BARCStoberfest Ready, Set, Sniff! 5K 2016 Race Report

I've got to get caught up after a busy week and weekend. Before I get to the race report, a quick update on the mysterious knee/leg injury.

I had my appointment with the sports medicine specialist on Tuesday and she diagnosed me with a mild case of IT band syndrome. Which ultimately makes sense and put me at ease that it was minor and very treatable. In fact, by the time I went on Tuesday, my leg was feeling much better and I'd been able to run very easy 3 milers on both Saturday and Sunday of last weekend.

She gave me a referral to have some physical therapy. The idea being that since I want to ramp up my mileage to eventually complete a marathon and possibly beyond, having someone with some expertise look at my biomechanics and prescribe specific stretches and exercises to help improve them will be a good long term solution.

So, I have to call to schedule an appointment, but she said it should only be 1 or 2 sessions; long enough to analyze my gait and get some exercises that I can do at home.

By the time I got to the weekend, my leg was feeling about 90%, with very little discomfort after runs, so I went for what was supposed to be a 7.5 mile slow run on Sunday. But I got a little turned around on my route, so I think I went closer to 8.1 miles than 7.5. I say I think because I've been using my old Garmin 305 to help monitor my pace and miles a bit more closely, but it usually takes a few minutes at the beginning of each run to find the satellites. So, when all is said and done, I'm guessing my missed turns and the GPS delay link up cost me about a half a mile.

But everything felt OK, with only some mild discomfort about 4 miles into the run. But that went away and never returned once I stretched my calf muscles out. So, I'm quite happy with that result, even if I was slow. Overall, the run felt good and while tired, I wasn't winded or exhausted as I had feared, seeing as how it's been almost a month since I last did a proper long run around 10 miles. All good news as I stick to my gradual return to building my mileage.

So, this Saturday was my latest race, a 5k to raise money for the Baltimore Animal Rescue Center (BARCS) called Ready, Set, Sniff! I had not done this race in years past, but it's held as part of a larger day-long festival in Patterson Park in Baltimore, which is about a mile or so from our house. The festival brings in rescue groups from around the area, as well as vendors, food trucks, etc., to raise money and awareness for animal rescue.

What's really cool about this race is that this is one of the rare events I've seen that encourages runners to run with their dogs. You can register as just a human, or as a human/dog team, which is really cool. The teams start about 5 minutes after the humans (in theory). There's also a 1 mile walk where you can walk with your dog if, like us, you have a smaller breed dog, or if you've got an older pet who doesn't like to or can't run 3.1 miles.

The run is a bit later than traditional races and starts at 9:30am. But, in late October, this works fine, and actually was perfect this year. The weather had been, up until Friday, more like late June then late October: highs in the mid-80's and humid. But overnight a front swept through and it cooled off and got really windy. On Saturday morning, it was ~55 degrees with a 20mph wind and overcast: prime October weather. 

I drove over to the park and parked about a half mile away due to city parking and to have a bit of a warm up run on the way over to the starting line. I did about a mile of very slow warm up and then made my way to the starting line. It was full of dogs, who were all very excited to be there and be hanging out with their humans. Some were wearing costumes so there were a few sharks and dinosaurs and ballerinas around, too.

The start was a bit confusing. As I said, in theory, the human/dog teams were supposed to start at the back about 5 minutes after the humans left. But in reality, there were lots of human/dog teams up front even after the race director announced that they needed to move to the back. That became more of an issue when the horn went off and dogs took off zigging and zagging into other runners. More than one pup caught sight of me as I ran beside them and decided to come over and say hello mid-stride!

But you just have to go with it and pet them and run on. I ran beside one black lab for a while and every few meters he'd look over at me with this look like, "Can you believe we're doing this? This is so fun!" and I'd have to say, "I know! This IS fun! Keep running!"

The course stayed within Patterson Park and did several loops. I tried to plot the course based on my memory on my Running Ahead entry, but I'm sure I'm off somewhere. It was a nice course and had two sections of long climbs. Thankfully, the first and longest climb was followed by a nice descent so I could catch my breath.

My goal was to get a personal best. My unofficial PB for the 5k was around 28:00...honestly I don't remember what the specific time was, but it was back in 07 or 08, I think. Anyway, my goal was to get under 28:00 and call it a new official PB. Despite the zig zagging dogs and rolling hills, I came in at 27:13 on my watch (this race was very low key and didn't use chips), which was not only a PB, but got me in the top quartile of finishers and JUST outside the top quintile.

