A Full Week Of Running

This feels like the first week in the last 9 months that I have put together a week of consistent running. Now I would just like to string together 6-8 more weeks and see where I end up. Nothing to exciting...but it is a start and I am happy to have it.

7/3 Sunday- 7M Treadmill (1:00), 28M (1:43) Bike

7/4 Monday- 7.5M Treadmill (1:02), 30M (1:58) Bike

7/5 Tuesday- 5M Treadmill (42:26), 14M (:56) Bike (to/from work)

7/6 Wednesday- 7+M Treadmill (1:00), 14M (:58) Bike (to/from work)

7/7 Thursday- 7+M Treadmill (1:00)

7/8 Friday- 7+M Treadmill (1:00), 14M (:56) Bike (to/from work)

7/9 Saturday- 8M Treadmill (1:06), 25M (1:32) Bike

Weekly Total:

49 miles (6:50)

125 miles bike (7:53)

A Weekend Of Burning Fat

I am happy to say that this weekend was a good one....filled with lots of calories and skin burned. I spent the long weekend running on the treadmill and riding the road bike out in the sun (hence the burned skin). The weekend was kicked off by Lewis Taylor's "Post-Western States 100 BBQ". Seeing all my friends with their WSER Silver Buckles (except Bili....he had a bronze) and looking fit was great to see and quite motivating.

Congrats to all my friends who ran the 2011 Western States Endurance 100 Miler: (some had great days, some had rough days, but all finished)

3. Nick Clark (15:50)

11. Dan Olmstead (16:45)

F7. Meghan Arbogast (18:50)

31. Joe Uhan (20:01)

32. Lewis Taylor (20:02)

41. Craig Thornley (20:47)

46. Todd Braje (21:11)

47. Scott Jaime (21:19)

-- Jeff Riley (28:34)

As far as my running/activity level goes....I am on another up swing. Hopefully, this one will be long lasting and I can move onward and upward. Below is how my weekend went athletically:

Friday- 3.3 miles (30:00) Treadmill

Saturday- 5 miles (44min) Treadmill, 30min Eliptical, 24.5 miles (1:31) road bike

Sunday- 7 miles (60min) Treadmill, 28 miles (1:43) road bike

Monday- 7.5 miles (62min) Treadmill, 30 miles (1:58) road bike

Tomorrow I will take an easier day and keep moving forward.

8 Months Since Surgery

Progress has been up and down. I will begin short updates going forward. I have had brief bouts (7-10 days) of running of 5-6 miles per day but my foot/lower leg mechanics have caused a 1st Metatarsal Phalangeal Joint sprain that has forced me to shut things down on a few occasions. I continue to try to solve the mystery that is my biomechanics and in the meantime have started riding my road bike to get a bit of sun and attempt to loose the excess weight (178 lbs!!).

Today:

20 minutes (2M) jogging on treadmill

30 minutes Elliptical

1:20 Road Bike (21 miles)

13 Weeks Since Surgery

My hip is actually feeling very good. For 2 weeks, I was doing 1-2 hours of cardio/day in my home gym, made up of elliptical and treadmill walking with short intervals of jogging. Along the way my right knee has started to give me problems. This knee (same leg as hip surgery) was giving me problems prior to surgery and during my second to last race, 2009 Where's Waldo 100k. Prior to hip surgery, I had an MRI to check on the meniscus which came out negative. This was good news but, not any closer to finding out what was wrong. Long story short, I will have to work through this one for a little while and see where it takes me.

After a few days rest, I ventured out onto the track this weekend, thinking that maybe the treadmill was irritating the knee. Yesterday I did 3 miles of 300m jog and 100m walk and today 4 miles of the same. This was very painful but seemed to get better as I went. Ironically, my hip seems ready to go but my knee is not happy. In talking with my PT, we think that the knee issue may have been caused from the abnormal biomechanics of my femoral head in the acetabulum, as a result of the torn labrum. These mechanics most likely were compounded by my week gluteal muscles and overactive illiopsoas and tensor fascia lata. Although, I have been working hard since surgery and improved my weaknesses, I still have issues.

I will continue on and keep working hard, while understanding that there will be bumps along the way to slow me down. Fortunately, I have been through this a few times.

Update

It has been 7 weeks and two days since my surgery (hip labrum repair) and I finally feel a noticeable improvement with what I am able to do. For a while I was using our stationary bike and/or my road bike (on indoor trainer) for 20-40 minutes at a time but it was not working out to well and I basically over did it. After taking 10 days off, I felt less pain and have now been working out daily on my home elliptical machine for almost a week. The last few days have been 45 minute sessions with no real negative consequences.

