Brand new day

Bye bye broke down, hello recovery.

I've avoided posting anything because I didn't want to jinx myself, but I picked up Hanson's marathon method and have started following the advanced plan. In general, it is relatively low mileage but has some intensity to it. I've learned, for me and for this moment in time, that I seem to be responding pretty well to doing the majority of my runs on a treadmill with 2-3 runs outside, all of them so far my easy runs. I'm training as if I'm gearing up for a marathon even though I'm really not right now and am training as if I'm on track for a 3:05ish marathon, which may or may not be reasonable. So far, I've raced 4 races in 4 weeks (5k, 9.11k, 1/2 M, 5K), none of which have given my leg any problems. I have seen a physical therapist that did some dry needling with me - my best understanding is that the surrounding muscles were very tight and this loosened them up - so far, so good.

So, my overall goal is to see if I can make it through this training cycle - if I can, I would begin training in earnest for the Savannah marathon this fall with the Albany marathon next spring as a backup. In the meantime, have some fun and maybe throw in a triathlon or two (even though my real focus is back on running and I may not do any tris at all this year). Sights are firmly set on a BQ.

I just finished up week 4 of training which involved this:

Monday: 6 miles @ 8:37 (treadmill run)

Tuesday: 8x600 (I opted this instead of the scheduled 6x800 for this week) - 2 up at 8:12, intervals at 6:00 pace, 400 m off intervals at 8:32, 1 down at 8:12 (treadmill run). I assume these are supposed to be hard, but holy cow - by the end of it I feel totally burnt.

Wednesday: rest

Thursday: 6 mile tempo (Hanson's tempo runs are MP runs) - one mile up at 8:05, 6 miles at 7:00 pace, 1 mile down at 8:05 (treadmill run)

Friday: 6.17 @ 8:03 (road)

Saturday: 8 miles at 8:02 (treadmill) morning
5K personal best in an evening race 18:50. Mile 1 6:04, mile 2 6:04, mile 3 5:55, last 1/10th 6:14 pace. Really just did it for run and figured I'd go out fairly hard and if I crashed and burned, no big deal. Worked out for a 20 second PR on a course that my Garmin measured at 3.12 miles. Pretty stoked about that one...

Sunday: 8 miles running with my son (who was riding his bike) at 7:59 pace

47 miles for the week and I feel no ill effects.

Glad to read things are going well for you, John. I hope you're super careful at the first sign of any injury because I really don't want to see you have to sit out for a long time again.

+1 for all that Julie said. Remember to be smarter than I and listen to your body.

That's great news, John! After all the frustration, it must be exhilarating to see some progress again.

Wishing you good luck as you continue to come back. It'll be great if you can get to the root cause of what was causing the muscle tightness to begin with, and find a way to prevent it from coming back.

Julie wrote:Glad to read things are going well for you, John. I hope you're super careful at the first sign of any injury because I really don't want to see you have to sit out for a long time again.

Thanks Julie - I'm sticking to a plan, so we'll see what happens...

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:+1 for all that Julie said. Remember to be smarter than I and listen to your body.

Thanks Michele

Mark B wrote:That's great news, John! After all the frustration, it must be exhilarating to see some progress again.

Wishing you good luck as you continue to come back. It'll be great if you can get to the root cause of what was causing the muscle tightness to begin with, and find a way to prevent it from coming back.

Thanks Mark - still waiting on that one...


Week of 3/11-3/17. Hansons marathon training. Objective is to get through their advanced training program uninjured and then come up with a "real" training plan for the Savannah Marathon and a BQ attempt.

Monday: 6 easy miles @ 8:25

Tuesday: 5x1K at 5K pace with 400 m recovery. 2 miles up at 8:05, intervals at 6:00 pace, recovery at 8:32. 2 down at 7:56. Hard workout for me.

