Category Archives: injury

Big tree fall down hard

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First off there was no fifth run in a row yesterday. Spend a day (which became a rest day) drinking hard cherry cider and eating pizza, not a bad way to go at all! I also ended my no-cannabis rule too, so streaks ending all around which is fine as they were going to eventually one way or the other. One of the things that prevented me from running before my indulgence in cider and pizza was that I have been wanting to go to the track and run some straights and curves. I haven’t done this in a long while but I got it stuck into my head that I wanted to. Now I don’t think a fifth day in a row of running when one isn’t used to such streaks is a good idea at all. I wanted to be a bit more rested and ready to do the interval training. All in all, yes it is just an excuse for not running yesterday, but a valid one. I’ll take it and took it.

So that brings me to today. Is it now the sixth day in a row? No, excuse destroyed. Did I not fuel up yesterday? No, tons of pizza and cider carbs, excuse left by the curb. Was it too hot out? Uhhh, yeah actually it was as I procrastinated long enough for the heat to set in. Yes, an excuse! But not one I relied on. So out the door I went, heading north through Creston Park across Powell on my way to the recently refurbished Cleveland High School track. One of the things that make track running extra tough for me is that it is two miles away, so any track run automatically has four miles included. I guess I could drive or even bike but driving is something I don’t really do and seems lame for a run and biking is well biking for four miles which has its positives from a cross-training approach (though the distance isn’t really far enough to feel much benefit). But if I had taken either method of transport I’d be feeling much better right now, not just from the soreness of an interval run, but because I was that big tree and I fell hard.

About a block away from the track I was cruising along listening to talk radio speak on the great duh-bate. I must have been distracted as I hit a sidewalk crack (which I am usually on the lookout for due to the many we have in Portland in trade for our shade) and I went down hard. Usually I am able to roll through such stumbles, but this time I went down fast and hard and my inclination to tuck and roll caused me to land with a crack right on my elbow..The only thing to do is roll right back up and continue to run and with blood trailing down my arm I did just that. Initially my hip was pretty sore, I guess I balanced out the elbow abuse with some hip abuse. But it wasn’t too bad (yet!) and I kept on running to the track where I got in six laps of straights and curves (sprint the straight portions and recover on the curves).

I didn’t go super all out on the straights and instead pushed myself solidly but not to an extreme. At one point my watch registered 197 HR, but I think that was a anomaly (189 was my previous high chasing Fig and a pit bull while running) and I feel like I may have approached 180 or so. I was a little discouraged that I wasn’t able to get down to 144 (my goal for the resting curves) and instead was starting my sprint portions around 150-52. I will look for that to improve as my overall fitness increases. I initially set out to only do a mile at the track, but I ended up adding two more laps to that before I headed back. I set no speed records on the two miles back, but the last .6 lap came in under 10 min mile pace, so that was pretty good.

As I sit writing having rehydrated and showered the soreness is really setting in. My right hip is killing me. My cool down hip stretches were really rough but I finished them all. I think it is mostly just bruising on the hip and my elbow will take some good scabbing to return to normal, but it should be fine. Hopefully the pain I am feeling in my hip will recede (I know it will eventually…) after taking a couple of Ibuprofen and maybe dome targeted cannabis (indica strain for pain) later tonight. Oddly I feel really fuzzy headed, almost as if I hit my head, but I know I didn’t. I think it is just teh exhaustion of the hard run coupled with the heat and some tension in my neck after the fall.

I just read an article on a supplement called Cogniq that Steven Hawkings is taking to increase cognition. I am really curious. I would normally be a huge skeptic, but Hawkings makes me less so. The places it is for sale on the Internet make it look as if it is one of those gluten-free jellyfish pills but I am curious. Skeptical but curious.

Four weeks of dreaming of running

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Dang those hamstrings! This week I finally got back on the roads after a good month of recuperation. I probably wouldn’t have taken that long but I have been busy with the work thing. At least that was my excuse, and it was an excuse that seems to have paid off. I have run the last three days in a row and I haven’t had any issues with the hamstring at all. The hips, now thats another story. They still seem to be giving me grief.

