dealt with the same injury. The sports med guys would work on me for 10 minutes and call it a day, whereas Michael will dig in there and work on it for 45 minutes. When I first saw him 10 days ago, he told me I was kind of screwed because the tear seems to be where the tendon and muscle meet (whereas the sports med guy told me not to worry because it was in the muscle belly), and that if I wasn't careful it would be a long and frustrating recovery. I've been a good patient. I've followed instructions. Only road running, and no hills this past week. I had my 5th appointment with him this morning, and it feels (to me) and he confirms that it feels much better, which is a good thing. The washboard feeling is getting worked out, and my running experiments don't seem to be irritating it.
So, things are looking up, but I'm still insanely frustrated. I'd never been so excited for a series of races, and I had been doing a fair amount of speed work and was getting faster. But that feeling of speed and fitness has diminished to nearly nothing. Miwok is less than 2 weeks away, and I haven't run over 10 miles in 3 weeks. I'm still on the fence about Miwok, but I'll wait and see how the next 2 weeks feel. I won't be prepared to race it if I do run it, and I'll only run it if I feel like it won't further irritate my calf, as I don't want to give up on Comrades and WS. However, I also don't want to give up on the Montrail Cup, and need to finish Miwok to give me 4 finishes. If I do run Miwok, it'll be more of a "walk the ups and run the flats" type of day and just a quality day of training with a lot of walking thrown in to protect the calf.
And for someone that lacks confidence, this fear of running is not so much fun. I'm the queen of excuses, and this fear of re-injury makes it way too easy to make excuses.
On a somewhat unrelated note, we had awesome seats for the Blazers game this past weekend, which I got to experience with 3 of my good PDX running buddies, Yassine, Aaron and Todd. Talk about a lesson in never giving up! The Blazers were down by 23 in the second half, and 18 starting the 4th quarter and came back to win by 2. Probably the most amazing comeback I've ever witnessed, and a reminder that anything is possible. And the comeback was led by Roy, who had double knee surgery and has exceeded any expectations in returning from injury. The body can do amazing things!
The bad news is that I've done virtually no real training in 3 weeks since I initially strained my calf. I ran 5-8 miles 5 days this past week, and have been doing a ton of bikram yoga, with some upper body weights and spinning classes thrown in, so have not been a completely lazy slack. But, I have not been getting in the 70-90 mile high intensity weeks I would have chosen over the past few weeks. Instead of long runs, I do long workouts. Example, on Saturday I ran 4 miles to bikram, did 90 minutes of bikram yoga, ran 4 miles to the gym, and lifted upper body. So, not the same as a 3 hour run, but I was active for 3+ hours (and sweated out my body weight in bikram). But, I can feel that my fitness is not in the same place on the runs I've attempted. And the worst part of the runs is the fear with every step, and those slight tingling sensations that cause panic attacks that the next tweak is near. How does one run without fear again? Thinking about and fearing every step really sucks.
For the first two weeks following the initial injury I was going to my sports med/graston guy(s) twice a week. I really didn't feel like they were getting to the root of the issue in the muscle. They seemed, generally, not too concerned, and I didn't seem to be making any progress. So, I switched to my massage therapist, who was a competitive runner back in the day and who happened also to have dealt with the same injury. The sports med guys would work on me for 10 minutes and call it a day, whereas Michael will dig in there and work on it for 45 minutes. When I first saw him 10 days ago, he told me I was kind of screwed because the tear seems to be where the tendon and muscle meet (whereas the sports med guy told me not to worry because it was in the muscle belly), and that if I wasn't careful it would be a long and frustrating recovery. I've been a good patient. I've followed instructions. Only road running, and no hills this past week. I had my 5th appointment with him this morning, and it feels (to me) and he confirms that it feels much better, which is a good thing. The washboard feeling is getting worked out, and my running experiments don't seem to be irritating it.
So, things are looking up, but I'm still insanely frustrated. I'd never been so excited for a series of races, and I had been doing a fair amount of speed work and was getting faster. But that feeling of speed and fitness has diminished to nearly nothing. Miwok is less than 2 weeks away, and I haven't run over 10 miles in 3 weeks. I'm still on the fence about Miwok, but I'll wait and see how the next 2 weeks feel. I won't be prepared to race it if I do run it, and I'll only run it if I feel like it won't further irritate my calf, as I don't want to give up on Comrades and WS. However, I also don't want to give up on the Montrail Cup, and need to finish Miwok to give me 4 finishes. If I do run Miwok, it'll be more of a "walk the ups and run the flats" type of day and just a quality day of training with a lot of walking thrown in to protect the calf.
Yassine getting loud. |
And in my newly acquired spare time, I'm feeling a bit lost. My life really does revolve around ultra running--from my friends to how I structure my day.