Metatarsalgia and Other Maladies

I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one on TV either. That being said, I am self-diagnosing myself with metatarsalgia. "What is metatarsalgia," you may ask. From what I've found, metatarsalgia is pain caused by increased pressure on the metatarsal heads, with the metatarsals being the bones in the foot. This is the first of my maladies and the one I've been suffering from the longest. Since early to mid December to be exact. Ever since A) I began ramping up my running mileage with back-to-back long runs on the weekends training for the Freedom Park 24, and B) I bought new running shoes to break in for the same event. The first of those shoes, the NIKE Lunar Glides, felt horrible and I've already returned them. As the foot lands, the metatarsals are designed to spread out and absorb the impact. My pain occurs as this happens. It gradually gets worse as the run progresses and will continue for a few hours after finishing. Although it doesn't completely go away, it is mild and tolerable at all other times, but especially noticeable walking barefoot on hard surfaces.

The second nagging injury I'm dealing with is a little more mysterious: pain in the front of the ankle. I'm going out on a limb and diagnosing it as simply tendinitis of either the posterior tibial tendon or the peroneal tendon, both of which are located toward the front of the ankle. This problem doesn't date back as far as the one in the foot. The first time I became aware of it was during the 24 Hour run. I had some swelling in the area as well, which I attributed to the compression tights I was wearing. Now I'm not so sure they were the problem. If you can imagine sharp pain in the front of the ankle when pulling your foot upward, that would be it. It's mostly in my left ankle, whereas the foot pain is in both feet.

Treatment for tendinitis includes immobilizing the area, elevation, limiting weight-bearing, applying ice, and using anti-inflammatory drugs. I saw the term orthopedic casting mentioned as well. That's out. I'm willing to cut back on the mileage and frequency of my runs in the long term, and I've already used icing and elevation, which seem to help immediately after a run. Other than that, I don't see too much else I can do. I'm certainly not going to rest completely. I think I can maintain up to two runs a week. Otherwise I plan on using this as an opportunity to spend more time on the bike and in the water. I've already logged over 120 miles on the bike trainer this month, which is more than any month last year, trainer or road!

Hopefully this will pass in the next few weeks. I'm not worried about it affecting my spring marathon training (yet) as I'm not overly worried about my times at those events. And yes, that includes Boston. However, I am worried about the two spring 50Ks I've already signed up for. I may have some problems completing them without doing any long training runs. So, my running may be dropping for the foreseeable future, but maybe my swimming and biking will be the beneficiaries.

The First Tough Weekend of 2010

I suppose I'm officially back in training now. It certainly feels like it! It hurts. I hurt. Everything hurts, upper body and lower.

I was able to return to the water Saturday afternoon and get some quality time in the pool. After nearly five months on dry land, I didn't know what to expect yesterday. I was hoping for a full mile, but willing to cut it short at a half mile if things were not feeling good. To my great surprise, things felt GREAT! When I finished my second half mile set I still felt good so I added another quarter mile to equal the distance of the Steelhead swim. My splits were: first 1/2 mile - 28:48 / second 1/2 mile - 27:01 (A NEGATIVE SPLIT) / and final .25 mile - 14:54 for a total time of 1:10:44. Not speedy by any stretch, but very decent for me in January.

This morning I met Dan H. in Hinckley at 6 AM to run some hills. We began with two loops of the all-purpose trail around the lake for 6 miles. Time: 55:30. We stayed in the park while it was still dark. That coupled with the fog made for poor visibility and we were not inclined to be hit by any cars.

At 7:00 we decided to hit the roads around the park to measure the Big Loop, a route that circumnavigates the entire Hinckley Reservation. It measured 9.2 miles and took us 1:24 to complete. Talk about hills! The first .75 mile is all uphill! While we got our share of downhills, the uphills seemed to be more numerous.

We finished with one more lap of the all-purpose trail for another 3 miles in 27:40. I was hurting pretty bad by this point. Both my shoulders from swimming and my lower body: feet, ankles, and knees. I don't know what's up with my feet. It's the same pain I was experiencing training for the 24 Hour. As for the knee, it's my right knee now instead of the left. Go figure!

A tough weekend and hopefully worth it in the long run. But for now, time for some recovery!

Back in the Saddle?

Let's hope so! After two weeks, TWO WEEKS, of no running, I hit the road yesterday afternoon for a hastily planned jaunt out the Lester Trail. The last couple days I've been pondering where to run Saturday and Sunday mornings, so yesterday, when Jr. P said he didn't want to be picked up early from the day care, I decided to go out for an easy middle distance run.

