My Hip Labrum Tear

K so lo and behold, with all the amazing race times and beautiful travel posts and enviable selfies on this blog (ahem, pause for you to realise am being sarcastic and am not compleeeeetely up myself) the most popular posts by far have been our injury posts. Especially the ones containing excruciating, PTSD-inducing detail about how we got them, what they felt like, how we recovered and how effing long the whole godforsaken process took.

Accordingly, I wouldnt want to deprive our fair readers of learning about my latest amazing feat, of tearing my labrum. Ive decided to intersperse it with some pictures from a recent skydiving trip (my first ever). Because SKYDIVING. So much more fun than hips. To wit: 

(Gah! Wtf am I about to do!)

So having just recovered from a stress fracture in my cuboid bone (foot) I began ramping up with the Pfitzinger return to running program. Despite my experience here, I would highly highly recommend you follow this plan after recovering from a serious injury. Its a frustratingly slow build up, but believe me - you need slow! After injury, you are at the highest risk of reinjuring yourself in the same place, because its not fully healed yet, or suffering another injury because your body has become deconditioned in your time off. And of course, any increase in mileage at all carries with it the risk of injury.

Dangling your legs outside a plane at 10 000 feet also carries with it a grave risk of injury.

I was fine once i finished the plan, but then added a few too many miles (albeit all very slow easy ones) too soon, and began to feel a niggling pain in the front of my hip and groin area. Given the risk of pain in that area being a stress fracture (which = 3-5 months off) I STOPPED RUNNING IMMEDIATELY, went to the doctor after two weeks, went to the physio after 3, and when it hadnt gone away at 4 weeks, I had an MRI. Thankfully, I have an amazing sports doctor here in Sydney, who believes me when I can feel that something is wrong. He immediately ordered me an mri, because of my history with sfxs, and I waited a couple of weeks before getting it.

Self-explanatory. OhEmGeeeeeee!!!!

Turns out I have a very small tear in the cartelege in my hip, called the labrum. It is about 5mm long, and the resulting pain was only ever pretty minor. Just that it was in the front of my hip, which is nooooot a good place to feel pain.

Timeline of Rehab and Recovery:
I got injured in late October. After getting back from Vanuatu, I started physio and recieved a bunch of exercises that I continued doing daily until early December, when I started doing them every second or third day. The exercises were all focused on 1) strengthening the external rotator muscles; the ones controlling the inward/outward rotation of my thigh; 2) strengthening my stablizer muscles - all of them, including strenghtening my core; and 3) getting my gluts to fire. If anyone wants the list of exercises let me know!

All in all I think I was completely off running for about 4-5 weeks.

This is the (relatively) restful bit of skydiving. Especially once you've realized you successfully avoided inadvertantly chucking all over yourself and the tandem guy.

Timeline of Returning to Run
In November I started running again, though feeling some discomfort still, I took a week completely off exercise in Cabo.
December I started back, building up from 3 to 12 miles (all very easy)
January saw an increase to 22 miles.
February hovered around 25-28 miles, and I increased to 30 last week.

Now this is returning to land and "hovering" hehe, lolz for days.

Aaaaand, tada, I feel no pain in that hip at all! If every I feel even a slight twinge, I do a round of my PT exercises, and its fine again.

That being said, my doctor and Physio have advised that the key to ensuring my hip stays healthy is keeping all those supporting muscles strong and flexible. People certainly do run marathons with this condition in no pain, but it could be risky for me to do so. This is because by the time you get to the end of a marathon, eeeeeverything is fatigued. So its likely that my hip could hurt again when those muscles just plain tire out. And hurting again could mean degradation of the cartelege which could ultimately = surgery.

Honestly, that didnt really bother me (for long). I just love running, I love half marathons, and they are probably enough for me at this juncture. I think Id like to try for a marathon again one day, but want to ensure that Im being absolutely fastidious with rehab and recovery throughout training, which I just dont have the time for right now, on top of the lengthy training hours.

Right now, am just stoked to run sans pain at all!

Trail Run in the Blue Mountains

So Im still alive. Or for anyone new reading our blog, hi! hey there, hello! No you didnt just stumble upon "Two Little Runners: Kristen's Journey Through Dual Personality Disorder". There is a whole second person here!

Truth is, i spent most of last year injured and then the first couple of months of this year spent working on a big case that took most of my intellectual and emotional energy, in addition to any other remnants of patience, kindness, self-control and such other vaguely christian-like traits I had about me... So blogging about running hasnt been my favourite thing. Aaand when Ive wanted to, the ratio of cusswords to normal ones would have been so bad I would likely have lost 50% of our readership (thanks for staying Dad).

