The Running Men - 7.30.06

New York City Half Marathon

Ran with 10,000 people through the streets of New York City today in the inaugural New York City Half Marathon. No question one of the best courses ever! A Central Park start that includes a full loop and a quarter before you spill onto the streets of the City - including a run through Times Square!! A jaunt down 42nd street (where a downpour started!) leads you to the finale with 3 miles down the West Side Highway.

I wasn't expecting much as it was my first race of any length in a while, but the course inspired me to a 1 hour, 48 minute finish.

BACK!

Alot has happened since my last post! I finally was able to get my bone scan done. After all that drama it showed no stress fracture - this is a good thing. So Dr. Feldman attributed it to what is essentially a severe shin splint, which is an irriatation of the sheath around tendons in the shin. My three months of no running essentially was the prescription for recovery, so I was ready to go. Dr. Felman also suggested I get into some physcial therapy, but my bullshit meter went off and I sensed it would be a tremendous waste of time and energy to travel all the way to his office twice a week to stretch out next to granny and line Dr. Feldman's pockets. Instead I have vowed to stretch at home and treat my legs to some good old ice after long runs, etc. Rest after a long run will also be guarateed - no two days in a row of 8 miles anytime soon.

So my first few runs back have been great. I was so happy to be on the go again in Gotham! The leg felt good - I really tried to not push it. A photo from my latest run!

Sunday I am running the New York City Half Marathon....excited but nervous as I haven't trained enough for the race. I don't want to push it but this race is just too good to pass up - for the first time will be running through Times Square!

The Damage

Here are the preliminary results from the MRI of my left knee:

1. Torn ACL

2. Posterior horn medial meniscus tear

3. Suprapatella effusion

Not good.  I cannot walk with out a limp nor straighten my leg.  Most of the pain has gone away but it still feels very uncomfortable.

R.I.P San Francisco

Well it appears San Francisco was so so so not meant to be......none of the Running Men will be on the road come July 30. Injuries have cast a dark cloud on the final push, and will now make us turn our attentions to the next race(s). So what is next for the Men in Yellow? Personally I am looking forward to competing in the inaugural New York City Half Marathon at the end of August, and the Grapevine reports that Chris Carleton (aka The Phantom) is turning his attention to the Portland Marathon in October. Ben Richards will also live to run another day, and I'm sure will pick out a new goal.

Bottom line is marathon training is a bitch. It's not easy to make it through the Training process - it's actually tougher than the marathon. But it's well worth the effort and the residual fitness and adventures experienced are rewards in themselves. Still there is a sadness to not accomplishing the goal, so we must take time to mourn, but we're smarter from the experience and within days we'll be planning to move on towards future glory!

Happy Birthday Ben Richards!

Today is Running Man Ben Richard's Birthday, so all you wimps out there light up a cigar in his honor. Happy Birthday Ben!

Prayer Session

And the hits just keep on comin'. Had a good gym session last Tuesday with intentions to ramp it up to get in shape for the marathon.....then it hit on Thursday. It was an stange and silly sickness for me, as it included a rather violent 3 hour prayer session at the throne of the Porceline God in the wee hours of Saturday morning - something I haven't done in over 20 years. Fun! Just feeling better today, but weak from the battle. Must fight on!

Finish or Die!

I take off for a week and all hell has broken loose!
Dude, what a blow. Hopefully your knee is feeling better already, but wow that does not sound good at all. My philosophy on injuries has sort of changed as I've gotten to be an older and wiser(?). I've run through a marathon with a bum knee, limping all 26 miles, and in the end did feel pretty good about it. But I'm not sure I would do it again, especially because I've learned that depending on the injury you can actually do some permanent damage that can lead to a chronic problem. So I would be careful about that for sure and get your injury diagnosed.
So not to sound too morbid about it but already both of our marathons will not be one of the times where the training clicks and at the end of the race you say "I'm not sure if could run much better than that." That will have to be for a future marathon, which is OK, as it's a long road.
So now the question is - what are the new goals? I'm thinking that it should just be to finish in a manner that will not risk permanent damage.....in other words "Finish or Die!" That is the true spirit of the Running Men!

The Good...

On Saturday I ran an 8 k race on Mt. Diablo put on by Pacific Coast Trail Runs.  There was  1,200 feet in elevation climb which made the first half very difficult, but the downhill was very fun and very fast.  That is where I made up much time after getting passed by old foggies on the hill.  I ended up finishing 5th out of 52, not bad for my first trail race. 

check out the results: http://www.pctrailruns.com/MDS_Results_06.htm

course map: http://www.pctrailruns.com/MDS_Course_Map.htm

The Bad...

