Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Actually Running Again

Still only a shadow of my former self, but I'm actually running again - twice a week.
I just ran 3.6 miles at Wash Park in my Five Fingers. I started slowly and built some speed, finishing with 7:30 pace.

I've been healing since early November, but immediately stagnated with one run most weeks. Some weeks just weren't recovered from the week before. The secret came from Meghan, who told me she iced her plantar every day, 3x10min. I was only icing my plantar after stretching, working out, or when it hurt. That meant about three times a week. Now I ice it every day.
I was already stretching, but icing it 30 minutes a day is important.
At Twin Lakes when I DNF'd at the LT100, the medic was telling me he learned that the secret was ice. He said to ice it for 30 minutes, let it warm for 10 minutes, then another 30 minutes, repeat until iced three times. Holy crap, that's two hours of it. But he only meant a one-time thing. He claimed that if you ice it for less than 30 minutes, it won't do any good.
Reality has been, I've noticed that all I have to do is lower the temp for a while and that gives some benefit. So there's all sorts of inaccurate data about PF.
Every day, I've been grabbing my frozen 3M Cold Comfort ice pack and sitting in front of the computer either watching a movie, cruising the web, playing cards, etc. I've ended up icing my plantar pretty much until the cold-pack is warmed up, which is a good hour later.

Scary, huh? Freecell, 115 consecutive games, but rest assured it has taken me months to rack up 115 games, and most of the time was spent with an ice-pack under my foot.
I've got terabytes of movies, so besides occasional running, I've been watching Bond, James Bond, Bourne, Jason Bourne, and Riddick, just Riddick.

Stretching really is important. All sorts of stretching every-which-way. There's a set of stretches I always do, but there are several others I occasionally do, and sometimes I try to invent new stretches. I always hold each stretch for at least 60 seconds. I don't start counting until I've managed to extend as far as possible, which can take a couple of minutes, too.

Last week, I managed to log 14.1 miles. Maybe I'll do better this week? I'm getting paranoid about a set-back, so I might only allow myself to walk next week, just to be sure I don't regress.

3 comments:

  1. Finally, man, it's about time!

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  2. Yeah! Slow, slow, slow, and just a bit of running! Slowly you will regain that very capable, life-sized shadow of yourself.

    Awesome, Jeff, just aweseme!

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  3. When I get healthy again, I want to visit each of you for some quality running in wild places. You've both been the BEST support!

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