The hip grief started up in ful force right off the bat. I have been putting in the time to stretch them out while I was not running. I am sure it has been worth the effort despite still having soreness in them. I do think that I have gotten a little over zealous in my approach to trying to create some greater flexibility in that area, especially during this week of returning to running. If I can just remember to go slowly in my hip stretches then I should be fine. But I find myself wanting to get it over with as soon as I can and that increases the speed in which I throw my leg back behind myself (literally throwing the weight of my leg back behind me rather than gently lifting it into position, bad Marco!) I do think that overall I am doing myself good through this process… I hope.

The runs this week have been somewhat slow and short. I had to force myself to do shorter runs which have slowly been increasing (4-5.1-5.2) I don’t feel like I am over-doing it at all yet. We’ll see how this continues, but so far so good. In the three runs this week I have noticed that the point in which I begin to get tired has gotten further along each time. Which must be a good thing, not sure if I would say that it reflects an increase in physical performance but it still looks good to guy who is trying to get back into it. Overall I feel a lot better too after just three days. I think I have really been jonsing for those endorphins. Feels good to have the coursing through my system again!

One last thing, I have been running on regular running shoes (as opposed to the zero drop shoe) in the hope of leveling out my hips. I am not real sure it is helping any, but I am going to keep it up for awhile before I give up. The zero-drop shoes are much more comfortable, I htink it is the wider toe box that I mostly miss as my feet feel a bit squished and achey in the regular shoes.

Hematomato

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Actually my hematoma looks less like a tomato and more like nothing, but I couldn’t resist the post title. This is sort of a longish story that started about three weeks ago. I initially thought I had been bitten by a spider. I have a bump on my upper thigh that ached like a cramp. I started to question the spider bite theory when I didn’t see a puncture point or bite mark of any kind. It was about the size of a silver dollar and it wasn’t discolored at all. Weird. My next thought was maybe I had bruised myself carrying my sax stand in my bag on the bus as it is quite pokey and the one leg was sticking out in the same location as my bump. I stopped running for a week and it seemed to go away.

So once again (as has been my pattern of late) I started running again. I did a couple of base runs in a row that felt pretty good. Then I decided to work my butt off in the yard for a couple of days. Not only did the yard look great, but my bump returned with a vengeance. This time it appeared to be larger and more painful so once again I stopped running (and yard work for that matter). I decided that my lump was some sort of thigh strain. Seeing as how I have been dealing with some odd cramping and strains in various areas of my legs (due I think to overcompensating for one leg’s issue the other would pay the price) I figured this was related. I decided that I would give running a couple of weeks off before I tried again.

After going to my acupuncturist I got a bit more concerned. The lump was about the same size as the second go around (a bit larger than a silver dollar), but I had considerable redness and pain surrounding it. I decided to call my GP and set up an appt. He was concerned enough by it to call my neurologist to see if she had seen any sort of reaction to the rebif injections that was similar. He ordered antibiotics for the infection and an ultrasound to get a better look at it. Well the neurologist said no, she had never seen anything like this as far as site reactions go and the ultrasound revealed that the lump was a hematoma. The doc theorized that the running had caused it to fill up again with blood after the initial reduction. The weird thing to me was that this collection of blood in my body was not red or bruised at all like many hematomas are. I am still not sure why. You can get them inside your muscles and those don’t appear bruised, but mine seemed to be on top of the muscle. Weird.

Later this morning I got back to my GP. The antibiotics seem to have kicked the infection to the curb, but the bump is still there and still uncolored. It is no longer painful and it seems to have reduced in size. I guess the question is now how long will this keep me from running? Or doing anything strenuous? Questions for the doc I guess who I assume will tell me to stop running. I’d persoanlly like to experiment with it and see if there is any further swelling after I run. We’ll see.

Break week?

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The last week has been sort of a break week. Nothing intentional (until yesterday) just having a hard time fitting running into my schedule. Making sure I have time for running has always been a challenge. Some weeks it goes great and I find myself running every day. Others are completely the opposite. Last week was one of those. The frustrating thing to me is that these unintentional breaks always seem to happen on the heals of being successful with my running. I’ll feel like I am really getting it together and BAM along comes a week where I can’t get it together. So that was what last week was.