Anyway, to refresh and unwind we travelled with some friends to the Blue Mountains last weekend.  I took the opportunity to go for a beautiful trail run that lifted my spirits immensely. Here are a few photos: 

Just beautiful. Completely solitary. I did six miles up and down, and averaged probably about 12mins/mile. It was extremely rocky in places; many i had to walk, and some even climb. 

It was also wet from the night before so I got a constant spray of fresh rain water from the fern fronds I ran past; and a suitably impressive wave of mud up both my legs.  I also ran through about 15 different spider webs, each time doing the OMGIHAVEASPIDERONMEGETITOFFNOW dance. Thankfully no one around to see that. 

And to boot, my hip (labrum tear, recovery from which will be the subject of another post) felt great!

I have done trail runs before though nothing this tricky. Tempted to get some trail runners and try some more! 

Running Fast by Running Slow

“Junk miles.” Remember that buzzword from a few years ago? There were lots of books and articles advocating that runners cut out easy miles on the theory that you get more bang for your buck with high intensity running, and it was those extra easy miles that were hurting you and causing injuries. The theory has some intuitive appeal, I suppose. If you cut out easy miles, you reduce your overall mileage and, therefore, take fewer steps, but you still get the benefits of the key workouts.

If you’ve read this blog for very long, you know that Penny and I have personally disproven the anti-junk-mile theory of training. On more than one occasion, we’ve considered changing our blog name to Two Always Injured Runners. But we never get injured when we are in the base-building phases of our training plans, when we are running easy paces and working on increasing our mileage. No, base building always feels great! Our injuries have always occurred when we add speed – too much speed.

A few months ago, I read Matt Fitzgerald’s new book called 80/20 Running. He argues that the most effective training is for runners to spend 80% of their cardio time at easy paces and just 20% at moderate to hard paces.

He supports the 80/20 rule with citation to studies showing that VO₂ max and 10K race times in well-trained runners improved the most when they followed the 80/20 rule compared to control groups spending higher percentages of time at moderate to high intensities (70/30, 60/40). And the runners in 80/20 groups also had fewer incidence of injury and reported higher energy levels for day-to-day tasks (like working and all those other non-running obligations that fill up our lives). Anecdotally, Fitzgerald also examined training plans of the most successful elite runners, and they all basically follow the 80/20 rule. I’ll let you pick up the book to read about the details of the proof.

A few comments about the three bolded terms above for implementing the 80/20 rule:

First, “cardio time.” All cardio training, not just running, counts. So if you are doing intense spinning classes, those hard minutes count toward your 20%.

Second, “easy paces.” Easy pace is slower than you think. Basically, you’re running an easy pace for purposes of the 80/20 rule when you are below the ventilatory threshold – i.e., the pace at which you can still easily talk. The book gives a few different ways to calculate this pace. The easiest way is to find the pace at which you can recite the Pledge of Allegiance without straining (for our Aussie readers, that’s about 7 or 8 seconds…1-one thousand, 2-one thousand, 3-one thousand, 4-one thousand, 5-one thousand, 6-one thousand,7-one thousand). For any cardio cross-training (e.g., elliptical, cycling), you use your heart rate at your ventilatory threshold pace minus 10 beats per minute.

Third, “moderate to hard paces.” Any workout time above the ventilatory threshold counts toward your 20%. Fitzgerald says that the most effective way to spend your 20% (e.g. short intense efforts, longer threshold efforts, or a mix) is still being studied. The training plans in the book use a mix of progressions, fartleks, tempos, and speed intervals – just like most training plans do.

Although I’m not as fit as I’ve been in the past, I think about each of my easy runs (which has been virtually all of my runs in the last 4 months) as rebuilding my fitness and beyond – to better than it has ever been before.

Two Little Runners ~ Kristen

Two Little Runners in 2014

January

Kristen, finally 100% recovered from a sprained ankle (injured in May 2014), runs 2 PRs - in the 15K at the Resolution Run in Mission Bay, San Diego (1:06:55 (7:11 average pace)) and in the Carlsbad Half Marathon (1:33:42 (7:09 average pace)).

Penny moves back to Australia. Runs her first 5K, hates life, and vows never to do that shit again. Runs some cliffside trails and hangs out with bebes instead.

February

Kristen runs the UT California 10/20 in Del Mar in 1:09:55 (7:00 average pace) and enjoys temperatures in the 70s while the rest of the country experiences polar vortexes.

Penny moves to Sydney and starts a new job. Gets up to about 50 mpw.

March

Kristen PRs in a downhill 5K at the San Diego 5K (18:47 (6:03 average pace)).

Penny gets a stress fracture in the incredibly random cuboid bone. Goes undiagnosed for about 2 months. Quietly goes insane doing pool running and throwing heavy metal around the weight room.