The Lester Rail Trail is a converted railroad line approximately 1.5 miles from my house. At three miles in length, plus getting there and coming back, I have a nice 9 mile out and back route. With the January thaw happening, I thought it would be in decent enough shape to run on. So, lacing up my trail shoes, out the door I went.

And I was right. The trail was indeed runnable, albeit at a very slow pace. The snow was soft, wet, and slushy, and thanks to someone who drove a snowmobile through there at some point, not very deep. The going was slow, I averaged only 10:30 per mile for the six miles of the trail, but enjoyable. With the exception of a cardinal, some other birds, and some small flying insect that must have just woken back up, there wasn't a living thing to be seen out there. Just the motoring public in their Friday afternoon hurry at the three road crossings.

I've been reading Born to Run recently and tried to concentrate on my form while out there. It was kind of hard considering the lack of solid footing, but I think I managed OK. My problem is that right where you land on the foot while barefoot running is exactly where my foot pain is. Not new foot pain, but the same stuff I had while training for the 24 Hour. Maybe my feet are so week I'm going to need to work through the pain to get stronger. Or this ball-of-the-foot form just isn't for me and I should concentrate on landing the way I always have.

One / Ten / Ten - The Numbers Edition

What would a blog by Mr. Pythagoras be without numbers? Not right, that's what! I woke up this morning on the tenth day of the first month of two thousand ten and realized that I had not wrapped up the year two thousand nine yet. So without further ado, the numbers:

I participated in 21 events in 2009, which is a tie with 2008 for the most I've done in one year. They ranged in distance from 5K to 24 hours. Seven of the events were marathon distance or longer, which is a HUGE jump for me. Five of the events were multi-sport, including one 2 person relay. The number of multi-sport events was way down from my high number of nine in 2007, but three were triathlons, which I enjoyed much more than racing duathlons.

In 2009 I broke seven of my existing Personal Records: 5K twice, 5 mile, half marathon, and the marathon three times as I eventually got fast enough to hit my Boston qualifying time of 3:15. I also set three new PR's: trail marathon, trail 50K, and 24 hours. As of right now I'm not sure if I will keep official records for two of those last three as specific categories. I think of the trail races much as I do multi-sport events. The courses are so unique that it's hard to compare one to another. I may be better off just keeping track of my times from a specific event, like the Bobcat Trail Marathon, from year to year, and not comparing it to other trail marathons.

In 2009 I ran 1,589.7 miles. That's right! No typo! I SMASHED my previous annual running miles total by nearly one thousand miles! I biked a total of 502.6 miles. Although that's the most I've ridden in a single year since coming back in 2006, it's still over 400 miles behind my high point back in 1991. As for swimming, I finished the year with 31.0 miles, most of which occurred in the pool. The only open water swimming I did was during my three triathlons.

So what do all the numbers mean? While they're nice to reflect upon, the numbers serve the most use as a guide on how I'm doing from year to year and, more importantly, they can help me in setting goals for the following year.

2010 Goals:

- Do fewer than 21 events. I've decided in the last few months that I don't need to race every weekend. I don't need to take part in every event we go to. It's OK for me to just be a spectator while others compete.

- Make the events I do participate in "quality" events. For me, "quality" means "longer". I derive more satisfaction from going longer rather than shorter and faster. The events I'm planning for 2010 will include distances of marathon and longer as well as multi-sport, focusing on triathlon.

- I would like to run more than 1,600 miles. I need to add more time on the bike, so trying to log much more running miles would be difficult.

- My cycling mileage should be at least equal to my running mileage, if not more. That means 1,600 to 2,000 miles on the bike. I have some ideas on how I will accomplish this goal, from getting on the bike trainer on a daily basis this winter, to doing some nice LSD (long slow distance) riding this spring and summer. I plan to incorporate my mountain bike into the LSD program with some rides along the Towpath Trail. It's about time I began to really take advantage of what Northeast Ohio has to offer!

- I would like to swim more than 31 miles this year. That means hitting the pool on a regular basis. I also want to get in as many open water training swims as I can. For that I will need to find a decent place to swim, and some training partners would be helpful too.

- While I began entertaining thoughts last year about running a sub 3 hour marathon, that's not something I need to do this year. If I can finish around 3:30 in my marathons this year I will be very happy. That's not to say that if I feel confident about my conditioning I wouldn't make the attempt. I'll just leave that one as a fuzzy goal.

