GrooveTime!group - CLOSED!!! (Page 156)

ANNE, sorry to hear about the running. I know that must be a let down, but it sounds like you have some great options for racing without the runs. Best to listen to your body at his point and, hopefully, the mind will follow suit at some point.

MANDY, hope your race went well.  I was looking at the website and I love the idea of a half marathon that is all downhill!!  Might have to think about that race at some point!

TRACY, good luck tomorrow ... and the countdown begins.

STEVE B, what a terrible tragedy for those athletes and their families. 

We've had about 3" of rain since yesterday evening when a big storm blew thru.  Got a 4 mile run in this morning at 5:45 am with a friend from my running group before the rain started again.  Otherwise, I think it's going to be a lazy weekend.  Might try to get to the pool later on today.

LISA

That's where I rode this am - Hwy 1 - runs along the north end of the Whitefish Chain (only you can't see the lakes from the road).  Not much traffic either - they were all on the lakes.
Denise

Anne,
You raced at the World Championships?  Where and when?  Tell us about it - please.
Denise

I didn't know they had BT shirts - I'm getting one - won't have it for next race tho.  I'm easy to spot - the little old lady - haha
Denise

My tickets to see Billy Idol in September just arrived! Yay! Totally unrelated to tri, but I'm excited so I felt the need to share.

TRACEY -

I never went to the Cleveland press to read the post-mortem on the Cavs, and I haven't yet steeled myself to go to Boston Globe website and see what is being said about the Bruins. That will come in time, I guess, but right now I'm just trying to keep it out of sight, out of mind.

AND focusing on the Celtics and the Sox. Celtics open tomorrow aft in Orlando ("Magic" - what a dippy name!), and I'm hoping the Sox can have anoter good one against Detroit. And when is Ellsbury due to return? He's been out since the 2nd or 3rd game of the season, hasn't he?

TRACEY again -

As for that hill tomorrow, another approach on it could be to shorten your stride and lean a bit more forward than you might normally do. The good part about it is that it's early on -- once over it, and it's just flats and rollers to the end. Yippee!!

Weather forecast still positively peachy?








Edited by stevebradley 2010-05-15 6:19 PM

MANDY!

TRACEY!

Yo! Yo!

Mandy --- you ready for 7am??
Tracey -- you ready for 10am??

Too-cool stickers and t-shirts, respectively, await the two of you ----- and have a great time going after them.

The GrooveTime Mojomatic Machine will be fully operational beginning at sunrise tomorrow, and will be cranking out prodigious amounts of Monster Mojo and Grade AAA Karma until tip-off time for the Celtics.

And may the Weather Gods treat you well, with cool temperatures to envelop you and sweet zephyrs nuzzling gently at your backs!

ANNE -

Forgive me denseness and/or persistence, but let me try again to get it staright with your knee:
(1) There is pain/soreness/aches on the outside of the knee, which has you thinking ITB. Yes?
(2) There is pain that is sometimes "SHARP" on the inside of the knee, which you're thinking is pes anserinus. Yes?

One other thing to think about (if you haven't already) is the meniscus. I know in a much earlier post you said something that made me think of pes anserinus, but in your post today you said it is "SHARP SHARP", and that it hurts to compress it. My understanding of p.a. isn't complete, but I'm not sure that compression is a causative factor of pain. My compression, though, what exactly do you mean? Are you talking about flexing, or bending the knee?

What undid me in '06 was a torn meniscus, and initially (well, for a few months) the smallest running efforts were impossible; I would describe my own pain at the time as SHARP.

If you can find where your knee joint extends over to the medial side, and if rubbing hard in that area produces pain, then that is about where the meniscus is. I think the p.a. is lower by about half-an-inch or so, but I will set about to look into this further.

If your doc or PT have ruled out meniscus, then that's good. If not, and if you are sure that you can produce a hurt by pressing/rubbing along the inside joint, then I will go back to my logs and see if I noted what activities bothered it. I'm certain that had I been doing yoga then, several poses I would NOT have been able to assume....but right now I can't remember the specific triggers for it -- other tthan running, that is!

Good ride today on the Victoria course. And, no, I'm not sure either that the winds up thisaway will ever end!

DENISE -

Are you a fisherperson? I know you eat 'em, but do you also catch 'em?

Lynn has a friend who has turned her onto fishing, and she is quite keen about it. As for me, however, I was cursed by always fishing in small, warm, New England lakes as a kid, where the sequence of fish caught on any given day might be a subtle variation on the following: sunfish, sunfish, sunfish, perch, sunfish, perch, perch, sunfish, sunfish, sunfish, perch, sunfish. Average size was about 5", 6" maybe; I don't know.

I think once I caught some poor, pathetic, anorexic bass.........but that just might've been my fanatsy life becoming active.




Scarred for life as a fisherman, beaten into apathy by perch and sunfish. Bah.

Denise
Hope you had nice weather for your ride, it was absolutely beautiful here for my ride today. Let's hope this is the weather we have for the race next weekend. Weather Channel is predicting mostly sunny, 56/77 and 0% chance of rain.

A couple of my uncles have a set of cabins over on S. Lida, by Pelican Rapids. Beautiful area. We went fishing there every year for 10 years until last year, we're trying to get to some other destinations before our kids graduate (they're 10th, 8th & 4th grades). If I recall, you are 1-1.5 hrs northwest of PR-Fergus Falls. Mark

TRACEY and MANDY -

Geez, are you two ever lucky to be racing tomorrow! Otherwise, you also could've stayed up until 11:43 watching the Red Sox lose in the 12th as Ramon Ramirez WALKED in the winning run -- on four pitches, no less. ARGHH! And they had a 6-1 into the 6th inning. ARGH-ARGH!!!

