More visits to the Chiropractor

Well its been several weeks since my last blog and honestly had I felt there was something note worthy I would have posted. I wouldn't say today is anything earth shattering however its time to write down a few thoughts.

First off, I have changed chiropractors. The chiropractor I had been seeing was doing tons of Active Release Technique work on my knee and it just wasn't making progress. So I was out in Phoenix helping Jennifer move to California and she was chatting with her mom when her mom mentioned her chiropractors brother is in orange county. I look him up and make an appointment. Upon my first visit I asked him how much ITband injury work he had done. He is a runner too and said he himself had an ITband injury not long ago and has since fully recovered. My hesitation was reduced but I remained cautious because mine has been so persistent.

I have been seeing Dr. Adam Poole (http://poolechiropractic.com) for about a month now and I have maintained a reduced cycling regiment and no running at all. Well Last week he said to go out for a run and so I did. This was on a Monday; sure enough Tuesday morning plenty of ITband pain to go around. I was in Adam's office and he said rest, ice, stretch and try again on Thursday (9/10/09). So I did; and I rand 2.5 miles with no pain. I was so elated to have had a successful workout even though it was half the distance of my last full run nearly two months ago. Friday morning I was in Adam's office and he was excited for the progress too.

I had a 35 mile bike ride scheduled for the following day. Saturday morning (9/12/09) I gear up and head out for my peaceful Saturday morning rides. The ride was a bit more of a struggle then I care to admit. Mark my riding buddy flaked on me and my knee had mini flare ups during the ride. Nothing strong enough to stop me but just a reminder that it was there. Mark wasn't present and during our rides we occasionally chat which breaks up the ride nicely; anyhow I finish my 35 miler at an 18 mile an hour pace so just shy of two hours. I then do several minutes of ITband stretching cause I did not want it to tighten up on me.

Monday evening (9/14/09) I am thinking time for a run. I head down to the on site gym at my complex and hop on the treadmill. 1.25 miles in and I absolutely must stop because the pain is too great. I walk back to my apartment deflated that I am back at square one.

Tuesday morning and I am back at Adam's office. He does several things; ultrasonic, A.R.T., deep tissue, and adjustments like usual. He then prescribes a NO WORKOUT regiment for two weeks and start taking 3000mg of Omega 3 every day which helps with muscle relaxation some how. He said that my cycling may be preventing me from healing completely. I am completely annoyed by the prescription but I need to get better because I want to do the Tour de Tucson. This is a 109 mile bike ride that I would really like to do because my Uncle, Aunt, and Cousin have invited me to do because they are avid cyclists too.

So for the next two weeks I have a daily stretch/strength regiment instead of working out.
(some exercises taken from http://coastalsportsmedicine.com/)

Week 1 - stretch daily for 5-10 minutes and ice as needed for pain
Week 1 - ITband strength exercises 8-10 reps ; 1-2 sets (M, W, F)

Week 2 - Stretch twice daily 5-10 minutes and ice as needed for pain
Week 2 - ITband exercises 10-12 reps; 2-3 sets (M, T, Th, F)

::: Stretch Work :::

1. Tennis ball along the ITband with the tennis ball on the floor rolling across it.
2. Sitting figure 4 - ankle on top of the knee, leaning forward chest towards the thighs
3. Seated figure 4 - a typical runners stretch, foot crossed over the other leg by the knee and then twist away from the knee that is figure 4 shape.
4. Standing ITband stretch - one foot placed behind the other and crossed arms up in the air and stretch outward away from the "injured side" till you reach the floor or as far as you can.

::: Strength Work :::

1. Side Leg Lifts - 2 reps; 5-10 sets (5 second holds on each leg lift)
2. Hip Hitches - Injured leg standing on a small step; relax the hip and the pelvis will tilt toward the unaffected leg and allow the foot to lower to the ground (Focus on Glute muscles)
3. Wallbangers - stand about 1-2 feet away from the wall arms extended in front of you, slowly drop and twist away from the wall until your hip touches the wall then return to a standing position.
4. Frontal Plane Lunges - shoulder width apart slowly step to the right and lower the body into a squat position then shift your weight from left to right, then rise and step back in from the right perform the same thing again but step to the left and shift weight from right to left then rise from the squat ( = 1 rep)

OK SOOOO! I have my work cutout for my ITband recovery and training for the Tour De Tucson century ride. Hopefully it will come together and I will be able to race in November that would be super AWESOME! On a completely different note... I had a really cool experience recently. A friend of mine Rachael whom I met many years ago through a mutual friend was on my mind, so I sent her an email asking how she was doing. She responded that she was taking the discussions and that she was gonna get baptized. A week before her baptism date she called me and asked if I would baptize her. Feeling excited and humbled at the same time I quickly agreed to! What a neat day that was I had the privilege of bringing someone into the fold and visit the stairway where Jennifer and I originally spoke.

The never ending IT band Injury...