- Which leads me into Boston. As of right now I just want to enjoy the experience of running Boston. I'm not planning to PR there. I'm not even worried about hitting 3:15 there. Of course, that may change.

- Perhaps my biggest goal is to finish Ironman Wisconsin in September. And not just finish but finish strong, like I did at Steelhead last year. The cutoff time is 17 hours. I would like to be well under that. If I can have a good swim, a smart decent bike, and a strong run, I will be very happy.

- I will be making at least one attempt at running 24 hours again this year. I would like to run farther than 80 miles. That may be hard considering the North Coast 24 is six days after Ironman. Maybe a trip back to North Carolina will be in order? No pressure...

2009/2010 Freedom Park New Year's Ultra 24 Hour Run

There are times when all the world's asleep,

the questions run too deep

for such a simple man.

Won't you please, please tell me what I've learned

I know it sounds absurd

but please tell me who I am.

-The Logical Song - Supertramp

This is but one of the songs that hit me like a truck sometime after 10 o'clock on New Year's Eve. That's when I decided it was time to put the iPod on, put my head down, and just force the run. And force it I did for about the next four hours or so. Until the pain in my feet became too much for me to run on at all and I was reduced to the slowest walk I've ever done.

Going into this 24 hour run I was prepared to both hurt and to face exhaustion. But I wasn't prepared for the pain of exhaustion. It wasn't the pain of a cramp, less immediately debilitating. It built over time, preventing me from recognizing what was happening. I'm absolutely sure the compression tights were a bad idea. Now. But at the time I didn't realize they were adding to my physical woes. The combination of the swollen and inflexible ankles, knee pain, tight hamstrings and quads, and the problem in the balls of my feet were tolerable, but the blister on my left foot was the proverbial straw, and I, the camel.

I had been looking forward to the dark, when the effort on my face would go unnoticed.

The day began nice enough, grabbing breakfast at the hotel before checking out, making our way to the park, finding a spot near the port-a-potties, and getting set up. Never mind that I needed to run the shower in our room for literally four minutes before the water got warm. Or that it had snowed overnight and temperatures were hovering at just over 30 degrees. We were all in good spirits, and that was the important thing.

Ladd putting the finishing touches on his supplies.

Dan, Mike, Ladd, and myself, four members of Team Ohio.

Looking from our base camp down towards the aid station and timing mats.

The construction of Base Camp Ohio went quickly with the four of us hauling equipment and erecting tents. Although it was cold that morning, the only part of my body that was feeling it was my toes. I was fine with that because I knew they would warm as soon as we began moving. My main worry was still the rain which was forecast to arrive during the afternoon and overnight. Running 6 hours in the rain is one thing. Spending 24 hours in it, completely different.

Dan and Ladd a few mile into the run.

One of many walking breaks.

With nervous energy trying to burst forth from within, the run began. Keeping the pace under control was the hardest thing to do at this point. We may have been better off just forcing a walk for the first few miles, but our conservative starting pace morphed into a comfortable 8:30 running pace. Too fast and we knew it. Dan was out ahead of us doing his thing, eventually making it to fourth place overall for a time, while Ladd and I ran our regular pace. I was of the mind to just stay comfortable, and the pace felt comfortable.

Never find, never mind, never peace God at least

give me strength just for one more try

Got to give, need to live long enough just to say

that I stayed to the end of the big time

-Default - Never Slow Me Down

Sure, I wanted to speed up even more. I would have liked to let go and RACE. But as much as I wanted to, I knew that this wasn't the place for me to do that. That was for guys like Dave James, who tore things up at the North Coast 24 in October. He was flying again here. Except this time I was a runner, not a volunteer, and getting passed!

Looking down the "hilly" stretch out by the road.

The lonely tree I noticed every lap until it got dark.

Each lap was nearly a mile in length, and we ran so many they all kind of blend together. We hit our first marathon in about 4:15 and our first 50K shortly after that. I made my only shoe change at that point, going from the Asics Gel Stratus to the Saucony Grids. What a difference! I had immediate support in the parts of my feet that needed it. All was well. For the time being, anyway.

Some drizzle in the morning amounted to nothing. The afternoon rain never materialized. Neither did the overnight precipitation. We really lucked out! What we did get was a steady temperature until the wee hours of the morning. And a fog/mist that seeped into everything. Food. Clothing. The 100% humidity made breathing difficult. Combine the moisture with mid-30s temperatures and it was pretty chilly unless you were moving.