I was really happy with that result for sure, especially considering that I had taken that full week off, and really had only gradually started back running again. So I'll take it as a nice improvement. Overall, I liked this race and would do it again next year. Running with dogs is fun, even if you've got to watch out for pups in your lane and errant leashes.

My next race is the Saturday before Thanksgiving and is a 10k down near Annapolis. Although if I find another one to do between now and then, I may sign up. My primary goal at the 10k is to break 60 minutes. My "reach" goal is to get under 55 minutes, which is a 9:00/mile pace. Slow but steady improvement is the theme!

Taking the Long View, of Sorts

At some point, all healing injuries reach the point where physically, it's tough to discern if the body is actually completely healed or if the pain has subsided, while the actual healing needs more time to continue. Many times, the end of pain of discomfort truly marks just the halfway point of the healing. Like your body is saying, "OK, the fire is out, but it's still smoldering." 

I have no idea if running injuries are significantly different than other sports injuries in this respect, but I doubt it. At some point your body is OK enough to function without pain, but maybe not OK enough to function at running or jumping or absorbing tackles, etc. 

That point int he healing process is probably the riskiest, as it's very easy to give into the temptation of "well, it's been 3 days and it doesn't hurt. I'm sure 3 miles today will be OK. Just three miles..." I mean, maybe for some people this approach works out and they run 3 miles without any trouble and  that's that. I'd guess for more of us, myself included, this is merely our mind playing the role of The Empire at the Battle of Endor: lure us in with the appearance of normalcy, only to spring the trap ("It's a trap!") and bring the pain back about a mile into the run. 

That was my main concern following a frustrating week where my knee/upper leg hurt, but not terribly and felt fine after two days, only to then hurt again after I ran last Friday. Obviously, my mind had laid the trap and I'd fallen right into it, like Admiral Akbar and the rebel fleet. So, I resolved to shut the whole thing down for a full week, committing to not running again until this recent Saturday. My hope was that since the pain wasn't severe, I hadn't been quite stupid enough to create a much worse situation for myself right at the best running time of the year, and that a week of rest with some stretching and icing would provide the break needed to heal fitfully. 

Thankfully, I can report that at this point, that seems to be the case. After two short, easy runs this weekend of 3 miles apiece, the leg feels OK and I've had no pain during or after each run. I had just a touch of stiffness yesterday after the run, but I iced the spot and stretched my calf muscles out and used a foam roller that my wife got me for my anniversary (awesome!) and that helped tremendously. 

Today, I did the same route: a bit over 3 miles. I started at an easy pace but the leg felt really good so I gradually dropped my pace until I was around 8:30 or lower (my pace averaged 8:45 per mile for the 3+ miles) to test it a bit more. No issues at all, which was a huge relief. 

So, that discipline of not trying to deviate from the plan and jumping back into running mid-week seems to have paid off. I'm still going to my sports medicine doctor appointment on Tuesday for a couple reasons. First, I made it a week ago, so I might as well keep it. Second, I want to be sure, after describing the pain and the recovery, etc., that there's nothing else I should be doing or no other possible injury I should be considering. Better safe than sorry. 

Now, I've mapped out a gradual return to where I was before the injury, minus the foolish speedwork. Rest tomorrow (Monday), then 4 miles on Tuesday followed by rest on Wednesday, etc. I'll plan on a short 7.5 or 8 miler next weekend, and if all goes well, will be back working toward increasing my mileage more gradually after that. The biggest shift will be largely abandoning the speed workouts for now. 

I'm going to just live with being a bit slow for a while, especially since I need to gradually increase my mileage for my planned major race target in May of next year: the Flying Pig's Skyline 3-Way Challenge. The challenge is to run the 10k and 5k on the Saturday of the running festival in Cincinnati, and then either the half or full marathon the next day. I'm going to do the half, obviously, but that will still be a bit over 22 miles of running in less than 24 hours, so my winter will be spent getting my endurance up to the point where I can aim for fast (for me!) times in all three races. I don't want to just survive those races; I'd like to tackle them in good shape. 

All of which is to say, navigating this niggling injury such that it doesn't become a more significant challenge to my running in the short term is key. I think taking the week was the right thing to do for sure; now I just have to stick to the gradual increase in training to make sure I avoid any setbacks. 

