My Journey to 50 miles (2nd attempt)... (comments welcome)

[DopeyBadger]

Love to see the smiling faces post-race. Hoping for a healthy diagnosis!

 

[disneygpa]

Woohoo!!! Good news!! Doc says that there isn't any damage to the knee. He sent in the physical therapist, he evaluated me and gave me a list of stretches and exercises to do. Have to do them 4 times a day, when I get up, before bed, and before and after each run.

Doc and PT say there is no reason to stop running. I'll see them again at the end of October, have to bring in a 10 sec vid of me running from the side and from behind. PT says with the stretches I should see improvement in my stride and stamina.

I brought my old and current running shoes in, which confirmed what the evaluation found. I'm spending a little more time on my right foot than my left and don't have great foot placement with my left foot. PT says that the stretches will help with this and by the end of Oct we should see some positive changes.

Doc and PT are great! First time I've seen either of them. Doc was recommended by a former NFL lineman who is a friend of mine. I got lucky to snag a canceled appointment slot with him. He's normally a month or so out. PT had an Olympics shirt on, so I asked him about it. Turns out he's worked with the track and field team and most other athletes on the US team over the past several years. I really liked them both! They didn't rush through anything, took the time to listen to my laymen's explanation of things and helped me thoroughly understand why the knee was achy! Great guys!!

Both of them expressed concern about recovery time between the half and full for Dopey. PT suggested finding a massage therapist for after the half. He says he might know someone down there, so I'll probably be looking into that in the near future.

I'm confident that if I follow their advice and follow my new training plan I can handle the Dopey!!

 

[disneygpa]

WooHoo!!! Got my new training plan!! If my math is correct I have 451.5 miles until Dopey!! Thanks Billy!! @DopeyBadger

 

[disneygpa]

Well that felt good! First day of Dopey training plan was a success!!
3 miles @ EA
With the new stretching plan from the PT I have to get up about 20 min earlier.
After we get back from DL at the end of the month, I may switch to running in the afternoons.
I'm supposed to do the stretches before AND after every run. That adds about 40 min to my morning routine.
It is what it is and if this is what it takes to stay healthy for Dopey, I'm all in!!



Pacing was pretty decent this morning. A little fast on the first mile but not horrible.
Knee still feels a little off. No pain, just a little weird. Might just be me being paranoid about it now.

 

[disneygpa]

Wednesdays run was a little out of the norm for me. I ran "late" at night. By late I mean around 8pm. That's usually about the time I'm getting ready for bed. But since I was too lazy to get up early and I had family commitments in the evening, It was a bedtime run!! Actually didn't mind running this late. It was pleasant outside and not too much traffic. Only real downside was running after eating pizza. That did not sit well and thought I might lose it during the first mile.



This was 4 miles @ EB. A little fast for the first mile but the last 3 were definitely acceptable!!

Knee isn't too bad. Doesn't bother me at all, just stills a touch achy at times. I'm still doing my stretches before and after every run!

I'll be running again this evening, but I won't be waiting until bedtime to do it!!

 

[disneygpa]

Thursday run. 3 miles at EA



Pretty uneventful fun. Paces were fairly good. Ran today at about 4:40pm. Interesting how much more alive the world is at that time vs 3:30am.

Changed my living accommodations at DW yesterday. Found a townhouse that had a private hot tub. It's a little farther away and a little more money. But I'm thinking I'll be using the hot tub a lot after the races. Counting down the days until we leave!!

Going to DL next Tuesday night. DW's favorite singer is preforming at House of Blues and she hasn't gotten a chance to see him in a couple years. So we figured we'd make a mini vacation out of it and spend 3 days visiting the Mouse as well. Plan is to run my scheduled runs early (ish) before we head to the park. Might go down Saturday morning and run along one of the beaches.... if anyone has suggested places to run on a path along the beach, that would be great!

 

[disneygpa]

Weekend runs! Both runs went well. Nothing great or out of the ordinary. 3 miles EA on Saturday and 4 miles at EB + Strides on Sunday. I still love strides!! The knee is feeling better. No pain and it's feeling more and more normal! Yay!!

 

[disneygpa]

Tuesday early wake up! Alarm set for 2:50am. Stretching, running, stretching, work, DISNEYLAND!!! Going to try and sneak a nap in on the flight down to John Wayne!
3 miles at EA. Cool drizzly morning. Great for a run. I wonder what people are thinking when they drive past me running at 3:20 in the morning???? Especially the police officer...


Pretty good pacing, I think I'm learning how to use my Garmin better.

I'll be in Disneyland until Saturday. I have every intention of completing my training runs and stretching while I'm there. I hope...

 

[disneygpa]

Long update ahead. Flew down to Anaheim to see my wife's favorite singer at House of Blues and of course had to go spend some time with the Mouse!

Wednesday:

Made it to the gate about 40 min before opening. DW ran to Starbucks and I made new friends in line! A family who was down from Vancouver BC which is just a stones throw from our place. (OK, a loooong stones throw) As per tradition, we went straight to Peter Pan, it's always our first ride in Disneyland. Then over to G E. To my surprise there wasn't a long line at Smugglers Run (20 min). We jumped at the chance and both got pilot seats!! It was a blast IMO! We had a great crew with us that was laughing and having a great time! They made it a lot of fun!

Oh, and I ran Wednesday morning. 3 miles at EA.


Paces weren't all that good. But running around Disney was a good time!


Thursdays run was 1 mi @ WU + 6 x 200m @ R w/ 200m RI @ WU + 1 mi @ CD. This was interesting as the Garmin couldn't seem to give me quick pace info and the 200m was almost over by the time I was seeing pace info. So, I was kind of guessing at the R pace. I don't think I did too badly for my first time with this run.