Wednesday: rest

Thursday: 5 mile tempo (Hanson tempo = MP). 2 up at 7:59, 5@7:00, 1 down at 8:05

Friday: 9 @ 8:05

Saturday: 6 @ 8:14

Sunday: 12 @ 7:16

Week: 49.61 miles

Week of 3/18-3/24

Monday: 6 easy @ 8:13

Tuesday: 4x1200: 2 up at 7:59, intervals at 6:00 pace, 2 down at 7:59

Wednesday: off

Thursday: 7 mile tempo: 2 up at 7:59, 7@7:00, 2 down at 7:59

Friday: 6 easy @ 7:58

Saturday: 10 easy at 8:05
felt a weird twinge in my achilles area during the run - became extremely sore after showering up.

Sunday: tried to run this am, but my achilles is still sore - decided discretion is the better form of valor in this case. Will take the day off from running. bummer.

Week: 41 miles

On another note, I closed on a house on Wednesday. That is the good news - the bad news is that a TON of work needs to be done on it. Painted the first room yesterday - one down and the rest of the house to go. Throw in tearing out carpeting, removing linoleum, laying down tile in bathrooms and kitchen, removing wallpaper, installing fence, installing laminate flooring, landscaping and probably new counter tops that there you have 2013! Doing this stuff all alone is sort of scary, but you know what they say about how to eat an elephant - there is just an awful lot of bites there...

Cheers

Congrats on the house and sorry about the work. It will be fulfilling though, I am sure. Maybe you can get your son to help paint - bet he would love to help Dad when he visits.

As for the achilles, get on a foam roller now and attack that calf as I would bet there is a knot that is causing the problem. Once I realized that was what caused my achilles issues, I have really been able to work through them before they shut me down like this summer. Also, do the towel stretch and hold for 2 min 2x per day. Loop a towel around the bottom of the affected foot while sitting on the ground straight legged. Pull on the towel so that the toes come towards you - hold for 2 min. It will hurt at first, but this will indeed get the achilles issues in check. Then add eccentric heel drops on the stairs. My achilles bothered me after yesterday's long run, and I did the stretch last night and this morning and I rolled, rolled, rolled. It was fine on my run this morning, and then I roleld again when i got back.

Hey John, it's good to see you back out and working towards that BQ. I hope the recovery continues to go well and that the achilles tightness is just a blip.
Congrats on the new house, and good luck with all the work. Looks like you are biting off quite a bit, but nothing you can't handle.

My husband installed laminate flooring in our house, about 1000 sq feet. Not that you're asking for advice but I would recommend getting separate underlayment since it's less expensive plus will cover where gaps between the floor pieces are laid (just what our hardware store/Menards advised). Congrats on the house! I do hope you have some good, cheap/free/family labor available to help with it!

Good to see you back, John. What do you think of the Hansen's plan? I really liked the book. There are so many runs at MP or near MP (tempo = MP- 10 seconds) that I was wondering what the impact would be. Even the speed intervals seem to be slower paced than other plans. I was thinking of following it for my fall marathon. I assume it wouldn't get me in good shape for shorter races but would for the marathon.

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:Congrats on the house and sorry about the work. It will be fulfilling though, I am sure. Maybe you can get your son to help paint - bet he would love to help Dad when he visits.

As for the achilles, get on a foam roller now and attack that calf as I would bet there is a knot that is causing the problem. Once I realized that was what caused my achilles issues, I have really been able to work through them before they shut me down like this summer. Also, do the towel stretch and hold for 2 min 2x per day. Loop a towel around the bottom of the affected foot while sitting on the ground straight legged. Pull on the towel so that the toes come towards you - hold for 2 min. It will hurt at first, but this will indeed get the achilles issues in check. Then add eccentric heel drops on the stairs. My achilles bothered me after yesterday's long run, and I did the stretch last night and this morning and I rolled, rolled, rolled. It was fine on my run this morning, and then I roleld again when i got back.