Now this week is a different story, though same results. Saturday I managed to literally face-plant on our deck. Oddly my wife just did as well the day before in pretty much the same spot. She hit her head on a support beam holding up the porch, I landed on my nose (I actually think I had the softer landing!) I was positive I broke my nose, but it didn’t even bleed so I must be ok. It is still sore though. I also managed to roll my ankle doing this and hit both knees, the right one pretty hard.

I woke up Sunday pretty sore, but I really wanted to run and do something about my lack of running last week. So thought I would try out the knees and ankle (I can deal with the nose) and see what happened. It all felt pretty good, so I foolishly decided my short run would become longer. I felt fine until I was near the end of my run in the canyon. I think it was the uneven terrain and my ankle started to bother me a bit. I made it home fine, but as the day progressed I became increasingly sore. The next morning there was no question, I was going to take a break to recover and let me injuries heal.

So this morning after the break I am feeling much better. My ankle is a little sore still, but the knee feels fine. I am still not going to run today as I am back on the difficult schedule. I am sure the extra day’s break will do me a world of good.

Return to running

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My break from running was short, but for some reason my body was thinking it was longer. I have run 4 out of the last 6 days with two set of back to back days. I am feeling really slow and experiencing a few minor injury problems. It is as if I brought my conditioning to a pretty high level and after the break my body is rebelling.

I have been having periodic issues with my hip lately. I have had these in the past, but it seems as if they have decided to flair up this week. I have been using the foam roller on my hips and that seems to help quite a bit, so perhaps that is the answer I am looking for.

On Sunday my running partner and I did an enjoyable nine miles in Forest Park, toward the end we decided to pick up the pace as we left the park and headed down the hill. Running downhill is supposed to build strength in the legs and running fast downhill is even better. The hard part of doing the fast downhill is letting go and not holding back. If you can relax your legs and gate to let your body just carry itself forward the downhill run can be a good thing. But if you are holding back you tighten up and can more easily cause injury to your legs and back. I think I was able to relax in our run down Thurman St. and we finished feeling good. My problem came later.

After our run and sushi my running partner wanted to go to the gym for a shower so I decided to bus home. The light rail took me from NW to downtown where I could pick up a bus to my neighborhood. On the train ride I saw that I had plenty of time to catch my bus, or so I thought. When I got off the train I had about a five block walk to catch the bus and when I turned into the bus mall there went my bus. The buses make a lot of stops downtown and tend to go slowly, so I thought I could catch it if I sprinted. Three blocks later I just made my bus! Phew! But as I sat down I realized my left leg was in pain. I could barely lift it. My sprint had been all I could take and I appeared to strain my left thigh. I seriously could not lift my leg, I could walk ok as long as I shuffled.

That evening I did a lot of gentle stretching and foam rolling concentrating on my left leg and it seemed to do the trick. Well that and taking a couple more days off combined with more stretching and rolling. My first run after the strain went pretty well. It was basically a junk run, over 70% of max so no recovery benefit and not nearly fast enough to be a quality run. But I put in some miles, eight of them, and most importantly was relatively pain free. I felt a little bit of occasional pain in my hip, but I was able to align myself and run through it. The only odd issue was feeling somewhat exhausted, like I still hadn’t recovered from my running break.

The next day (today) I started out resigning myself to another junk run. My thinking was that I might need to build up some regular running as a way of getting back into running form. Before I knew it I was cruising along at a pretty good clip with my HR in 160s. I quickly decided that my fear of doing quality workouts was not based in reality and today’s junk run became a slow tempo run, but still a tempo run and still a quality run. I felt pretty good as I maintained my high HR for five and a half miles or so before I slowed to a cool down for the final mile. The run felt great and I was really glad to beat the heat that showed up in the afternoon.

On another note we are considering doing the Pints to Pasta run that goes from the Widmer Brewery to the Spaghetti Station. Free food and beer and a new shirt are all part of the deal. Its a 10k and would be a good way to get another race it this year. My partner wants to do the Race for the Cure 5k the week following, so this would be a good warm up for that for her. More on this soon.

Six runs in a row in the NW

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I say six, but it is really seven in a row as one of the days I ran twice. Since getting back to the NW I have really been enjoying the lower altitude. Breathing has been easier in general and my times seem to have benefited from the 10 days at a mile high altitude.

