Sweatyfish: A Vegan Training Log

Now isn’t that a catchy title? That’s the title of one of the articles & accompanying ab program found at the Runner’s World website. Like many sporty kids out there I need to remember to change up my ab programme fairly frequently if I want to keep my muscles guessing (and thus, working harder). Ideally, you’re to change your programme every 4 to 6 weeks. I may not be disciplined enough to mark the weeks on my agenda, but I can usually tell when it’s time to make things more difficult - because things start feeling too easy!

I tried this ab routine, which is used by Team Running USA (according to the article, anyway). There was nothing radically new or mind-blowing for me, your usual planks, Turkish get-up, etc., but I think that it was the comprehensiveness of the spread of exercises and the number of sets that got me. I think that ab work sometimes gets a bit sandwiched in between other exercises for me, and I often treat it more like something I have to do, not that I need to do. Don’t get me wrong: I have a snazzy little belly here and I really like working my abs, but the idea of dedicating a longish workout to them has always seemed a bit strange to me because they are already getting a decent workout with the other sports I do. I believe I’ve had more of a philosophy of reinforcement than building up. That’s where this workout is different- it really seems to be doing both, but has a lot of exercises and sets, so it is not a quickie ab workout. I was unable to perform the last two exercises because I do my ab work in my tiny apartment, not in a gym, and even with the exclusion of those two exercises it took me 25 minutes. Now granted, it was the first time I did it so I was a bit fiddly with things and it may take less time next time, though, if I build up the sets and reps, etc., it may take longer.

In other news I got my blood results back today, though I don’t understand them much, really. According to the “norms” column next to my numbers, my lymphocytes are too low, my total cholesterol is too low, and my C-Reactive Protein is too high- whatever that is. I haven’t had a fainting spell since last Thursday, but I am still pretty tired, so just easing back into the training.

I think I saw the signs coming from afar, but chose rather to ignore them…

It started with strange sort of ’spells’ where my heart would beat a bit funny, I felt tired, like I needed to lie down…then the last week before my mini-taper started to feel really, really tough. Keeping a sceptical eye on my heart-rate monitor I saw my HRMaxs were going up ever-so-slightly, I was becomming a bit crabby… the athlete’s worst enemy outside of the injury- overtraining!

The week before my half-marathon I began having all-out dizzy spells where I had to get on the floor fast because I was going to faint (this first happened at a Blonde Redhead concert in Paris, luckily we were just behind the sound board and it was in a bit of a pit so I could sit on the edge and not have to leave…). The spells became more and more frequent, and I started having constant stomach pain and feeling like I was going to be sick.

Not fun.

So, despite all the desire in the world, and the hard work, too, I opted out of last Sunday’s half. Actually, my visiting mom sort of talked me out of it, or maybe better yet gave me permission to opt out. I felt horrible, like I didn’t even feel like I could run. I was chilled and had goose flesh and was tired.

The good news is I went for my first run today in a week. Felt great, just a baby run mind you, only 5.5mi, but I figured since I haven’t had a spell since Thursday I could try. My stomach is sill jacked, but it didn’t keep me from running.

I had some blood work done and I’ll get those results back tomorrow evening, so at least I’ll know if it’s anemia. Could also be electrolytes (I have been having these very abnormal cravings for salt).

Hoping to ease back into training this week…

I have been spending so much time training that the training blog has been left by to languish, alone on the blogosphere…

No, seriously, I have been doing a lot of running (at least a lot for me, 40-45mi per week), but the real reason is my mum’s visit which has me spending more quality time with her (which is a good thing since I only see her once a year), and less quality time with my computer (which will still be here when she leaves).

As I’d previously mentioned, my first metatarsal joint has been really giving me grief, and so needed to try to have my insoles updated & get insoles for my regular shoes (in hopes that this will help) and it just so happens that my Podiatrist is the president of an athletic club here in town. While we were talking about my foot issue he of course began asking me normal questions like what my activities are and how many miles-per-week I run, etc. and he got so excited and insisted that I come to the pool to try things out.

My first try was a rude wake-up call. I know how to swim, like technically. I even saved the toddler-nephew of a dear friend of mine once when I noticed him sitting on the bottom of the deep end of the pool. But, I sort of forgot that I’m a wee bit freaked out about swimming with my head under water. Ok, not really, it’s more like I don’t like swimming with my head under the water once I start getting my heart rate up and get a little winded. Scared I can’t breathe and breathe in water, and well, I don’t have gills, so I just shouldn’t do that.