Thanks Michele - Blake is with me Wed through Wed. every other week, so there will be ample opportunities to "help". I promised him a cat when we get the house, so he is VERY anxious about that. I failed to mention to him that it will take the house a while to get ready to live in, so dad lost some cool points over that haha.

I did the calf stretches you recommended and it seemed to help - was able to run 6 miles this morning pain free, so I'm guessing I'll be fine.

Seth Harrison wrote:Hey John, it's good to see you back out and working towards that BQ. I hope the recovery continues to go well and that the achilles tightness is just a blip.
Congrats on the new house, and good luck with all the work. Looks like you are biting off quite a bit, but nothing you can't handle.

Thanks Seth - we'll see. Between my regular job, my side business, the new house and soccer/school/church it should get interesting...

Julie wrote:My husband installed laminate flooring in our house, about 1000 sq feet. Not that you're asking for advice but I would recommend getting separate underlayment since it's less expensive plus will cover where gaps between the floor pieces are laid (just what our hardware store/Menards advised). Congrats on the house! I do hope you have some good, cheap/free/family labor available to help with it!

Thanks Julie - My family would be much better at destroying than building I think:lol:. I still haven't decided yet on the laminate, but laying tile scares me for some reason. Spent yesterday removing old nasty linoleum. Not fun.

JohnP wrote:Good to see you back, John. What do you think of the Hansen's plan? I really liked the book. There are so many runs at MP or near MP (tempo = MP- 10 seconds) that I was wondering what the impact would be. Even the speed intervals seem to be slower paced than other plans. I was thinking of following it for my fall marathon. I assume it wouldn't get me in good shape for shorter races but would for the marathon.

Thanks John - not putting in the mileage that you are - but, for me at least, I seem to be dealing fairly well with the lower mileage and the speed work hasn't really bothered me. My plan is to try and get through this program until it hits taper time and then maybe start to hit a little higher mileage numbers - really I just want to run consistently. Only running 16 miles max would make me a little nervous before a marathon so I'd like to up that if I can stay healthy. My next marathon is in November, so I've got time to get through this and reassess. I agree with you that I really like the book...

Mon: 6@8:18

Tue: 4-8-12-16-12-8-4 ladder with 400 cooldowns. 6:00 pace for intervals, 1 up @7:59, 1 down @ 7:59

Wed: rest

Thursday: 7 mile tempo. 2 up @ 7:59, 7@7:00, 2 down @7:59

Friday: 7@8:05

Saturday: 10.6@ 8:08

Sunday: 14.6@7:22

Week: 56.27 miles

Happy Easter!

Looks like a strong week John. Does this mean that the achilles tightness is no longer an issue? How's the work in the new house going?

Thanks Seth - I'm hoping the achilles thing doesn't become any real issue - it still is sore/tight sometimes and has basically stayed that way, but Micheles stretching seems to be helping. The house is going slowly, but I've done some painting. Family was here last week so I didn't get much done, but back at it this week...

Not much running at all last week - needed a break I guess. But, I did
do some painting and other random stuff along with tiling/grouting my
entire kitchen, dining room and laundry room!!! I have never done it
before and it took a LONG time, but it is done and now I won't be afraid
to do the same in the other two bathrooms. Now to lay laminate floor
in the rest of the house and I will feel a lot better. I'm just going
to do some shorter untimed runs probably for the next 3-4 weeks until I
get my head above water again, but I feel OK with it...

Hi John, I love blogs with song titles, but I'm sure you weren't thinking of "Brand New Day" from the Wiz, now were you?

Haha, no Natalie, I wasn't.

Well, I'm in familiar territory again. All the symptoms of a tibial stress fracture. Miserably failed the hop test after an 11 miler. Cardio feels fine - actually getting back to normal. I think the warm weather had a lot to do with feeling awful as well as mile-high stress. Ran about 35 miles last week - leg slowly felt worse. It isn't awful and I don't need a boot or anthing, but everything I've read suggests the dreaded word (rest). I am not going to let this beat me - I've been down before and I'll be back. Dad gummit... At least I have the house to work on and keep me occupied - no shortage of work there.....