So as you know I am fighting an Iliotibial band injury that just wont quit. I decided to try and run on Monday July 20th. Approximately 2 miles into my run, sure enough that pain returns. Tuesday morning the commute to work was HELL!!! If any of you have had an ITband injury, you know just how painful it is to walk down a hill or take any stairs at all. As it turns out, I have several ramps, and stairs to take on my commute. As I was riding in on the train I was feeling my ITband get tight, and I remember thinking oh great here we go again... Well, right as I get off the train there is a long ramp and I remember thinking to myself, man this is gonna hurt... So I start going down the ramp, by the bottom of the ramp I am gritting my teeth and my eyes are starting to water because of how much pain I am in. In my mind I am thinking, thank heaven for the ICY HOT I will be putting on as soon as I get into my office. so I avoid all stairs and ramps when possible on the way into the office. And of course the first order of business is ICY HOT on the knee. It did dull the pain some and ibuprofen seemed to do the trick. If I sat for too long at the office I had get up and walk around to keep it from tightening up. Well Wednesday comes by and its time to see the Chiropractor again. He does about 30 mins of ART (active release technique) work on it and there are a few spots where I am like MAN THAT HURTS!!!! but See ya next week! So I continue about my business and try a run thursday night. At mile one I am feeling great, and just shy of mile two I feel my ITband start to spasm real quick to which I abruptly stop and limp for just a moment and then it calms down. Luckily I was right near my house. I head in put ice on it and think once again... FML!!! I have some more ART work this week and I have a deep tissue massage scheduled for this week also to help with the healing. I also talked to a friend who runs quite a bit and he has given me some things to do to help with recovery too. hopefully by the end of the week I will see some results. I am going to take another week off of running and focus on this recovery stuff and see if we cant get this ITband loosened up enough to start running again. I would say HAPPY TRAINING.. but my training has not been at all happy these past couple of weeks :(

P.S. Ally and I went sailing this past weekend, check out the picture above.

Knee Injury Update

So as you know, I was complaining about an knee injury last week. Well on Monday of last week I decided to go for a short jog, after two miles on the treadmill the pain was returning after icing if for a few days and resting, so at 2.5 miles I called it quits. So I saw the Chiropractor that specializes in ART (Active Release Technique) He identified that I had a typical knee injury among runners and cyclists called ITBand syndrome. This is where the Iliotibial band becomes inflamed for any number of reasons. (see picture above) The picture above illustrates exactly where the pain was in my leg. So on Monday Morning Dr. Hansen of http://hansenchiropractic.com worked on my knee and IT band for the better part of 45mins. I could feel him breaking up the scar tissue in the band and though it was painful it was feeling great the next day. On Wednesday he worked on the upper portion of the IT band and the lower part of the anterior tibialis. My knee was feeling much better and today (Saturday 7-18-09) was the first day back to working out. I did a quick 25 miles on my road bike and even met up with my sister along the way. I am trying to get Monica to do the Rosarito to Ensenada 50 mile bike ride with me in September. I am happy to report a 20mph average today which felt great, and then I have a run Monday night and see the Chiropractor again on Wednesday for one more visit. I must admit I was pretty reluctant to going to see him because our family had bad experiences in the past with them. In this case My knee is feeling tons better and I am readdy to get back to the business of training. On the Docket is Rosarito 50miler in Sept, Sprint Triathlon, and half marathon in October, and possibly 100miler in the Tour de Tucson. So its back to training for me! yeah!

A lil catch up; knee injury woes :(

Sorry for the slow update for those who read my blog here. I have been nursing my injury and haven't felt much like blogging. My training was going just fine and not much to report. I have noticed my speed on my running is improving. I shaved about 10-15 seconds off my mile average over the last couple of weeks which feels really nice but that has come with a price for sure. I mentioned in a blog recently that I was starting to feel some knee stiffness, so I decided time for new shoes. so I bought some Nike Zoom Structure Triax; I purchased the cause I was starting to feel the pain and these shoes are designed for people who pronate. Well it has swelled to much more than that. First my anterior tibialis gives me stiffness for about 10mins or so. (See the picture with the muscle highlighted in red above) The next item of business is a serious pain I have been feeling in my knees. After my runs I have medial and lateral meniscus pain most likely due to running on asphalt. The other is the LCL or Lateral Collateral Ligament (see above picture of knee anatomy) was so painful earlier this week I could not even takes stairs. If I attempted stairs at all the pain felt like electricity in my knee. NO FUN at all! So in talking with some local experts I know (Thanks Judy as usual!) and an appointment coming up with the Chiropractor I am hoping to reslove this knee annoyance, I wanna get out and run dang it! So thats my story of woe people; thanks for reading and happy training!

Keep plugging away!

