See Diva Run

I was all set to post about shoes and a very positive experience at a local running store when I happened to visit The Runner’s Lounge. The topic for this week’s Take It and Run Thursday is feet. How timely!

In the past when I’ve had injury issues, I went shoe shopping. But I’ve been professionally fitted on many occasions. I have a variety of shoes in my closet, and when good shoes weren’t enough to keep injury at bay, I assumed it was because I had run so much that shoes could no longer compensate. With past injuries I’ve been able to minimize my down time by switching to neutral shoes, and shortening my mileage. Since this contradicts everything I’ve learned about pronation and over-pronation, this time I went with my sturdiest motion-control shoes for my recovery.

Last night the 5K training group met at Run 26 in Lynnwood. I wasn’t too enthused, because I’ve been a customer of Super Jock n Jill for a long time. Run 26 owner, Shelby Shenck is a former Super Jock n Jill employee, and very knowledgeable about shoes, body mechanics and injury. I have been diagnosed as a mild pronator on many occasions, but have occasionally been fitted in motion control shoes because of my heavier build and wide, flat feet. The problem is that my right ankle is so unstable that my foot rolls to the side, leading to supination. Can you be a pronator and a supinator too? While most people have a straight forward diagnosis, in my case he said it makes more sense to rotate between neutral and stability shoes. Wow, I used to do that. I quit because I was worried that the neutral shoe didn’t provide enough support for the distances I was running. Maybe I should have just cut back on the miles instead. So, Super Jock n Jill, you will always be my first love (of the running shoe store kind), I think it’s time we started seeing other people.

I’m going to experiment with the neutral and stability shoes in my closet, and if they don’t feel right, I’ll head back to Run 26 and hope that Shelby is there to work with me. For the first time since my disappointing visit to the sports medicine doctor, I’m feeling some hope about being able to run without pain. He also recommended a couple of foot & ankle specialists. I’m hoping one of them is on my insurance plan!

If you are experiencing running related injuries, it might be time for new shoes, or a new shoe store. This is not the time to be cheap. If your shoes aren’t working, take them back, or donate them and get a new pair. $100 may seem like a lot of money, but you can’t buy new feet!

The days are flying by so fast I can hardly remember what might have happened since I dropped out of the “blogiverse”. The biggest news is the birth of our second grandson, Dominic. Jasmine is doing very well, despite the fact that the years are conspiring against her. We take lots of short walks and enjoy our time together. Recently she has decided that she does not wish to be carried down the stairs, which means that she also doesn’t get to walk up them. The result is a very unhappy and loud princess complaining from the lowest level of the house, and a Running Diva who spends 95% of her time downstairs to keep her happy and quiet.

The stress of work and confinement finally got to me a couple of weeks ago. I have been running slowly and for very short distances 2 or 3 times/week. I’ve had plans for the Iron Girl 5K since the beginning of th year, but recently my daughter-in-law Krista (does that make her Diva-In-Law?) decided to participate. This will be her first 5K. My niece and 2 great nieces will be joining us, and it will be their first 5K, too. My newphew’s wife is also joining the fun, as is my friend Gladys. It is going to be a great event. Tory, from Journey to Fitness has started an Iron Girl training group. Krista and I signed up, and have attended 2 sessions. We are having a lot of fun. It is extra exciting for me because this is the first time the two of us have done something together, that didn’t include the guys.

I’m also meeting up with my friend Gladys once/week. She has taken up race walking, and is pretty fast. We meet at a local track, and I jog while she zips around. I am not cross training. The Wii-Fit and the rowing machine have been put away so I can open the futon (did I mention that I’m also sleeping down here?). I’m trying to keep up with stretching, as I think it has a positive effect on my heel and ankle problems. Things don’t hurt as badly as they did a few months ago, unless I put in too much time on my feet. Long walks can be very painful, but short runs (3 miles or less) aren’t too bad.

If anyone is still reading this blog, I wish you well, and hope that some day I will have a little more time to spend visiting with you via blogs, message boards, etc.

Life has been such a roller coaster ride lately, I’m reluctant to be too happy about anything, because I expect the bottom to drop out at any second. With that in mind, I am cautiously optimistic. Jasmine’s heart & lungs are not getting worse, and her hip appears to be a little better. She had an acupuncture treatment on Wednesday, and showed dramatic improvement for several days after. During that time I think she overdid it a bit, as I’ve noticed she seems a little more cautious in her movements today. She has another acupuncture session on Tuesday. In addition to the acupuncture, she is receiving shots of Adequan for her joints. She gets a shot every 4 days. The first was administered by a veterinary tech, who showed me how to do it. I administered my first one tonight, and was more than a little nervous prior to doing so. Mr Diva held her and distracted her with a piece of salmon jerkey while I did the deed. It went very well, and I’m confident it won’t be a problem in the future.

This was the first 4th of July in several years that we didn’t celebrate with a 5K. I missed it. In fact I have had the urge to run all weekend. My head and heart are ready, but my foot still hurts. My hamstrings and calves are very tight. I’m working on stretching, but not making much progress. I’ve got a brutal schedule until 7/20. After that I think I’ll visit the sports medicine doctor and see what he thinks about me getting back to running. Maybe the head and heart can overpower the foot.