Bummer. Hate stress fractures. Heal well!

Ugh. So sorry to read about the probably stress fx. Put all your energy into the house and give it the rest that is so hard to do. Do you think you did too much too fast?

Damn - you can't catch a break, can you? I wonder what the cause may be as I have been lucky enough to never actually have a stress reaction or fracture. As Julie said, maybe too much too soon from the last one??

Natalie63 wrote:Bummer. Hate stress fractures. Heal well!

Thanks Natalie

Julie wrote:Ugh. So sorry to read about the probably stress fx. Put all your energy into the house and give it the rest that is so hard to do. Do you think you did too much too fast?

Thanks Julie - I don't think I did that much - it was relatively low mileage. More speedwork, but I actually felt really good until here recently...

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:Damn - you can't catch a break, can you? I wonder what the cause may be as I have been lucky enough to never actually have a stress reaction or fracture. As Julie said, maybe too much too soon from the last one??

Ha, at least I still have my legs. I'm not saying that to be funny, but in light of recent events it isn't something to take for granted I guess. I have never had any problems with my right leg at all - always my left. This is in my right. I have a theory that may be totally wrong, but I wonder if this is maybe a chain reaction with doing more speedwork coupled with simply a longer time running + doing some runs (slow runs and not a whole lot of time on any one run) up on my toes trying to become more of a midfoot/forefoot runner may of actually improved my stride - now maybe (just an idea) I don't favor my left leg as much as I normally do and now I place a normal amount of stress on my right leg which might not be used to it? But then again, who knows. My heart is in the right place with running even if the body isn't. I am spending so much time working on getting my house together that I probably won't do much until somewhere around the beginning of June and then keep my fingers crossed.

Too much running really shouldn't of been an issue - I only eclipsed 50mpw I think only once and I hadn't even ran many runs even in the teens. Leg turnover and stride I feel was improving - the few races I did went well, I just don't know. I'm knocked down, but not out. I'll come back.

John Kilpatrick wrote:Haha, no Natalie, I wasn't.

Well, I'm in familiar territory again. All the symptoms of a tibial stress fracture. Miserably failed the hop test after an 11 miler. Cardio feels fine - actually getting back to normal. I think the warm weather had a lot to do with feeling awful as well as mile-high stress. Ran about 35 miles last week - leg slowly felt worse. It isn't awful and I don't need a boot or anthing, but everything I've read suggests the dreaded word (rest). I am not going to let this beat me - I've been down before and I'll be back. Dad gummit... At least I have the house to work on and keep me occupied - no shortage of work there.....

So sorry to hear this John. Here I thought you were being smart and taking it easy while you get your house in order and now I find this out. MAN, that really sucks but it appears that you are taking it well. Focus on the house and you'll be back before you know it.

How does it respond to cycling and swimming? Even though you're focused on running it may be wise to include these in your training regimen once you get back at it. I thought my running career was over many years ago but time kept moving forward. I started riding my mountain bike and eventually, adding some runs in. Then I progressed to where I was running every other day. From there, it became a training program where all of my quality workouts were spent running and recovery days were on the mountain bike. I've had some of my best training cycles using that rotation and I still mix in the mountain bike.

Hey man, sorry to hear the injury bug is flaring up again. When you are able to train, you are improving SO rapidly! But I think that's the problem. Hear me out here...look at this entry:
Saturday: 8 miles at 8:02 (treadmill) morning - 5K personal best in an evening race 18:50
Dude. You are not a high mileage guy. And even if you were, running 8 at GA pace in the morning as part of some bizzare double where you PR at 5K in the 2nd race is crazy. But with your history of usage injuries? That entry is flat out NUTS. Dave runs like twice the mileage we do and I think its safe to say he would never go for a PR as part of double.
You can't do stuff like that and expect to stay healthy. Race when its time to race but do so off of a taper and certainly not running another longish run that same day! Stick to something like the Hanson's plan which I think is excellent and definitely would never call for a double like that. Sorry to dish out the tough love but 5K paced racing is HARD and you are setting yourself up to breakdown completely if you run that hard off of having already depleted yourself earlier that day.

