I'm back baby!!!

Quick note.

I went on my first run since my surgery tonight, and I'm pretty damn happy with myself right now. I went 3.1 miles in 30 minutes. I think if I were on the road instead of the treadmill I would have had an official 5K time of around 28 minutes. I always go faster on the road instead as opposed to the hamster mill.

Weights went well too. It's been a long time since I lifted anything, so today was a bit of figuring how much I could do. For some of the weights I was right on; for others I was off by a bit one way or the other.

But the important thing is that I'm back in the saddle, and I'm so glad to be back.

The race that wasn't

Yesterday should have been my day of triumph. It wasn't. Instead it was a day of sleeping late, eating too much, and playing games. What should have been a day of high physical activity followed by a sense of accomplishment was instead a normal Sunday.

I almost ran it, by the way. I had my follow-up visit with my surgeon on Friday morning and he said I was cleared to go do whatever it is I do with no restrictions. I spent a good part of Friday night seriously considering my options. I could do the marathon as planned or, since it had been a while since I ran, I could scale back and do the half. In the end, after consultation with Lisa, we decided that "no restrictions" did not necessarily mean that I could go out and run 13 or 26 miles. So I collected my bib and chip and promptly turned my chip in at the expo. I got my shirt though. Some may think that it's uncool to wear a shirt for a race you didn't run, but if I didn't run all my $120 entry fee was going to get me was a goody bag with not much in it and a long sleeve technical shirt. I'm taking my damn shirt, and the next time I run outside in long sleeve weather I'm wearing it. It's a butt-ugly shirt for $120.

Still, all is not lost. I have a plan, albeit a somewhat fluid one. I will still have my day of triumph, it just won't be yesterday. Instead, it will be (most likely) at the end of June when I do Seattle's installment of the Rock N Roll Marathon. Other options include the Vancouver Marathon (or half) in May or the Royal Victoria Marathon (or half) in October. October sounds a little too far off, although it would give me the BEST months for training and be reasonably cool on race day most likely. I jokingly said that I would do multiple marathons next year to make up for missing Seattle, and maybe I will.

I've got to admit that as disappointed as I am for not doing the Seattle Marathon, I'm glad I'll be able to work towards RnR on my terms rather than Mother Nature's or astrophysics' terms. The week that included my surgery was supposed to include my longest run pre-marathon, 20 miles. It was also the week that we had the time change, so thanks to our lofty latitude it started getting dark around here even earlier. Seriously, it's as dark at 4:30pm now as it is at 9:00pm, and that's just not what I want the world to look like when I'm out running in it. Think about the trails that are largely unlit and the streets with the crazy drivers that I'd have to cross. If that's not enough, think of the freaking cold. I hate the cold. I would have either had to be out in that or I would have had to get up way early (for me) to start and finish my run while it was still daylight. I know that just because the time changes or the movement of the seasons causes the dark to come early doesn't mean that the day is any shorter, but it feels like that.

Another... issue, for lack of a better word, I had was that I wasn't in love with my training plan. I need to do two things. First, I need to find a training plan that I like better, and since this time I'll probably be working with a training partner I'll need to find one that both of us like. I'd prefer something with with at least two 20 or 20+ runs, but that's going to be subject to negotiation with said partner, she may or may not agree with that. Second, whatever plan I go with I'll need to modify somewhat. I want to be able to double up on most of the weeks, although probably not the weeks where the plan calls for 20 or 20+ miles and probably not the step-back weeks either. I think anything up to about 17-18 miles should be done twice.

And another thing! I've read all the lit that says that a first time marathoner's goal should only be to finish and not have any time component, but I'm not satisfied with that. I really, really, really want to finish in under 4 hours. I'll be perfectly content to finish at 3:59:59.59, but a milisecond over that is too long. So I've got to work on building up speed and maintaining speed for the long haul. I believe that will be a large part of my focus for the next two or three months.

So today I will resume normal activity. Actually, I will resume super-normal activity. For the next couple of months, I'm going to do both cardio and weights, and I'm planning on doing them on the same day. Two days a week I'm going to run half an hour. I'm not going to put any speed or distance requirements on that, although I may choose to make one of those a speed run and one a hill run. After that I'm going to go pick up heavy things for about an hour. Then, most likely on Thursdays, I'm going to work in a little flexibility by going to do some yoga at this little studio downtown. For my weekend activity, I'll do a one-hour long run on Saturday. Again, no speed requirement or pressure, I just want to run for an hour. I'll also do some weights, but I don't know if I'll do the weights on Friday or Saturday. So the schedule for this week is:

Monday - 30 minute run followed by weights
Tuesday - nothing (going to a musical)
Wednesday - 30 minute run followed by weights
Thursday - hot hatha yoga
Friday - rest (or weights?)
Saturday - 1 hour run (followed by weights?)
Sunday - rest

That's probably going to be my schedule in general for a while. Seeing it written out like that I kind of like it. I'm active 4-5 days a week, which is good. I might do my Saturday weights on Fridays though. I'll probably try it both ways and see which I like better. I should also consider something long-term for Tuesdays. I used to go to this great spin class on Tuesdays but I stopped when I started seriously training for the marathon. It's possible that it's time to pick that up again. THAT was a great workout.

