Pandemic Running Thoughts (Comments Welcome)

[mankle30]

Congratulations and loved your recap. I'm sorry it didn't go as planned for you, but it was really hot out there later in the race! Great job in tough conditions!!

Thanks so much! You too! Looking forward to reading your recap as it unfolds!

 

[mankle30]

Post Marathon Update​

So things are pretty good except cold. It's -15 celsius and super windy today although the sun has come out after snowing all day yesterday.

1 week after the marathon and the body feels pretty good. There's still some . . i don't know . . squishiness? in the balls of my feet where I was have pain during the marathon. It's mostly if I push off at a certain angle and doesn't bother me when I walk.

I haven't tried running yet. Gonna give it at least another few days (that was always the plan) and, if the weather remains like this, I'll take it to the treadmill. Which reminds me, I need to renew my gym membership by February 1. I get a great deal through the teacher's union I'm a part of but you have to pay for the whole year up front before the beginning of February. But you get towel service, and can use any of the chain's many, many branches across the country. And the one closest to me is open 24/7, so that's nice to know you don't have to rush to get to the gym before it closes.

Monday was a long day driving back from Orlando to Virginia. We got a late start (after going to IHOP near our hotel) and got snarled in a horrible traffic jam on I-95 just south of the North Carolina/South Carolina line. We arrived around 1am at the in-laws in Virginia and I promptly went to sleep.

We woke up and hit the road around 10am on Tuesday and the drive was much smoother up by Richmond to get back to I-95 and then past DC where we took US 219 most of the way through southern PA and western NY. We were home by 11:30pm (which was actually good time) and I was, asleep, fairly quickly.

Wednesday was an easy day at the gym. There was a lot of soreness in my legs still (although getting better since peak soreness on Tuesday). I rode the recumbent bike for about 20 minutes and then swam for 10. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Thursday I had some work to do and squeezed in a gym session, doing 30 minutes on the bike and some light resistance training. The legs were feeling better although it was tough to squeeze out a couple of sets of 10(ish) squats with just body weight.

Friday was the first day that the soreness had gone from my legs and I did 20 minutes on the elliptical, 20 minutes on the bike and 10 minutes in the pool.

I took Saturday off (it was a busy day with teaching).

Today I'll do some more resistance training and, hopefulliy half an hour on the elliptical with another 30 minutes on the bike.

The plan is to do a light run on Thursday.

I've mapped out my schedule for the first part of 2019. The plan is to for my "A" race to be the Sporting Life 10K on May 12 with an 8k race on April 6 in Toronto and a 5K in Tampa, Florida when I'm there on March 16.

 

[mankle30]

January 29 Update

So I've done four runs on the treadmill since resuming the running on Thursday. Thursday and Friday were 3 miles each while Sunday was 3.5 miles (was supposed to be 4 miles but GI issues forced me off). Finally, I ran 3 miles on the treadmill today. It was today's run that felt really good, particularly as I was getting to the end of the third mile. My legs were really grooving and I had upped the incline to 1.0 (I have usually done treadmill runs at 0.5 incline but am starting to try to make 1.0 my new usual as I'm forced to stay indoors for the forseeable future) and was going at a 12:40/mile pace or so and really felt like I could go all day.

This week I'll run three more times (Thursday, Friday, Sunday) before going back to 5 runs per week next week.

 

[mankle30]

Update:

I'm still running. I'm up to 5 miles now and have done that a couple of times at the indoor track at my old university. The weather is brutal (snowstorm today that cancelled most of my teaching but not the class I teach to the undergrads). But I'm trying to get my work in at least 4 days a week either on the treadmill or at the track.

Since my last update:

Jan 31: 3 miles on the treadmill
Feb 1: 4 miles on the treadmill
Feb 3: 5 miles on the roads (12:30/mile)
Feb 4: 2.3 miles on the treadmill
Feb 6: 5 miles on the track (about 12:20-12:30/mile)
Feb 7: 4 miles on the treadmill
Feb 9: 4 miles on the treadmill
Feb 11: 5 miles on the track.

Not bad y'all.

 

[michigandergirl]

The weather is brutal

This seems to be a common theme around a good portion of the country - snow & ice storms stuck on repeat. Hurry up spring!!!

 

[mankle30]

This seems to be a common theme around a good portion of the country - snow & ice storms stuck on repeat. Hurry up spring!!!

Especially after the snow and ice we got this week! Less than they were predicting but enough to make things like running annoying. And even on a day as "nice" as today (38 degrees, sunny), the sidewalks are pooled with snow melt so you can't run without getting your feet soaked.

Looks like it's 5 miles on the treadmill for me today.

