RunFasterDaddy

Time to Ketchup

I haven’t posted for a while now, so I thought I was a little overdue for some catch up. I won’t bore you to tears, but the highlights are this:

-After my last race (my March Half Marathon) I was hobbled for more than a week. My wife convinced me to finally go see the doctor again and as I suspected I had another stress fracture.

-During the course of the MRI workup I also learned that I have a benign tumor in my tibia that is about the size of a pea. This scared the crap out of me at first, but it turned out to simply be an incidental finding and not anything to really worry about.

-I was forced to sit on the sidelines for 14 weeks, and unlike the last time I had a stress fracture a few years ago, I had a nagging pain in my leg that lasted about 8-9 weeks into this recovery.

-My wife says that I was much more tolerable to live with during this injury. I chalk this up to my cross training (bike trainer in living room) and to simple fatigue from my grad studies. I moved out of the classroom phase and I am now doing clinicals in the OR and getting up at 4am (Yuck).

-Two weeks ago I started running again and I’ve been taking things very slow. I’ve purposely kept my pace 8:30 or slower. I wouldn’t say that I’m paranoid of getting injured again so much as I’m just trying to be smart.

During my off time I had a lot of time to consider why I suffered a second stress fracture in 3 year’s time. My nutrition was good. My training plan was gradual. My cross training was adequate. I think where I went wrong was my frequency of high intensity runs. I was racing 3-4 times per month, including multiple half marathons per month.

So, this year I’m keeping my eye on the prize and only racing once per month leading up to my Fall marathon. My schedule is this:
July 24 - BJ Williams 10K - Longmeadow, MA - I’m racing with some friends, including a few first timers who are doing the 5K. I’ll have the girls in the double stroller, so this should be a fun day.
August 15 - Falmouth Road Race - Falmouth, MA - Joining nearly 9,000 other runners to run this storied beautiful course with my best friend Justin. The 7+ mile course goes from village to village and follows the coastline and passes the lighthouse. Justin and I are running to raise money for a charity that develops technology for teachers, families, and children with autism (more to come on this).
Sept 19 - Warrior Dash Northeast - Windham, NY - Five families are trekking up to the Catskills to run this 3 1/2 mile trail race complete with 13 obstacles (mud crawl, river run, cargo net, fire jump, etc). This is one of those races more about having fun with your buds than seriously competing and I am looking forward to a weekend getaway very much.
Oct 17 - Amica Newport Marathon - Newport, RI - My Fall marathon. More on this later.

Anyway, I’m still alive, still running, and still loving life.

Race Report for The Oleksak Lumber Spring Half-Marathon

This morning the girls and I headed off to Westfield for the Oleksak Lumber Spring Half-Marathon. I was debating about whether or not to do this race with the stroller or to run it solo, but decided this past week that I would take the girls. My rationale was that it would keep me from running too fast. And truth be told, I simply enjoy racing with my girls. My mission today was simply to test out my left tibia and run at my marathon pace (9 minute mile).

I briefly met Bill from the Running Hot Meetup.com group, but felt badly because I had to cut the conversation short to run back to my jeep for some lip goop. I forgot how cold Spring races can be. I did meet more than a few nice people today, many of which had run the St. Patrick’s Day race last weekend, and some of which remembered me (more likely they remembered the stroller) from that race.

More than one parent remarked today how lucky I was to have not one, but two children who would tolerate long runs in the stroller. I think it is just second nature to them. They’ve always known stroller runs as simply normal.

It was a little chilly today (only 41 degrees with a stiff steady wind out of the SSE). The first 4 miles were almost all uphill, including a very steep 3/4 mile 200 foot climb at mile 2. To make matters worse, the first 4 miles ran in a SSE direction. The course overall was very pretty. The girls got to see a few rivers, some horses and cows, and lots of farmland. I enjoy scenic country courses like this one and will probably run this race again next year.

As far as the race amenities and swag - pretty bare bones, but that’s fine with me. I got a white long sleeve tech tee and I received my first wooden finisher’s medal, so that was kind of cool.

I met my goal and finished in under 2 hours at 1:59:11 for a 9:05 pace.

Now I have mixed feelings about my performance today. On the downside: My first thought is that I ran a very similar hilly type stroller half marathon last November in 1:51. That’s 8 full minutes faster. There is no denying that I have lost some fitness since last Fall. On the good side: I ran 13 miles today while pushing 80 something pounds and felt OK. My leg cooperated until about mile 10 and then it started to really ache. I am faster and fitter this year than I was last Spring, so hopefully that’ll mean that I’ll be in better shape this Fall compared to last fall. I don’t know.

Do any of you find that your Spring fitness is less than your previous Fall’s? I’m curious.

Oh yeah, one other thing - I was running a little late when leaving the house this morning and I couldn’t find my bandaid stash. Bandaids you ask? Yeah, this may be TMI, but when I run longer distances, I always put bandaids over my nips so they don’t chafe. Well, today was quite cold and when I started sweating it only made my “high beams” worse. So when I got home I noticed that I had bled through two layers. Today, I became “That guy.” So shameful. Pic of the carnage below.