Shutting It Down for a Week

My leg pain hasn't really gone away in the last few days, but it also hasn't gotten worse, so I've decided to shut it down for a week and see how that goes. A bit more detail follows.

I took both last Wednesday and Thursday as rest days to see if the minor pain would resolve itself quickly. By Friday, I really wasn't feeling any discomfort at all, which I took as a good sign. On Friday evening, I went for a normal run of about 5 miles, but at a pretty slow pace of about 9:22/mile. Around mile 4, my right calf muscle got really tight and painful. This was the only point where I could also feel tightness in the same spot that's been painful and I eventually stopped because I could also feel some pain coming.

Interestingly, I stretched my calf out and kept running, and the tightness on my leg disappeared as well for the remainder of the run. Only after I got home and the muscles tightened up again did the pain come. It wasn't intense or acute, but very noticeable as I walked or went up and down stairs. I iced it for a bit, and massaged the calf. All that seemed to help, but the return of the pain was disheartening. Again, it hadn't gotten worse, but it also wasn't any better after just 48 hours of rest.

Additionally, the spot was sore when I woke up on Saturday morning and was uncomfortable for about half the day, before the pain disappeared completely. Yesterday, it didn't hurt at all. My calf was also really sore on Saturday, but now feels much better.

I didn't run at all Saturday or Sunday, and am going to take this whole workweek off as well to give the leg a full 7 days of rest. During that time I'm going to work on some stretching and strengthening exercises. I also made an appointment with the doctor but they can't see me until next Wednesday, so that's not really immediately helpful.

But the plan is to wait until Saturday and then test the leg with maybe a short 3 miler and see how things feel. No running before then, no matter how good the leg might feel. If that goes fine, I'll try another 3 miler on Sunday and then depending on how that goes, make a decision on whether to see the doctor next week. I may still go just to cover my bases, though.

It's definitely disappointing, but I don't have any big races coming up and if for some reason I have to bag the 5K later this month, it's fine. 

Beyond that, I think gradually getting back to training will be critical, obviously. Also, I plan on running mostly in my old Brooks Ghosts at first, and then run in the Launch more and more over time since the Ghosts offer a bit more support than the Launch.

A Very Odd Injury

I delayed writing a week in review post not for any bad reason, but because I wanted to have enough time to fully go through the last four or five days because it's been pretty mystifying from this sore knee standpoint.

So, my general plan had been to to rest on Thursday and then do an easy 5 miles on Friday. On Thursday, the knee felt OK. Only the occasional bruised feeling and only at seemingly random times. In other words, it might twinge when I went up the steps, but not down. And then I'd go up the steps again and it'd feel fine, but then twinge when I was walking on flat ground. There was just no predictability, but I would say the discomfort was at most a 2 out of 10, so I thought I'd likely be able to run on Friday.

But then I woke up Friday morning and it just didn't feel great at all. Not like I couldn't walk on it or put weight on it, but it just didn't feel good. The twinges of discomfort were a bit more frequent, even though I hadn't done any physical activity on Thursday to aggravate it. It really didn't feel much better after I got home from work but again, discomfort probably 2 out of 10, so not bad. Just worrying, I guess. I was worried that running on it would make it much worse and risked something that would prevent me from running for a week or longer. So, I decided to take another rest day and I put some ice on it, etc.

I woke up on Saturday and it felt better, but still not 100%. Far fewer periods of discomfort but I just didn't feel totally confident. But, by the afternoon, I decided to head out for a very easy 4 miler with the intention of keeping it very slow and turning around or even walking back home if I felt significant or sustained pain.

But, it really didn't feel bad at all on the run and I made it the full 4 miles at a leisurely pace. There were maybe 3 or 4 times when I felt a bit of

Mid-Week Training Update

While the first couple days of the week were great weather, it's now been raining here for the better part of 24 hours, with a 70% chance of rain all the way to the weekend. What better sort of weather in which to hunker down and update the training week quickly.

After taking Monday off, my upper leg felt much better by Tuesday evening, so I got a good 5 miler in without any trouble. No residual soreness or anything like that, which was good.

Wednesday I came home from work and changed but as I was walking out the door, I felt a few stray rain drops and decided to check the radar to see if the rain we were forecast to get was arriving in force. About 5 minutes after I went back inside, sure enough a downpour blew through and dumped rain for about 10 minutes before tapering off. The radar looked like I had a nice chunk of, if not clear weather, then just showers in which to get my 4 miles in, so I headed out.

