Saturday, March 5, 2011

I might never be a marathoner (or Ironman)

Although ITB felt ok, no lingering weird sensations, ok, I felt it once, I decided not to run today. Why push it, right? Maybe it would have been fine but I was scared to try. I will do few miles tomorrow.

So it seems that multiple 40miles weeks and few runs on hard surface (road and ice) and here we go again.
I wonder whether ITB would have started protesting if I have not run that tempo on a road on Wednesday and have not run few runs on ice. That would mean that it is totally mileage related. Now I cannot be sure.
Since I started running exclusively on softer surface in August, I have had only few ITB issues- one huge one was after I ran 5k race on a road and together with warm up and cool down did around 9miles on a road.
But on the other hand, my mileage back then was lower-
August 13, 17, 24, 22 miles/week
Sept 27, 29, 29, 27, 35 miles/week
Oct 39, 33, 35, 26 miles/week
Nov 22, 25, 21, 28
Dec 27, 24, 26, 5

So I am just not able to determine whether it is mileage or surface induced.
I always do low mileage and trail runnig- no ITB problem.
Then I do few 40ish miles week and I ran on a road- and ITB starts protesting.
Why did I choose to run on road in the middle of a 40+ miles week? I am an idiot.

Lets just say for now that it is a combination.

And therefore I might never be a marathoner. Because who can run a 3hour marathon with 30miles/week training? Hm, ok, I have not tried it but I am 100% positive that I cannot do that:) (And I am not even sure whether I can do that running 100miles/week neither:)) And I would have to run that marathon on road, which I might be able to do but then I would not be able to walk for few months.
But I am staying positive and believe that this ITB thing will completely disappear this or next year if I do thing wisely.

I do not think that Thursday's ITB lingering is anything serious, few days off and I will be like new.

It has been raining since last night and I was thrilled that the water will melt all the snow but it started snowing this afternoon. Damn it! The trail will be horrible again!

I only biked today- 2h20min, did the route on the bike, no TV, no mp3. It is a good thing that I don't get bored biking/running/swimming. Never. It is always exciting:)

It is amazing how much I eat. I know that people eat huge quantities of food when in training, but I think that I eat more than other people:) But I am 6' so I need to eat more than a 5'6" person, right? I try to eat good food but sometimes I eat junk, for example today I ate some tortilla chips (like 3/4 of a bag, which is around 7 servings) with canned refried beans (I had no idea what it was but it was on sale and I thought that beans have protein so it should be good for me, plus it was organic).

3 comments:

  1. I eat a lot, too, and I am only 5'7''. I eat mostly healthy, but I refuse to obsess or worry about weight.

    About your ITB... do you foam roll, take icebaths, and do strength exercises? I cured my ITB with these...if you google mass general hospital and sports medicine, you can find a knee strengthening program for both ITB and runner's knee; this is the program I am using 2 times/week (now I use ankle weights) and have been ITB pain free for years.

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  2. as I am sure you guessed, I heartily approve of taking a day or two extra off when your ITB is a little off. Is it mileage or surface? It's physiology! Meaning it is inherently noisy and so probably there is no cut & dried answer. certainly running 30 miles per week is safer than 40 per week which is safer than 50 per week but we want to give you the chance to run faster and meet some goals. Please use the mileage in the program as guidelines only and keep doing what you're doing i.e. take a day off when you feel weird in the ITB. If you would like I could go through the plan again and reduce the mileage or you could use it as a guideline tempered by your common sense (which is pretty darn good)

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  3. @AM: Yes, I do all of it. I foam roll every day, and if ITB starts feeling little bit off I start icing multiple times a day. I also do stretching and strengthening exercises. Although always when it feels good and I start feeling invincible again I start slacking on it, but not that I completely stop doing all of it, I just do not do it every day...

    @PPC: I knew you would have approved:) Therefore I did not find it necessary to contact you about taking few days off. I was about to send you an update tomorrow.
    Do not worry about changing the plan, if you do not have time. I know you are super busy and cutting mileage is something I can do myself (I do not know how to create miles/plan, but I know how to cut them:)), I will adjust it if I need to. I might cut those long runs shorter by a mile.
    I know that it is physiology but I am trying to see what triggers the pain that forces me to take days off and thus see what we should not be doing. Should we do higher mileage for max 3 weeks in a row and then cut back for a week so I can continue doing workouts uninterrupted? Maybe I can run 50miles/week but only for 2 consecutive weeks and then I need to cut back to 30miles for one week, and then go back to 50s or something like that, you know? Or should I never ever run on a road in training? Meaning I can do as many weeks in 40s in a row as I wish but not a single mile on a road.

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