Week of 6/15-6/20
So this is gonna be short and sweet. Monday was a nice run, I did about 5 miles and kept in my zone the whole time. It was a tad slow to start though. I have noticed a minor pain on the left and ride side of both knees. It seems to loom a bit at the beginning of a run and its especially noticeable after a long run. So my Tuesday ride was definitely different. I opted to cycle 15 miles in my area, so I mapped it out and it was pretty good, some areas had high traffic so that made me a tad nervous but there were a few good hills along the way that made it worth the ride. Wednesday was another night of 5 miles of running and about the same, felt good, had a descent pace and only minor knee stiffness for the first 5-7 mins of the run. I decided to slack on Thursday and Friday for some reason... but Saturday morning meant a long bike ride with Mark. Mark charted out a 30 mile course and away we went. Immediately we were in Carbon Canyon and Marks' last workout was almost 2 weeks before that aside from his job. So he was feeling a tad out of shape and he had given platelets the day before too. So he gets a coke and a smile for making the effort to show up for the ride. I told Mark about 20 mins into the ride to go ahead and set pace and I will just follow him so I dont leave him in the dust. Needless to say Saturday's workout was a nice easy workout. Parts of the ride were in these hilly residential neighborhoods, which is fine cause we could use the hill practice, but Mark kept saying... I dont remember this on the route. BTW, never try to eat an energy bar while trying to climb hills in a busy residential area. I almost fell off my bike trying to do that. 1000 calories burned which was good! Till next week, Happy Training!

Major hurdle cleared?... Check!

Another week of training passes by and it's been going well. This weeks' Monday and Wednesday run workouts weren't anything special because I knew I could do them but didn't feel like a rock star this week for some reason. Monday was 4 miles, and Wednesday was 4.5 miles. My Tuesday night cycling workout also, nothing special felt mostly like a maintenance workout. Thursday night I missed my cycling workout cause I was getting ready for a trip to Arizona. Friday morning I was off to Arizona with my friend Diana; she was going to see a guy she met in Hawaii. After arriving at the Hyatt Place hotel in North Phoenix, I headed straight for the gym. I found a nice stationary bike and put on a spin workout and cranked out 13 miles and 650 calories of work WOO HOO! that was a good spin workout, it felt great!

The major hurdle I was facing last week was my long run. I don't remember the last time I had run 6 miles. If I were to venture a guess it would probably be when I was training to prepare for the Rock N Roll marathon. Due to a knee injury while running, I was unable to complete. That would have been early 2007. Needless to say I was a bit nervous for the run. Well I finally got the (cajones) to do the run around 11:45am on Saturday morning. I then debated between running outside on asphalt in the Arizona heat (90 degrees) or on the tredmill in the sort of air conditioned gym at the hotel. Well I decided on the hotel room even though running in place for 6 miles was gonna be torture. This advice comes from my personal expert in all things cycling, running and swimming (Judy). The first 2 miles were the worst mentally. My body was warming up and getting loose ok but I kept thinking man this is gonna be a long run on a tredmill. Well to my suprise my heart rate stayed right in the zone I wanted all the way up to mile 4.5. then it went up about 5BPM's so I slowed just a tad and it was fine, another mile (5.5 miles) in and it went up 5BPM's again at this point I decided I only have half mile to go, I will just deal with it. So I am feeling great mentally, and physically, so much so that I hold out till about 6.5 miles before I finally cool down. One funny thing the tredmill did was even though it was in manual mode it kept trying to cool me down after about 5 miles. it would drop in speed... strange. Anyhow, one final note, never forget your body glide on a long run! I forgot to bring mine, yep, a couple of hot spots. (dang newbies!)

Submit to the almighty Heart Rate Monitor!

The week of June 1st started out as a typical workout week. 2 cycle workouts and 3 run workouts was on the schedule. Funny thing happened this week. You know how last week there were the Korean girls plotting against me to take my coveted treadmill time? Guess what, they were all but non existent this week. W00T! Well this past week I recieved my HRM (Heart Rate Monitor) I decided for this week I would workout how I normally do and just observe my heart rate but not make any changes in what I am doing. Well I found out why I loathed running workouts. My heartrate was well beyond what it should be and of course my cycling workouts were right in my zone so I felt I could do thouse all night long. SO sure enough, my run on monday and wednesday after wards I felt like poop and of course wishing I felt better but I figure that will come with time. Mind you I am only running like 3 miles on the mon, wed run. This is not a long run and I shouldn't feel this miserable. Because I would be sore tuesday and thursday i would grumble a bit as I would head to my cycling workouts. after a few minutes in the saddle, I would loosen up and be happy again.


Well Saturday monring is usually my long cycling ride (45+ miles). My daughter opted to stay home this weekend instead of going to her moms. That meant no long ride saturday morning for me. Instead I decided I would run that evening when Ally went to bed. So 9:30 rolls around and I am still debating if I should run or not. I tell myself, I will do a short 20 min run. I gear up and head out. A second decision is to stay within in my designated workout zone and see how I feel. WOW what a revelation! My heart rate is down, I am singing out loud to my music (good thing no one was around to hear it) And about 50 minutes into it, I have completed nearly 5 miles and feel great. I felt like I could have done 50 more minutes without hesitation. The downside was that meant I was running slower, but I felt so much better running, and over time, my speed will naturally increase. That said I have decided that I will submit my fitness agenda to the almighty Garmin Heart Rate Monitor! Happy running!, cycling!, swimming! (You pick!)

Those interested in the HRM I have follow this link.