Gold Coast HM Training Weeks 1-2 {AKA the time I figured out how to insert GIFs on blogger}

Sooooo where were we? Oh, riiiight I was going to do weekly training posts.  Haha, lol. Did anyone really think that was going to happen?

Lolz even more. Gifs are my life sometimes.

Anyway, as for actual training, the last few weeks I have stayed in the high 40s in mileage. Nearly all my easy runs are in the 8:45-9:15 range, (though getting a tad faster as it gets a little cooler).

I've stuck with one long run per week, and added a tempo at HM pace. I decided (on the expert advice of Kristen) to start small on the tempo, and to only do one workout (tempo or speed) per week. With my injury history, I just really don't think it is wise to try much more.

So without further ado:

Week 1 (10 weeks out from GCHM) 26 April - 2 May:
Sunday: 14 miles easy
Monday: off
Tuesday: 8 miles easy
Wednesday: 8 miles with 2 x 1 miles at HM pace
Thursday: off
Friday: 9 miles easy
Saturday: 7 miles easy.
Total: 46 miles

As for the tempo miles, wowza.  The aim of that run wasn't really to do a workout, per se. It was (1) to test out how HM pace felt, to get an idea of how much fitness I needed to build before Gold Coast HM, and (2) to ease my body into hard running.  I noted in my fastrunningblog that it was this time last year that I jumped from 41 to 50 miles in one week, and added 6 x 1 mile repeats at HM/10K pace. I got a SFx three days later. Eeek! SO, I wanted to be cautious and ease into the harder work.

The 2 x 1 miles were 6:49 and 6:41 with 0.5 mile jog recovery.  Honestly, I had a hard time dialing into that HM pace that used to feel so intuitive. Those miles were faster than what that pace should feel like; they felt much closer to 10K pace! It meant that I needed to aim a bit slower for next time... aaaaand that this slow-poke has lost a little fitness over the year!

Week 2  (3 May - 9 May) saw about the same stuff.
Sunday: 14 miles easy
Monday: off
Tuesday: 8 miles easy
Wednesday 9 miles easy
Thursday: 7.5 miles with 2 x 1.5 miles at HM pace.
Friday: off
Saturday: 6.5 miles easy.
Total: 45 miles

(The 6.5 because I cannot cope with a 0.5 mile hanging over me for the week. Yaaaay OCD.)

The 2 x 1.5 were 6:51 and 6:55 respectively, which is around where I need to be on pace. And I definitely felt the difference in effort!

And I'll go into details next post (AREN'T YOU ALL SUPREMELY LUCKY) but this week I moved up to 48 miles and had an encouraging tempo run. I'll gradually add intervals/distance to these - and with any luck will be able to string a few miles together at that pace come race day!

Overall though, even if I don't, it is just amazing to be back running again healthily. Last year was so mired in injury. Even when I was back running, it was that cautious "bugger-Im-about-to-injury-something" running. It hit me on the treadmill today, that I finally wasn't running in fear. Ugh, that's a terrible feeling.

The one positive aspect of it is that I'm much more diligent about running slowly, stretching, rolling and eating properly than I have been in the past. Especially the latter. I have generally monitored my weight, but for the first time, I've been just focusing on eating enough and whether it makes me feel good running. And I gotta say, running is worlds easier when you have enough calories in your system.

And on that note, I'll leave you with a couple of photos I took from Rozelle/Blackwattle Bay that I frequently run around.

Anyone else find themselves running in fear after a sustained period of injury? Do you feel like you're more conscious of doing all the right recovery things because of it? Does it make you feel more inclined to use GIFs at any and every opportunity?

Don't Be an Idiot: Ten Weeks to Gold Coast HM

I've whinged about it pretty frequently to family and friends, and to some degree on the blog, but I spent a large part of 2014 injured and miserable. Recovery from a stress fracture, then another stress fracture then a labral tear in my hip, all left me wondering if I'd ever run sans-injury again.

I'm not at all a drama queen. 

Well, the answer was not of any great philosphical moment. It was simply that when I got healthy, Id lace up again but this time be smart doing it.

So far, I think I have been. I've almost been reluctant to blog about running again for fear of having to follow up with another whining post about how I'm injured, then the inevitable blogging hiatus, followed by a sarcastic "Hi, I'm Penny" post, having to reintroduce myself all over again.

Well no more! I have designated 2015 as the year of no injury. It even has its own hashtag #noinjury2015.  Unfortunately the meme hasn't really taken off. That is, only I use it. And mainly just in my head and in messages to Kristen. #howdothesocialmediasworkagain?

