Eggcited

What a horrific title. I'll try harder next time.

I'm not sure if this is possible, but I may actually love fall here in Baltimore more than I loved summer. Favorite things so far have included:

Open windows

My pumpkin candle

 Chilly long runs on beautiful flat trails

not the best quality, but there was no time to stop for pictures.

Throwing on a hoody after 18 miles…

Speaking of 18 miles, they went well! I knocked them out early Saturday morning when temperatures were barely hovering above 50 degrees, and I could actually see my breath. It was marvelous, held an 8:18 pace. Saturday night entailed this:

Sunday I woke up overly excited about life. So naturally I started cooking egg muffins, and they actually turned out awesome. Want the recipe?

 Thought so.

Spicy Paleo Egg Muffins

Ingredients:

-6 eggs

-1 Cup of spinach

-3/4 cup ground turkey (or bacon)

-Salt & Pepper

-3-4 TB hot sauce

Preheat the oven to 350. Cook the ground turkey with the spinach.

Whisk eggs in large bowl with salt, pepper and hot sauce; add meat and veggies and stir well.

Pour into muffin pans (I use liners so that they don’t stick) and bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

I’m a big fan; they are quick and easy snacks for on-the-go. Not to mention full of protein.

Following my muffin excitement, later in the day I departed on what was supposed to be a shakeout run. I once again got way too excited about the new shoes I had purchased the evening prior, and decided to push myself for six miles…

Sidenote- when running along the harbor, anytime the surface turns into a wooden dock I instantly become fearful of stepping on a rotten board and falling through, forcing me to run faster.

Another sidenote – Is this not one of the best-coordinated running outfits that you have ever seen? I mean come on, check out that color scheme…

I should have more to report on my switch into Newtons later this week, once I’ve broken them in a bit more. Until then, I leave you with this song:

Obsessed.

Busy week for me, in and out of training and then jetting home to Chi-town on Friday. Keep it real my friends.

Cheers -
K 

A new friend

I have a new friend I want to introduce to you all:

It’s made by my favorite brand of Peanut Butter – Peanut Butter & Co. – who I believe I introduced you to this past summer. Anyways, a big scoop of that gooey goodness went into my oatmeal this morning, along with a handful of raspberries.

Are you jealous?

It snowed yesterday… a pretty good amount actually. But it was wet and didn’t really stick to the roads, and life went on as normal. It’s too late in the winter to acknowledge snow in my opinion. It was pretty and made me happy, but the sun made me even happier when it decided to come back out this morning.

 Sometimes I pretend to be a professional photographer.

Speaking of life proceeding normally, I’ve found that my little foot injury that I’m slowly beginning to come back from is playing games with my heart head. Yesterday after work I jumped on this guy:

Not the literal guy, but that empty treadmill...

I started off with some inclined power walking, and switched to running about 20 minutes in… for eight minutes. It’s hard to not focus on that tiny spot on my foot where that itty bitty stress fracture is/was, and freak out over any twinge or sensation that I felt.

I know that I really need to NOT do that, so the next round of jogging may have to be in front of the newest episode of Nashville to distract myself. Walking/running is going to be spent on the treadmill for about another week, as that surface has a lot more give than almost any surface outdoors.

It's way too late. I don't even know why I'm still up. I have an early morning date with the pool, and absolutely no witty way to end this post. 

Cheers!

Lessons Learned

Typically I keep my posts fairly short. This one, not so much. There's my disclaimer.

I wrote this in my head on a run a couple weeks ago. I got home and jotted down everything that was bouncing around in my brain on the first thing I could find, and have been scheming the publication of it ever since.

i'm a dork.

Being the somewhat superstitious runner that I am, I told myself I wouldn't post this until I was able to run 10 miles again without any issues.

Today that happened, with the help of 4 slow warmup miles followed by a 6 mile race at a 6:53 pace. I don't feel like talking about the race though. I'd rather talk about my IT band.

I realize that injury is something that very often comes with the territory of being an athlete. I had my fair share of injuries throughout my volleyball career in college, yet my IT band/hamstring issues in my left leg was my first big challenge as a runner.

Iliotibial band injuries are super common for us crazy runner folk - almost too common. During my extensive time spent at with my awesome Physical Therapist, Sean, this was something we often talked about. He was seeing SEVERAL other runners struggling with the same issue, all desperately trying to get it under control before their next big race.

If I had one word to offer to any one currently fighting with their IT band, it would be Patience... something that certainly isn't my strong suit. But I think patience has made me a more intelligent runner, and taught me a A LOT about my body.

