Peaks and Valleys or: Speaking of "Staying Honest"

***Get comfortable, this is a long one.***



Phrases in my google search bar over the past week:

"athletic pubalgia"

"iliopsoas tendonitis"

"overtraining syndrome"


On Monday my hips were so sore that it slowed me down at work. I now attribute this to wearing heavier shoes for the later-week jogs I did, taxing those hip flexors a little more than they're used to. This was just regular old muscular soreness, but in a time when every little ache has me worried about injury, I was a little anxious.

I decided to rest until I felt better. I felt OK on Tuesday, but gave it another day. Wednesday I felt good and I got up with the sun, out for 45 minutes jogging. Felt decent, but kind of frustrated. To be honest, the whole heart rate monitor idea (keeping my HR below 150) is causing me more strife than it's worth. It results in very slow and somewhat uncomfortable jogging.

It was more of the same on Thursday, 45 minutes or so, and some periodic wind sprints were relieving, but they made me aware of a tightness in the right side of my groin that's been lingering for the past few months. I resolved as I was stepping through my front door to put the sneakers in the closet for a while. Which is an idea I've toyed with since.

So, as is evident in my extreme paranoia of injuring myself, my fear of anything besides light jogging (hence the HR restriction which I'm deciding is more or less a subconscious manifestation of this fear), and my continuing difficulty with these periodic attempts to rekindle my daily habit, I'm obviously feeling pretty off kilter right now. I can't tell if I'm depressed and frustrated because I'm having trouble with this, or if it's the other way around.

Of course, this is related to things bigger than running in my life right now as well. And I realize that I can't run (or jog) from my problems. At least not in an unprescribed manner.

By the way, I should mention that I feel pretty darn good right now. Just so you're not worried I'm typing this from some dark room hugging a bottle of hooch or something. I merely find it important to convey what's going on in my head. And I'm accepting that the issue with my hips is related to an imbalance of some sort. The whole stress fracture issue (left foot) at the beginning of the summer had kind of a cascade effect where I was compensating a lot with my strong leg (the right one), especially when biking. On numerous occasions I caught myself pedaling solely with my right leg out of fear (and some discomfort honestly) that I'd reaggravate the stress fracture. This clearly led to an overuse injury of some sort which is getting better, but still lingers. So I've given myself a new challenge, and that's to stay still until I can't stand it anymore. Then I'll start some core strengthening exercises for a little while before trying running and cycling. And I'm gonna run, not jog. Well, maybe some jogging. The difference between this and similar "resolutions" earlier this year is that I have confidence that things will heal. It's just a matter of time.

On a different note, I've been thinking a lot about long term plans. I've mentioned before that I wanted to build up to a marathon next June. Grandma's Marathon specifically. If you know me than you know this is the first and only marathon I've run, and it holds sentimental value to me in that regard. It'd be wild to cross that tape again after so long away from it. Plus my grandfolks live in Superior, and it'd be nice to see them.

I've never mentioned this before (on this blog), but something I've always wanted to do is an extended bike tour. Some of you may have heard me mention a trip I'd envisioned after graduation, a self-supported circumnavigation of the great lakes. Well, my brother Nate has recently discovered a passion for cycling, and he's been asking me to ride coast-to-coast with him. I muddled over this for a while and decided that if there's a time for me to do this, it's next summer, with family. Grandma's is in June, and we'd have to leave around that time at the latest, so I'm now having second thoughts on the marathon. It's something I can come back to, and I don't know if I'd ever have another chance to take a two month tour. Priorities. Nate's already started "training" for it so I better get on board soon.

So as it stands now, I'll be retiring this blog for awhile. As I don't feel like I've been training (running or otherwise) for a good time now, I don't see any reason why I shouldn't take a little break from things. The fact that it seems mentally insurmountable to rest is probably a good indication that that's exactly what I need to do. When I get back to things, which might be a New Year's thing, I'll hopefully be doing a balance of running and cycling, so even then the format of this blog will change.

Thanks for listening, and good luck to all y'all in whatever you're doing.

Happy Feet

Made it home. It's hot here. A very easy ride today, ended up around 73 miles or so. The beach seems a lot closer now...

Mile 49

Stopped at a grille in Atco, NJ for lunch. Expecting to be home by 4 pm.

Sunrise in Ocean City

We'll be on the road shortly. A stop at a coffee shop is likely in order.

Sandy Mattress

43:00 run along the sea at sunrise. Last few minutes barefoot. Cooled off in the ocean. Spectacular. When I got back Eric was still asleep.

88 Miles

There it is, big and blue. I don't know what the hell we're doing in Atlantic City, on bikes. Did I mention we're in AC? On bikes?

75 Miles

We made it to the ocean, but it's in the form of a bay. The Great Bay specifically, near Leed's Point. Pretty peaceful. We'll relax here for a few, then head south a bit to find some beach.

Ocean Air

Resting the legs on a downhill. Almost there.

Time for lunch! About 60 miles out. Skinny tires cause falling on sand roads, so we found our way back to pavement. Stopped in Hammonton.

Wharton State Forest

Roads have turned to sand. 40 miles in.

To the Sea

This is the path to New Jersey. This morning Eric and I are riding until we hit salt water. Then we're gonna eat shrimp. Lots of shrimp. Stay tuned for updates.

Damp

Pulled my clothes from the dryer: damp. Stepped into the murky morning: damp.

