Masters Weekend Races and Runs

OMBTS - Reallly sorry to hear your Achilles has come to this! I've had pretty good luck with my Achilles since my 20's (knock on wood), so I have no advice to offer on this subject - except, of course, to make sure to get a 2nd opinion.

Had a good week. But after losing 3 pounds last week on my starvation diet, didn't lose an ounce this week on the exact same diet. God, how I hate our efficient runners' metabolisms! Looks like it'll be water and whatever bugs I can snag out of the air on distance runs this week.

My club (Fluffy Bunny) ran our first x-country race yesterday. Minus 3 of our top guys (we still had 6), we had a very good outing, finishing 9th out of 13 or 14 teams, with our own being the only non-college or youngster team. I managed to fall worse than ever before, taking a header at the bottom of a steepish gravel-rock hill. Buried my shoulder into the riverbed, then bounced on my hip and knee. Left a slick of skin in my wake. And can't move without lots of pain today. Worst part was lying there, curled in a fetal ball, while dozens of runners leapt over me without so much as a hitch in their stride. But the best part of the race was my teammate, Christian Cushing-Murray, looking like he'd actually trained this summer! He ran a strong race, though I think he went out too fast, and held me off when I tried to reel him in late - beating me in a final 1/4 mile kick by a good 3 seconds. So it's looking good for the season!

Okay, hope you all have great weeks!!!

Know 3 people who have had achilles surgery. All 3 are now back running and doing well. The 2 who followed doctors post surgery instructions are doing very well. The 1 who had to get on the ellipticall/bike so as not to lose fitness has stuggled. But just did run HTC. (This pattern of not listening to the body is what got them into the need for surgery in the fist place.)

As for myself, had a birthday last week. The goal is to run everyday for a year. Starting with 30minutes/day for a month. Then slowly creeping the time up by 20-30 minutes/week/month. This is the only way my addictive personality can let me work back into shape. If I miss a day then I can miss 2; then 3 is okay; then I gotta start over.

Have a good week everyone. Fall XC is here and it's a great time to be outside.

OMBTS:

Have you consulted a podiatrist who is using an extra corproal shock wave therapy machine like the Epos Ultra for achilles problems? The machine really helps PF and now many clinicians have found it promotes healing or the achilles as well.

I will get my "Dr. ~ What worked for me" advice out of the way on the Achilles issue. For a year, I had to walk up hills, a lot of workouts on Elyptic machines and Stationary bikes, and just let it slowly heal. I do not have any problems with it now. Good luck!

Another good base building week for me and the aging body seems to be handling it well. 85 miles with my usual two quicker workouts that went well.

Weds ~ 1200, 800, 600, 400, 200, 3 x Mile

Sat ~ 25 min Tempo, some Hill repeats

We have our first XC team meeting (excuse to have pizza and beer) tomorrow and hopefully we will have a good (healthy) turnout.

Kids had their first XC "time-trial" yesterday and both did well. Cool to see them both cruising along on the tough course.

Gotta get my run done so I can watch my seachickens start their season. Happy trails.

ty

Old man, good luck whatever your decision is. From what I see achilles problems seem to be about the most troublesome a runner can have. Ran 6 miles around Lake Wingra yesterday and did 5 miles on the bike trail this morning. Yesterday the front of my knee hurt immediately and lasted about 2 miles and then hurt all night. Now today it is mostly just stiff. Sometimes I give up trying to figure out all of the various aches and pains of which there never seems to be a shortage.

Bought a Sonoma diet cookbook and I'm going to try some recipes in there. Watched " Into the Wild " last night. An interesting and intense movie. The Ford Ironman is in Madison today so I'm going to help out there a couple of hours. I guess about 70 people get to qualify for Kona. My next race is Saturday in Wisconsin Dells; a hilly 4 miler. Have a good week all. TC.

Tearing my achilles my soph year in college (coming off a hurdle I landed on my heel, not my toes...) put an end to my collegiate career. I had surgery, 6 wks in a cast, 6 months of PT and I never was able to get back up to the same level of sprint speed I had pre-injury. Mine however was an acute tear, not a chronic inflammation and pain. It will occasionally be stiff since there it contains scar tissue, but I'm lucky not to experience any lingering pain or other issues. Old Man, best of luck with this!

