Training Log Archive: AliC

Easy-peasy morning jog with Ian after joining in on Good-bye Neil festivities last eve late-ish. It was very, very tempting to try to go orienteering, Blue Mtn is just soooo gorgeous and fun to orienteer in!! But I had one wee tweeky crunch on an uphill when I lost focus for a sec, so definitely a sign ankle isn't ready to orienteer. But if I keep totally focused, can easy trail run at the very least!

Event: Bye bye Peekskill
 

Well, moving takes time, so Ian and I didn't get to participate in Neil's Bye, Bye Peekskill training festivities, boo! Instead just in time to sneak in a road run at home (Poughkeepsie) before birthday dinner with fam. We did a combo of the standard 5 mile loop + Chirstmas loop which ended up being nearly 8 miles. Both ankle and toe seemed fine with this, although maybe just maybe I could feel the tendons on the inside of the ankle towards the very end... will keep tabs on that!

Ankle report!

Woo, so the MRI shows no evidence of an osteochondral lesion, which is great, because cartilage damage = hard to repair and would probably have meant I needed some surgery. (While packing, I came across photos of the chunk of cartilage they fished out of my right shoulder, glad there's nothing like that in my ankle!)

What they did see is:
1) "Nonspecific bone marrow edema within the anterior lateral talus. Small ankle joint effusion."
2) "Probable tenosynovitis of the posterior tibialis tendon and flexor digitorum longus tendons."

So number 1 means, most likely, that the main injury was a bone bruise suffered during an intense flexion during the WOC relay leg. So it should now just be doing the bone thing of healing on up, on the whole 1-3 month timescale. The effusion thing just means there is swelling in the joint, probably because it's upset about the bone bruise incident...

Number 2 is a bit strange, because I haven't noticed much pain associated with these tendons. But it's possible they were aggravated in the same incident.

The plan:
- Be careful. I need to not aggravate the bone bruise for the next month or so, and need to let the swelling in the joint die down. Doctor seemed to think running itself was probably ok, if I didn't notice any increased swelling or tenderness afterwards.
- Strength, strength, strength. The PT in May thought my ankles were strong, but apparently not strong enough to prevent whatever let the bone bruise happened (which, admittedly, was at the end of a long week of o, so maybe things were tired). So I need to just have super-strong ankles that no matter how I land can resist extreme flexion. Will work on that. While packing, I also found the list of exercises from 2 years ago PT when this was the focus, should start those up again...
- Taping. Braces are not particularly good at preventing extreme flexion. But taping can be applied to try to help, so should look into that.

Jog down to Uhaul rental place to retrieve my car, it really only a 4 min jog from my house, yay convenient!

And a baby double-pole, to test how the wrist reacts.

Packing, packing, packing! Need to have almost everything out of apt by Friday. Yikes, where did all this *stuff* come from???

C • Stuff 4

Yay! Back to noonrunning!

But this was an unusual one- Sanjay's son had hurt himself at daycare, so we went towards Amherst, made sure he was ok, and then did a 20 min tempo on the bike path and South East street on the way back. Except it was definitely above tempo pace for me, 20 minutes at 6.17 pace, ouchie! It wasn't actually declared we'd do exactly 20 minutes at the beginning, named as 20-25, but at 15 minutes, I told myself if I could just hold on for the next 5, I could stop at 20. Sanjay and Sergio made it to Strong St. just over a minute later.

Also joined by Albert, a PhD student in exercise physiology dept. He was behind on the tempo, but otherwise up with the group!

Elliptical intervals. Not so bad, at least got HR solidly up to L3, which I just find hard on the elliptical... I might need to think more about increasing tempo not resistance.

Hey! This was good, the 'Random' program on the LifeFitness bike trainer, Level 15. Had a paper to try to read, but too much focus required on cycling...

And to the floater for just a bit before the gym closed!

Home, hmmm, sunset is happening earlier... coupled with rainclouds, pretty dark at 7.45

Hammies, still at 12s

And, since my left toe is finally feeling better (it's been 2 months!), chanced going out no-poles skating with it- and totally fine, woo! Not world's most inspiring ski, just back on forth on the bike path towards campus, but does the trick. Had to do a bonus ascent of Amity, because there was a car in my runaway rollerski ramp (a sideroad) that I needed to use... ah well, better to not run into the car.

Legs feeling better, if not spry, so a little joggeroo around Emily Dickinson loop, just the basic, no hill ascent or bird meadow bit. Ankle seemed fine on the trail section, just took it easy. Quads were more complain-y by the end... gosh that 10k took it out of me!

Abs + back

I added my first training goal - 390h of training for the calendar year! That's not much really, but will be a bit more than last year (373h) and is on the right track. It's way less than I what I was doing when I was training to be an xc skier. I know it's not only the hours put in, you also need to train intelligently, but I think doing a bit more just needs to happen too... so here goes trying to step it up just a notch! But nothing too dramatic to start...

And legs still toasted today from Saturday's 10k... but ellipticalling actually felt really fine, so just cruised away for 45 min, trying to keep the HR in some not-too-ridiculously low zone while reading the WCOC A Meet Middle at Ansonia, a long 8.4k course at Pine Hill and a Ratlum Mtn Night-o. Ellipticalling is way, way better with maps!

Hopefully legs will recover by tomorrow - also in store, the ankle MRI. Although I suppose I won't figure out what it shows immediately, need to see doc again...

Oh also, my wrists are sore from DPing yesterday. That's never really happened before. Hopefully it's just getting used to a little more effort in the DP department, will give rxcing a rest til Wed or so!

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