Progress Report - Month 1

I'm just about a month into Dopey training and I think I'm starting to get into a groove. Unfortunately, it's a slow groove - like a 33 record when I want to run like a 45 (I totally had to look up those numbers - I'm too young to know about record playing speeds!). But it's a groove nonetheless and I'm thankful for it. So here's what's going on with training.

More miles, same speed. I have been adding miles fairly regularly. I'm now up to 4 1/2 miles for mid-week runs and I have an 8 mile "long" run planned for this weekend. I've noticed something about myself in regards to mileage. I can seemingly add mile after mile to my runs and yet my pace stays pretty much the same. I don't get any faster when I do shorter distances. So 6 miles or 16 - I'm pretty much at the same pace. I know a lot of this is due to the fact I refuse to do speed work, but still.

Rolling, rolling, rolling....Most people probably think running is what takes the most time when you're training for a race like this. I think it's all the stuff you have to do BECAUSE of the running. I talked about the laundry already (seriously - it never ends!) but the other thing taking a lot of my time is foam rolling. My muscles, especially in my calves, get really tight when I'm doing all the this running so I have to roll at least twice a day. It's gotten to the point that I have to multi-task in order to get stuff done.

Physical therapy I've been in PT since the beginning of training because I was coming off a hip injury. I just recently graduated from 2x/week to once a week. Progress! I've improved in a lot of ways but some things never change. During my time in PT, I've gone from not being able run at all to doing 7 miles, but I'm still only at 20 seconds for planks. Planking is my kryptonite. I'm seriously thinking my demise might be death by planking.

Early mornings suck. I am not a morning person. If you're reading this and you know me personally, this is not a surprise. But having working several evenings a week, paired with the hot and humid conditions lately, I've had to give in to the early morning workout. The picture below (me in the middle) shows how happy I am about that...

I will admit that getting my workout done early makes for a pleasant rest of the day. But getting up while it's still dark outside is not cool. My body is confused about why I'm asking it to things when clearly it's still the middle of the night. Luckily, I have people to run with from time to time, like my neighbor Lauri. Lauri is a morning person (I know, right? But I like her anyway.) and she's always more than willing to wake up at oh-hell-no-o'clock to run or bike or swim. Many times getting up to work out with her looks something like this:

Sleep....and the lack thereof. So early morning workout have become a necessity. Ugh. But I've been surprisingly effective at getting this done in recent weeks. That leads me to the sleep situation. I'm not getting enough of it. I have gradually worked my way to getting to sleep earlier at night. This was made possible by both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert leaving their respective late night shows. I'm going to try to keep this up, but Colbert is coming back to the late night airwaves next week so....

Fails. I've had a few of these. A particularly nasty run during which I got suddenly sick after mile 2 and was a mile from the nearest unlocked restroom comes to mind, but we won't discuss that further. The other thing I've been particularly bad about is my hydration. I'm not a big water drinker. I know, I know. With the extra running, and accompanying profuse sweating, I know I need to take in more water. I have replaced my shower beers with shower nuuns so that's something. The electrolyte replacement drink is a good start but I know I need more good ole'  H2O.

I'm 1 month in and have 4 more months to go. I can do this! I think....

Can't I Just Buy New Clothes?

I'm scarcely into my Dopey training and it's already come to this. I've had to buy an additional laundry hamper.

Most people need to do laundry when they run out of clothes. I usually just buy more clothes. But at some point, this is no longer a practical option. I mean, my house isn't all that big. But the main problem I've been having lately with all these wardrobe changes necessitated by multiple workouts is that my hamper simply cannot hold enough clothing . So I either had to buy a 2nd hamper or do laundry more often. I think the answer was clear so off to Bed, Bath and Beyond I went.

But it's not just the overflowing laundry pile that precipitated this purchase. There was also the issue of my "liquid awesome" getting all over everything. You know that saying that women don't sweat, they sparkle? Well, I sparkle a whole hell of a lot. I usually have to peel my running clothes off of me. Nice visual, huh? I know it sounds ridiculous, because all the clothes in the hamper are dirty, but I don't like my workout clothes to mingle with my regular clothes. In my mind there are multiple levels of clothes dirtiness: "regular day dirty", "hot day dirty", "workout dirty", "hot day workout dirty" and "what died in there?". I feel like I've had many an outfit fall in the latter end of that spectrum lately.