The Great Urban Race came to Seattle on June 7. It is part race, part scavenger hunt, part obstacle course and all fun. To participate you must have a 2 person team. Each team needed a digital camera and some kind of Internet access. We signed up as Jasmine’s People. Our son and daughter-in-law signed up as Mario’s people. On race day, Jasmine was still in the critical care unit, and my heart and head were not fully in the event, but I still had fun.

We met at a sport bar in downtown Seattle, picked up our packets, and waited until the noon start time for the clue packets to be distributed. The packets held 12 clues. Some were puzzles, some were things to find, and the rest were places to go and take a digital photo. The 12 items could be done in any order, and the first team to complete them all (actually you only had to complete 11) and return to the start was the winner.

We didn’t take the most organized approach to our travel, which had to be on foot or by bus. Teams that ran finished faster, but I doubt they had much more fun than we did. We started out by pumping gas for a total stranger (it was that or get a photo of someone in a Mariners shirt. Nobody wears Mariners shirts these days!). The nice man who let us pump his gas even supplied us with the location of the statue of a fireman holding a chain saw. This was huge as Google had not been all that helpful.

We waited much too long for a bus to take us to the Public Market, but we used the time to solve the puzzles. I thought I was so clever in solving some of them that the competition would be left behind. One of the puzzles was pretty tough, but most teams chose to let that be the one they skipped. Rats! Oh well, up to the Public Market to pose with a salmon. How Seattle! At least we didn’t have to throw it, but we smelled like fish for the rest of the afternoon.

We walked/rode around the city finding landmarks and taking photos. We even got to share a slice of pizza at Mad Pizza on First Hill (some of the best in Seattle!)

And pose with a Seattle icon

We had a lot of fun. In fact we had almost 2 more hours of fun than the teams that finished first. Everyone agreed that we would do better next year. The Great Urban Race takes place in cities across the country. Be sure to check out their site, http://GreatUrbanRace.com to see if they are coming to a city near you.

Check out the race results for more great photos from the Seattle event. Visit my photo gallery for all of the embarrassing photos we had to turn in. You can see our route at http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/5913323 We might have has a faster finish time if we didn’t spend 45 minutes standing still!

Hiatus

When we brought Jasmine home from the hospital, it was like a dream come true, but the dream turned into a nightmare a few days later when she fell and injured her hip. It is very painful for her to lay down or get up, so in addition to heart medication she must also take pain medication. She is still reluctant to lay down and often falls asleep on her feet. She needs a lot of care and supervision to make sure she doesn’t do more damage to her hip, so we are living in my office (sleeping on the futon) so she doesn’t have to climb any stairs. We do spend a little time upstairs in the evening, when Mr Diva is home and can carry her up and down. Her hip will heal in a few weeks. Her heart will not. The damage that caused her congestive heart failure will continue to get worse. The cardiologist predicts that she has 6-18 good months left. We want those months to be as good as possible, and were devastated when she injured the hip. We are doing everything we can to keep her comfortable and happy, and that has become a full time job. It doesn’t leave any time for workouts or blogging, so this will probably be my last post for a while. Best wishes to everyone for good runs, good health and good times with your friends, family and loved ones until we meet again here in the “blogosphere”.

It’s Take it and Run Thursday at The Runner’s Lounge. The topic this week is Finish This Thought: “As you start your marathon (or half marathon) training, don’t forget… I’ve learned many lessons from running, and all of them the hard way. There was a time when running was just a way to accomplish my health and weight management goals in less time than it took to achieve them with walking. That was several thousand miles and nearly 20 pounds ago. Those would be pounds I gained, not lost. At some point, running took on a life of its own. I needed more calories to train harder, but I ended up taking in more than I needed. I didn’t do other forms of exercise because I had limited time for fitness and i wanted to devote it all to running. For a while it worked. The more I ran, the more I could run. As my endurance improved, so did my speed. This all affirmed my notion that I didn’t need to do anything but run.

The problem in that logic is that we assume that the more we train, the stronger we will get. I thought I was getting stronger, but I was really putting too much pressure on my weaker parts, and the result was chronic injury. Now that I’m contemplating a future that may not include running, I’ve realized that I need to get back to the place where overall fitness is my goal, and not just running as much, as far and as fast as possible (but it was fun while it lasted!). I’ve experimented with a lot of different core training and cross training programs this year, and learned that I was too weak to keep up with most of them. How could that be? I guess I ran myself into the ground I have found ways to stay active, but not as active. I’m afraid my “license to eat” has been revoked until Wii Fit stops calling me overweight. I have to be careful with rowing, walking and core training, because I have trouble telling when I’m working hard and getting stronger, and when I’m working hard and breaking down.

I hope some day my various damaged parts will recover, and I will be able to run without agony. If that happens, I hope I’m smart enough to keep up with core strength and cross training, and let running be a part of a healthy lifestyle, and not an unhealthy obsession. If you are interested in a training plan that emphasizes cross training and rest days, check out the Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training