Run2BFit

I think it is good to change up your training schedule every once in awhile to keep fresh, and more miles I think is OK as long as your getting enough rest. This is probably more true as we get older.

Week of May 3 Total Miles: 3.4 This week I have decided to rest my hip and concentrate more on strength, stretching, and cross training. Mon: 13 minutes of yoga; hip flexor stretches. Although the stretches are challenging I am able to complete them with out any hip pain. Tue: 32.5 min of strength training Wed: 90 min of walking, some up and down stairs. My DW tripped and fell outside resulting in gash to her head. I will spare you the gory details but it required us to make a trip to the hospital emergency while she held a dish towel to her head to contain the bleeding. Once we reach hospital emergency room we find out (unsurprisingly) that now only patients are allowed in and the my DW will call me when she needs me. One thing with COVID-19 id sadly most people including the people that really need to go to emergency are avoid going to the hospital in fear of contracting the virus, so now and the emergency room is pretty much empty when we get there. So now while waiting and since it is a nice sunny day in the mid 60s I decide to walk around the Hospital including using a walking overpass that goes over the road in front of the Hospital. 90 minutes later I receive a call from DW, picked her up with some stitches and a sore head, but she is generally in good spirits. Since then she has been recuperating nicely, although a little black and blue. Thu: 13 minutes of yoga; hip flexor stretches. I can't seem to get myself to bike after I finishing working from home for the day, but do manage to do the hip flexor yoga stretches. At least I have checked out my bike and added air to the tires. Fri: 32.5 min of strength training. Sat: Upper 30s and partly sunny, 3.4 mi run/walk 35:22 10:28 min/mi, 109 avg HR. I was debating whether to bike or run, but with it being in the 30s I decide to do run/walk, running for 5 min followed by 1 min of walking. The first 5 minutes of running I am fine, but beginning with the next 5 minute running interval my hip starts feeling sore and I increase the time of my walking intervals to about 75 seconds. I finish my local running loop with my hip sore but I was still able to run without any sharp pain. Unfortunately my hip remained sore for the rest of the day. I probably should have applied ice to it. Thursday I received a book: Science of Running: Analyze Your Technique, Prevent Injury, Revolutionize Your Training by Chris Napier which was one of a new books for 2020 reviewed in an article at the Runners World web sit at: https://www.runnersworld.com/gear/a30282932/new-running-books-2020/ This book has many detailed anatomic illustrations, identifies atomically various running injuries, and exercises and stretches to prevent and correct those injuries. I also received my 2020 No. 3 Runners World magazine (now only published 6 times a year) which has an article devoted specifically to hip injuries. Between those two sources I was able to identify my hip injury as Gluteal Tendinopathy (pain felt in the side of the hip where the gluteal tendon attaches to the top of the femur). So I plenty of help for overcoming my injury status. Week of May 10th. Total Miles: 21 (bicyling) Celebrated Mother's Day and my son's birthday Sunday. For dinner I decided to order takeout dinner from Kruse & Muers one of my DW's favorite seafood restaurants near us that was still doing take out orders, but after 70 some calls and always getting a busy signal (go figure, it's mothers day) I decided to drive the mile to the restaurant and see if I could place an order at the restaurant. Sure enough I was able to park in the restaurant parking lot filled with others waiting for their orders, and from the inside of my car with my mask on flag down one of the restaurant employees to take my order. We had a nice mday and bday dinner and then afterwards picked up ice cream treats from Dairy Queen for desert. No running for the week, more yoga and strength training, and a Saturday 21 mile bike ride. It felt good during the ride to get some aerobic exercise and the weather was great being in the 60s. Saw many runners, walkers, and bikers, but it was mostly easy to navigate around people to maintain social distancing. My hip has started to fell better as part of my morning wake up ritual is to do some stretching exercises along with a exercise where I balance on one leg and and to do a small squat were I touch the heel of lifted leg in front me to the left, center, and right for a total of 24 times on each leg. I learned this exercise when I was going to physical therapy for PF, and it seemed to be a good one to help my balance, foot and ankle strength and flexibility. When my hip became sore I noticed performing this while standing on my leg with the sore hip that I would feel hip pain which got somewhat better as I completed the 24 reps. Now the pain is mostly gone, so hopefully I can resume running soon. Cheers.

Keep your streak going. Getting any regular exercise during these times is sure to pay dividends, mentally and physically.

Good for you. The hardest thing is to start training and do that first race after a long layoff.