One of the ways I accommodate the "hot day workout dirty" and "what died in there?" categories is to air out my clothes before I put them in the hamper. On any particular day, you'd find clothes hanging off doorknobs, shower curtain rods, hooks, the sides of the hamper, and the edge of a bed. The only reason nothing is hanging off my ceiling fan is that I'm too tired to climb up my stepladder after a run.

So I had the brilliant idea to segregate my clothing. By putting workout clothes - and only workout clothes - in one hamper and the rest of my clothes in the other, I know which load to use my super-duty, you-stink-more-than-average, workout clothing detergent on. I can also just drag the hamper straight down the washing machine and dump without touching the clothes with my hands.  And I can probably put off doing laundry by at least 5 days.

I'm sure my stench hamper won't be the last purchase I need to make for Dopey Training, but it might just be the laziest. And I'm ok with that.

Things I Think About When I'm Running

This Dopey Challenge training stuff has caused me to spend a lot of quality time with myself. Often in the oh-hell-no-o'clock hours while normal people are still sleeping. This has already had a couple of effects: 1) the time of day I most look forward to is bedtime. When I wake up, often my first thought is of when I can sleep again, and 2) I have a lot of time to think. I'd like to say I use this time to ponder the great questions of the universe but let's not forget it's really early and I'm not a morning person. Below are some of the thoughts I've had during runs this week.

Thoughts about what I'm using to fuel myself. "Powerade does indeed go bad. I'm not sure what the timeline is for that to happen but personal experience tells me it's somewhere south of 7 years."

Thoughts about what normal productive people do. "Geez - look at these people in their cars. They are already showered and dressed and on their way places to do things. That one even managed to get a kid dressed too. It's only 6:43 a.m. Who are these people? "

Thoughts about the one shoe I found abandoned by the water fountain in the park. "Hmmm....one shoe. How does someone lose one shoe? I mean, it's clearly a kid's shoe, but wouldn't they notice that they were walking a little crooked on the way home? At the very least, wouldn't the adult that took them home from said park notice the child in their care was semi-shoeless? Also - what will they do with the other shoe?"

Thoughts about how I need to add some variety to my playlist. "Man I need to add some more music to my running playlist. Ugh...I don't want to have to use iTunes on my computer. I bet celebrities don't have to update their own playlists. They probably have someone to do that kind of thing for them. I need someone to do that for me. There should be a service where people do that for you! I would pay for that. This is brilliant. This is my million dollar idea."

My runs are still fairly short so my thinking time is still limited. I'm sure I'll manage to solve the world's problems once my run milage hit the double digits.

What Have I Done?

Crap.

Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap.



Crap.

Today I had what was no doubt the first of many freak-outs regarding this Dopey plan. I am still trying to figure out which training plan I'm going to use. In the plan I first decided to use, I don't need to start the official schedule until mid-September but the distance starts out pretty long. The 2nd plan I considered started a month ago but with my hip thing I wasn't able to start it then. The third plan I considered starts out with a long run of 13 miles on the first week. With all this confusion I decided to ask my physical therapist Josh, who is also a runner, what he thought would be smartest considering I was coming back from injury. In the course of our conversation, he said " You could use several 20 milers. You're basically training for an ultra."

Huh.

I'd never considered that. He's right, of course. And that caused some mild anxiety. And then on the drive back to my office, I had another thought. I'm doing this thing all alone. Well, I do know 1 other person doing it, but he'll be coming off a 100 mile run this fall, so I'm thinking he's out of my league. Yep - I'm alone in this. And that's when the freak out commenced.

So let's take stock of where I'm at right now.

1) I'm basically training for an ultra marathon.
2) I'm coming off an injury.
3) I'm already behind in my training due to said injury.
4) I'm doing this alone.
5) My hair is at that awkward stage where it's too long to leave down for a run but too short to pull back in a ponytail.

