Back to the Track!

First post surgery run at the track today.  Put on my (dusty) light weight shoes and jogged the 1/2 mile down to the high school track.  Perfect conditions: low 40's, no wind and pitch black (so no-one could see me).

Plan was 4x1200 meters in 5:00 (6:42 min/mile) with 90 seconds recovery jog in between.  Back in June I was doing these 1200s around 4:30 (~6:00 min/mile).  I guestimated fitness and pace based on yesterday's tempo run but it was not very scientific.

• Number 1 wasn't bad, got on pace quickly and did 4:57.
  
• Number 2 went a little quicker at 4:52.
  
• Number 3 started too fast (1:32 first lap vs 1:40) which hurt, but I held on to come in at 4:53.
  
• Number 4 was 3:11 thru 2 laps and then I went for it on the last lap and did a 91 sec lap to finish in 4:42 (or 6:20 min/mile).
  

Average for the 4 was 4:51, so I am a little fitter than I guesstimated, and it felt great to be running fast on the track.  Although I am about 20 seconds off my pre-injury times.

So next time I will shoot for 4:45 and probably go up to 5x, which I suspect make it difficult for me to get thru reps #4 and #5 on pace.  Then I'll take 1 sec/lap off when I'm able to hit the last one on pace and I'll also up the reps to 6x at some point.  I'm guessing that I should be able to get to 6x1200 at 4:30 by about March (Shamrock) and closer to 4:20 by May (Ottawa).

Next up: my first double digit run this Saturday.

It's good to be back.

8 Weeks and All Clear!

So I have been set free!  My last visit to the Doctor was this afternoon, and I am officially good to go.  He was still pleased with the progress and as long as I remain sensible in my mileage and speed buildup he expects me to get completely back to where I was.

So now I set my sights on the future.  Big goal is Ottawa marathon which is 23 1/2 weeks away.  I plan to use the next 5 1/2 weeks building up my mileage to about 60, gradually adding more fast workouts and extending the long run to about 15 miles.  Then I can still fit in an 18 week training plan. the Kaiser half and Shamrock half along the way will be useful to assess fitness.  It all looks doable and I have a chance to get into reasonable shape for the marathon.

Now my weight is an entirely different matter.  I was at a low of 143 when I was running lots back in July, I hit a peak of 159 this month.  That's 16 pounds......  I looked back at my weight gain/drop when I was last off running and noticed that it was about 8-9 weeks after I started running that my average weight peaked, and 13 weeks before I was back at the starting weight.  It took 17 weeks to lose 2.5 pounds and then it dropped off pretty consistently at just under 1 lb/week.

So if I lay out last times miles/weight (top chart) and compare with this time (top chart) I can get a projected weight trend (the blue dots).  I should get back under 150 for the Shamrock half, and could be back to the mid 140s for Ottawa. Good news is that I won't peak until Xmas, so I can keep eating!

7 weeks

Another week of recovery has gone by and things continue to go well and fitness is slowly returning - and I do mean sloooowwwwllllyyyyyy.  

My long run is now up to 7.5 miles, plus I ran a few strides (accelerate for ~10 seconds and then hold that top speed for ~10 seconds) during my run last night and everything felt great.

I am planning to go for 9 miles sometime this weekend, and will probably do a mile or two at a slightly faster pace (7:00 ish) sometime in the next 7 days.

Then it's hopefully my final checkup and signoff by the doc next Wednesday and I'm back!

I should have just enough time to get into OK shape for Kaiser, which is now only 7 1/2 weeks away.  I would love to be able to run somewhere in mid/low 1:30s but I won't know how likely that is until I can get back to running some faster miles and seeing how it all hangs together.

2009 Race Planning

Now I may be counting my chickens, but since recovery is going well I've started looking to 2009 races.  I won't be fit in time for a good showing at Boston (April) so I'm going to skip that and instead shoot for Ottawa at the end of May.  That should give me enough time to get back into fighting shape to go for a "good time" (exact goal still to be determined.....)

Building up to that full marathon I have two halves planned...