Despite my breathing issues, my first pool session went really well and I managed to swim a half a mile (with rests between lengths, obviously). Today was my second pool session, and I totally admit to wondering if I was going to go back…but I totally did and am very proud of myself. I feel like I am starting to “get it” as far as the rhythm goes, but recognize that my technique is pretty much non-existant. It’ll come.

Due to my schedule I can only go to pool sessions on Saturdays, so it’s hard to make any real progress with only one training session per week, but it’s better than nothing!

I also have a new training log - the one I was using was ok, but just had too many hiccups. I need to figure out how to get the new one up here on the blog to share.

As often happens, when I start feeling an injury take hold (which luckily for me, isn’t very often) I slip into a mini-state of denial. I begin to feel as if I don’t talk about it, the problem seems farther away, less present somehow. This would explain my lack of updating my training blog since a few weeks back…

I took the above picture on my last long Sunday run on March 23rd. I run by this boulder, and while you can’t really tell from the picture, it is huge. It’s this massive, gigantic thing that is actually banked against the little hill - or maybe it actually created the hill - and the trail runs over it.

Seeing this drop-shaped hole, carved out by drops of rain sliding down the leaves of the great tree next to the boulder, really gives me cause to stop and take stock of what persistence really means. Sometimes you feel like you are getting nowhere, and that all your efforts amount to nothing, or to not much. But then, if you are able to imagine the difference all your hard work and sacrifice could make, do make…well, I imagine that this shallow pool was many, many years in the making, and that to the naked eye in the beginning it seemed rather like nothing at all.

So I need to remember that these small set-backs, while they seem terribly frustrating and somewhat devastating to my training, are really nothing in the greater scheme of things. They also help to push me to take control of my training, and not let my training control me.

Beautiful sights from Sunday’s run:

I can’t tell you what joy it is to see all the flowers and blossoms bursting through the grey of winter! Such gorgeous scenery! So much more beautiful than cars, sidewalks & smog…

When I first started running I would never, ever have stopped to take pictures of anything. I smugly regarded stopping as a sign of weakness, as many misguided newbies do. Now I just love lugging my point & shoot along with me, even if it is a bit of a pain sometimes. It is so challenging to be still and not shiggle my arms or the camera.

I sometimes feel silly calling Sundays my long run, after all, it is such a subjective adjective! Yesterday was a 12-miler, as per my handy-dandy training plan. For some, 12 miles sounds undoable, for others, a 12-mile day is considered an easy day. Running is so personal.

I was feeling a wee bit tired yesterday. The almost constantly-gray sky and falling rain didn’t help me much, but when I saw this apparition of what looked like cotton candy from afar, it helped me forget the bleak feeling in my feet and my spring bounced back:

I’ve been running through the forest surrounding our city for nearly a year and a half, but have only been venturing on the trails for about two months. Before that I stayed on the more cyclist-friendly tar paths. I felt a bit intimidated running so far into the woods alone, knowing my cell phone wouldn’t work with any reliability and that no one really knew where I was (Mr. Fish always has a vague idea thanks to Map My Run but the trails aren’t always well indicated). On the tar paths I would feel reassured as I would often happen upon hikers, cyclists, and sometimes other runners. Now I am just addicited to the uneven paths and crazy “where-is-my-footing” trails. I am most assuredly humbled as I can feel the added difficulty as my body tries to stabilize. It is slowing me down, but building me up!

My feet hurt.

Ok, that’s out of the way…

I have these flat-as-crêpes feet which have taught me through my years of dancing, and now running, to be creative in finding ways to deal with them. I have custom-made orthodics (which to be honest help minimally, but help is help), and I have done a fair amount of research into trigger points and self-massage techniques which means that I pretty much don’t go anywhere without a lacrosse ball to “roll against the wall or floor” or one of those little 35mm bouncy balls to roll under my foot. As a dancer I was lucky to have a great support team to help me deal with my aches and pains: I saw my massage therapist once a week and my chiropractor twice a week. It helped some, but a day didn’t go by that I wasn’t in some form of pain, usually lower back and the feet.

