The Road To The Superior 100 Trail Race

I have been busy and therefore not updating this blog. It's also been a rough few days. I've been active, but have fought through some adversity. For example, I tried swimming Thursday morning at the Erie Community Center. When switching lanes to one that had now become unoccupied, I had to clear a low-hanging water slide to get over there. However, I was not being very observant. When I cleared the slide, I stood up but had missed seeing a metal beam that is used to support the slide that was in my way. The impact was quick, painful, and produced a loud bell ringing sound that caught the attention of the life guards. At the time, it wasn't clear how serious the injury was. But low-grade nausea set in a tad later and lingered a bit. The pain at the impact sight was substantial, and I've had some dizziness for two days now. I am confident it was a low-grade concussion. Otherwise, the event was in no doubt in the category of slap stick comedy. The lifeguards checked on me

Today I attempted my first jog without walking since pausing running for the injury. The run was only 1.5 miles in distance. It was on the East Boulder Creek Trail and a flat run by far. I experienced some mild patella pain in the first 0.25 mile or so, which subsided a bit when I continued. I tried changing my stride to be more hip dominant to minimize impact on knee, which may have helped? It felt great to run again. Exercise details. Strength training at the gym, mostly upper body, 1.5 miles of trail running.

Today's physical activity was mostly restricted to my evening swimming lesson, where we worked on elements of the free style swim and backstroke. I am getting better at freestyle swimming, but still have a ways to go with floating or swimming on my back. Overall, I estimate I got in about 500 yards of swimming today, but it wasn't much of a difficult workout. An updated Superior training plan is attached here. Injury update: Today I felt a strange tingling sensation behind my patella and in my thigh in the vicinity of where I was poked by dry needling last week. Not sure if it's related. This could imply nerve damage or something more significant with the knee injury? Nutrition. 1949 cal, 88 g protein, 44 g fiber

The knee continues its road to recovery? Of course, last night in the dark I ran into a wall with my injured knee. Today I tried more hiking, this time at Rabbit Mountain Open Space to see how the knee would respond. I added about 0.7 miles to my previous foot record of 1.5 miles since stopping running for this injury and got to 2.3 miles. I threw in some gentle jogging intervals at times just to see how the left knee would feel. There were some small signals that it's not 100%, but at the same time, I felt no obvious setbacks. I'll continue to take baby steps back into trail running. I also threw in a small 6-mile bike ride from home. The trails were quite nice today, with 40s for temperature and sunny skies. There were a lot of people out on the trails today. Training data. Nutrition. 1712 calories, 62 g protein, 33 g fiber

Today, I snowshoed up to Finch Lake, on the southern flank of Rocky Mountain National Park. It is accessed easily from Wild Basin or a trailhead near Allenspark, where I started. From where I started, it was about an 8-mile round trip (including some meandering around the frozen lake for views), and sported a decent 1500 ft of climb, which never feels like much on snowshoes. The trail crossed a few frozen and not frozen streams. Where liquid water surfaced, I noticed a lot of animal tracks in the snow, undoubtedly since it was a great source of fresh water for the various fauna roaming these parts in the winter. This area also featured a woodpecker making enough noise to be heard over the intense wind gusts blowing through the trees. I wanted to follow the trail a bit longer, but by the time I reached Finch Lake, the trail was lost in deep snow drifts and it would have been quite difficult orienteering to higher elevations. It was windy, as it often is, and the mountains were typically

Other than some rehab routines related to overcoming PFS, today is primarily a rest day. I will therefore mention some of the more basic routines I have been assigned by my physical therapist here. 1. Foam rolling: Here, I have focused on slow rolls on my quad and IT band at several angles. 2. Supine ITB stretch with strap:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsvCMffkmKM 3. Thomas stretch lying down on table: Stretches the hip flexor 4. Seated quad set with both straight leg (neutral) and toes/leg pointed out (VMO): "Doctor Jo" demonstrates the principles, but these can also be done seated:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRRV9MfGIFE 5. Mini squat with most weight on left leg: Of course, I did this today and aggravated my knee injury on my very last rep. I might have done too deep of squat with imperfect form. Use with caution. Figure Sunrise this morning during my commute. Nutrition Summary: 1602 cal, 52 g protein, 33 g fiber

Patellofemoral pain syndrome is a tricky injury to get over. I had it in early 2014. I tried running through it for about 3 or so months, only to abandon running for a full month when progress was scarce. Suddenly, it got better after a month of rest and I was running a 25-miler pain free. Injury is very nonlinear like that. For the moment, I've been taking a month off of running, with a lot of cross training. Today, I got a 1.5 mile walk in. Not long ago that would seem like barely worth the effort, but today, it felt amazing. Walking out in an open space. Witnessing a coyote close up. I didn't have my phone camera to document my experience, but it was memorable nonetheless. As for my current injury, there was very little pain during the walk. There were occasional aches and pains in odd places in my left knee and some minor tightness in the knee, but the frequency of pain sensations was vanishingly small. With some unexpected walking worked into my schedule, I updated my

Last year, I confirmed I had PFO: Patent Foramen Ovale. That's a hole between the left and right atria in the heart that can allow for deoxygenated blood to go back into your bloodstream. It's actually quite common with 20-25% of the population having it beyond childbirth. Usually it closes up at childbirth, as it only serves the purpose of having your mother's pulmonary system doing all the lung work oxygenating you while you are still in the womb. In some cases of adults with PFO, it can allow blood clots through and cause a stroke. It is also dangerous for scuba divers. For them, it can lead to the bends. I believe one day research will increasingly recommend against PFO people from doing too much at high altitude. Unless one has a stroke because of it, my personal experience is that heart surgeons will unlikely close it up since there isn't enough of a risk of stroke in the general PFO population. The 3% or so risk of atrial fibrillation resulting from the procedure

Why post details about training and injury? Because some people on the internet may have similar problems or interests and will like to compare notes. Thus, here's a candid (and likely boring to most readers) journaling of the training for 100-miler with an overuse injury 9 months out from the race. I've been dealing with patellafemoral pain syndrome since mid December 2019, likely due to quad muscles that were in sad shape, not to mention a hip misalignment (likely related to muscle tightness) creating unequal length legs (longer left leg by 1.5"). I stopped running on Dec. 28th since I felt continuing to run would prolong and likely worsen the injury. This comes at a time that ideally would be suited to building base mileage for the 24-week 100-mile training, but of course, I am taking considerable time off of running to allow the knee to heal, with a lot of cross training. I have been a diva, working with a sports massage therapist, a chiropractor, and a physical ther