Did I really run, survive and enjoy my first half-marathon on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2009, and shatter my goal of breaking 2:00:00 in my first road race? Afterward, I remember the euphoria on the Muni bus home, geekily wearing my race medal, wondering if passengers knew.
Seems preposterous, near impossible, looking back—especially after nursing nagging sore somethings for the past 12-plus weeks (this side of forever in running time), December to February, when I could not tolerate more than 10 minutes without my deep groin yelling "Pull over, walk!"
Having cruised the US Half's 13.1 miles at an 8:04 per mile pace through San Francisco's Marina Green, over the Golden Gate bridge and back—pain free—I gladly upped the training ante (intervals, track repeats, post-run strides), ready for a New Year's encore. I quickly signed up for another half-marathon, the Kaiser Permanente, on Super Bowl Sunday, hoping to better my 1:45:33 US Half time, my group placing, my form, the lot. After all, the KP, winding through Golden Gate Park and down the Great Highway next to the Pacific, is my backyard, on a more level course, too.
Come December, the wheels came off. Why? Maybe a surfeit of sprints (not since high school) at Kezar Stadium, maybe too many consecutive days of planks, pilates and core exercises ("How how hard-core are your abs?" suggested a fitness test I tried to answer). Something led to something: maybe a hip flexor strain, stress fracture, inflamed tendon or a tired psoas, a muscle I think they just invented.
I had to brake.
I could not accelerate from a slow jog, do a single lunge or an oblique crossover, much less stretches recommended to heal all manner of running injuries. I went to my doctor and a sports orthopedist. "Why all the running?" said the latter, the specialist, to my disbelief and dismay. He blithley suggested a halt. As did his sympathetic assistant, a runner. "I know what you're going through," she said.
Deflated, I cut back, way back, then almost completely. Running and core work. For my sanity and cardio fitness, I chugged up and down the elliptical at the gym, which caused no physical discomfort at all. But that isn't running. So I tested myself every three or four days on my go-to asphalt route down Lake Street, near my Richmond District home in San Francisco. No go, no go. "OK, but once I heal, I can compress my training to make the Kaiser," I thought. Right. Christmas and New Year's rushed by, then January. No relief. With only a fortnight to the race, I realized I'd have to blow it off, eat my registration (sorry, no refunds).
Finally, the storm subsided. I can almost pinpoint the day, too, Feb. 28 or March 1. After three months, my penance seemingly served, I managed a 20-minute jog with a minimum of discomfort. Was it just a tease? I went out again 24 hours later. OK. "Maybe we have ignition again," I thought.
For the past two weeks, I am, if not pain-free, capable of jogging, accelerating, even sprinting at a reasonable clip. Just like that. However, since my return, I can't breach the 3.1-mile/5K distance wall. That means I start anew, just as every Runner's World article suggests, building back my base to 13.1 miles, one mile at a time, as I did for four months leading up to the US Half last fall.
I hear the voice of reason, too: "Don't compare your times or distances or conditioning to where you were before injury. Instead, note how far you can run, how fast, how long since your comeback."
But boy does my "no-pain" setting tempt and dazzle. Another US Half, on April 11, beckons but I know I can't fast forward my conditioning to make up for lost mileage. More reasonable is the San Francisco Half Marathon in July, again, a race run in my backyard.
Euphoria Pt. 2 can stay tuned.
Between recurring injuries, the sinus infection, a lung infection, and general life stuff getting in the way, it's been tough to get back into the groove. Two days, two miles each. The steps are plodding and awkward. My endurance isn't what it was. July is a best case scenario for me, assuming that things really click in the coming weeks. I've also decided to try a kickboxing class when I return to CA, figuring that the combination of cardio and core certainly can't hurt the effort, and it definitely takes me outside my comfort zone.
Posted by: Alisa | March 18, 2010 at 05:20 PM
Ah, the comfort zone, that most welcoming locale. Not a friend of change!
Posted by: Greg O. | March 18, 2010 at 06:15 PM