Those days are gone and as a runner I am thrilled to say that I am almost never, ever in pain. Sometimes there is a sore muscle or a tight one, but that’s good. I have learned to head-off many of my old problems with more stretching (specifically yoga), and I eat more and rest better than back in the day. There is much debate about stretching being beneficial or not, and many great studies on the subject, so I’m just speaking from personal experience: nearly every single injury I have ever sustained (with the exception of falling-type injuries) have been born from over-tight muscles pulling on tendons and ligaments which in turn either snapped, became inflamed, pulled something “out” (like my ab muscles vs. my back) or an icky combination of the above. I am extremely flexible, but am very tightly wound.

This is why my feet hurt.

Last October as I approached the 20K race I was to run (was to run because a respiratory infection and strep throat kept me from actually running the race), my feet started to really ache. I am very careful about keeping track of my shoe mileage and rotating my shoes, and was surprised when they were already hurting from the moment I woke up. They felt sort of tired, like they had already been on the run I was waking to go on. I also begin having a problem with my right foot at this time. A nagging soreish pain both on the inside and outside of my first metatarsal joint (big toe). Terrified it was a stress fracture I performed all the self-tests - pinching, prodding- which in the event of a stress fracture would have had me howling in pain or jumping off the chair, and I could safely asses it was not a SFX. I reluctetnly saw my GP, telling her what I thought it was - overly-tight muscles pulling on ligament which is causing the pain, she pretty much agreed. End of story.

After battling the evil infection that kept me from running my race in October I realized with delight that my foot/toe hardly hurt (because over a two-week period I had hardly gotten  out the door for a run!). Flipping through my exercise journal I also noticed that during the month prior to the foot pain exacerbating I had pretty much not done any yoga at all. Humm.

So here’s my dilemma. My toe (well, around the joint) pretty much hurts all the time. I don’t think about it much. If I put the 13K Guppy in the hiking backpack to do our shopping (which I do a lot) I think about it a little. After as little as a 10-minute Sun Salutation session it feels GREAT, as in no symptoms, and then sneaks back a little later. I know it’s muscle-tension related, I think I know which muscles are implicated, but I can’t make permanent progress (without  *not* running).

I also think the perpetual tired feeling in my feet is related. They feel so much better just after a nice yoga practice, even brief.

It may be time for foot ice-baths again for while…

One of the big challenges I face as a running-enthusiast is finding activities to compliment my cardio training without over-taxing my body on my “non-running” days. The idea is to take a rest from running, but at the same time continue to build cardio strength and over-all fitness be it flexibility, strength, endurance, etc. If you’re able to find an activity that actually complements your sport of predilection, for me running, by strengthening core muscles and reinforcing the muscles that support the key running joints, then you have disco my friend.

This desire to build up all the fronts probably helps explain in part the huge popularity of triathlons. The tri has been one of the fastest growing sports for the past 10 years, and when I ask people why the tri, often it’s because their joints can’t take the incessant pounding of running exclusively, but can take running in small amounts, or something similar.

I would love to compliment my training with pool time or more time on the bike, but with my limited cross-training time it just doesn’t work out for me. My time for cross-training is usually when the Guppy takes her nap, and that means finding my mojo in our house while she’s sleeping (which eliminates going to the pool or hopping on my bike, obviously!).

Que-in free weights, yoga, and random DVDs. On my recent visit to see the in-laws, my sister-in-law loaned me copies of some various exercise DVDs she had. I’m a firm believer (no pun intended) in changing-up my cross-training routine every 4 to 6 weeks to keep it fresh and affective, so I was thrilled to try something new.

I have to admit feeling slightly silly when I watched the introduction of the DVD. “This can’t be serious” I thought to myself, haughtily. “How out of shape the participants look” and “This can’t possibly be for real athletes like me.” I totally admit to my feelings of superiority, because they are important in reminding me of how ridiculous the ego is, and how wrong it usually is about, er, everything!

It was a good little workout cardio-wise, and I’m looking forward to trying a different one on Wednesday. As for the strength-training part (this is what I thought was so “weak”, how could I be building strength- we had no weights! No resistance bands!), let’s just say that about 20 minutes after finishing the workout I noticed that my shoulders weren’t responding with their normal quickness. My traps & lats felt very tired and very weak, and when evening came and it was time to put on my jammies, wow, hello shoulders!

Guess I found out where my current weakness is!