Ok - so that last one is not so catastrophic but the rest are kind of a big deal.

Crap. What have I done?

When I started this journey to the Dopey Challenge, I had a plan. A good plan, if I do say so myself. The plan was run a half marathon every couple of months to keep up a good mileage base and to have some options to submit for proof of time for corral placement. I signed up for the Flying Pig Half Marathon in Cincinnati. I knew a hilly course like that wouldn't likely allow me to PR but it was mainly for fun and I'd have at least a time. In order to hopefully get a faster time, I signed up for the flat Chicago Rock N Roll Half Marathon for July. And then I injured my hip and that effectively put an end to all those lovely plans.

So if I haven't been running or writing about running for the last 3 months, what having I been filling my days with? Being electrocuted and stabbed mostly. Since the doctors can think of nothing more to do than take x-rays (2 sets), MRIs (2 different ones) and bone scans, I've taken matters into my own hands and been going to physical therapy. And that physical therapy has included little things called dry needling and electrical stimulation. Let's break these fun activities down a little further.

Dry needling. Even the name sounds horrific. This is when my therapist takes his thumb and forefinger and poke around in the general area where it hurts. I'll react from time to time when his pressure hurts. When I really jump due to the pain, that's where he presses harder and then sticks hollow needles into the area. First you feel the initial prick. "That's not so bad," you think "This won't be too awful." Then  once you relax for a micro-second, there's the heat sensation and then the pain that can be so severe that it takes your breath away. That process gets repeated. And repeated. And repeated. Once, my therapist had to leave the curtained area to get something. While he was gone, I happened to lift my head up and look in the direction of my hip and saw that I still had 3 needles sticking out of butt cheek. I almost passed out.

Electrical stimulation usually follows the dry needling. This is exactly what it sounds like. My therapist puts some device on my glutes and sends an electrical current through it. This is where it gets weird. The electricity causes my muscles to move without me moving them. I can't control it and I feel the muscles twitching. Once, my therapist was doing his normal stimulation of the muscles in the gluteal area and the muscle twitching went all the way down to my ankle. I saw my therapists' head snap to the side like he was at tennis match to see my twitching all the way down my leg. "We must have found a good spot," he says. I can barely walk when I get off the table.

Sounds like fun, huh? Despite the pain, I do think these treatments have helped get me back in my running shoes so every PT appointment when my therapist asks if I'm up for the needling, I say "short term pain is worth it for long term gain" and let him commence with this torture methods.

In the last few weeks, I've been able to finish a back-to-back 5K and half marathon as well as my first training run in 3 months. I'm cautiously optimistic that I can start working back up to a regular training routine. Dopey is in 5 months and I have a lot of work to do. So bring on the needles.

One day, as my therapist was doing the dry needling, this sentence came out of his mouth: "I'll put one more [needle] in and then I'll shock you."

The things we do to be able to run.

A Very Good Day

It's good news!

My ortho appointment yesterday went very well. Better than I expected. I was resigned to the fact that I would not be running any time soon and that after that morning, I might not even be allowed to bike for the foreseeable future. I was nervous, scared and already trying to figure out how I'd deal with the worst case scenario.

That wait in the doctor's lobby seemed endless.

My friend Sherry generously offered to go with me to the appointment, an offer I gladly took her up on. I figured that it would be good to have someone keep me company and she might think to ask questions I didn't and remember stuff I wouldn't.

The doctor did a quick exam of my range of movement and asked me if various positions hurt and if the pain moved to any places. After hearing all my answers and asking me to pinpoint where I normally felt the pain, he gave me about the best news I'd ever heard. My malady was not serious and easily treatable.

This is how I felt when I heard that.

The diagnosis was bursitis around the trochanter (a fancy name for part of the hip bone).  It could be treated fairly quickly with some anti-inflammatories, stretches and some rest. I got an injection of an anti-inflammatory directly into my hip and would be getting a prescription for a special compounded topical ointment. After 1 or 2 sessions with my PT, and a few weeks, I should be able to try running again.

