Neural Hypersensitivity??

I finally broke down and saw a physical therapist - Mike Stare at Spectrum Fitness. I've always been skeptical of physical therapy, afraid I'm going to pay hundreds of dollars for exercises I could have looked up on the Internet.

It turned out Mike was very impressive. He didn't just talk at me, but spent a lot of time listening and asking questions, as well as taking seriously my own analysis of what was happening. Did I like him just because he was flattering my input? I hope not. What he did do was take me step by step through a deduction of what was happening based on my testimony, a series of exercises he had me do, and a fair amount of pushing, prodding, and stretching various muscles.

My problem has been ongoing pain in my right leg, as though I still haven't recovered from the strains I got in my quad and groin last November. Mike is convinced that there is nothing wrong anymore with my muscles. What he thinks is going on is something called "neural hypersensitivity", which I had not heard of before.

The idea is that after a trauma, the nervous system can become sensitive to stressing of the muscles, anticipating another traumatic event. There seems to be some science to back it up. And the discomfort in my right leg hasn't felt exactly like a strain for a long time. Sometimes it doesn't hurt at all, and it doesn't hurt when I ride the bike.  Yet when I wake up in the morning, it will be sore.

The good news is there is a path forward through some PT, which I will be starting shortly.

On Mysterious Foot Pain.

About 5 miles in to the 20 mile run last Sunday, I felt a sharp pain in the sole of my left foot. I thought a sharp pebble might have popped in to my shoe. The pain was brief so I ignored it. A few miles later it happened again: A brief shot of sharp pain. This time I stopped, took off the shoe and shook it out. I thought something might have come out, so I put the shoe on and continued the run. All good for a couple of miles, and then the sharp pain again. I took the shoe off again and this time felt around on the inside for something that wasn't supposed to be there, finding nothing. I also noticed some blood on the bottom of my sock. This happened on and off for the rest of the run - an occasional sharp pain. By the end of the run I figured it wasn't a pebble and maybe was a splinter.

My daughter Ellen volunteered to look at the bottom of my foot (after a shower!) and thought she might have detected a splinter. She probed around with a pair of tweezers for a while but could get nothing out. Googling splinters on the internet, one popular remedy was to put a baking soda plaster on the injury overnight. It was supposed to swell up the skin and squeeze the splinter out. I tried it but the next morning nothing had changed.

Monday was a rest day so I just ignored my foot and felt no pain in any case. Hoping the thing had gone away on its own, I went on a 5 mile run after work on Tuesday. Sure enough, a mile in I felt that sharp pain again in the sole of my left foot. I turned around and ran home, cursing all the way. 

I barged into the house, plunked down on our couch where Tricia was watching TV. I took off the shoe cursing some more and again began to search for something that was the cause of the pain. Seeing I was about to lose it, Tricia asked for the shoe.

She looked at it briefly and handed it back, pointing out the nail sticking through the bottom of the sole.

Injury Recovery and Training Update

I was pretty sure I didn't actually pull my calf muscle at the Harborside Half Marathon, and instead just strained it. I've had this injury before on that same calf and it felt the same way. A slow tightening with some increasing pain, but something I could run through if necessary (like in a race!) In the past my recovery from it has been pretty quick, a matter of days.

I tried a couple very slow miles Tuesday evening and it felt OK- a hint of tightening that convinced me not to try anything more. Wednesday I did another very slow 3 miles with Marianne and it felt pretty good, and again on Thursday with a 5 mile run. Saturday I went 10 on a flat 5 mile loop starting from my house and had no pain, averaging a little over 9:30 per mile.

So I went ahead with a scheduled 20 mile run this morning with Marianne. We stayed with my flat 5 mile loop, with me determining the pace. Everything felt fine and we gradually worked our way into a bit over a 9:00 mile pace, which is what we had targeted for this run pre-injury. So it looks like the training program is back on track where it should be.

20 mile run in 3:05:45 for a 9:17 pace.

1. 10:08
2.   9:24
3.   9:15
4.   9:28
5.   9:32
6.   9:18
7.   9:08
8.   9:11
9.   9:13
10. 9:17
11. 9:00
12. 9:08
13. 9:14
14. 9:08
15. 9:19
16. 9:12
17. 9:02
18. 9:11
19. 9:10
20. 9:23

Peak Mileage Milestone - 20 miles

So this morning I ran the first of the 20 mile training runs, 3 of which are on the Hal Higdon plan I am following. 2 more to go. 20 miles is the longest distance run on the plan.

I ran the 20 miles in 3:18:28, a bit less than a 10 minute mile pace. The route I use is a 5 mile loop, which allows me to stay relatively close to home and put a water bottle on the front porch. I don't like to carry things when I run, and the bottle on the porch allows me to take a water stop every 5 miles without the hassle of toting a bottle. I also take a gu gel energy pack off the porch every loop.

Last Sunday I was visiting in Endwell and ran the 19 mile run called for by the plan. Rather than mapping out a flat course in Endicott and driving down there for it, I foolishly mapped one starting from the Weis plaza down the hill on Hooper road. This course is a lot hillier than my normal route in Danvers (although I did my best to minimize the hills). As I probably should have expected, it was a little too much and in the 19th mile I tweaked my left calf (the same injury I experienced in August after the Rockport Half Marathon) going up the final hill on Hooper Road along ME High School. Fortunately I had the good sense to shut it down when I first felt the pain in my calf and limped in the final quarter mile to the car. This past week I rode the recumbent bike at work on Tuesday and Wednesday rather than the training runs. I tried out the calf on Thursday in a 5 mile run and finished it with no pain. Same thing again for the 10 mile run yesterday.

I changed the 5 mile Danvers loop I've been running to make it as flat as possible to minimize the chance of injury. Compared to what I ran in Endwell, it is very flat with only a few gentle grades. Today's 20 miles felt noticeably easier than the 19 miles in Endwell last week, and - the most important thing - I finished it without injury, although I am pretty sore.

One interesting thing is that I ran the first three 5 mile loops in a fairly consistent 10 minute mile pace. The last loop I ran in 47:27 for a 9:30 mile pace, although I did not try to increase the pace and in fact made a conscious effort to stay slow to avoid injury. Maybe it's the knowledge that I was in the homestretch that led to an unconscious uptick in pace. In any case it was nice to know I had that in the tank after 15 miles.

Dodging A Bullet

So I planned to only blog concerning the major events leading up to the Marathon, but some sports fans have indicated they want more content. I'm more than willing to write more posts... who doesn't like to write about his favorite person?

Had a bit of a scare in August. The week after the Triple Threat Half Marathon, I pulled a calf muscle while running an ordinary training run and ended up taking a week off. During that week off, my left knee started to hurt in an ominous way that was reminiscent of how it felt before I had surgery on it seven years ago.  Probably this was all the result of pushing it too hard at the Trip Threat Half Marathon. The week after that, I began starting some mild training again, but the knee didn't seem to be improving much. Naturally I got depressed thinking I might have done serious damage to the knee and blown the Disney Marathon.

I set up an appointment with Dr. O'Holleran, who did my two knee surgeries, and it turned out the knee is structurally sound and I only had a mild strain. By this point, I'm back to full training and did 11 miles last Sunday on my long run of the week.

The lack of training for those couple of weeks, and some inconsistent commitment to restraining my eating, probably killed my hope of weighing 180 lbs by the Wicked Half Marathon on Sept 20. I weighed 186 at my last Monday weigh-in, which is a 3 lb loss since August 4, but I'd need to lose 6 lbs in two weeks, which isn't going to happen.

In any case, I learned my lesson, and I'm going to take it easy and cruise the Wicked Half Marathon.