T Miller wrote:

So sorry to hear this John. Here I thought you were being smart and taking it easy while you get your house in order and now I find this out. MAN, that really sucks but it appears that you are taking it well. Focus on the house and you'll be back before you know it.

How does it respond to cycling and swimming? Even though you're focused on running it may be wise to include these in your training regimen once you get back at it. I thought my running career was over many years ago but time kept moving forward. I started riding my mountain bike and eventually, adding some runs in. Then I progressed to where I was running every other day. From there, it became a training program where all of my quality workouts were spent running and recovery days were on the mountain bike. I've had some of my best training cycles using that rotation and I still mix in the mountain bike.

Thanks Tim - I thought I WAS taking it smart - all slow miles and had knocked out any speedwork at all. Had actually more untimed jogs than anything - but my leg was hurting a little bit before and just got worse. Maybe the damage was already done, but wasn't really hurt bad enough to prevent running. Because of time and $ I basically knocked out swimming at all, at least for this year. Cycling I can do, but I don't like it near as much - I'll have to force myself to get back into it, at least at some minimum level.

Chris M wrote:Hey man, sorry to hear the injury bug is flaring up again. When you are able to train, you are improving SO rapidly! But I think that's the problem. Hear me out here...look at this entry:
Saturday: 8 miles at 8:02 (treadmill) morning - 5K personal best in an evening race 18:50
Dude. You are not a high mileage guy. And even if you were, running 8 at GA pace in the morning as part of some bizzare double where you PR at 5K in the 2nd race is crazy. But with your history of usage injuries? That entry is flat out NUTS. Dave runs like twice the mileage we do and I think its safe to say he would never go for a PR as part of double.
You can't do stuff like that and expect to stay healthy. Race when its time to race but do so off of a taper and certainly not running another longish run that same day! Stick to something like the Hanson's plan which I think is excellent and definitely would never call for a double like that. Sorry to dish out the tough love but 5K paced racing is HARD and you are setting yourself up to breakdown completely if you run that hard off of having already depleted yourself earlier that day.

I understand Chris - It was sort of a last minute thing I did with a group of friends from Leesburg.

I had actually settled into my mind that I wasn't going to do any racing for at least until I got through the Hanson marathon plan, or at least until it started taper time - then I dreamed that I could go back and start the program from the beginning, but with added mileage because I hadn't gotten injured and was finally able to really move forward.

Now I need to stay focused on getting healthy and probably the next race I do if I am lucky enough to do it is sometime this fall if not the Savannah marathon (November). I was really looking forward to a lot of short 5-15K races locally this summer, but it is what it is... I'm OK - trying to stay positive here. Trying.

Completed my first full week of training the the Savannah Marathon November 9.  New strategy is to not always try to run 6-7 days a week but to mix in some cross training (cycling mainly), especially when doing tempo runs and intervals.  Following sort of a modified Hanson plan but with less overall mileage.  If things go right, I'll finally make it to a starting line healthy, although my mileage will never get above 50 mpw.  Most miles will be 8:00 or slower.  Many workouts on the mill (I don't prefer it, but being a single Dad means less running outside).  Here goes nothing....

M:  Cycled 30 miles
T:  Speedwork.  2 up, 10x400, 1 down.  6:18-6:23 pace.  Crashed and burned, not completing my scheduled 12x400 and 2 mile cooldown.  Live to fight another day I guess. I'll blame it on the heat, but I'm not convinced that was the problem...
W:  rest
R:  6 @ 8:05
F:  8 @ 8:05
S:  6 @ 8:05
Su: 8 @ 8:12

Week:  36 miles

17 weeks to go