We also went to the Black Tap on Thursday to see what all the hubbub was about. We shared the burger salad, it was ok, nothing special about it. But the strawberry shortcake shake was crazy! It was delicious and WAY more than we could eat! Especially after the salad.

Thursday night was the concert! Great time, sang along with every song, drank too many whiskey sours and stayed out way too late!


Friday was no run, but we spent the day park hopping! Using Maxpass we were able to ride 20 rides on a fairly busy Friday! We also ran into this guy! Don't worry, I put in a good word for all the runners here!


Saturday, we checked out and went to Huntington Beach so I could get in my 4 miles + strides. Run was successful and fun! I can really see the appeal of living on a beach!

So, funny story. Rented a bike for DW so she could ride along with me. On the way back to where we started at the pier we got separated. She took the high path and I continued along the lower path. I finished my run and turned to look for her but couldn't find her. (at this point I wasn't aware she had gone a different route) I thought she was behind me the whole time. Well, when I didn't see her, I started running back to where I last saw her, about a mile back up the beach. When I got there and couldn't find her, I found a nice family that let me use their phone to call DW. That's when I found out that she went the other path. So, off I go south again. Now I gotta run all the way back to the pier! So my 4 mile run turned out to be something neared 6.5 miles and I have no idea how fast I ran the last 2.5 miles. After we finally got back together we went back down and walked the pier. It had turned cloudy and windy by then so we only walked out part way and got a pic! Then went and had some freaking delicious tacos at Sancho's Tacos! If you ever find yourself in Huntington Beach, I'd swing by and have the shrimp or pork taco! Yummy!!!

 

[DopeyBadger]

Thursdays run was 1 mi @ WU + 6 x 200m @ R w/ 200m RI @ WU + 1 mi @ CD. This was interesting as the Garmin couldn't seem to give me quick pace info and the 200m was almost over by the time I was seeing pace info. So, I was kind of guessing at the R pace. I don't think I did too badly for my first time with this run.

Don't worry so much about looking at the run pace in the moment of the 200m. The GPS signal is not accurate enough. See what the interval duration is after each one (goal of 62.0-64.9 seconds) and then adjust effort up or down for the next one.

So did you happen to run the same stretch of 200m multiple times, or rely on GPS telling you you had hit 200m? Because there's a pretty big difference between a 53 second 200m and 63 second 200m. So if they're the same start/stop location, then it could be real. If it's relying on GPS, then it could just be an anomaly of data.

 

[disneygpa]

So did you happen to run the same stretch of 200m multiple times, or rely on GPS telling you you had hit 200m? Because there's a pretty big difference between a 53 second 200m and 63 second 200m. So if they're the same start/stop location, then it could be real. If it's relying on GPS, then it could just be an anomaly of data.

I was strictly relying on the Garmin to let me know when to run/rest. Should I try and find a track to run these on? Not an easy task at 0330 but I might be able to run at the middle school....

 

[DopeyBadger]

I was strictly relying on the Garmin to let me know when to run/rest. Should I try and find a track to run these on? Not an easy task at 0330 but I might be able to run at the middle school....

No need for a track. Use Google Maps and pre-measure out a distance of 200m using man made markers. Like mailbox to mailbox or lightpost to lightpost. The consistency of the start stop will make the intervals more comparable against each other.

 

[disneygpa]

No need for a track. Use Google Maps and pre-measure out a distance of 200m using man made markers. Like mailbox to mailbox or lightpost to lightpost. The consistency of the start stop will make the intervals more comparable against each other.

Perfect! I didn't even think about that!

 

[Princess KP]

We also went to the Black Tap on Thursday to see what all the hubbub was about. We shared the burger salad, it was ok, nothing special about it. But the strawberry shortcake shake was crazy! It was delicious and WAY more than we could eat! Especially after the salad.

That's why you should skip the salad and go straight to the good stuff!

 

[disneygpa]

That's why you should skip the salad and go straight to the good stuff!

I really need to get my priorities straight!

 

[disneygpa]

Wow! Long stinking week. I've been at an off site meeting this week that required me to drive through Seattle. Ugh.. traffic suck didly ucked… Tuesday 4 hours on the road, Wednesday 3.75 hours on the road, Thursday 2.5 hours on the road. I think I'll decline any other multi day meetings that require me to be anywhere near Seattle. They didn't even provide donuts!! What the heck!?

Anyway, my runs were pretty decent. Managed to get them all in without too much problem, even with the additional commute time.

The R Pace run is still a work in progress. I need to work verifying the distances I'm running. I ran on a local middle school track. But I'm not sure it is exactly 400m. I'm going to measure it on google maps today. I really enjoyed the R Pace run. Makes me wonder if I could run a sub 9 mile at some point.

I really need to make my stretching more of a priority. It seems to be the first thing I skip when time gets crunchy. DW is going to visit the kids in FL starting Sunday. I'm going to try and get in a better stretching routine while she's gone.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Makes me wonder if I could run a sub 9 mile at some point.

I'm pretty sure you would be able to based off this workout.

 

[disneygpa]

I'm pretty sure you would be able to based off this workout.

I'm gonna try sometime. But not till after Dopey! So, my suspicion about the track was correct. It is a little (a lot) shy of 400m.

I used the Garmin as my run/rest again last night. It's probably better that I did that because if I'd used the track I would have been all screwed up. I'm just going to have to find a better place to run R Pace.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Could also explain why you see 0.12 miles as well since 0.115 miles is 185m or 370m for what would have been one trip around. So could be a rounding thing on the data. I'd say google maps is probably close to true. You could run an experiment and slowly walk the track three times and see what distance you get each time.

 

[disneygpa]

Thanks Billy, I'll be back on the track on Saturday. Doc wants some video of me running so I figured that was probably a good place to get that done. I'll walk it after I finish running!