I was pretty happy about my results of Saturday's run, but I must say my quads were very sore.  I believe they got most of their work on the downhill as one must use their quads to slow themselves down at turns and broken parts of the trail. 

Sunday afternoon, I went to play some pick up games at Central Park in San Ramon.  Our squad came on to the face the winners of the last game and we immediately dominated and went up 8-1.  I had hit two shots and was feeling pretty good and didn't really notice the soreness as I felt warm and loose.

Well, I shouldn't have been playing.  I should have let my quads recover and rested for a day or two.  With the score 9-4, I drove to the basket from the left side and as I went to take off, my left knee dislocated and popped out of place and jump right back into place.  I believe this all had to do with my quads.

My knee is very swollen and I can only walk at a snail's pace,but any turning motion or too much pressure produces pain in the knee.  I hurts to touch on the outside of the left knee.    I have been icing and using a compression brace and taking lots of Advil and hope to recover in time for the marathon.  But I don't want to lie...I am pretty bummed out about the whole thing.  My training had really taken off this month and i was feeling great.  Now I feel like the past two and a half months may have been in vain.  Similarly, I injured myself 6 weeks before the Kona Marathon and was able to run.  But that was only an ankle injury and I have had those before so it is much easier to recover.  This is the first injury to my left knee.  The first sprain is almost always the worst.  I am optimistic that in 6 weeks time it will be strong enough to run, but I will have lost all that training time and the inactivity will negate a lot of my previous training and I will be out of shape.  It is not as if I can do the stair master, bike, swim or elliptical in the near future to stay in shape.  It is not an impact issue.  I can barely even bend my knee.  I am disappointed, I am angry, and I am sad.  Just by being active and having a goal I have felt so good lately, and now I see that slipping away because of a bad decision to go play hoops.  This is really a downer mentally.

Resevoir Runnin'

Beautiful run marked by beautiful women.  I started from Lisa's and Jeff's, and headed to downtown Lafayette.  Ran around and made my way to the Lafayette Reservoir.  I was pleasantly surprised to see many good lookin' females of multiple ages: high school, college, and MILFS walking and jogging around the man made lake!  Uggh...I mean I wasn't looking at high school girls, I was totally focused on running.....right.   So I did 3 laps x 3miles and back to Lisa's and Jeff's.  It was a total of 15 miles and took 2.5 hours.  I ran with my camel back on filled with 3 liters of water and put in some cherries, a breakfast bar, and a yogurt stick compliments of E-dawg.   Felt fine eating and running.  the pack added extra weight, but I believe this will actually help my training as it will be that much easier running without it. 

One hour deep tissue massage today and a 3 mile hike to keep loose today.

I feel great.

To the Doc!

So tomorrow I visit Dr. Andrew Feldman, head team physician of the New York Rangers, to diagnose my leg injury and get me on a training plan. I'm pretty excited about it....it's been tough to be in this limbo. I have now not run for 16 days and the old spindle leg is feeling pretty good latley - no pain at all while walking around (not the case last week). I was tempted to run a little today, but realized how incredibly stupid that would be in light of my appointment - duh. Instead I had a nice 70 minute Stairmaster workout and felt pretty damn good about it. More to come tomorrow after I meet with Mr. Rangers (wait, haven't they missed the playoffs 8 of the last 9 years - hmmmmmm).

Deep Water Class

Signed up for a Deep Water Class today that will take me up to the marathon. I never have done this before, but have seem many references to it as a great way to maintain fitness while injured, as you actually "run" (and therefore use all your running muscles) with 0 impact. So I will start in two weeks. Good thing no one really will get this underwater view of me, even though I know that I'm beautiful in my own way and should share it.

Found this article also : http://www.pfitzinger.com/labreports/water.shtml

Injury Update

I am fairly sure I do have a stress fracture. I have now not run on it for 11 days, as the only prescription for it healing is rest. Generally speaking it takes 6-8 weeks to heal, which is time I obviously don't have. But the spirit of the Running Men is to do the best with what you have, which is what I will do. I will have to be a cross training fool. The elliptical machine, stair master, stationary bike and perhaps some swimming and deep water running will have to serve as my training mechanism for now. I will train not with miles, but with time. I will do "long runs" using these other mechanisms and see what happens...it's all I can do right now.