 

[mankle30]

I'm Still Here!
​

Hi everyone. Yes, I'm still here, but I've been off running for the last two weeks.

Two Fridays ago, I had a solid speed workout on the indoor track. I've cut back just in general my overall running since returning from Florida but this was a solid 4 miles of running with really nice speed intervals of 232.49m of running followed by a rest of the same length.

Then, the next night, my back seized up with spasms. I was in bed for a couple of days (unless I had to work) and then I went to Florida for "Spring Cleaning" (actually I spend a week watching and writing about minor league baseball for my blog) for a week. I had been hoping to run a 5K in Tampa but that wasn't happening. I was in pain while doing anything (even once the spasms subsided) and, when I got off the plane in Tampa, I had a tingling to the touch on the surface of my left quadriceps area. So that was scary. It was tough to get to sleep that night -- the first night in Florida in a strange bed (AirBnb) and the thought of what the heck was going on with my leg and back. It was tough to find a position to sleep in that didn't hurt (and position didn't seem to entirely correspond to the level of pain). I was rotating Tylenol and Advil to get through it. Plus there was a lot of time on my feet at the ballparks, which didn't help the overall condition of my back.

I did get somewhat close to Disney -- going to Lakeland to catch the Tigers and Blue Jays minor leaguers in action. That's about 50 miles from Orlando. I thought about Disney, but on the budget I was on, another $130+ US (more like $170 Canadian) was a huge chunk of my budget and I go royally screwed by the car rental agency, even though I had reserved a car on AirMiles. I was 4 hours later than expected because of flight delays (I flew on the day they grounded the Boeing 737 Max 8 and Air Canada was in a desperate shuffle to get all their flights served) and because of that they didn't have any cars in the price class I had reserved. Shakes fist at Budget Rentals.

Anyways, I put up with the back pain throughout my trip to Florida and flew home Wednesday night. By then, there was a small improvement and even more improvement once I was at home.

I went to see my doctor today and he thinks that it's something that I'll need to stretch and do yoga in order to maintain and it's something that is likely to recur if I'm not vigilant about stretching.

So that's some good news (if it works).

I'm probably going to give my body another week to see if the pain will subside and then I'll get back to running. Hopefully I can still run the 10k I've got planned (haven't paid yet, though) in May.

 

[JAMIESMITH]

Hello I read through your thread over the past couple of days. You get major points for determination!

 

[mankle30]

Hello I read through your thread over the past couple of days. You get major points for determination!

Thank you! and Welcome!

Hopefully back to the gym this week. My back has been better and is really only bothering me a small bit when trying to sleep and generally when standing for extended periods of time. Walking actually feels good so I'm feeling optimistic!

 

[mankle30]

So, I've done some running, but I've also being going through a very busy time with work (as a freelance musician, things ebb and flow) so my running has been sporadic. Another cold snap (had some sprinkling of snow today) has also kept me indoors, but after this weekend, it's time for getting back out on the road more regularly!

 

[mankle30]

I ran 3 miles! In one run! Woohoo! Building back up slowly but I'm trying to run every other day, going easy. Will run tomorrow . . . it's supposed to be warmer.

 

[Princess KP]

I ran 3 miles! In one run! Woohoo! Building back up slowly but I'm trying to run every other day, going easy. Will run tomorrow . . . it's supposed to be warmer.

Yay!!

 

[mankle30]

I've been AWOL for a couple of months so I thought I'd drop back in and give a brief update.

If you've been following me on Strava (and if you'd like to, you can send me a message to get my name), you'll notice I've been doing some shorter runs a couple of times a week.

Things have been busy and look like they'll remain busy until the end of the July, so I'm not sure how much running I'll do. I've scaled back and I'm focusing more on my diet and strength training so that the running is, for now, a lower priority.

I was also out of town for over a week and running was just not possible with my work schedule and the parts of Vancouver I was staying in (although I did take a nice walk along the sea wall on my one free day there).

Anyway, one reason why my runs are shorter is because I'm running after a weight workout. I'm focusing on full-body workouts right now to get things in with limited time and I'm doing 2 sets of 6 exercises per session (upping to 3 sets this week). Squats, pushups, (assisted) pull ups, deadlifts, and more are on the agenda. THEN i go for the run. With at least one leg exercise in the workout, my legs are usually tired when I head out for the run, but I'm still managing to do 2-3 miles per session.

I'm hoping to give it another month like this, maybe extending the runs to 3 1/2 - 4 miles before starting to split off weight training sessions and do body-part specific workouts once or twice a week. That will give me fresher legs for runs on most days and hopefully things will be able to keep working upwards in terms of mileage.

So there we are. Not working towards any race in particular (although a half marathon at the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in October isn't out of the question).