You see, Sean and I went through just about every option possible as to what was making my IT band freak out. I am extremely inflexible, I have a fractured L5 vertabrae, I have a job at which I spend long periods sitting.... I don't didn't lift very much at all.... AKA I had poor muscle strength, specifically GLUTE strength. I also had recently switched into a more 'natural' running shoe prior to getting injured.

my babies. aka my brooksconnects

I think transitioning from a collegiate volleyball player who lifted pretty hard 3-4 times per week to occasionally playing with 10 lb weights in the gym mirror affected me a lot. I also think having a crack through  my lower vertebrae played a part.

I don't think my shoes were the issue. I think switching into them too quickly was stupid. But I still run in two pairs of the BrookesPure line today, and I love them.

Bottom line, I had to go back to the basics. Lateral movement/exercise was something that hadn't been present in my workouts for a couple of years, and that combined with a whole lot of sitting on my @$$ presented me with some pretty pathetically weak glutes, and even a weak core.

indoor skating. loved this thing.

Those muscles essentially had to be 'reactivated'. So I started 'skating' at Physical Therapy. I jumped around like a buffoon, and I had a long talk with the weight rack before deciding that we had to be friends again.

Outside of my physical therapy, I had to find other options. P90x plyos are great although I hate them. I also began to lock myself in my gym's empty raquetball court to shuffle and dash around like a wild woman. I have to keep all of those butt/hip/glute muscles guessing in order to keep rebuilding them.

my own personal crossfit box.

I have to give Sean a lot of credit. I spent a lot of time in that Physical Therapy office being bossed around instructed by him, but he also spent a lot of time outside of my appointment times studying the videos of me running on the treadmill, breaking down my every movement and pronaton. I owe him big time, and am grateful to have been paired up with him.

I don't think there is a quick fix to taking care of an IT band injury. ART may help it, it helped me to a degree. And I know for a fact it helps others more quickly and effectively than it did for me. But from what I experience and learned and research, that's not the permanent fix.

Lift weights. I'm serious. I'm not saying you have to get a weight belt and throw around 30 lb dumbbells. But take the time, at least twice a week, to give those glutes, quads, calves etc. some love.

Mix things up. I LOVE running, and there were periods of time when running was my only workout. 6 days a week, between 40-50 miles. I'm not saying high mileage weeks are bad... but you've GOT to throw some curveballs at your body.

That's why right now, during a 'non-training' period I'm making it a PRIORITY to not only run several times a week, but to swim, spin, lift, do plyos, and even drag myself to yoga. Because to quote my ever-wise PT, "The healthiest, most balanced runners that I've seen maintain a combo of running, some kind of strength training, and yoga."

Sidenote - I would also now consider my foam roller to be my best friend. In the entire world.

Getting back to a 'pain-free' place wasn't easy. It wasn't quick. It most certainly didn't go as I had envisioned it. From October 1st, the day I got hurt it took me 3 months to be able to run 60 minutes again. Add three more weeks to that and I'm back up to 10 miles.

OK, wrapping up... 

Getting hurt sucked. But rebuilding myself has made me respect running SO MUCH more. I don't take it for granted anymore, instead I constantly remind myself how freaking blessed I am to wake up on any given day and fly down a beautiful running trail. Being injured brought a ton of tears but has also (slowly) helped to show me so much joy.

Cheers to running!

Facing the Facts

Once upon a time, about 10 years ago now to be precise, I fractured the L5 vertebrae in my back.

let's have an anatomy lesson, shall we?

 Does anyone else think that looks like an elephant?

That whole summer was full of a crap-ton of physical therapy, back braces and tears. It was me standing on the sidelines with my club volleyball team at the National Tournament down in Atlanta, half-cheering, half choked up. It was a hard summer.It also taught me a lot.

Also known as Spondylosis, a lower lumbar fracture such as mine doesn’t heal, ever. It’s always there. And so I was warned by my physical therapist at the time that my entire life would be a battle of keeping a strong enough core so that the fracture didn’t bother me. And I’m blessed to have made it through a collegiate volleyball career without it ever really becoming a problem.

Fast-forward 10 years, to about 2 weeks ago now. Day 1 of Physical Therapy with abusive Sean down in Baltimore, I was surprised when he randomly asked me ‘have you ever had any kind of lower back injury?’ 

Why yes, yes I have… and what does that have to do with my knee, and my IT band?

Funny how our bodies work, isn’t it? Actually, funny isn’t the world. Fascinating is more like it. And even in the midst of the lower back issues resurfacing early last week, I couldn’t help but be simultaneously fascinated along with frustrated. Sean called it, Day 1. It’s all connected. And as my weak hips/glutes (AKA ass muscles) slowly stopped working over the past 6 weeks, my IT band started overworking… eventually getting super angry, causing it to rub and cause that pain in my knee.

