How it all adds up, and a breakthrough?

I had my first “tempo” run this morning. In the Hansons training plan, tempo runs are marathon pace runs. 6 miles at pace. I was going to run this outside because it’s been just beautiful in the early morning around here, relying on Alan to get the kids ready for school… but then I remembered Alan was going to leave super early to go run. Oops. Moving on to Plan B.

Plan B was the trusty treadmill. No problem. I still have to watch the finale of the Biggest Loser. Perfect! When I did my time calculations, I figured 6 miles at pace would be 53 mins. Oh, but I need to add 1 mile of warm up (extra 10 mins), and there’s that 1 mile of cool down (another 10 mins). But wait there’s more!… also add in an extra 5 mins for PT exercises (marching & toe taps), and another 3 mins for my new nerve stretching. AND, that 5 mins of stretches after running….  and heck, I’m actually supposed to run more like 1.5 mile each for warm up and cool downs… but I  just don’t have time!

Funny how my 6 mile run, which would have all fit into 60 mins before, has now turned into 90+ mins – which means I need to bump up my alarm to 5:00am. zzzzzzz  All in a days work for the marathon runner, right? 🙂

Speaking of PT exercises I have some AWESOME news to report. I almost hate to write about this because I don’t want to jinx it, but I think we’ve made a breakthrough in the glute/hamstring pains.

Last week was simply horrible in terms of the pain I was feeling. It was two items – glute pain while running, and the ongoing hamstring pain all during the rest of the hours of my day. I am not exaggerating when I say “all of the other hours”. The pain would be there when I was just hanging around doing nothing. I ran Thursday night, and on Friday morning was at the point of discomfort that I told my husband on the car ride to the park for our run that after this run, I might just stop running for a week. Throw in the towel. I was done with the pain. Somehow my 8 mile run ended up way better than I expected, but I was sore later on, and even sore for an easy 3 mile run on Saturday morning.

I went to see my PT on Saturday morning almost in tears of frustration about the situation. I couldn’t take much more of it. Nothing seemed to be helping. Then, she did some stretches on me. She crossed my leg over my body and stretched it out. It was NOT comfortable at all, but I was shocked when I stood up. The stretch had taken my pain away!  This is the “nerve” stretch she asked me to do at home (sciatic nerve). In addition, there are other changes I have made… sitting with a lumbar support (I feel like an old lady at work now!), getting up and stretching my back out every 45 mins, and trying to not sleep with my leg on my body pillow at night. AND, doing some “cobra” kind of press ups which also stretches out my back and strengthens it.

With all of those changes, I am AMAZED at the turn around that has happened this week. Again, I hate to jinx it, but we may have found the right combination. I was really skeptical about all of the back stuff fixing my hamstrings, but sure enough, looks like she knows what she’s doing 🙂

In running related news, on Monday we met with our local running shop at the park for a group run, and tried out a pair of Hokas. Sorry Hoka, you haven’t convinced me to switch brands, but it’s always fun to test out new styles of shoes. My kids especially like to try out new shoes. Alan wasn’t joining us though since he had a long run planned on Tuesday. We ran 1.5 miles, and accumulated about 7 mosquito bites on each leg. Ugh, bugs!

Here’s to hoping I am on the road to recovery! 🙂

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Q: Any Hoka fans out there?

A lot of people love them.  They just felt so different than my Newtons!

Q: What time does your “early” alarm go off?

I’m getting more used to 5:20am for wake up again.  5:00 wasn’t too bad though.

Q: Are the schools out where you live?

My kids last day is Thursday!  Can’t believe it’s here already!