I will give the leg at least another week and then try a light run perhaps to see where it is. I am bummin' about this. For the record these usually come from too much too soon, which is certainly possible as I had a big week the week of May 14. Running on the asphalt of NYC also probably contributes. Be careful dudes! Richards, keep up on the trail running.....

Ballin' and Buyin'

Thursday night I was all over the court.  I led the game in scoring and it wasn't with outside shooting.  I was attacking the basket and taking it to their big men.  I had layup after layup and was getting out on the break.  We won by 3.  I also did something I haven't done in years...I jumped up and hung on the rim with ease.  Dropping the excess pounds has improved my quickness and jumping.  Initially, my legs felt tired from all this training and I felt slower, but I think my body is adjusting and getting used to all the activity because I feel great and so do my legs.  Playoffs next week!  I need to come into the game with the same mentality: be agressive, play uptempo, and really set the tone for the rest of my team and get them involved.  I love the point gaurd role.

Bought 2 new pairs of shoes.  My road shoes are super comfortable, I love 'em.  I ran 3.5 miles on the treadmill yesterday.  They are Asics Nimbus VII.  My trail shoes are also Asics.  The Trabukov model, hopefully I'll get to test them out tomorrow if it isn't raining.

Peace.

The Limping Man

Ugh.....I may have crashed. I ran my second race of the week today, with disasterous results. The race itself was a 10k in Central Park. Turned out to be a beautiful morning, and about 6,000 other people thought so too and decided to race. Anyway I was senstive to the fact that my lower shin was hurting a bit yesterday on my BMW run so I wrapped it for the race, and really thought everything would be ok. Boy was I wrong. I had immediate pain of the starting line, but not anything that would stop me. It quickly worsened and by the time I was about 2 miles in it was hurting so bad I had to slow down and was limping. I almost turned back, and looking back at it now I definitely should have. But I had a member of the Running Men Fan Club waiting for me at the finish and I have never quit a race so I trudged on. The leg mercifully got a little better by the end, but no question I have an injury. Now I just need to figure out what.....I'm fearful that it is a stress fracture, which would be disasterous. What a difference a day makes. Can you figure out who is in the fan club?

BMW

On Friday I went deep. It is sure to last throughout time as one of the runs of my life. My intention was for it to be an easy run of about an hour. I just wanted to get the time in and NOT push it, as I had a race the very next day. Following the spirit of many of my runs lately, I decided to make it an adventure and do something I had never done before - traverse Lower Manhattan's 3 bridges (the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburgh).

Running across the 3 Bridges in one run was amazing, but just the tip of the iceberg as to all the things I experienced. Highlights were finding myself smack dab in the middle of the Hasidic Jew community. I might have well been on the moon for how different it felt - men walked the sidewalks on their way to work in their dark suits, distinctive hats, and long locks of hair while the women and childen played in fenced in urban playgrounds. Only 15 minutes later I was in the heart of Chinatown and bikes, street markets, and bus stations.....it was a dramatic example of New York's diversity, and I loved it.

All this people watching quickly disappeared as I traversed the Manhattan Bridge back toward Brooklyn. I was all of a sudden completely alone. The contrast again amazed me. Then the storm hit. A pounding rain and steady wind engulfed me as I was halfway across the bridge. My spirits soared as water poured from my saturated running shirt. I couldn't believe how much fun I was having. How alive I felt. As I was on my last push back towards Manhattan on the Brooklyn Bridge I started to lament the fact that the run was almost over. My "little" run was now over an hour and a half long! But I didn't want it to end. I stopped and soaked it all in....my body was numb but I was completely comfortable. I concentrated on how the rain felt on my face and actually outstretched my arms to my sides. It was the most "Zen" moment I've ever had while running. Apparently it was time to go home though, as a single lightning bolt then struck so close I couldn't tell exactly where it hit (Ellora checked me for entry/exit wounds later). It rudely sent me into panic mode, as I was up on a bridge in a fairly open space feeling a tingly sensation in my head! It was the only bolt of the whole storm..... Luckily the only casualty of the day was my Mini-ipod. RIP!

Training for this marathon has help me discover a new outlook on running. My runs have been filled with adventure. The fitness almost feels like a byproduct of the process, whereas it used to be the goal. It's a lot more fun this way....my spirit is soaring. GC