This past week was my last one of modified training; track workouts start on Tuesday. We will concentrate on speed endurance with longer interval work, and strength work with plyo drills and resistance running. Have a great week everyone!

Had a great week here in Northern IN, my first of the Fall XC buildup. Got in 61 miles with a set of progressive 5x800's, 2:50 down to 2:40 on Tues. Thursdays progressive 8 miler stated out at 6:50 and finished up with a couple of 5:50's. Finished the week up with two ten milers just under 7:00 pace this weekend. The next few weeks I'll get the miles back up to 75'ish with a tempo and a track day on Tues/Thurs and a longer run on the weekend then hold that pattern thru the Fall. Next race isn't until Sept 26th.

After reading the injury updates everyweek, I consider myself very, very fortunate.

Dave

OMBTS, I've had achilles issues off and on for 30 years [ruined my senior year of high school baseball] but never surgery so no opinion on that. Good luck with it one way or the other.

Tropical storm Hanna wiped out my son's first x-c meet of the season yesterday, with cancellation coming only after they'd ridden a bus 64 miles to the site of the meet. Oops.

good week for me overall (better than the Redskins had anyway) highlighted by:

17 miles with 10k marathon pace on track (boring to me to run that long sub-maximum on track, but I wanted to break in the new track at my kids' school) Labor Day

11 with 4.84 tempo thurs afternoon (intended 5 but missed a mile mark on the C & O Canal towpath and picked a random landmark to turn around and then looked it up on local bike club website to figure out actual distance run)

16 with 2 X 4 miles (4:00 recovery) at marathon pace (intended; actually ran a bit faster) this morning--big negative splits: 24:22.37 for first segment, and then I dialed in and ran 24:22.10 for the second.

Have a great week.

OMBTS, Good Luck, and try to stay positive.

I have nothing positive to report. I'm just trying to get out of my own, excuse making, way, and start getting back into things.

I haven't had a goal to work towards in a while, so I'm thinking that Club Cross might be a good idea to get me going again.

OMBTS,

I've read a few other LR threads on surgery on the ach. Might want to do a search and see what others are saying as well. Keep in mind some of that advice will come from 'newbies' that have bodies that heal a bit more quickly.

This weekend, I ran in the one college XC race I do every year. On a scale of 1-10, I ran about a '2'....not good. I didn't do any interval training before the race as I'm just getting back on track after my leg issue. It showed. I had fun though and never took one step without someone on my butt! Can't beat that! So even though the performance was below expectations, the overall experience was great. Plus, some younger college guys (that used to run in HS around here and have now gone off to college) kicked my butt for the first time ever and they all liked that.

Ran a long run (14M) with GaryB today and didn't complain (too much). Body is pretty healthy so I'm happy about that.

well, another week of trying to hold it together. i think i am remembering why i sop doing marathons in the first place!! hahaha

anyway, jumped in the UCI race with the bunnies to make sure we had 5 on the line. i ran a "2" as well Skin as i had a pretty hard week.

then i got in 20 this am with the last half around 6:30-6:40 pace. felt much better than last weeks long run!

hopefully post marathon i will turn it around and be an asset to the bunnies (other than the guy that brings the tent hahahah).

and OMBTS, ALWAYS get a second, even third opinion when it comes to surgery. best of luck.

happy running all.

on a side note, does anyone know what the course at nationals is like? hilly? grass? etc.?

Marginal week highlighted by a great 3 mile uphill run on Monday. The road is 4 miles up, very gradual with a few steeper sections. Few vehicles, lots of Tour D'France whannabees also making the climb. Spectalular view of the Pacific from the ending point. Hope to make this a monthly workout.

Have a good week!

OMBTS,

I have no first hand achilles surgery experience...the only non-surgical achilles pain elimination technique that I've had success with has been multiple sessions of accupuncture executed within a fairly short window. I've always been a real forefoot striker and so achilles issues were fairly common back when I was a "real" runner.

I managed nearly 30 miles of slogging (slow jogging) this week, some as high as 9000 foot elevation up in the ski area above Santa Fe (thanks to "whatever man"'s suggestion)...all 30ish miles were accompanied by sharp hamstring/glute/hip pain every time I reached out with my left leg...sitting on ice at this very moment...I intend to kick this pain cycle with the help of my friends, electro-stim and ice...not running isn't an option.