Week of April 28 Total Miles: 26 This weeks weather was generally really nice, a lot warmer and sunnier, pretty much t-shirt and shorts weather for my runs. Decided to cut out any speed work for this week and just do easy pace runs, except for Wednesday. Mon: 63F and sunny; 60 min easy run; 6.56 miles, 9:09 min/mi, 124 avg HR. Tue: 66F and cloudy: 61 min easy run; 6.57 miles, 9:21 min/mi, 125 avg HR. Wed: 52F and cloudy; 60 min easy run; 6.56 miles, 8:51 min/mi, 124 avg HR. Good weather for running and generally felt really great and strong with my paces increasing each mile; 9:13/119, 9:02/118, 8:49/123, 8:46/128, 8:41/130, 8:34/129. I really enjoy it when my runs feel this good, unfortunately this did not carry into my Saturday run. My watch also died at 6.3 miles into the run. I consider this the first day of Spring where I live in southeastern Michigan. The last few years I have noticed that pretty much on one day everything changes from gray and blah to green and joy. Most of the tree buds open and turn into small green leaves filling the sky with green where I live. Fortunately we have lots of trees here. Maybe that is why this run felt so great. Thu: Rest, felt a little tired. Went for a walk after work with DW and on the way back saw a running friend riding bikes with his teenage daughter. They stopped and talked for a couple minutes. He had been recovering from a knee injury the last month, gradually increasing his mileage, but while running with another friend pushed it too much, re-injured his knee and is now bicycling. This may have been a warning for me an my hip. Fri: 32.5 min of strength training Sat: 48F and sunny: 6.3 mi run 9:04 min/mi, 123 avg HR. My intent was to run an easy 13.1 miles, or at least try and see how it goes. It was a good weather day, running in T-shirt and shorts with my hydration vest. I felt good during the early miles, but during mile six my hip began speaking to me again, but I was still able to maintain a easy pace until at 6.3 mi I experience a sharp pain in upper hip that said it was time to stop. Fortunately I had decide to break this run into two 6.5 mile loops and I was near home so I didn't have much of a walk and was able to walk home without a problem. The hip was pretty sore for most of the day and I iced it some, but I probably did too much outside work (mowing the grass, cutting off vines from my back fence, and taking down an old basketball backboard) with it being such I nice day. One of the first here where it has been in the 70s. I will now probably take a break from running, switching maybe to bicycling and doing the yoga for runners hip workout that ocrunnergirl recommend.

Great job making lemonade. It's so easy to veg out and binge on TV, but sounds you like you really have taken advantage of this time and used it to fuel your growth. Kudos to you, and yes I think we all need to look at all the things we can be grateful for in these times.

You really have taken up your cardio slack from not being able to run with bicycling. You should be able to transition back to running without too many problems. When I was injured and substituting bicycling for my running it just seemed like I had to put in a lot more on the bike to get the same cardio benefit as running.

Well done, especially for not having run much this winter.

Thanks for the link to the video. I should have some time to try it as we are expecting a lot of rain for the next couple of days.

Thanks for the link to the video. I should have some time to try it as we are expecting a lot of rain for the next couple of days.

Way to go for committing to finishing the Half Sunday in the pouring rain, goes to show you what grit and determination will do for you.

Sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do to get your runs in, and if that means running with the hissing cars and on a deserted tarmac of a track, good for you. And as a perk you have added a new challenge with you track 5K time trial.

Week of April 21 Total Miles: 33.6 Sun: Rest and bloop writing Mon: 55F and sunny; 60 min easy run; 6.5 miles, 9:23 min/mi, 120 avg HR. Tue: 41F and cloudy: 60 min easy run; 6.3 miles, 9:32 min/mi, 118 avg HR. Wed: 36F and cloudy; 45 min tempo run with 1mi warm up and cool down; 7.6 miles, tempo miles; 8:27, 8:10, 8:11, 8:06, fairly consistent without look at my watch. Thu: Rest Fri: 32.5 min of strength training Sat: 48F and sunny: 13.1 mi run 10 min/walk 1 min; 2:03: 9:25 min/mi, 124 avg HR. I have been getting pretty tired after my last several Saturday long runs and my left hip has started to hurt, so I decided to run/walk my long run in hopes of feeling less tired afterward and lessening the stress to my hip. I even discovered that my Garmin 220 has a Run/Walk function buried deep under menu>settings>activity settings>alerts>run/walk (this is mainly for my benefit so I can refer to later) where you can set the number of run and walk minutes. I settled on a 10 min run and 1 min walk cycle thinking that was pretty reasonable. I thought I felt better during the run doing run/walk and I also liked being able to take in fluids and fuel during some of the walk intervals. 1 min did seem a little rushed when taking in fluids (water with NUUN Sport), and with a 10 min run followed by 1 min walk I always felt confident I could finish the 10 min run interval. I pushed the last mile a little, but afterward I was still much more tired than I should have been and my hip was still a little sore. I think I am going to add another strength training day and keep my runs to four per week, and see how it goes, listening to my body, focus on a more consistent sleep duration, and adjusting my workouts accordingly. It just seems by the end of the week I am so tired and I need the weekend to recover. As an aside, I have been watching Star Trek Discovery with my free one month trail that ends Monday. I like it and being a engineer I think that some of the sci-fi physics are pretty far out there, but still the messaging of the episodes often resonated with me. Like at the end of season 2, episode 5 where the star of the show Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) a Star Fleet Officer raised on Vulcan who reflects on faith or her lack of it, saying; "I envy those who believe there is a greater hand writing our story, who chooses the words to keep chaos at bay. Connection. Joy. Love. And Resurrection. With these words, the path becomes clear for a moment and then disappears. If I have a path I'm still searching for it. We all are. That's how we find our way, by choosing to walk forward, together. And if there is a greater hand leading us into an uncertain future I can only hope it guides us well." Yes, some wise words, faith does not always come easily, especially now. May we all live long an prosper (apologies if this sounds too corny, but said sincerely).

Your home and work life in CO pretty much mirrors mine here in MI. But at least our Governor has not recommend limiting running days. I am still able to get out most days an run without any problems, especially when the weather is in the 30s and 40s, windy and cold. Also, for me the one helpful thing I was able to do was to make and appointment to give blood, with the first one near me not being available until May 1st. Anyways stay healthy.

Congratulations on your marathon finish. Great time with run/walk to boot. I am impressed. The more I hear about using the run/walk technique the more I want to give it a try for a race.