What a relief to be back in la forêt de fontainebleau where it is normal for it to be cold, windy and raining! Actually, it was warmer here today than it was in the southwest, so go figure…

I love my Sunday run. I especially love it when I can run the trails through the woods. I just sort of trance-out, a running meditation, and I think about everything and nothing at the same time.

I don’t know how to explain it, but the forest felt alive today. Maybe it was the dark and drizzly weather that kept many of the runners, mountain bikers and hikers at home today, but the animals were in full-force. After the first 1.5miles or so I follow the first trail into the woods, I looked up and saw the most beautiful pheasant ever. I didn’t bother to bring my camera due to the rain, but here’s a great pic from Wikipedia

I wouldn’t have been able to snap a pic, because once he got a look at me he was off running. I was surprised at how big he was, well over my knees- so maybe I’m surprised at how small I am? Anyway, there were way more squirrels, random birds, strange noises, wild boar tracks (luckily didn’t see any of them), and at the end of my 18k run, with about 1.5k left just at the edge of the woods, I crossed paths with a huge deer! It’s not the first time I’ve had one bolt out in front of me, but he was gigantic! I didn’t get a chance to count his points, I was too busy looking into his eyes! We both sort of stopped and looked at one another rather awkwardly with a bizarre, embarrassed feeling. Freaky.

I really felt the last mile; my feet felt sore and a little tired, but I think it’s just feeling tired from being the car for seven hours yesterday and the near-week of minimal stretching and yoga. Once I got home and in some warm clothes I was a-ok.

See! I told you…

This is the path my dear bro-in-law took me across on the first lap of the 3.5mi loop he showed me. It was pretty brutal weather-wise that day, and as my second lap took me across this field I thought I heard (somehow over the howling wind) a kitten meowing near this tree (it was still standing then). I stopped, pushed around the tall grasses to have a better look, then was off again, convinced there was nothing out of the ordinary.

The next morning I headed out and volia! The sounds were actually coming from the tree. Guess the wind really was howling.

I got some great resistance training all week because the wind didn’t let up until Friday night. I do feel really rested though, since I haven’t done any cross-training at all since Monday, so that’s probably a plus.

Monday is usually a strength training day for me, but after my brief wake-up yoga session I hauled it to work and then at 1 o`clock the Fish Family was in the car to head to the beautiful, sunny, warm south of France for a week with Mr. Fish’s brother and family. Hourrah, shouted the Shellyfish, warm weather, running without layers of mittens, hats, scarves, fleece tops, etc.

Sunny. Warm. Let’s try sleet, hail, pelting rain, and gale-force winds. Oh, did I forget unseasonably low freezing temps? Uh huh.

We got in Monday night and my very cool, extremely sweet brother-in-law who is pushing 50 and is not at all athletic (but who used to run occasionally) stepped up when I mentioned at the dinner table that I wanted to look at Map My Run for my running route for my Tuesday morning run, would he look with me to let me know if it was a good route, etc. Not only did he look with me, but he informed me he’d be joining me on my first loop of the route to show me the way! I was floored, and a little nervous, because doing over 3.5 miles after doing nothing for so long was, well, dangerous to say the least. He quit smoking and has greatly reduced his wine intake since about a year ago when he was confronted with some nasty health issues (though he is doing great now), and was excited about trying out his “new” lungs with a run.

I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit to being a little nervous- I didn’t want him to get hurt or have a problem and try to “push through” because he was with me.

I’m very proud of my beau-frère who managed his 3.5 miles in 39mins, and we only stopped twice for maybe 20 yards of walking for him to catch his breath. He did a fabulous job, and this in unseasonably bitter, brutal wind and, get this, rain! It was 2c when we left the house, began raining about 20 minutes into the run, and we were against the wind the entire time (which should be an impossibility, but we are having a series of freak wind storms, and it’s true!).

I continued on for a second loop and much to my delight it began to hail and pelting sleet actually burned my face. I didn’t know it was possible, but by noon I had red/purple welts on my cheeks which stopped exactly where the elastic on my wind-breaker’s hood started. During my solo loop the temps dropped to -4. Lovely.

Last week it was over 25c here. And sunny. No wind.

Buy hey, we came for the family, right? Not for le temps…

The difficult thing really about being here is being able to step back and say, hey, it’s ok if you can’t do any strength training because everyone is all together and there is no place to do it even if you’d brought your weights. It’s pas grave if your yoga practice is on hiatus for a few days.

The important thing is hanging with the very cool family.