(Monday, 16 July)
Took an easy 2 mile, flat, along the Seabright loop and down Rios. Wanted to see how the ankle felt but not to push it because, let's face it, even if I pulled through 6 miles, it wouldn't affect my fitness levels that much. (Read: I'm trying to be realistic here). Downhill very bad/wobbly/achy. Flat okay, but I was like a laser beam watching the pavement the whole time. (Almost crushed a caterpillar at one point, and it was a cute one. I would have missed it if I wasn't paranoid about every piece of gravel/crack/patch of sand). From about 400-1200m there was some stabbing pain in the top of the foot near the ankle joint, but that went away. After that it was not painful but still a little unsteady feeling.
I'm going to run Torrey Pines beach tomorrow with Dave, slowly and carefully and like a gimp, but the sand should be hard and the tide low so I think it will be okay. Also going to ice a lot today to try and get the swelling under control. (I have a pack of ice under my desk as I type this.)
(Tuesday, 17 July)
What a difference a day makes. Went out TP beach towards Black's for a 6 mile run with Ray and DL. It was pretty nice, I was actually pushing the pace so I guess the forced rest has been good for something. The ankle was in a compression sock I got from DL that seemed to feel good, so I'm going to wear it during the day too I think. I also was tired enough last night that I managed to fall asleep with my foot elevated on some pillows, so I think that helped the swelling go down as well. I'm still icing several times a day though. I also decided in lieu of more miles to ride the steep way up TP. It takes me about 6 minutes (6.09 today) but feels much shorter than the non-steep way (which my fastest is 10.04). The 7% at the top feels so relaxed in comparison. I'm going to keep a close eye on my quads the next few days to see if this is what made them so sore last week. If it is, then I'm going to have to do it every day so that my quads become amazing.
In other news I neglected to mention that I saw a fun fellow while running this AM. Let's call him.... Naked Guy. Naked Guy was jogging (we passed him twice) and seemed to be holding his running shorts in his hand (along with a shirt or water bottle in the other, I didn't look too closely.) Now, I'm always a fan of running. And I'm also a fan of nakedness. But seriously, unless the distance is 400m or less, I'm not thrilled about combining the two. Naked Guy raised a few questions.
(1) Why would you want to run for an extended period of time (I'm estimating he was out for at least 4 miles) naked?
(2) Instead of carrying your shorts, why not carry them *on your body*? Was he afraid that he might get stopped by lifeguards or something and wanted them just in case?
(3) Isn't it uncomfortable to have your kibbles and bits bouncing around like that?
(Wednesday, 18 July)
Ankle still improving, did the beach plus an extra Barbara loop to round it out to 8. Very, very slowly. May go out again tonight if I get my new shoes. Ankle felt okay, wobbly, but better. I did not feel as peppy as I did yesterday, but might have been due to lack of sleep (bedtime early tonight I think). I saw 3 jellyfishes, some HUGE kelp floaters the size of my hand (awesome crunches), and even a couple of cops giving tickets to folks who had their dogs on the beach. What assholes. Swelling has gone down a lot but I should continue to try and ice it during the day. Quads not sore.
(Thursday, 19 July)
Should have run longer but got off to a slower start than I wanted and also didn't want to miss the bus (which I almost did anyways). Trying not to obsess over miles for this week; I just gotta hang in there and get back on track for next week. Did the beach with DL plus Seabright and Barbara. I think those might be good for reps later in the summer. Seabright loop is almost exactly one mile and Barbara is almost exactly 800m. I could do like mile-800-mile-800 or something.
Ankle continues to hurt sporadically walking around and such, especially doing things like getting out of bed or anything where I have to turn my foot and put weight on it. So I'm being pretty careful with it. But, it felt fine on the run (even though yours truly was a little sluggish). I'm going to need to start doing some tempo stuff to avoid getting into the slow runs rut once I get my mileage maxed out.
Also, Dave came and visited so we rode up TP, which was awesome. Also stuffed ourselves silly at the Pizza Port.... glahglahgalghalghaaa....
(Friday, 20 July)
Epic. Got a little bit lost at first, and THRASHED my quads going down the monster hill to the beach. Walked a little bit of the downhill. The surfers coming up were all laughing at me for being so stupid as to run down this monster, but then I was like "I do what I want, bitches" and gave them the hand. So after I got off the nature trails and down to the beach, I was chillin on the beach and was like "OMG, there's no runners here!" which was true. Seriously - all surfers. Sketch. I'm heading north, said hi to some naked folks, and all of a sudden I realize that I haven't seen ANYONE for like 10 minutes. Still lookin' around for the phantom trails that were supposedly going to get me to the beach (NOT) but I didn't see them. Around 45 minutes out, I decide I'd better turn around soon but there's an outcroppping... tide's coming up... so I climb up on this rock and look around the corner and there's like a hundred people on the other side! (I hadn't seen more than 3 people in the last 20 minutes). So I climb up and over and only get a little wet and there I was at Torrey Pines. Took the trail back to campus and only got a little bit lost on the Fit-Trails. Some basketball camp girls saw me hop up out of the woods and were like "Is that hard?!" and I said no, but that was a lie. Took about an hour and a half.
(Saturday, 21 July) (Stanford/Oakland today)
Birthday bike ride with Dave & Co. and Mom and Pops. Fun times. Great food, great day, good to see the fam. Chased down some cracker on my cruiser bike for the amusement of the elders. The best part was after the ride (100 - aunt Jane's age = 35 miles) I hopped into my running shoes and Dave paced me around campus on a short exploratory run. We even ran into mom, so then I had 2 pacers and a campus tour featuring ye olde lore about the area. I felt like a very important runner. Importance/speed ratio NaN.