I hit three low points during the run. They all came before midnight and were all due to low blood sugar. I am fortunate to have enough experience to recognize it for what it was and eat something. The great thing about ultras is the wonderful selection of food available on the course. A pair of hot dogs perked me right up out of one funk. A cheeseburger out of another. Chips, fig newtons, pretzels, nut bars, Reese's Peanut Butter Christmas Trees, Gatorade, gels, Coke, Mountain Dew, grilled cheese, bananas, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, all helped me out during the run. Each time I hit a new low, I grabbed some grub and walked a mile.

I was hoping to hit 60 miles by 8:00 PM and was darn close. Within a few miles. You can guess what kind of shape I was in to make it only another 18.8 miles in the second half of the run. The music came on after 10:00 and I phoned home at midnight. After downing a few glasses of sparkling grape juice, along with some other yummy things, I took full advantage of my second wind and ran until about 2:00 AM. Granted, the shuffle I was doing was far from my normal gait, but I was moving quicker than walking pace. This is important because I had earlier considered stopping after midnight. Just make it into the new year and make a decision then, I had told myself, and Ladd as well. Somewhere along the way I decided I wasn't going to step out for a prolonged break. I may have nodded off a few times while sitting in one of our chairs, but that didn't last long and I was back out on the trail.

Forcing myself to get moving after each stop at base camp or the port-a-potty was hard. Really hard. And had I not just gone through something very hard, I may not have been able to find the strength to keep pressing on. I was hoping for 100+ miles at the start, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. I had a good chance to hit a triple marathon if I just kept moving. That became my goal. I couldn't run any more, so I walked. I limped. I was broken physically but not mentally. I was being passed by people walking at a pace I should have been able to maintain. It was like I was in someone else's body, or in a dream. I just couldn't get the thing to move the way I wanted it to. By this time I was in a rain coat, more for heat retention than anything else, the hood drawn down low, my eyes focused a mere few feet in front of me.

And that's how I finished my last lap. A far cry from how I began the previous day. I've run in pain before, but these pains were new. I had no solution for them. I think that without them I could have kept running. At least a little bit. As bad as I felt though, I didn't swear off doing it again. Which is good, considering I'm already registered for the NC 24 this September! And surprisingly, I'm looking forward to it.

What I've learned:

-I'm still stronger mentally than physically.

-A 24 hour run is right up my alley.

-I'm nuts enough to derive pleasure from beating myself into the ground.

-I need to go out a little slower in the early miles.

-I need to walk more early on.

-A hilly course is harder than a flat one.

-I need to take more photos next time.

-DO NOT wear compression anything on the lower legs for that amount of time!

-Try to get more sleep the night before.

-Hire a crew!

-Have more than a month of specialized training.

So, I'm happy with my 78.8 miles. I really worked to get those last few! And as bad as I felt, I had a great time down there. The Ohio group was great, I saw some familiar faces from North Coast, and met some new people as well. Congratulations are in order for everyone who ran, however far they went, and however long they went for. A small percentage of the population runs, an even smaller percentage of runners would sign up for something like this.

Finally, big thanks go out to BMRC for putting on a GREAT event. This was only the second time for it, and each one has seen it's share of less than ideal weather, but they still managed to put on a fantastic event. I felt very comfortable running there, like I hadn't even left Ohio. Nice job everyone!

Freedom Park 24 Hour Results

While I am still recovering from my 24 hour adventure in North Carolina, I feel MUCH better than I thought I would two days after finishing. I have some aches and pains and I'm still walking funny, but I've had more muscle soreness after running a hard half marathon than from running for 24 hours. I have some joint/tendon/ligament pain/swelling that I've never had before, but it's all slowly getting better.

I will post a more detailed race report soon, but since the official race results have been posted I wanted to make a quick mention of them here. Even though I was hoping to hit triple digits in mileage, I am very pleased with my distance of 78.88 miles. I completed 80 laps in 23 hours, 33 minutes, and 43 seconds. Granted, the "run" was a "run/walk" combination, but that's how these things are done. And who would have thought that I would decided to enter something like this anyway? I distinctly remember deciding that a 24 hour event wasn't for me while working the North Coast 24 back in October! But something has happened recently to make me decide that ultras as well as trail running ARE in fact for me! And my race number was all I needed to confirm that.

Congrats to the rest of Team Ohio: Mike K. - 56.2 miles, Ladd C. - 70.13 miles, Dan H. - 93.66 miles, and another Ohioan whom I didn't know Mark P. - 82.82 miles. The conditions were less than ideal, but could have been worse. I will try to get a full race report up before too long!