That went according to plan for about 1.5 miles before sure enough the skies opened up again. At one point in my run, I could look west and see downtown Baltimore about 3 miles away. But when I got to that point, the buildings were already fading into the oncoming rain and within a few seconds, I couldn't see them at all. It was maybe 5 minutes after that the skies opened up and I got totally drenched.

But at that point, I was already soaked, so I just kept going and finished the run. It really didn't get too miserable (temps were in the high 60's with little wind) until I ran back across a busy overpass.  Then I had cars going past me at 40 mph.

I definitely ran the route a lot faster than normal, though, probably because of the weather, but I definitely felt the stress in my right leg afterward. A bit of the same discomfort in my upper leg, but also some warning pains in my lower leg that if I'm not careful, may become shin splints I fear.

So, given that it's windier and still raining today, I'm not totally heartbroken to take today off. I may go ahead and bag tomorrow too and then run Saturday just to be extra cautious, as shin splints can take a devilishly long time to heal. All the more evidence that I need to take it easier than I think I do in order to avoid injury while I continue to increase my mileage.

The Week Ahead: Debate Edition!

Just kidding. The last thing I'm going to do is start filling up this space with more junk about the Presidential Election. Ugh.

At any rate, last week's training went well overall and I was really pleased with how my 10 miler came out on Saturday afternoon. I wrote up semi-detailed notes in my Running Ahead log, so check that out if it's of interest. Basically, the biggest improvement came from the nearly 2 hour nap I took before going for the run. Conclusion: More sleep means better runs. Duh.

The one down note came actually after my run yesterday. I went for a short 3 mile run just to see how my legs felt, etc. During the run everything felt OK. Legs weren't all that tired, but I felt slow, even though my watch said otherwise.

But afterward, I had a very slight amount of discomfort on what I think is the top of my tibia, on the outside of my right leg. It's not the knee. It's not in the joint (i.e. runner's knee or something like that). It's not on the side of the knee (i.e. not ITB syndrome). It's not down my sin along the tibia (i.e. not shin splints). It feels like a slight bruise on the top of the tibia. Not bad...maybe 2 out of 10 in pain, and it's only intermittent.

Doubt vs. Confidence

For me, as I ramp up my mileage and try to become a slightly faster runner, the self-doubt that creeps in whenever we do something new becomes more pronounced, second only to the physical stress required to get better. We become accustomed to seeing others do something incredible like run a marathon or an ultramarathon, and thinking, "I could never do that!". Which is a normal response, I think, to some extent. Disbelief is part of wonder in some ways. If we believed anyone could run 100 miles, it wouldn't evoke so much wonder and admiration when we see men and women do it.

But I think it's when that thought crystallizes into what we think is knowledge that it becomes doubt. We go from exclaiming, "I could never do that" to "I could never do that! I'm too lazy/overweight/busy/ etc." And then we start believing that. I know I'm definitely guilty of this and it's probably going to be a much bigger part of my training and running experience as I move past the 10 mile mark in my long runs.

For example, last week I kept having nagging doubts going into my long run. What if I can't run the whole distance? What if I run too fast and flame out? Etc. I think that definitely impacted my run to some degree, as it was overall OK, but not what I was hoping. I ran too slowly, my stomach felt bad through much of the run, and I just didn't feel confident.

And that's the interesting part: confidence and doubt are two sides of the same coin, yet you can definitely have too much or too little of each. Overconfidence can prove as costly as being too doubtful of your abilities. Yet doubt in many ways is fuel for our desire to test ourselves and our capabilities, both physical and mental. I don't know if I will be able to run a marathon someday, but I'm fairly confident with the right training I can. So I'll go do it. I doubt I could ever run an ultramarathon, but I'll go attempt that someday as well.

Doubt asks the question, "You think you can do this?"

Confidence helps us answer, "Yes. Here, let me show you."

Of course reaching that point mentally isn't quite as easy as typing it out, but that's the point and it's definitely a critical part of training for long distance running. Certainly you have to have the strength of body to run 26.2 miles or 50km or 100 miles. But you also have to be able to face those doubts and use confidence akido to turn them to your advantage.

This weekend, I'm using my long run to try and work on this confidence/doubt balance, in addition to better fueling and a slightly faster pace.