1) Kaiser Half on Superbowl Sunday (2/1) in San Francisco

2) Shamrock'n'Half on 3/15 in Sacramento

I've run both of these before and I like the races.  I'm hoping to not embarass myself at Kaiser and if things go well, set a new PR at Shamrock.

6 weeks down

It is now 6 weeks since I had my surgery and my recovery is continuing to go very well.  Here's the stats from the last 7 days of running.....

• Ran 5 out of  7 days, including 3 days in a row
  
• Total of just over 25 miles
  
• Long run of 6.6 miles
  
• 1 very hilly run
  
• Ran a mile at 7 minute pace
  
• Ran a half mile at 6:35 pace
  

So it's going well - no pain or problems so far!  I revisit the doc 2 weeks from today, so until then I plan to run everyday unless I feel like taking a day off.  I'll try to stay in the 5-7 mile range althoug I may stretch it a little one day on the weekend, and I'm going to add in a few 100 meter strides once a week.

Measurable Progress

Ok - I have measurable progress!  The chart on the left shows each of my runs (1 dot = 1 run, size of the dot = length of the run).  It's Heartrate/speed on the Y axis, and date on the X axis.  Lower is better - i.e. your heartrate is lower for a given speed, or you can run faster for a given heartrate.

The blue rectangle on the left is pre-surgery, post marathon, when I was fit.  At my fittest I was running high 17's for HR/speed.  The purple box in the middle is when I decided to get a little back into shape pre surgery.  You can see how quickly progress is made.

The red circle shows my first tentative post-surgery runs; they were all 1-2 miles and pretty slow (9ish pace).

The last 5 runs I have started to stretch things out a little. I'm up to 4 miles and running around 8 minute pace.  The data shows a nice little cluster right around 20.

Looking back over my training log I can see that I can get from >20 to under 18 pretty easily in about 3 months, so I'll just follow a similar plan to that time.

Spoke to my doctor today, and he is encouraged by the progress and lack of pain at the injury site.  He was also happy (and a little surprised I think) that I have kept it slow and only gradually increased miles.  I have some tightness in the inner thigh muscles, but he wasn't worried about that.  He wants another 3 weeks of running first.  Although it's only 5 weeks since surgery he was fairly confident that I should make a 100% recovery.  I see him again on December 17th.

Plus, had my first rainy run today - it was good to get out in the rain and mud again.  It was also my first time running two days in a row since early August.  So fingers crossed, it's all looking good.

Still Going

Things continue to progress, albeit fairly slowly.  I'm running every 2-3 days and am now up to 3.5 miles!  Still pretty slow stuff, although I did manage to dip under 8 minute pace the other day for a mile or so - and nothing burst out of my abdomen like something from Alien.  Surgery seems to be healing well, fitness is still noticeably absent, but I don't expect that to really change while only running 5-10 easy miles per week.

I'm going to try 4-5 runs this week, which will mean some two-days-in-a-row runs.  We'll see how that goes, but if there are no issues I'll try for 5-6 days next week, and then 6-7 the week after.  I am tentatively planning to try some strides (100 metre runs at a "fast" pace) on the 10th, which will be 7 weeks after surgery. 

Then I revisit the doc on the 17th, when he will hopefully declare me "cured" and I can start working on the next injury.

Slow, Steady Progress

This whole, common sense and patience thing is really no fun.  I've now run 4 times, or every other day since last Friday.  I hit a long of 2.3 miles yesterday, at a blistering 8:42 pace.  It's weird to get ready to run, go out and then be back home within 15-20 minutes.  I'm used to going out for 2+ hours.

But things seem to be progressing well.  No pain from running, which is really all I'm asking at this point.  I'll keep the every other day schedule for a while and keep slowly building up the mileage. If I'm up to 5 miles most days by the first week of December I'll be happy.

The road back...

I saw Dr. Brown today for my post surgery followup.  He went through the surgery pictures with me and showed me what he did.  It turns out that I'd only ripped the first two layers of muscle on each side, not all three.

