Training Log Archive: Traut

Not sure why I felt compelled to run a third day in a row, but today it was not the right choice. Edema was up in my right knee and my abductors on right side were tight again. I tried to run from the Brail trail parking lot. As soon as I hit the trail I immediately noticed I was not able to run on wet surfaces without extreme hesitation. I was moving too gingerly and about .25 mile in I slipped on a root and went down. That was my final word to stop trying and just got in a walk on a great wet autumn day. I do think that I am just filling with edema no matter what I do. I can't run days in a row much or run long or hard right now. Efficiency is everything. I tried the sort multiple efforts, and now I guess what I am really being pulled to is taking days off between runs. I know that this isn't the long term way to deal with the inflammation, but maybe there is a short term need.

Also, it was like a switch got flipped. As soon as I was back at work after a 3-day weekend, my back started o bother me again etc...

stretching, step-downs and directional single leg squats

After a late arrival back home I woke up to a beautiful fall morning today back in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately Gail's schedule didn't let us get out to do anything. I was able to get in a run in the afternoon. I felt compelled to run again and as I pulled into North Park, I was compelled to do the old part road/ part trail loop up Brown road and back on the orange trail. The needles falling off the pine trees lined the color of the leaves throughout the climb up Brown rd and all throughout the trails. What a great run. I went long again (7 miles) and knew I could. Not sure what reason I had, because I went my own pace. Which ended up being fine throughout as I had my second fastest split on Brown road and third fastest on the orange trail. Form felt good and knee felt good. My knee started to feel it about 2.5 in (was struggling on downhills especially with my form), but attention to relaxing and focusing on my feet with efficiency finished the run feeling good. I was feeling acidosis though in last mile or two, but heart-rate wasn't getting too high.

Strava: http://www.strava.com/activities/203864926

Garmin: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/606553553


Avg Run Cadence: 179 spm
Max Run Cadence: 255 spm
Avg Vertical Oscillation: 9.8 cm
Avg Ground Contact Time: 230 ms
Avg Stride Length: 1.19 m

It was a full weekend of remembering life in college at this reunion. Had no idea where I would sleep when I left on Friday morning and crashed on the floor of a house rented by a few teammates from a few years before my time. This weekend had a variance in ages of participants like I have not seen before. I had a conversation with the team captain from the 57' NCAA Champion team (the only National Championship in ND XC history as crazy as that seems) at the tailgate in the afternoon. I also re-lived wearing shorts in frigid weather during XC season as I never put on pants until the end of XC season back in the day... The weather was cold and rainy most of the day, but it was actually a beautiful fall morning during our run.

We left from the rental course down by the river and ran up to campus. Oddly enough this was really my only time on campus this weekend that wasn't just at the athletic facilities (which I barely recognize due to the changes in the last 20 years, much like the rest of campus). We ran up through the new athletic facilities and then down through North quad to the lakes.

Dave Dwortz's 13 year old son was leading the pace, so this was obviously a relatively easy day. As opposed to my slow easy day with Dan on Wednesday, my knee felt much better today and I forgot about it most of the run. When little Dwortz was wearing down and everyone was heading back to the house. Cowan and I broke off to go run the East Race and river. Cowan wasn't able to go much faster on a bad calf and the regular stops at the shitter and to stretch were regular, but it didn't matter running in the old stomping grounds on a beautiful fall morning. My knee did stiffen in the last mile or so, but I did make it through 8 miles.

We ended the run right where we started. The GPS didn't kick in for the first mile.

Strava: http://www.strava.com/activities/203673870

Garmin: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/606376894

Avg Run Cadence: 164 spm
Max Run Cadence: 255 spm
Avg Vertical Oscillation: 8.7 cm
Avg Ground Contact Time: 255 ms
Avg Stride Length: 1.08 m

Event: 2014 US Nationals
 

Drove out to South Bend in morning. I thought I would get there early enough to get a run in before the ND invite began, but construction slowed me down. Then the Joe Piane Retirement celebration added a dinner right after the meet, so I did not have a time to get in a run with Cowan. We, however, ran all over the course with a little uptempo running to get to good places to watch the races pass by. That was fine. The newer course have almost half as much golf course to work with, so there was a lot of new looping to learn.

Out till 2:00am with old teammates, good times and good stories.

Took another day completely off... feel pulled to do so. Will run this weekend at the reunion/ Piane retirement weekend.

My upper back seems to be getting worse again....

Knee seemed like swelling was down a little bit this summer.

Continuing to rest and no PT and no Nordic Track in the morning. I had plans to run with Dan and pick up our shirts from the Morningside Mile. My form felt great, but my knee felt very vulnerable and irritated throughout. Dan wasn't feeling good so we went very very slow. The first mile definitely felt like it was faster then it was. All in all I enjoyed the run, but it was bothersome how much my knee felt irritated. I felt it irritated all night and had trouble doing leg lifts.

Had a rough night watching Pirates playoff loss and sleeping as I had abductoor cramps all night... after a really slow run?!

Strava: http://www.strava.com/activities/202138629

Garmin: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/603508666

Avg Run Cadence: 169 spm
Max Run Cadence: 240 spm
Avg Vertical Oscillation: 9,5 cm
Avg Ground Contact Time: 250 ms
Avg Stride Length: 1,15 m

I know I have been insisting on keeping my knee moving to keep the swelling down, but it is almost like my mind/ body is telling me that the time time to back off is here. I took the day off, we'll see what happens.