I'm tentatively planning on the Jingle Bell Run (5K) on December 13. That will give me a couple of weeks to get back into fighting shape and a goal to achieve in December. It's not a marathon, but it's something.

The last 7 miles...

On Sunday I was supposed to do a 15 mile run, but after 3.5 miles I decided that I wasn't interested in doing the whole thing. Right now I'm wondering how the rest of my week would have turned out if I had kept going. Would it be better or worse?

I aggravated an old injury either during my run or soon after, but however I did it I basically got no sleep on Sunday or Monday night. The pain was so bad that at 7:00am Tuesday I was up calling the doctor to get in to see her as soon as possible. My doc was all booked up, so I ended up seeing a nurse practitioner. She took one look at my problem and said "I can't do anything about this. We need to get you in to see a surgeon."

Whatever I expected out of my Tuesday, it wasn't to be talking to a surgeon.

I got really lucky. The surgeon had a free appointment time right then, so I took an elevator ride down a few floors and got seen immediately. He took a look at the problem then gave me two options. Option 1 was a more invasive procedure that would result in approximately two weeks of excruciating pain with probably another month of moderate pain after that. But after those six weeks were done my problem would effectively be taken care of. Option 2 was a less invasive procedure that had less pain associated with it, but for 20-40% of people who have it done the problem is not completely resolved. I'd already done quite a bit of research on both, so none of it came as a huge surprise. The doc suggested we go with option 2 and I agreed.

Due to some twist of fate (I swear I wasn't planning ahead for this) I hadn't had anything to eat since around 9pm the night before and nothing to drink since around midnight. That means that my body was already effectively ready for surgery. Doc asked if it could wait until the next morning and I said I'd prefer it to happen as soon as possible. So at 2:00pm I checked into the surgery center and at 4:00 they took me back to get prepped. There are some really fantastic people working in medicine. Everyone I met was friendly, helpful, and they all laughed at my jokes. I make jokes when I'm excited, happy, or nervous. Actually, if I'm not trying to make a joke about something you could probably assume that there's some bad stuff going down. I kept Nurse Rockstar (he just had that look) in stitches while he was rooting around in my arms for a vein to stick the IV in.

After an hour or so of prep work they wheeled me into the OR. The anesthesiologist slapped a mask over my face, I tried to make another joke or two and then I was out. OUT. I sort of woke up in the recovery room and the doctor tried to confuse me with medical jargon. The only thing I took out of it was that they started off trying to do the surgery we agreed on but determined that it wasn't going to be possible and went for the more invasive procedure.

So, what is this going to mean for me? Well, obviously I'm going to have to take it easy for a couple of weeks. The marathon is in roughly 3 weeks. It's just not going to happen this year. I'm of two minds about this, to be completely honest. I'm disappointed because I've been dreaming about how good it will feel to cross the finish line since June. I've put in a lot of work toward this thing, and I'm not going to be able to follow through with it. On the other hand, the last few weeks of running have shown me that I'm not thrilled with some aspects of my training and I've lost a little of the excitement for doing the marathon because of it.

So what's the new plan? Well, I'm going to take it easy for a little while. I'll count the cost of the marathon as a sunk cost. I'm not going to run it, but I am going to pick up my t-shirt. I paid $100 for this marathon, if I'm not getting to run my 26.2 I'm at least getting the t-shirt I paid for out of it. And I'll wear it too on days that it's cool and I'm training outside. After I've had some time to heal, I'm going to start working on hitting that 26.2 goal again. I'm going to mix in at least one half marathon sometime in the first half of 2010, maybe Vancouver. I've never been there and I hear it's nice. The new goal is to run the Rock 'n Roll Marathon in July. Of course, I'll also have a couple of 8ks along the way (Beat the Bridge and Torchlight). We'll see if we can't work in a few 5ks as well.

I think I like this. First, doing a summer marathon will give me a lot of time to work up to a reasonable speed. I haven't been thrilled with the idea that it was going to take me 5 hours no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise. Second, it's going to give me some freedom to train when I want. I hate that I have to go out on Saturdays or Sundays almost as soon as I wake up in order to get it done before dark. I'll be hitting my long runs hardest around the end of June or beginning of July, so I could leave to go on my long run at 5pm and still get home before dark, even if I have to run 20 miles.

Ok. I've had a setback. I've had to change my plans. But I've got a backup plan that I'm probably more happy with. And I've taken care of a problem that's bothered me for a long time. It's hard to be too disappointed with the way the week has turned out.