Legs didn't feel as dead as I expected post-bike ride, but then again I was taking it pretty easy.
(Sunday, 22 July) (Oakland today)
Had several opportunities to run (Oakland, SB) but decided to hang out with the parents instead.
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total mileage: 40
(goal mileage: 50)
naked people: 4
I can't believe I remembered to stop my watch. Should've run faster.
Jul 23, 2007
Week 9: Trying to avoid freakout
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11 comments:
You should try some cold/hot constrast therapy (alternate 2 minutes heat with 3 minutes ice). Just get two buckets, fill one with bearably warm water, and another with water a reasonable amount of ice. Do it 5 or 6 times, finishing with cold.
I've read about how it helps speed recovery, and also seen Andre prescribe this to every soccer/basketball/baseball player that rolled/sprained an ankle.
When it's getting better doing calf raises (toes forward, toes pointing out, toes pointing in) all definitely help strengthen it.
On a side note, an alternative recovery treatment to ice baths is cold/hot contrast showers. I used to do this a lot, last and two summers ago. It's pretty much the worst 15 minutes of my life, but after running I'd go in there, turn the water on only cold, rinse, then switch it to hot. I'd soap/clean on the hot, but during the cold you just can't really get a lather going. Also 3 minutes cold 2 minutes hot is really painful, I usually ended up going like 1-2 cold, 2-4 hot, because after the cold the hot felt so good.
Also I always try to make the cold water run around the areas with a lot of blood flow (arm pits, neck, all that good stuff).
If you're in the mood, you should try it out. It's pretty painful, but you walk out of the shower feeling not only clean, but invincible.
Can you explain the reasoning behind contrast therapy? I thought the point of cold was to decrease inflammation, so what does the hot do?
Really, I don't know exactly, but what I've heard is that due to the alternating constriction and dilation of blood vessels, you effectively pump the area and flush the area out of any side residual waste crap, thus speeding recovery.
In terms of as a workout-recovery aid, the research is sort of uncertain. I read a few articles talking about how if after you exercise, if you immediately follow it with a hot/cold showers, it's basically as effective as a cooldown (then again, why not just do the cooldown?) So I guess if for some reason, you run your workout, and dont want to pound an extra 2 miles of cooldown into your legs, you could effectively hop into the shower and do this, and get the benefits of a cooldown.
I mean, whether it works or not, in my experience. I mean, I don't really know. Half the time I'm in the Cold Whirlpool cause I gotta ice both a knee and an achilles at the same time and it's easier to do it that way that to ice. I've heard that ice baths speed recovery, but whether I actually notice an affect? Eh, who knows, maybe it's just psychological.
Anyway, yeah. I mean, I don't think trying contrast therapy will hurt your ankle, but it's your call.
If nothing else, remember RICE. That's the school I'm going to, ahahaa just kidding I'm lame. But seriously, RICE is usually a good idea to calm dow inflammation. The compression wrap definitely, definitely helps, as doing the elevation.
If you want some crazy drastic inflammation control, get one of those ace bandages and wrap your ankle before you go to bed and also prop it up on 2 or 3 pillows (sometimes putting both feet up can be more comfortable to sleep in). It will definitely decrease the inflammation overnight. Just make sure not to wrap it too tight so that you lose circulation to your toes.
oh, interesting... empirically, hot showers used to aggravate my feet... but then Peter said that he always puts the shower on COLD for a few minutes before getting out of every shower... so i tried this, and its really painful... but all parts of me felt a LOT better after starting this practice.
KB, don't freak out... ankle things are actually one of the shortest down time injuries, and the long term effects can be managed very well. you just have to 1) be really careful until its 100%, which can take a few weeks and 2) invest in re-strengthening. Peter showed me a whole bunch of ankle strengthening things to do, so I can show you when you get back, if you're interested.
Yeah, there are all sorts of great ankle strengthening exercises out there, a few examples:
-Eccentric Calve Raises
-Using the tips of your toes to trace out the letters of the abc's
-Standing on one foot and switching between sticking the other leg out, to the side, behind you, and knee up (also repeat with knee bent and with other leg)
-If you have one of those resistance bands, you can isolate each specific movement of the ankle (inwards, outwards, up, down)
Those are all excellent.
but for now, ice is nice.
Also we really need to start our nerd blog. I think discussing stuff like this would be awesome. Plus I still have access to the gigantic University of Illinois electronic journal database that gives me access to like every journal possible, so we can always try to support things with facts and data.
Sometimes when I'm alone running in the country in July/August, and my run time has exceeded 45 minutes (meaning my shoes have now begun to squish with sweat), the chafing on my inner thighs grows increasingly painful which each mile. At that point, I always think "I'm alone, I could just take off my shorts and solution solved!" But I never do.
Oh, also:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19753794/
dude, i would SOOOO run on the beach naked if i had ian's abs :D
Are you still icing that ankle?
Have you been icing (with ice) or ice-bucketing. I think if you haven't been ice-bucketing, like adding ice to water and immersing the whole ankle, you might give that a try. It's supposed to be better for the skin since you aren't putting something 32 degrees on it, and also deeper penetrating since you're lowering the temperature of basically everything around it.
Just a suggestion.
Yeah, I'm still icing. I've been using ice packs because it's easier (I'm still a little hesitant with the whole taking over the Lesley's house thing and having buckets of ice water and stuff). I'll get a little bucket going tonight maybe, and definitely this weekend. I miss everything about the cold whirlpool.
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