There are parameters to my recovery though: I am only supposed to run 1/3 of the mileage I normally would when I first start back. I need to reduce the intensity of my runs (if only he knew how non-intense they were already....) and I was not allowed to run back to back days for quite some time. But given all that, I was given the go-ahead to return to running when it felt comfortable.

It was at this time that I handed the doctor a list I had written down prior to my appointment. On it were all the races I was already signed up for, with their dates and distances. I leaned over him as he read it, pointed to the first race and said, "I've already accepted that I can't run this one. And possibly not the 2nd one either. The big priority is being OK for Dopey in January, but I'd love to be able to still run the Chicago Rock N Roll in July." He looked up from the list and said with a good deal of confidence that he thought I had very realistic goals.

I could have hugged him right then.

I was also comforted by the fact that he said I should feel better fairly soon and if I didn't to call him back and we'd try something else. He didn't expect surgery to even be a thought as the labral tear that showed up on my MRI was not the cause of my pain and was something we didn't even have to think about any time soon.

It's amazing how much better I feel already - only one day after the injection. But I must admit that though I feel mostly relief, a part of me is worried that the doctor is wrong and I'm still going to be in pain. Much experience has taught me that it's never easy to diagnose anything with me, and it's even harder to find an effective treatment. So for the last day and a half, I've been walking around trying to concentrate on how my hip feels. Did stepping up onto that curb cause a twinge? Did I feel a little something when I walked down the hall? Is that soreness the expected result of the shot or is it something else? I find myself constantly taking inventory of everything that I feel coming from that part of my body.

That being said, I should be enjoying this time. Basking in the delight of not needing surgery. Returning to the excitement of planning for my upcoming races.

Yesterday was a good day. A very good day indeed.

Longest. Week. Ever.

It's been a week since I picked up the MRI report from the imaging center. The report that had the one ominous line that I could read amid the medical jargon. The one that read: "Suspected superior labral tear." The line that suddenly caused the year ahead of me to fade from what I had planned and prepared into one that looked empty.

The report didn't say for sure that it was definitely a tear. It didn't say how severe the suspected tear appeared to be. It didn't indicate whether a surgery would be in my future in place of the many races I had already registered for. It didn't say anything but one line that my active imagination took to a place where the worst case scenario played out in my mind all hours of the day and night.

No call came from my doctor's office to interpret the results. Not on Tuesday, the day I picked up the report myself from the imaging center. Not on Wednesday when I'd had a full day to go through a range of emotions from sad, to angry, to determined, to sad again to numb. Not on Thursday when I resorted to a pedicure and retail therapy to make me feel better and not on Friday when I finally called my doctor, learned my MRI results had been lost and I took out my frustration on the hills under the two wheels of my bike.

But none of that matters now. In less than 12 hours, I will be face to face with an orthopedic surgeon who will be able to read the report, and the scans I've been carrying around on CD for the last week. He will likely tell me how good or bad the news is and what my treatment and recovery timeline looks like. He will either assure me that I still have hope to achieve the goals I set for myself in the next months or will be the unfortunate soul that has to tell me those dreams will likely be shattered.

So now I am one sleep away from getting this news. And though I spent the last week waiting impatiently for this day to finally get here, now part of me would like a little more time. Now I simultaneously want the time to be here and want to have that week back because I'm not sure I'm ready to know any answers. And while it seems like a dramatic reaction to something that is not life-threatening, not dangerous and not even that big of a deal to so many people, it is a big deal to me right now.

There are things I've been considering doing for several years and finally I felt like I was capable to doing them so I decided to do it. When I say I'm going to do something, you better bet I will....no matter how hard, because I committed to it. But I didn't plan for that option to be taken from me, and no matter if it's out of my control or not, if I don't accomplish those things, a big part of me will feel like a failure. And that's one thing I can't stand.

In the morning, I will hop on my bike for a quick ride and then I will come home, shower and get ready for my appointment. I will have a friend with me both for moral support and to ask the questions I will probably forget to ask. I will try to deal with the results if they are bad and be thankful if they are good.

But no matter what I learn tomorrow, the longest week ever will finally be over.