AM: Although it was muggy, the cool air and gray skies served me well for a jog. Began, as last weekend, with Maia on a route that meandered through the one-way streets of Fishtown. What's with the traffic this morning? A red pickup narrowly avoided me as I traversed an intersection near Memphis and Susquehanna.

Today Maia and I parted ways about 10 min in as my "jog" crept slowly towards "run." By all means, I've still got a ways to go. But I'm in no rush, literally. Things felt great save for some digestive issues that have been ongoing for the past week and some soreness in the lower abdominal area. No backtalk from the foot, although there's a barely noticeable achy feeling now. I'll be keeping a close eye on this over the next few weeks. Running time was 35:00.

PM: Finally connected with my friend Justin for a ride. Didn't know what to expect other than that I'd be biking for around 2 hours. I let him lead for most of the ride which took us out of the city through Bala Cynwyd and on some back roads of Montgomery County. Overall, the pace ranged from moderate to intense, but I held on pretty well, especially on the hills. A piece of glass pierced my tire with about 25 minutes left to the ride and I was glad to have brought a patch and pump. Total time was somewhere around 3 hours including the fix-a-flat.

Some Kind of Morning

The posting has been sporadic of late. This is probably a manifestation of the schedule-free (more or less) living I've been doing lately, but I'm surprised at how tough it's been to find time for this. It's not that I've been extremely busy, but rather that lately I'd rather be out enjoying the weather instead of typing away at a computer.

I had intentions of reflecting on the cycling journey I took last weekend, but the week escaped me. I'll likely throw in thoughts here and there relating to the trip over the next few weeks, because if it's like other similar trips I've taken, the impressions it has planted in my memory will dwell quite a while.

The few days following my return on Monday eve were slow. Surprisingly, I never was sore. But man was I tired. A deep down, body tired. To the point that it took considerable mental effort to get up from a chair after having sat down.

I felt much better by Wednesday night and I decided to take a short run on Thursday morning. Per doctor's recommendations and also because of a fear of reaggravating the stress fracture in my left foot (which by the way is just about recovered, I've decided) I'm taking any runs for the next few weeks VERY slow and easy. So I did a 3 x (5:00 run, 5:00 walk) around my neighborhood. This was very uneventful. That's what I was expecting, and I think that's a good thing. Man did those old motions feel good.

Friday evening I met some friends and co-workers to ride out to Oaks, PA. Eric and I were riding Mike, the bike tech at our store, halfway to Bear Creek. He was christening a very shiny new Long Haul Trucker and trailer, and we wanted to make sure he didn't have any mishaps. Eric and I rode our fixies, and it ended up being about 60 miles of easy riding round trip. About an hour into the ride the sun went down and I experienced my first official long night ride. It was really a blast, very surreal riding along the Schuylkill River trail in more or less complete darkness (Eric's headlamp helped this issue). My chaffed rear end reminded me why I love my touring rig (also an LHT) so much.

For the past month or so I've been trying to get together with my friend Justin for a long weekend ride. He's on a cycling team and goes out on Saturday's and Sunday's for rides ranging from 2 to 4 hours. This morning it seemed like we were finally going to connect. I was up at ten-to-six (after returning from my night ride at around 11:30) to clean up my LHT and strip the rack and barbag mount. At the last minute something came up and I couldn't seem to get out the door in time. I showed up at our rendezvous a few minutes late, Justin had already left, and I didn't have a phone, so I sprinted down to the PMA to try and find him. The scene down there was typical for a Saturday AM: some sort of charity walk/run, a thousand runners, and just as many bikers, and in the mix I couldn't spot him. At that point I'd grown pretty frustrated and was steaming at the the ears a bit, so I turned what would've been an easy group ride into a hill workout. For some reason I didn't want to stray too far from home, so I strung together some running routes over in Fairmount Park that included the infamous Bloody Nipple hill. Did this roughly 7-mile loop 5 times, covering each in about 25 minutes or so, and by the fifth I'd definitely blown a lot of steam. Afterward as I was coming up MLK Jr. Drive I smacked right into a hand cyclist, flipped over my bars and face-planted. Good thing I was wearing a helmet. I only sustained minor injuries as far as I can tell, but I'm picking out bruises by the hour.

I decided that I kind of like the format of the mobile-phone posting, so the next few posts will probably be a combination of those and weekly summaries. I'm looking forward to another run tomorrow, slightly longer than Thursday's. Good luck to all of you running the PDR tomorrow. Weather should be perfect.

Mike and His Two Bikes

Mike's riding up to Bear Creek tonight for a mountain bike race. He's not riding his mountain bike. Eric and I are riding him up to Oaks, then he's on his own.

Mile 188 13:18

I'm home. Salty, parched, covered in bugs and grime. Grinning ear to ear all the way up Poplar St.

Mile 166 11:52

I'm tired, early morning catching up with me. On the SR trail now, homestretch. Sun's beating on my back, wind in my face. Cruisin' on home.

Mile 143 10:15

I made it to Green Lane 1:20 ahead of schedule. With plenty of daylight left I'm gonna continue home. I feel good, save a raw rear end and some nerve stuff in my hands and feet.

Yeehaw

Mile 135 9:45

At Longacres Old Fashioned Dairy Bar again. Near Barto, PA. Couldn't pass it up. All downhill from here.

Mile 115 8:19

Breaking for lunch beneath an oak tree. The tough stuff is behind me, including Little Gap, Lehigh Gap, and the 6 mile stretch of Rt. 100. The headwind becomes more oppressive the further south I go. Must be steady 20 mph at least. Will hang here in Clausville for a bit.