 

[mankle30]

COVID, 6-Months In Update

Hey everyone,

Greetings from Toronto, where COVID isn't too bad (although numbers are spiking a bit here over the last couple of weeks). As a musician, things have been very rough with pretty much all the venues closed and all the gigs gone. There have been some virtual festivals and DW and I have started a weekly digital concert highlighting world Music and Dance (check it out -- Global Rhythms Live! on Facebook and Youtube).

But aside from not being poor enough to qualify for the government subsidy (although I may qualify for the one that starts up in late September to take over for the initial subsidy), things are going pretty much as usual.

I've started running more lately and I'm gearing up to run 10k for the Terry Fox Run on Sunday (www.terryfox.ca/mankle) to raise money for Cancer Research. And seeing how @ZellyB is fighting hard against her illness, maybe now is a great time to donate to cancer research.

If you don't know Terry Fox's story, he was a young man from British Columbia who had his right leg amputated above the knee at the age of 19 in 1977. He decided to run a marathon with his (rather rudimentary) prosthesis and after that, decided, in 1980, to run a marathon a day, running from the Atlantic Ocean in St. John's Newfoundland to the Pacific Ocean in British Columbia, raising money for cancer research all the while.

He ran every day in obscurity at the beginning, asking folks to put money into his tip jar as his brother and friend drove along side him in their van. But when they got to Ontario, the press started to catch on and he became somewhat of a celebrity, getting the key to the city in Toronto before starting to head north around the Great Lakes.

By the time he got to Thunder Bay, Ontario 5,373 km or 3,339 miles into his run, on the other side of Lake Superior, the cancer had come back, this time infecting his lungs. The cancer would continue to spread and he passed away the following summer.

A couple of weeks ago, I was actually in Thunder Bay, Ontario and visited the monument that they've built to commemorate the end of his run and my running has been inspired by him since then.

There's still time to do your own Terry Fox run wherever you are! If you can run, please run. If you can donate, please donate!

 

[ZellyB]

Thanks for the shout out. Cancer research is a great cause to run for!

 

[KevM]

Terry Fox’s story is amazing and awe-inspiring. I read the biography Terry Fox: His Story back in April.

 

[mankle30]

December Update (We're going streaking)!
​

So I'm still here! The Pandemic and full-on Canadian winter hasn't killed my running. In fact, I've started a running streak.

It's been 3 weeks and I've run at least 5k every day.

I didn't just start randomly... I was running 3-4 times a week, doing around 5 miles per run, up to 7 and 8 miles on long run days.

I've definitely had to make some adjustments to my training. I'm trying to run slower and shorter distances in order to not just fall apart physically.

I've shifted to a 3-day cycle rather than a weekly one. I do one longer run (so far 8 or 10k) followed by two 5k runs. I basically found this cycle judging by how I felt when going out from day to day early in the streak. I tried alternating long and short but was too fatigued in the long run with just one short day (rather than a full day of rest).

Again, you can follow me on Strava (PM me for my name) and we'll see how the winter goes!

My plan is to do a virtual half marathon in the spring and possibly a marathon (hopefully in real life? fingers crossed!) in the fall. But really, I'm working on building my base and not worried about time goals. I did do a 10k time trial in November and managed to shave 5 minutes off my Terry Fox Run time! But right now, it's just about staying healthy, running every day and staying active this winter!

 

[shellott-hill]

I love the Old School reference!

...and Congratulations on the streak.

I am fighting the same Canadian winter with my running/slipping/sliding. The main difference is I am fighting it out West. I am on Strava as well (here).

 

[mankle30]

I love the Old School reference!

...and Congratulations on the streak.

I am fighting the same Canadian winter with my running/slipping/sliding. The main difference is I am fighting it out West. I am on Strava as well (here).

Thanks so much! It's got to be so much harder in Alberta! I know things can get really cold there! Fortunately, the area I'm in now has sidewalks that get cleared so it's not as slippery as it could be, but I'm moving to a new city mid-January, so we'll see how that goes!

Followed you on Strava!

 

[mankle30]

Welcome to 2021

I guess I should update this a little bit. I did end the streak at 46 consecutive days, mostly because I was feeling run down and that I needed a day off completely.

As far as where I'm at now, I'm still running most days although my knee was a bit sore after I did a harder workout yesterday (5 miles, ran 10k-pace for miles 2 and 4). Gonna try an easy 5k today and see how it responds.

I hit a personal high for distance in December, running 193.1 km (like 117 miles) and I'm averaging around 40km (25 miles) a week lately). I'm not trying to push distance right now, mainly because of my knee but want to maintain and hopefully I'll be able to start adding a long run to build to a spring half marathon in a few weeks or so.