April

Kristen runs some major hills in the Xterra Black Mountain 16K trail race (1:17:07 (8:03 average pace)) and the La Jolla Half Marathon (1:37:21 (7:27 average pace)), which is good enough for 2nd in the female 30-34 division in a pretty big regional race!

Xterra Black Mountain 16K Elevation Profile

Penny injured. Don't talk to me.

May

Kristen ran the Navy's Coronado 4-Mile Coronado Bridge run in 27:07 (6:47 average pace), placing 3rd female and winning a baseball autographed by Tyson Ross (the Padres' only All-Star this year). 

Penny still injured. Running, you are dead to me.

June

Kristen's main goal race this year was the San Diego Rock N Roll Half. Came close with 25 seconds of the goal 1:30:XX with a 1:31:24 (6:59 average pace). It's hard to be too disappointed when it is still a 2 minute PR!

Penny refriends running. She's fickle like that.

July

Kristen ran the Coronado Independence Day 15K and broke her January PR in the 15K by 1+ minute, finishing in 1:05:28 (7:02 average pace).

Penny injured again. This time its something weird in her ankle. Mother f**ker.

Explores some more of sydney and drinks an unreasonable amount of wine.

August

Kristen placed first in the San Diego Track Club's Balboa Park 8 miler in 58:25 (7:17 average pace). Kristen also ran the America's Finest City Half Marathon in 1:32:52 (7:05 average pace), missing the 1:30:XX again, and realizing that the warm SoCal weather is not so great when you are trying to race!

Penny starts running again again. 

Dont get too comfy in that thar running gear

September

A few days after writing on the blog, "I've figured out how to run hard and stay healthy," Kristen goes to doctor and finds out she has some scar tissue covering a tear in her hamstring. Womp-womp. 

Penny runs a bit. Gets excited. Does too much, too soon. Knows she will probably pay.

October

Kristen, still not running, takes up spinning. Spins so much that she gets runner's knee. Womp-womp.

Penny does in fact pay. Gets a small tear in her hip cartlege (labrum). Gives up and goes to Vanuatu. 

November

Kristen's back to running - 5 minutes at a time. Womp-womp. 

Penny still not running, drinks all the margaritas in Cabo to console herself. 

Occurs to her that she definitely has a margarita face.

December 

Kristen's back to long runs now. But any runs faster than 8:00 pace bother hammy. Contemplates ultras for a minute...and hopes for a healthier 2015!

After a tough year in and out of injury, Penny starts getting back into it. Runs a gorgeous but slow 6-miler for the last day of the year, spending most of it planning how to break out of the injury cycle in 2015. Declines to contemplate utras, but wishes KA all the best for that hot noise.

Happy New Year!

xx

Kristen and Penny

Two Lil Runners Together Again and... Cabo

So you may be aware that we recently went to Vanuatu; partly because i wrote another whole non-running blogpost on it... but also because I accidentally published a draft of this post the other night on my new tablet. I then proceeded to blame it on Kristen's tablet before realizing that it was totes my own user-error. Yaaaay Christmas spirit.

Anyway upon returning home from Vanuatu we realised we inmediately needed to book our next holiday. I wont explain the confluence of events that led to us having a few days in San Diego, then five days with which to vacation somewhere cool.... but needless to say it was very lucky. 

Of course the best bit was having the two lil runners together again for a few days...

Which if course meant coffees and pedicures...

And (unpictured) loads of vino....

 I'll spare you the gorgeous portrait of the Two Little Hangovers from the following morn...

Then husband and I took the 1.5 hour flight down to Cabo, where we stayed at the gorgeous and serene Cabo Surf Hotel, in between the two towns of Cabo San Lucas and San Jose.

We immediately went to the pool. 

And apart from some perfunctory trips to the two towns just to say we did, we pretty much stayed there for five days.



Can you blame us?

The rooms were all beautiful; spanish style with marble floors and beautiful big stone showers.

One of said token trips to town was to Cabo San Lucas, where we walked around town a bit...

Ate our 358th ceviche with tortilla chips...

And took a boat out to see the famous golden archway  (El Arco)

Topped off with beef and shrimp fajitas on the piers and the best home made stone ground corn tortillas of my life.

Second trip was to San Jose and shopping for Day of the Dead paraphanalia, which im slightly in love with.

The rest of the days were spent in the pool, by the pool, in the ocean, by the ocean...

You get the idea...

We occasionally got dressed in order to eat delicious tacos and drink all the margeritas of the world for dinner. 

Twas a gorgeous trip, and I would recommend our hotel to anyone travelling to Cabo.

I should mention that I did absolutely no running or exercise on this holiday - for seven days. Best.decision.ever.