Go Forty-Niners,

MF

Hello! I am building mileage this week and expected to feel a little dead, but I felt pretty darn strong on today's long run -- so I just know that I'm just a few days away from really super-tired. ;-) It WILL come, I know. Two "harder" workouts this week - a session of 4 x (200, 200, 800) on the cinder/dirt track and a 36 min. tempo run on grass. Both felt okay, but I was pretty tired on Thursday the day after the track run.

I had a chance to run on the the club nationals course when I was in Spokane this summer and I have to say it is a pretty uninspired place. ;-) Basically it is a large park with soccer fields. The grass was pretty spongy (but it was August) and it is mostly flat. My favorite part was running through the sprinklers (hey it was 90 degrees and it was too tempting and felt so wonderful). I'm sure the ground will be nearly frozen by Dec.

There was one nice little hill, but I can't see how it could be incorporated into a 2k course loop, so I'm guessing that the little rollers will be it. It does overlook the river, but you only get a tiny little peek at it.

Today's run was notable only because a group of guys started off just behind me and planted themselves about 6 feet behind me (it seemed) and just stayed there, talking away. I was moving pretty respectively (for the uphill beginning of a 16 miler anyway) and didn't really want them to pass me -- and they didn't, but they just stayed *right there*, running abreast with me pretty much in the middle a few yards ahead.

I knew that they would probably turn around at 2.5 or 3 miles and thankfully, I was right. I was happy to get my solitude back! But my pace stayed at that slightly faster pace throughout and it ended up being a very nice effort on a beautiful day in the forest. A friend met me with 3.5 miles to go, so I had company on the fun final part.

I'm thinking about running a few xc races - one next week - but it might be too soon.

My ankle is "locked up" and that creates issues with my legs (which can be corrected with a quick adjustment) and sometimes it makes my achilles quite tender. For me, though, it's the maladjustment of my ankle that causes it -- or tightness in my calves. Good luck with it -- and get more advice before surgery!

National Hurricane Center has Ike headed toward Texas - but we know those storms have minds of their own. We're not relaxing yet here on Florida's eastern panhandle, minutes north of the water.

I have no experience with running related injury - so no advice either. I know, I know, y'all can Fed Ex those rotten tomatoes and I'll have my wife and child throw them at me real hard for you.

Of course, I don't run nearly as far or fast as most of you do. This week a very easy return from a couple of weeks of nothing after track season. 24 miles total - very easy pace. Early morning relatively cool and clear way out here in the country; the deer don't even bother to lift their heads any more when I trot by. Great way to start the day.

Grace & peace to all...

OMBS, Achilles problems are very familiar to me, but I have no personal knowledge about surgery. All I can offer is that it can be a VERY long lasting and puzzling injury. For me one instance required 4 months off, then a gradual build up from 5 minute jogs with some relapse along the way, other times it seemed to gradually improve with some running, including fast running, other times nothing seemed to make any difference one way or the other. And of course look for the real cause, which might be far away, such as up in the hips. Cross friction massage to grow some nice new aligned tissue instead of random bound up scars is another idea. And trying to stretch the warmed up tendon out as much as possible BEFORE any running is useful for me. I'm still learning (unfortunately!). These are just some random thoughts that probably don't help you right now. In any case, good luck to you, OMBS! Surgery is a scary prospect.

No running for me, just cross training (hiking, water running, strength training), due to. yes, achilles and some other injuries.

I remain a newbie sprint junkie craving a fix in the worst way. Just 50 meters all out would do it. But... not this week.

muddy girl - glad you're recovered from HtC. Things started clicked for me early in the week, though I do admit that a Daniel's type workout on Tuesday kicked my butt. We did 12 minutes at threshold, 2x800 at Interval (2:39 and 2:40 for me) and then a couple of 400s (73 for me). Each type of workout by itself is manageable, but concatenating them together was pretty tough.

