Difficult Choice

Andy and I decided not to run the Santa Cruz Half Marathon next weekend. Though we've been putting in quite a few miles, we've run only one 10 mile run a couple of weeks ago, and nothing of any distance since. Lack of preparation alone would probably not have stopped us, but in addition, the shin splint in my left leg has been threatening for the past week, and Andy's ankles have been acting up as well. Yesterday, on a 6 mile run through the park to the beach, the pain in my shin grew from a dull ache to a sharper nagging. The pain eventually went away, but it eased the decision not to run the half next week. While we had both looked forward to the race, we had to admit that at this point, we would be lucky to finish, and that's not the kind of running I like to do. I'm going to continue to run easy this week, then work toward building a more consistent base of medium long runs (10-12 mile distances). There are still something like 13 weeks until the marathon -- plenty of time.

Why?

1. The blog has been locked because it "has characteristics of a spam blog." Huh? All those ads for fake meds I've been posting, I guess. If this is posted, however, it means Blogger deemed it "not spam after all."

2. A toenail on my right foot is purple/black and will most certainly fall off in a few months because I'm too chicken to poke a hot drill through the nail. Has anyone really done that? My shoes have always felt pretty roomy, but now I wonder if they're still too small.

3. The Nike+ worked perfectly this morning. I had the most accurate mileage reading ever and still without calibrating it (I have a date with the track tomorrow but I'm a bit intimidated.) Andy thinks the gizmo must like him - as soon as he was running with me again, it worked. Either that, or it thought it was helping me through the race by giving really encouraging splits. Side note: One of my favorite words is resistentialism, the idea that inanimate objects rebel when we need them most.

4. My "easy runs" are so often (like this morning) the least easy of my runs. Maybe because I've been running them mornings for the last month (I've never been much of a morning person)?

Daniels VS Pfitzinger

I ordered both books online, but I'm not really planning on pitting them against each other. In fact, I don't plan on adopting the "Pfitz" plan any time soon (after the SF marathon?), but I am ready to get a bit more scientific about training. I'm still building base miles, trying to encourage my body to catch up with my ambitions, trying to keep it slow and patient, getting my mind to adjust to sustained pressure. Why is it that I can run for an hour and a half with relative ease, but a two minute dash to catch a train leaves me with heart pumping, struggling to catch my breath? Am I not pushing hard enough on my regular runs? Andy would say so. He thinks I should be forcing the pace up, chasing speed goals.

I want to be running farther and faster too, but most of my runs still leave me with tight calves, ominous shin aches, sore hamstrings. Part of that is expected, but I don't have any threshold for comparison. How hard is too hard to push, and what pains are run-of-the-mill, what pains are cause for carefulness? Case in point: after my long run Monday, the back of my left leg grimaced painfully along the whole length, painful even to stretch. It has only started to subside today, and the shin still aches. I want to get in a good hard run before Sunday's race, but is that wise? would a gentle 5 miles be better? if I do include a 6 mile tempo run, when should do it? should I give myself ample time to recover from Sunday rather than risk a real injury (run on Friday), or give myself ample recovery time before next Sunday (run on Thursday)?

Books aren't any substitute for experience, but I'm hoping they will give me context, new ways to measure and make meaning from the jumble of questions and impressions I've built up so far. After July 29th, maybe I'll be able to look back over a year of running and know things, crown myself "intermediate," set new goals. Until then, there are running books, and a break from all that poetry :)

Follow-up to the New York Times story "When It's OK to Run Hurt"

Here's a quick follow-up on the New York Times article I wrote about yesterday. I wrote to the story's author asking if the advice applied to shin splints. My question and her reply are included below.

I said:
Thank you for today's story "When It's OK to Run Hurt." The article, however, didn't answer one question that I'm sure many runners are dying to know -- does this advice apply to shin splints as well?

Gina's reply:
I think it applies to everything that is due to inflammation, which means if you have a stress fracture or real fracture or a ripped tendon or muscle, you can't run. So I guess it depends on whether your shin splints are from tendinitis, which is most likely, or a stress
fracture. Good luck -- I am so so sympathetic!

Interestingly, she attributed most shin splints to tendinitis, something I had never heard before. But when I Googled the terms "shin splint" and "tendinitis," I came up with this fantastic explination of the two different kinds of shin splints from Merck.com. It turns out that Posteromedial shin splints (the kind that effect the inside of the shin) are indeed a kind of tendinitis and would probably respond well to the icing/running therapy outlined in the NYT story.

Running with an injury

The top emailed story on the New York Times this morning: According to some sports doctors, its OK to run as normal, even with an injury.

Maybe the reason the story (check it out here) is so popular is that it confirms what many of us have suspected for a long time. Continuing an activity after an injury doesn't seem to do any damage.

As new to athletics as I am, I've already started ignoring online medical advice. I've been running with a shin splint and a strained calf for weeks now and have steadily gotten better rather than worse.

The trick is to decrease distance and speed, these doctors say, and to ice for 20 minutes before and after exercise. Some recommend an anti-inflammatory like aspirin as well. And of course, don't run if doing so causes extreme pain. But if the pain after exercise is no greater than it would be otherwise, go ahead and run.

Again, this is what I've been doing for three weeks, with good results. The article, however, doesn't address the problem of shin splints, and I'm still not confident about running on them, so I wrote to Gina Kolata of the New York Times to find out. I'll post her reply if I get one.

In the mean time, I'll be buying a few more bags of frozen peas (yes, they're the best as ice packs!) and an extra bottle of aspirin and hitting the streets.