hurt again

about 5 Saturday runs into the season, the 14 mile la jolla half marathon course preview, the shit hit the pavement. we met and left for the run at 7:05 AM and headed towards "the hill" which for the record is no hill. its a 450 foot vertical climb in one mile...yowza! i started off doing the 10 minute run, 2 minute walk as prescribed by the coach to alleviate the pounding on my knees, but every time my watch would tell me to walk, the two girls that i most wanted to beat would jog right on past me. then i would get to start running again, quickly catch up only to be passed again when i had to walk. irritating didn't quite cover it, so i just decided to run, no walking at all. i took off, i ran like a woman possessed by the running gods and i wasn't slowing down, not even for the beast of a hill to come. i tackled that bad boy with a vengeance. i felt good, no great. i had a strong stride, my mind was focused on the task at hand and if it started to wonder, i'd slap it back into the present and concentrate on what i had to accomplish. i finally passed by our coach, running in the opposite direction, and he said i was doing great, i wasn't far behind our top runners and to keep it up. hell yeah i was gonna keep it up. i was rockin it! so that's what i did. i finished about 5 min behind our two seasoned runners and a full 10-15 minutes in front of the two girls i had eyes to beat! the problem now was that i literally could not walk. i was in tears. i had pushed way too hard and now i was in so much pain. i waited for everyone to get back and then took myself to the house to ice my aching knees and pray they didn't explode because that is most definitely what it felt like was going to happen. i called the doc as soon as i got in the car and left him a message trying to relay my pain without falling apart on the answering machine. i guess i didn't quite get my point across...he never called me back.

epic post

hey there, so this is my first post and i am hoping that there will be many more to come, as i really need to get back into my writing...


i was injured pretty badly from an overuse type injury last January and was sidelined from the Lavaman Triathlon i was training/mentoring for through Team in Training. i was not able to run at all, which is kind of ironic because the run portion of training/racing is my favorite. this was to be my (hmmm...wildflower 1, carlsbad 2, pac grove 3) 4th tri, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. i did however do the relay for wildflower last year, even in the midst of my pain, and beat my previous year's bike time by atleast 25 minutes. not to say that would have been the case had i actually raced all 3 events, but nonetheless, i was proud :) that was at the beginning of may 07. that next month i had knee surgery to repair a small meniscus tear and clean up the chondromalacia in my left knee.

after about 3 months of complete inactivity (the whole time just itching to get back out there, to do SOMETHING) i decided to try to hit the gym with my doctor's okay. i tried to complete light sessions on the elliptical. it hurt. after about 4 1/2 months, i attempted light strength moves. it hurt. after 5 months, i tried running again...10 minutes at first and then built up to about 20 minutes before i realized that the hurting wasn't just something i could keep ignoring. i then decided to suck it up and see a doctor that was known for getting people back in the game...and make no mistake about it, i wanted back in that damn game. my body was craving it, my brain was screaming for it, and my spirit needed it, not to mention my relationship with my boyfriend at the time was sorely hurting from the loss of my active lifestyle.


this is one of the somethings about me that i must work on changing...even though i was able to do the other disciplines of the sport, all i could think about was running and how not being able to run was the end of what i knew as an athlete. sure i like to bike and once i'm in the water, i like to swim...but running, oh the sweet, sweet release of everything negative building up in a body, the pounding of the pavement, the hard disbursement of all that is bad into the universe, clearing your mind, freeing your spirit...that is what running is to me and not doing it was killing me. i admit, i am a brat when i don't get what i want, and i tend to pout about not getting whatever it is. i was pouting about not running instead of strengthening my other disciplines. this (along with other things) is what sent my relationship spiraling into a fall so vast it was never to recover.


so i saw the doc. he fitted me for the most freaking expensive orthotic contraptions you can possibly imagine, and i was off to try this running thing again. to my utter dismay, running still hurt like a mother. i was told that i was coming back way too quickly, that i needed to give it more time...to repair, to heal, to strengthen...so i waited, all the while pouting about my loss of forward movement at the speed i craved, in the movement of my legs that i wanted.


finally...FINALLY...after a year of not running, it was time. i could feel it in my bones, coursing through my blood; i had waited long enough for the scar tissue to form and build a strong barrier amongst the interlockings of my knee and i jumped in...head first, eyes closed, full speed ahead.


i was put in charge of coordinating my company's marathon program. it was put to me to find and hire a coach, negotiate a group discount on running apparel and nutrition and set up informational seminars to build interest and educate on the joys and perils of the sport. we were going to be training for the La Jolla 1/2 marathon happening at the end of April, as a training run, and then our 'A' race - Rock N Roll full marathon to take place at the beginning of June. our team name was to be team [formula] for Alzheimer's. we were to raise a thousand dollars per participant in the name of remembering. i hired our coach, got all of the discounts/seminars set up and squared away, and set my head and my heart in forward motion, the direction of running and i wasn't going to stop even if it hurt.


the interest in the beginning was fantastic; our group consisted of 17 runners at first. we had a pretty solid training schedule that looked to be a bit aggressive for the non runners of the group, but we were ready to tackle it none the less. the first couple of months were going fantastically for me. i was running again. i started at about 10 min miles, which by the way was torture because just before i was hurt, i had gotten my mile down to 7 and could log at least 6 miles holding a 730 pace. i knew the time would come, but actually seeing the enormous decline in my fitness was discouraging to say the least. we were scheduled 3 short weekday runs, consisting of 3-5 miles that lead up to our long Saturday run, moving up in 2 mile increments as the season wore on. i got down to an average 815 minute per mile pace within a month. good but i still had so much work to do. i had gotten into Core Power Yoga and was loving it. the classes were so challenging and intense that i would forget myself and all the mess going on in my head for an hour and just sweat till the death...or the until the class was over in most cases :) i have to say it helped get me through the first month or so of my breakup. that and my new found ability to just run and run and run...i found that during this time i was running to forget.