Dances with Dirt was quite an experience. We ended up fielding a team with 4 master men and a younger woman who is the girlfriend of a runner on another upstate NY team. She's a runner, but not that competitive, and had only planned on observing until we gently twisted her arm (it didn't take much). There was a mass start with all ~375 teams, and our lead runner put us into 5th or 6th place. We were in 4th when I got the tag for the 5th leg (Purgatory, advertised at 6.25 but GPSed at 6.9 miles by a couple of teams). Jeff Beck (an outstanding runner from Rochester took leg 1 by 3 minutes) flew by me after 11 minutes, but I managed to keep the split differential to 5 minutes.

Then the fun legs began. "This Sucks" usually ends up with the runners covered in black mud, "Where's the F'n Bridge" dumps you at the edge of a river, complete with boat traffic, with the trail marker flag in the swamp on the opposite bank, and "Styx, River of Death" makes the runners run through several hundred meters of water before ending up in Hell, MI. I didn't get those legs, but I did get to wade through about 30m of deep mud in leg #9 (Swoosh), but I did not enjoy my four face-plants or spraining my big toe on the last fall. But I still managed to keep us in a virtual heat for 4th place after a runner on another team and I worked together to navigate through some tricky turns to stay on the trail. I heard that most other teams were not as lucky and lost many minutes getting through that leg.

I wasn't on deck again until the last leg, and while the toe in the pain was tolerable, it wasn't really a question of not running since we didn't really have anyone in any condition to take my place. The last leg was very technical, with lots of sharp turns and roller coaster hills, but I managed to keep a solid pace with only a few hesitations and one minor backtrack to stay on the trail. We ended up in 3rd place overall, behind some good college alumni teams who were quite inpressed that a bunch of old guys and a girl gave them a run for their money. I don't know if doing this only two weeks after HtC was a good idea, but my legs feel surprisingly fresh, and my toe should be okay for moderate pace running in a couple of days. I'm sure that the Bell's Two Hearted Ale and Founder's Dirty Bastard we had after the race will help my recovery.

Love the description of Dances w/Dirt . . . especially the names of the various legs! Bell's and Founder's are definitely two excellent recovery drink brands.

OMBTS, I wish I had sage achilles advice, but I don't . . . so I'll just wish you well.

SoCalPete, ouch. That's all I can say: ouch. (I'm the queen of the sidewalk swan dive, with scars on both knees and left elbow to prove it.)

More easy running for me this week as I ease my way back to fitness (or so I hope). I have to remind myself that while I'm excited to be done with chemo, my body doesn't know it's over yet . . . as far as it's concerned, this is just another 3-week interval between treatments. Mentally, though, I'm raring to go. I managed 50 continuous minutes today, all nice and slow in the cool rain, and felt terrific.

Hiya Humbled and fellow Master Blasters!Humbled,Brilliant that you are finished with your chemo, may you continue to do well in your progress. 50 mins is great!!! I am also excited to be able to go 60-65 mins per day now and just enjoying being out running again after such a cycle with injury and set backs, although certainly not the challenges you have dealt with Humbled.This past 2 weeks have been my best and consistent all year with 36 last week and 38ish miles this week.I keep telling myself I will never take running for granted again.As for surgery OMBT it should be your last option. As a Massage Therapist I would consider some extensive deep tissue work, a muscle release therapy like ART would help you a ton in all likelihood, you can google it on the net.John and I have helped all sorts of athletes including those with achilles issues. You have received a ton of input on the boards so I will just add my well wishes to the others.Have a great week one and all, I hope for a couple more weeks of stable running and then may add some 100 meter striders, coming back after 3yrs looks a bit like climbing Mt Everest but it is always good to dream our dreams!

Humbled wrote:

Love the description of Dances w/Dirt . . . especially the names of the various legs! Bell's and Founder's are definitely two excellent recovery drink brands.

OMBTS, I wish I had sage achilles advice, but I don't . . . so I'll just wish you well.

SoCalPete, ouch. That's all I can say: ouch. (I'm the queen of the sidewalk swan dive, with scars on both knees and left elbow to prove it.)

More easy running for me this week as I ease my way back to fitness (or so I hope). I have to remind myself that while I'm excited to be done with chemo, my body doesn't know it's over yet . . . as far as it's concerned, this is just another 3-week interval between treatments. Mentally, though, I'm raring to go. I managed 50 continuous minutes today, all nice and slow in the cool rain, and felt terrific.