I have also experienced increased ROM and strength through physical therapy. I hope to be up to 1 hour daily by the end of the month and starting to walk/jog by middle January. Early on the increments of improvement were so small that it was often hard to quantify. Like most runners....I often need numbers (ie- minutes worked), to measure improvement. Must be patient!

In other news, I will not be representing Team Pearl Izumi-Smith for 2011. This is no surprise to me, as I was essentially hurt for most of my stint on the team during 2010, but it still is disappointing. I honestly don't think that I deserve to be on the team until I can show that I am healthy and competing at a high level. I would like to thank Aric Manning (Team Director) and all the people at Pearl Izumi and Smith Optics for the opportunity to have been just a small part of the team. It was great to meet all of you, as well as, the team itself. I will continue to follow your results. I hope we can give it another shot in the future. Good luck in 2011!

Hip Surgery

For those that visit this blog, I am sure that you have noticed that I have been non-existent in cyberspace for the last 7 months. Wow! I can't believe that much time has gone by since I have done any sort of meaningful running. Like most of you out there when your injured, I was off the grid. For the majority of 2010 I was shut down because of nagging hip/knee injuries. Long story short an Arthrogram revealed that I had a torn labrum in my hip joint.

On Monday October 25th, I headed north to Orthopedics Specialists in Portland where Dr. Mark Wagner performed a hip arthroscopy to repair the labrum and clean up the surrounding cartilage. Dr. Wagner reported that the procedure went well, showed no degeneration of the articular surfaces, and that I should be able return to running.

I felt much better post-op than I thought I would and walked gingerly out of the surgery center. Thanks to Jeff and Ana Soulia, two of my co-workers (PT's) for driving me to/from Portland and generally making sure I made it home "almost" whole. I took the Oxycodone (for pain) as well as, aspirin (to prevent clotting) for three days post-op. However, what has helped the most since surgery (other than my wife Marla) has been the Game Ready cryotherapy/intermittent compression unit. I pretty much lived in this apparatus for the first 2-3 days after surgery.

I am now 5 days after surgery and walking around the house, up/down stairs with less and less pain. Today I spent 15 min on the stationary bike at home with little resistance and will probably progress fairly quickly on the bike. The question of when I will return to running is commonly asked. I will just take it one day at a time and my body will let me know when it is time. As Lewis Taylor tells me often....I have a good read on how my body is doing and what it needs. Please return often to check out my progress.

Training today: 15:00 Bike, Physical Therapy

Training For April 4- April 11

11AM Sunday Apr 4- 12.5 miles (1:36) Headwaters TR- Ridgeline TR- Blanton- Back- Dillard LP w/ Braje and S. Laurie (~1,000 ft. +/-)

5:20AM Monday Apr 5- 12 miles (1:28) Home-Rexius TR- Amazon TR- 24th-Pre Trail LP- Back. Flat trail/road (AV 7:17)

5:20AM Tuesday Apr 6- 12.5 miles (1:34) Home- Rexius TR- Amazon TR- 24th- Hendricks Park LP x3 (~1,000 ft +/-)

10AM Wednesday Apr 7- 11 miles (1:09) Pre Trail/ VR Bike Path- 3M WU, 8x 100m strides, 6x 1Mile w/ 1 min Recovery (5:49, 5:47, 5:46, 5:40, 5:46, 5:42), 1.5M WD

Felt pretty relaxed on this workout....good to be on the hard surface.

5:20AM Thursday Apr 8- 12.5 miles (1:32) Home- Rexius TR- Amazon TR- 24th- Hendricks Park LP x3 w/ DanO (~1,000 ft. +/-)

5:20AM Friday Apr 9- 12 miles (1:38) Home- Rexius TR-Amazon TR- Back- Headwaters TR- Ridgeline TR- Spencer Butte Summit- Back (1,500 ft. +/-) w/DanO (32:33 Up, 24:29 Down). Great views from the summit on a cold and sunny morning.

6:30PM Friday Apr 10- 6 miles (43:15) Pre's Trail (AV 7:12)

2:00PM Saturday Apr 11- 16.5 miles (1:48) Pre's Trail/VR Bike Path- 4M WU, 8x 100m strides, 11M Steady (1:07:28/AV 6:08), 1.5M WD

Weekly Total- 95 miles

11AM Sunday Apr 12- 25.5 miles (3:38) Headwaters TR- Ridgeline TR- Spencer Butte Summit- Back- Headwaters TR- Blanton- Back- Headwaters TR- Ridgeline TR- Spencer Butte Summit (~5,100 ft. +/-) w/ T. Braje

Pretty beat up after the second half of this week....probably will need a recovery week to let a few things heal up.