And my back? My back started trying to take over and help me where my hips and glutes no longer were. And today, as I sit here popping advil like it’s candy, icing my back and trying not to be bitter… I can officially say that I feel like I’m falling apart.

this came in the mail this week. perfect timing. i cried. 

So when I got home from my last ‘test’ three mile run last night, once again limping and in tears… I knew it would be nothing more than insane and irresponsible to try to run New York. And although the word insane has often been used on here to describe myself, and runners in general... well I’m just not that insane I guess. Because there’s too many other things I want to do than be injured for months on end.

who better to take advice from than Dumbledore.

Sidenote - whenever I'm sad, I often find myself turning to Pinterest for some encouragement...

You see, I have big plans. And at the age of 24, keeping the perspective that an IT band injury isn’t the end of my running career is what is helping me to keep my chin up. And after a long discussion with Sean this morning at PT, I know what it’s going to take to get where I want to be.  I 100% plan to run the Chicago Marathon next fall, and an abundance of halfs and even tris… possibly even a half ironman in summer/fall 2013.

Whaaaaaaat?? You don’t even know how to swim well Kait.

I know. But I can work on that.

I’m sad, but you guys already know that. And it helps me to do nothing but focus on forward progress at this point. I’ve been told coming back from an injury, if done the right way can be an extremely gratifying experience. That if I get strong where I need to get strong, and find some balance, that I can come back a stronger runner than I was say… this past September.

And I believe that, and will continue to tell myself that, even over these next couple weeks when running is completely out of the picture. (grimace)

So that’s the plan, there you have it. My evening will be full of putting together a ‘get strong’ workout plan for the time being, and getting creative with cross training options. That, and a whole lot of Taylor Swift's new album. Because let’s be honest, I’ll always be 14 at heart.

Would love some encouragement or any advice you guys. I’ll take anything I can get :)

Cheers to a chin-up type of week.

Mile 12

Mile 12. The last full mile in a half marathon. And the mile that did me in this past Saturday.

I suppose we should rewind to Saturday itself. When I woke up and thought to myself, “Wow only 16 miles today. I’ll just fly through this run and enjoy the rest of my day.”

Right.

I certainly flew through the first 12. And then something strange happened.

Let me insert a quick side note here. Of the 8 years that I played volleyball, I had a lot of injuries. Some bad (fractured vertebrae)  and some mild. But never my knees. I always had an extreme fear of injuring my knees, probably from seeing so many torn ACLs/MCLs/Meniscuses, etc.

me playing vball 

my knee.

So of course, 5 weeks out from the New York Marathon and 4 miles from home, something goes wrong with my knee. And without much of an option, I limped/jogged/hobbled/swore/walked/cried/crawled the whole way back home.

Before I get you guys too sucked into this emotional roller coaster of a soap opera episode, let’s fast-forward to today, when my knee already feels a lot better.   A lot.

I will be OK.

Lucky for me, Andrew’s uncle is a fantastic doctor. Who quickly diagnosed me that same night. Nothing is torn, it isn't swollen. The most likely diagnosis is Bursitis, which is:

Bursitis (bur-SY-tis) is a painful condition that affects the small fluid-filled pads — called bursae (bur-SEE) — that act as cushions among your bones and the tendons and muscles near your joints. Bursitis occurs when bursae become inflamed.

The most common locations for bursitis are in the shoulder, elbow and hip. But you can also have bursitis by your knee, heel and the base of your big toe. Bursitis often occurs near joints that perform frequent repetitive motion.

So what do I do? I stretch, I rest, I take/eat anti-inflammatory things in all forms. I keep the joint moving with some cross-training, and I ice multiple times a day. I don’t run.

my work ice pack

Ok, I can do that. 

So the rest of the weekend pretty much involved the above activities. I was surprised by the fact that at no point following ‘the injury’ did I really freak out and have a sobbing meltdown. I sent a semi-frantic email to my coach, who agreed that we should meet for lunch this week to re-evaluate.

I walked down to the lake that afternoon, and sat and wrote for awhile.

I also read multiple articles on foods that help to relieve inflammation, and immediately went to the store to buy every anti-inflammatory food that I could get my hands on. In all seriousness, I think that they’re helping. I cut out caffeine from my diet for the week as well, since that has been known to aggravate inflammation.

So as of yesterday it’s a lot of green tea, berries, pineapple, sweet potatoes, avocados, broccoli, etc. Supposedly these two spices are suppose to come in handy as well:

putting both in every food possible.

So there we have it.  

I’ll be fine, I’m confident.

In other news, Happy October 1! It was so chilly this morning that I wore a sweater to work (first of the fall) and even had to turn on my heat in my car for the first time in months. It felt great!

Cheers to a health, healing week!