'A' Race Time Predictions!!

If you've been following the drama the last few months you might recall that I've been having some annoying issues with my left side, from my lower back/SI joint, through my hamstring, all the way down to the plantar fasciitis (which is chronic) in my foot. It was sort of at its worst a week before OktobeRun but a week off magically healed me enough to get through the race at a pretty okay pace, though the hamstring was pretty unhappy after.

I had some forced rest (thanks, travel & weather!) after that, which probably ended up being for the best because in spite of basically no training between OktobeRun and Oakland Turkey Trot, I had a significantly faster race.

Riding the high of that race, I told myself, OK but for real now! Three & a half weeks til Santa Run! That is totally enough time to get serious about this shite & shave a few more seconds off this beezie.

And, I DID have a couple of good weeks. But then this past week/weekend I got called to NY at the last minute, & if there is anything that will eff with my training plans, it's these short coast-to-coast trips where the time zone gremlins just completely destroy whatever free time/decent sleep you thought you had happening in your life. I won't even bother doing a training log for that week, since "training" consisted of

1) Tuesday 12/4 => 3.5 warm up, 6 x 200m / 200m jog, 2 miles @ aerobic threshold, 6 x 200m / 200m jog, 3.5 cool down = 12 total

2) Thursday 12/6 => spend the whole day flying/sitting in NYC traffic & arrive in so much winter boot-induced foot pain that the 7 easy on the schedule was never going to happen even IF I'd arrived at a decent hour.

3) Friday 12/7 => Work a full day on 3 hours of sleep, come back to hotel & crash

4) Saturday 12/8 => Work another full day on maybe 4 hours of sleep, just barely rally for 2 warm up, 3 x 1 mile @ HM pace, 2 cool down = 7.2 total.

5) Sunday 12/9 => Get up at 4:30am Eastern/1:30am Pacific to catch a 7:00am plane home, land at 10am Pacific, & immediately come home & bake cookies for a party. (Again, I could barely walk this day, so there was no running; just 21 straight hours of mostly regrettable consciousness.)

It was really this last run on Saturday that was the turning point for me.

You might remember that in October a massage therapist told me that my lower left back/SI felt like actually out of place, like I might have an actual injury & that I should see a sports chiropractor to check it out. And I totally said I was going to, but then life happened, and here we were in December with me slogging my way through some HM pace miles which were just SO, SO painful in my left lower back/hamstring/left foot (also bonus compensatory stuff in right foot) and SO, SO much harder than one mile at a time of HM pace should be.

So. I went right back to my hotel room after, showered, & promptly googled "sports chiropractor san francisco," which is how I ended up in Dr. K's office Monday morning.

She started with the usual posture, mobility, & strength assessments & immediately noticed that some strange things were going on in my hips and back. And, as has always happened when I've seen the PT, she found that all my leg, foot, hip, & core muscles were nice & strong, with the exception of my left hamstring, which, to quote Dr. K, "ain't doin' nuthin." For years the story has been the same every time I've seen a PT for this stuff--your left hamstring is weak, here's an hour's worth of strength exercise to do every damn day for the rest of your life, have fun with that, with basically no progress to show for it.

After an examination of my hips and back, though, she posited that it wasn't a strength issue but a nerve issue, ie, my hips had gotten twisted up (as they're wont to do) and that had caused some of my vertebrae to sort of crunch up and THAT was maybe pressing on nerves & making it so that the signals to do something were not getting through to my hamstring and THAT was causing my body to recruit literally any other muscle it could find on the left side (foot, hip, calf) to do the work that my hamstring was not doing as a result.

So, she did some chiro stuff & then redid the strength tests, and the difference was night and day. Suddenly my hamstring was firing again, maybe not *quite* as enthusiastically as would be ideal, but when she pulled on my ankle I could actually resist the force at a number of different angles, as opposed to before when she would pull and I could give it all I had and my leg would just collapse. She did a little soft tissue work on my hips and left foot as well, then taped up my left leg & foot, & told me to just maybe not go crazy this week with the running. (Which is fine, since Santa Run is my 'A' race in RunCoach, so this week's schedule is very taper-ish.)

Fast forward to Tuesday night's race week speed workout, 2 warm up, 2 x 1600m comfortably fast (5K/8Kish pace), 2 cool down. Even from the warm up, I noticed such a huge difference. Suddenly I felt like I could use my left leg again, like I actually had access to my glutes on that side, which before felt like they just weren't doing anything no matter how hard I tried to make them. My warm up miles are usually in the 10-10:30 range & these were a full minute faster at what felt like the same effort.

This 2 x 1600m workout shows up a lot on my schedule on race weeks, and I usually try to do it by feel without necessarily trying to hit a particular pace. Over time I've kind of noticed that if I can run them in the 7:05 range without working too hard, I'm usually fit enough to have a decent race. This past Tuesday, I did the first one in 7:03 and the second one in 6:54(!).

Which. OK. If I'd had a killer month of training, maybe that would make some sense?? But it's been a mixed bag at best, with a LOT of missed miles and workouts just due to life stuff and weather and travel and all this left-side pain and what have you. Certainly not the kind of training that you'd think would result in a significant fitness bump. So, maybe Dr. K is just #chiromagic and I've had the power within me all along????

Like ruby slippers except racing flats

So, yeah. There is definitely a part of me that says, "Ehhhh forget how crappy your training has been, you can *totally* beat your Turkey Trot Time (21:46/7:01 pace)." Especially since I ran hard that day, but still finished feeling like maybe I could have given more.

So here are some somewhat arbitrary goals:

• C goal: Improve over Oakland Turkey Trot (so sub-21:46 / 7:01 pace)
• B goal: Sub-21:30 (so ~6:55 pace)
• A goal: ~6:50 pace (ie, ~21:11ish)

This is all very ballpark; I don't much care about a second here or there, so much as I wanted to at least think about MAYBE what could I possibly accomplish on Sunday if I really pushed myself (especially now that my left hamstring is feeling somewhat functional again, YAY). Given what a hot mess this whole fall season has been for me, I'm already sort of pleasantly surprised I've been able to run under 22:00, so why not see what else is possible?

And after that, three sweet, sweet, weeks of complete rest!

I'm going back to Dr. K again next week to see how things are looking after a week of chill running; she didn't expect that my case would require tons and tons of follow-up, and after a bit of treatment and some rest, I should be good to start doing strength work for my hamstring again in January (and maybe this time it will actually do something).

Dare I dream about a solid spring season???? Well; let's just get past Sunday first.

But maybe...

Will definitely be wearing my own ruby slippers come Sunday...