Overall he was happy with the recovery although the bruising was worse than normal.  The good news is that he OK'd me to start some easy running. Nothing fast, and nothing far.  Just an easy 8-10 minute mile.  He said that if it hurts I should stop.  If I need to sit on the couch and recover for an hour afterwards I need to take a day off.  If it's OK then I can slowly increase the distance and see how it goes.  I need to let common sense be my guide, which may be a problem.....

So I went out and ran late this afternoon.  Just an easy mile and a bit round the neighborhood.  I didn't have any pain in the surgery area and it felt far more comfortable than my last pre-surgery run.  So it looks like it has been successful.

Fitness is a completely different matter.  I am pretty out of shape.  One of the key metrics I use is to look at my average heartrate for a run, divided by my average speed (miles per hour).  As fitness increases this decreases.  Obviously longer runs, and hilly runs can skew the data but I find it a reasonable measure of fitness when trended over time.  Here's a chart that shows how it has been since early August (when I was in the best shape of my life).

To explain the numbers consider a 10k race (6.2 miles).  If I run one of these I can pretty much expect my average heartrate to be about 170-172.  If my fitness (HR/speed) is at it's pre-surgery peak of 18 my speed would be 9.55 mph, which is 6:17 mins/mile, so 39:03 for a 10k. That's the kind of shape I was in (although I never actually ran a 10k that fast...).  At my post surgery fitness level of 21 that same 10k would be at 8.2 mph, which is 7:20 mins/mile, or 45:34 for the 10k.  So I have my work cut out to get back up to speed!

The plan is to run 3 days and then add 1/2 mile to the distance.  All slow miles in the 8-10 min/mile range.  That will be the routine for the next 4 weeks.  If that goes well I will be up to 5 miles by my birthday (November 29th), which will be about 6 weeks post surgery.

If that goes well, I can start thinking about adding in some faster and longer stuff. 

2 Weeks Done

It's been 2 weeks since the surgery, so 1 more week of walking before I can start "jogging and gentle running in straight lines".  I'm still not sure exactly what that means....is it 100 yards at 12 min pace or is that 10 miles at 8 min pace?  I am seeing my Doctor on Firday for a post-surgery checkup so will get his input.

Swelling has pretty much subsided, bruising is still there but beginning to change from black to red/yellow.  I guess another couple weeks before that is fully gone.  No ibuprofen for the last 5 days so I'm officially through the painful phase.  Walking is pain free (depending on what I'm wearing) and sleeping is no longer uncomfortable.

So overall it's been good progress this last week.

Major milestones!

Just sneezed and it didn't hurt! This may not sound like much but I sneezed Monday and it made my eyes water. Plus, this without any ibuprofen. Also last night was the first time I could sleep on my side.

So things are looking good. Before too long I'll be back out running - ready to break something else.

Recovery So Far

It's been five days since surgery and things are going well.

• Wednesday (surgery day) was pretty easy as all I did was sit on my butt and I was still pumped full of drugs from the hosiptal. 
  
• Thursday went OK. I didn't take any hardcore pain killers, just 4 ibuprofen every 6 hours.  Walked round the block 3 times, albeit slowly and a little hunched over.
• Friday was pretty much like Thursday, but I was walking like a 60 year old vs an 80 year old.
• Saturday I went down to 2 ibuprofen every 8 hours and walked for about 2 miles total.
• Sunday was just 2 ibuprofen at 9am and 2 before bed.  Walking up to 3 miles, with a reasonably normal stride.
• Today I'm back at work and feel pretty normal.  Still definitely slow and I get athe occasional sharp pain, especially when I move after sitting for a while, but overall it's going really well.

Swelling is down, but the bruising is out of control.  Everything (and I mean everything) from the stitches down is black.  Doesn't hurt at all but looks really freakish (sorry, no pictures of that are coming!).  Apparently it's pretty common after hernia surgery and goes away in a couple weeks.

Next 2 weeks are all easy stuff.  Just walking 3-4 times/day, and I can start some gentle stretching.  I need to go have a followup exam just to check that it's all looking OK, will probably do that early next week.