I have been doing a good job of alternating the quality runs with recovery runs. I think this has had a huge impact on how successful these six runs have been. I don’t feel exhausted at all despite doing a quality run this morning. The other positive aspect has been the cool weather, but I don’t think that has too much to do with things as I ran a couple of days in the heat.

I have been pretty happy with myself and pushing the pace at several times during these runs. The tempo run that I did as part of my two-a-day workout felt really good at the speed I did the first two miles (sub 8 min miles). I also got in a 440 workout that went pretty well. I didn’t really push the speed for that run, but I felt like it went well. I was tired, but not deathly so. Today’s run to Mt. Tabor also had some good fast pace elements. I pushed the first two miles a bit and did solid 8:45 min miles. The two miles of climbing were quite a bit slower, but I was able to pick up the pace for the final portions.

One of the weird things about this string of good runs is that I am doing it with a slight strain to my left upper hamstring. It could also be a gluteus strain, but hamstring specific stretches that I have been doing really seem to pull at the affected area. The strain seems to really only be an issue at the start of my runs, say the first two miles. Then the pain seems to fade away. I could feel myself holding back on a smooth flow, sort of a choppy pace. I think at one point I even was ding some injury to my other side. I have been working on the area with stretching and Arnica gel. It seems to have been working as today I had no pain at all.

Ankle woes

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I rolled my ankle the other day on my run. It happened at probably the worst place possible, halfway through the run, which means even if I walk back I still need to put pressure on it. Not much of an improvement than just continuing if the sprain isn’t that bad which mine wasn’t. It has gotten quite a bit better over the last couple of days. It is still a little bit sore and the best thing for it would be to rest it further. However, if it feels better tomorrow, I plan to go for a short run anyway.

One of the toughest things about coming back from a short layoff from running is getting your focus back. This lack of focus on form increases the likelihood of injury. I think we also have a tendency to push it on these comeback runs, again not a great thing when it comes to running injury free.

Ankle woes

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I rolled my ankle the other day on my run. It happened at probably the worst place possible, halfway through the run, which means even if I walk back I still need to put pressure on it. Not much of an improvement than just continuing if the sprain isn’t that bad which mine wasn’t. It has gotten quite a bit better over the last couple of days. It is still a little bit sore and the best thing for it would be to rest it further. However, if it feels better tomorrow, I plan to go for a short run anyway.

One of the toughest things about coming back from a short layoff from running is getting your focus back. This lack of focus on form increases the likelihood of injury. I think we also have a tendency to push it on these comeback runs, again not a great thing when it comes to running injury free.

Abductor injury

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I haven’t been running since Wednesday as I have a new (for me) running injury, at least I think it is a running injury. I appear to have pulled my abductor muscle on my right side. The abductor is the large muscle on the inside of your thigh. I say “appear” as this is the same area I had just done my injection in which hurt to do, so maybe I got it in the muscle? I have been resting it since last week and not running. I have also iced it a little. It feels a lot better, but if it is injection related, then maybe that is healing. Either way I think I will try running tomorrow. I should do a short run but I bet I will try to push it. We’ll see.

I had a real site reaction on Friday where the injection site swelled up and hurt for about an hour. It wasn’t that big of a deal. It seems a bit odd to me that so much attention is given to site reactions. I guess it is because it is weird and unexpected and might scare someone. The reality of it (at least for me) is that it wasn’t a big deal.

Abductor injury

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I haven’t been running since Wednesday as I have a new (for me) running injury, at least I think it is a running injury. I appear to have pulled my abductor muscle on my right side. The abductor is the large muscle on the inside of your thigh. I say “appear” as this is the same area I had just done my injection in which hurt to do, so maybe I got it in the muscle? I have been resting it since last week and not running. I have also iced it a little. It feels a lot better, but if it is injection related, then maybe that is healing. Either way I think I will try running tomorrow. I should do a short run but I bet I will try to push it. We’ll see.

I had a real site reaction on Friday where the injection site swelled up and hurt for about an hour. It wasn’t that big of a deal. It seems a bit odd to me that so much attention is given to site reactions. I guess it is because it is weird and unexpected and might scare someone. The reality of it (at least for me) is that it wasn’t a big deal.