The good news – we have all been healthy for the last week (knock on wood!)!! The bad news – we moved from sickness to injuries.
As I mentioned briefly in my last post, my husband injured himself about 2 weeks ago. He was doing a tempo run early one morning and tripped on something. Before he even realized he’d tripped he was down on the ground, landing hard on both knees. He was in a lot of pain, his knee was hugely swollen, and he couldn’t bend his left knee. His MRI showed a partial tear to his Posterior Cruciate Ligament (PCL) and unfortunately it looks like he may be out from running and golfing (his two biggest sports loves) for 3 months or more. It’s been a pretty frustrating experience trying to get in to see an orthopedist, but I’ll spare you my rantings. He finally goes in to the orthopedist tomorrow and I really hope that he gets good news in terms of his recovery time. While my husband’s is the most serious of the injuries, unfortunately it’s not the only one; which I’ll get to in my (spoiler alert) long run recap.
Weekly Recap: April 18 – 24
Monday: Rest -Marathon Monday!
Ahh, the weather. The weather on Monday was perfect weather for spectating – sunny and warm – and really tough weather to run a marathon in. We were cheering at mile 14, which normally people are still feeling good in the marathon at this point, but that was just not the case on Monday – although I did see a guy pull off the course, do a dozen burpees and then keep going, so apparently he felt fine. From the sub-3 hour group on there were a lot of people walking, stretching, grimacing and just generally looking in rough shape. Given that they still had 12.2 miles and the Newton hills to go, I knew it was going to be a long day for a lot of the runners. I missed most of the runners we were tracking, but I did spot a few of the people I was hoping to. The highlight of the race for us was seeing my daughter’s kindergarten teacher who was running her first marathon. She is such an amazing teacher and my daughter could not have been more excited to give her a hug along the way. Best part of the day!
Tuesday: Plan: 3 x 1600m – Actual: 1.5M w/u, 1600 @7:08, 60 RI, .3 @ 7:08, rest at 8:57 – You would think after watching the marathon the day before I would be inspired and crush my speed work, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Halfway through the first repeat I knew I was working way too hard and feeling way too tired to pull of the rest. I decided to switch to 800m repeats, but only made it 600m through before backing off that too. I finished the rest at an easy pace for 5 miles total.
Wednesday: Plan: 6M Easy – Actual: 6.57M @9:08
Thursday: Plan: 1M Easy, 5M MT, 1M Easy – Actual:1M @8:53, 5M MT( 7:59, 7:43, 7:39, 7:52, 7:48), 1M @8:32 – It was hot, I was tired, my paces were super inconsistent, but I got it done.
Friday: Gym – 20 minutes elliptical + stretching – My left calf had been feeling really tired so I worked on stretching and MYRTLs.
Saturday: Rest – I pushed my long run back to Sunday since my leg still felt tired.
Sunday: Plan: 14M – Actual: 13M + 1M walk of shame home – The run where it was fine until it wasn’t . My left calf had been feeling cranky all week and I spent a lot of the run thinking of how happy I was for my upcoming cutback week. Early on I was tired, debated cutting the run short, and had decided not look at my pace or mile splits. As I ran I started feeling better and was thinking how glad I was that I stuck it out. At mile 12 I stopped to refill my water and glanced at my watch to see how much time it cost me. I was shocked to see I was averaging 8:35 pace and was happy at how comfortable it felt. 40 seconds later I was back running and then just as I was about to hit mile 13 my right IT band started to feel tight. Having gone through IT band syndrome during my first marathon I made a mental note of needing to really stretch and be diligent about my MYRTLs. A few steps later and I had to come to a dead stop. It had totally seized up and I couldn’t run through it. Stretching helped and gave me relief for about 10 seconds before it tightened again. At this point I knew I couldn’t run home and debated calling my husband to come get me. Since there was no good place for him to be able to pull over to pick me, I decided to walk which felt like it took an eternity.
Sad little red blips of where I couldn’t keep running.
Super bummer, but I’m still hopeful that I can successfully rehab it in time to run my half marathon. This week was a planned cutback week which works out well and I plan to do the same as I did when IT band pain hit during my first marathon – switch to the elliptical, get serious about MYRTLs to build my hip strength, and wear an IT Band strap when I do start running again. This is also the point where I look at my long runs and wonder if my faster pace was more a “too much, too soon” than a “hey, look how much fitter you’re getting!” I do know for sure that I’ve gotten lazy in doing strength work and having been down the ITBS road before I should know better.
1) 8:30 2) 8:42 3) 8:48 4) 8:18 5) 8:12 6) 9:11 7) 8:23 8) 8:41 9) 8:22 10) 8:32 11) 8:22 12) 9:08 13) 8:51
Weekly Total: 31.57 miles
Have you had IT band pain before? If so, what helped?
Did you watch or run the Boston Marathon?
running (Bos)s 