Anyway. Ok. To get us all back on track, here is the mileage I have done since recovering from my hip labral tear: 

January: 16, 21, 23, 26, 22

February: 23, 25, 25, 30

March: 10, 26, 32, 35

April: 38, 42, 26, 45

As you can see, in both March and April I took cutback weeks, that I think have enabled me to get up to my goal mileage feeling strong. I have also been running all that SLOW. As in, between 8:45-10 min miles, when my easy pace used to be 7:45- 8:30.  Slowness = lower impact = few injuries + better aerobic workout. Learn it, people. At least, learn it faster than I did. 

Anyway, I'd like to keep my mileage between 45-50mpw, in the lead up to *brump-bum-ba-buuuuum* my goal race of Gold Coast half marathon, July 5. That's ten weeks away. And I'll be shooting for sub-1:30.

Posting that publicly is soooo bloody scary these days. Not because I might not be in sub-90 shape come July - that may well be the case. Rather, its because every effing time I've set a goal race in the last 18 months, I've been stymied by injury.

But screw it. I don't believe in juju, or jinxing or touching wood or whatever. Nothing I say on the interwebs and to our 4.8 average weekly readers, is going to change whether or not I get another serious injury.

What will give me another injury is not eating enough, not sleeping enough, jumping up in mileage and/or speed before I'm ready, running in old shoes, and generally being an idiot. 

So in short, my motto in the lead-up to GC half is: don't be an idiot. 

Part of my attempt to lessen my own idiocy has been to do some of my long runs on trails, and undulating terrain (Sydney is quite flat). To wit, below are some pics of a trail run I did in Canberra, through Red Hill Nature Park, with some beautiful rugged bush, and gorgeous views of our nation's capital.

Oh, and one of Lake Burley Griffin and the High Court of Australia, cos lawyer and lawyering lawyeryness.

I was in Canberra for a beautiful wedding - and was able to spend some grand times with my siblings and neices/nephews. Including this stunning little lady.

And my big bro, who professes to not have seen me sober since about the middle of 2004.

Whatevaaaaa. Champagne-induced wedding selfies rock.

Then last weekend I headed down to Victoria for a hensy weekend with my two best friends and their babies. 

Before we go into the running bits, we must first observe: bebe cheeks: 

Mischiefy bebe cheeks!

All the bebe cheeks in bath. HULLO omg.

And my women. Fuck I love these two. 20 years we've been friends and still going strong.

And all this is to say that I did last week's long run (13 miles) along the Great Ocean Road between Anglesea (where we were staying) and Airey's Inlet. 

You are just so spoiled for views along this stunning coast line, it is hard to resist the temptation to stop running and take photos every 5 minutes.

Blessed be my places. So good.

And that's all folks. Until next week's first actual OMG training post in basically forever, woop!

Running (and eating) in Paris

We recently went on a 10-day trip to Paris. Because why the hell not.

It was late February (it wouldnt be me if I wasnt exceedingly late in posting about my holidays), so running was rather chilly; but it was fun to finally pull out my cold weather gear from NYC!

We were staying in the Theatre District, which meant I could run south, past Palais Garnier, through the Louvre and along La Seine every day. 

There is a great path along the south-side of the river that runs almost entirely unbroken, up to (and beyond) the Eiffel Tower.

Needless to say Paris was amazing to run around. But there were so many other amazing things to do and see... and most of all EAT.

Eating in Paris is kind of a runners dream.

"I'll have the entree bread with a side of bread, and bread topping, s'il vous plait."

I also ate laduree macaroons every.single.day. 

Because Im 32 and I make great life choices.

We had some amazing seafood:

Though believe I ate steak at least 5 nights. I couldn't understand what they did to it to make it taste so good.

Then I remembered all the butter. Yes.

Also all the cheese and wine too please.

A croissant a day keeps the doctor away.

SHUT UP ITS A SAYING.

And while eating all the desserts was incredible, even better was learning to make them (then eat them) myself!

Beyond food and running it would be impossible to share all the amazing things I did and saw. But below are a few highlights:

The mini markets

Notre Dame

Sacre Coeur 

Curling up with a book at Shakespear & Co.

Going to the ballet at Palais Garnier:

(And finally being in the presence of the real-life "Masquerade" staircase from Phantom!) 

Seeing my favourite Van Gogh in person:

And of course my lady, La tour Eiffel, at night. 

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!