(Uh, you two ARE asleep now, aren't you?)

"Magic" - another silly non-plural!

Yup, gorgeous weather today. The hill is a killer and could be the only thing that prevents me from beating my 5k pace of 11:56. But, as you say it's over early. And I've done it so I know what to expect!

Yup, missed that debacle!

GO MANDY GO!!!

STEVE,

I actually don't have any pain on the outside of knee - it's just that the osteo and phsyiotherapist both said I have ITB syndrome based on their 'tests' and the fact that the band feels like a thick rope and at night I will get aching in the bursa sac at the hip joint. 

The sharp pain on the inside of the knee is not p.a.   I have swelling at the bursa sac and did have more of a dull pain when it was really bothering me.   But that was about 1-1.5" below the knee cap on the inside of leg.   This seems to be settling down.   It would hurt when I ran but as I said, more dull than sharp. 

This sharp pain on the inside of the knee cap is a new pain.   They did all the usual tests a doc does to rule out meniscus and arthritis, shy of images, and with all the poking and prodding and bending and twisting they did, nothing caused pain. 

I don't seem to have any of the symptoms of torn meniscus except maybe that my right knee has been hyper extending pretty easily but this too seems to be getting better.

The only thing that I have read that seems to be a possible explanation is a piece of bone fragment or cartilage that moves around and now and then gets caught in the joint somewhere and causes the pain and won't let me compress my right leg (like when trying to sit on it on the floor) and it hurts alot.   But then other times it is fine.

So as of now, the sharp, sharp pain only occurs after I have been running about 2 minutes.   No pain doing normal activitiy.

Heading to Pelee again this morning for some bird watching, then cycling in the Windsor area the next couple of days.

Oh yes.   I forgot!   We are going to Huntsville next Monday and will be cycling the Muskoka route.      

Have a great day.

ANNE -

Thank you for the big reply, and I owe you a long one.

Say hi to the Carolina Wrens for me, please!

ANNE again -

For Muskoka, is that "next Monday", as in the 24th? Drats. That's the day after Columbia! (Otherwise, I'd wheedle and ask if I could join you!)

No progress reports from Tracey or Mandy, eh?

Well, I'm off on a bike ride now, so hopefully by the time I return they will have chimed in with how their races went!

Totally crapped out on the 5k today, I'm afraid! I could give lots of excuses (the killer hill, my neuroma, etc) but I'll spare you!

So I didn't beat my best 5k time of 37:00. Today was more like 40 and change. I had to stop and walk quite a few times.

And to top it off, my iPod stopped working half way through the race.

Granted, I didn't choose the best course to beat my best 5k, given that it was so full of hills. But now I'm determined to meet this goal, so I'm on the search for another 5k to do!

On a good note, I met a woman after the race who is also doing Escape the Cape next month. And this will be her first tri too. We're planning on doing some training together.

Tracey

Tracey - congrats on the 5K - a finish is a finish!  Getting out there is the hardest part.  And that is super cool you found someone new to train with!

ALL-

I love the Sugarloaf Marathon, I can't wait to run it healthy.  No frills, super small, but very well run.  Met lots of nice folks along the way.

Quick and dirty - my time is around 4:30ish (4:35) by my watch, but this race wasn't chip timed and by the time I looked up at the clock (I had to get past these two girls I was playing "pass" with at the finish so I wasn't looking at the sign. Duh)  Plus, I did the Blais roll across the finish, which really threw them for a loop.  Waiting for the "official" time.  And they had to ask for my number, since it wasn't chip timed, and the roll screwed that up for them...ha

Good run overall, I walked at the last 5-6 water stops for a minute each stop.  Given my injury, and the fact I haven't run much really for about 3-4 weeks, I am happy with my time.  Miles 13-16 were kind of dark.  The first 11 miles are hills, pretty good climbs actually, and I went out too fast, running 9:00-9:10's for the first 11-12 miles.  When I am healthy and fully trained, I think that will work, but I felt it a bit and started to cut it back a little late, and I felt crappy for a few miles.  Miles 16-20 were good, I was on a pace to finish @4:20 but then my calf woke up and had other ideas.  I kept at it and find it weird that my hardest miles were 13-15, but I think I slowed down enough to recover and push through OK.

The worst news? NO STICKERS THIS YEAR!!!!  But the medals are really cool.  I will get a picture up when I get a chance.

I didn't make my calf worse, but I kind of made it angry. 

AND my friend Steve W BQ'ed for the first time ever with a 3:31.  My buddy Beth finished in 3:50.  Good runs overall!

Nap time!

Mandy

Congrats to TRACY and MANDY!!! Woo-hoo!!  TRACY, sorry you were a little disappointed in your time, but nice to have a new training partner.  And MANDY, sorry to here about the sticker ... I know you were looking forward to that!

LISA

TRACEY -

I beg to differ! I would not call your performance today one that was "totally crapped out", and "40 and change", given what you faced, is very admirable!

You know, although I knew about the hill, thought about the hill, commented about the hill, even tried to "mojodify" the hill so as to make it less formidable.......I never manged to connect the dots about it likely getting in the way of a 5K p.r. for you. Oops!

The truly hard-core will aim for a p.r. on a bugger of a course, but for the other 98.73% of us, we choose our courses carefully if we hope for a p.r. --- and a mean old mama of a hill at mile one of a three-mile race is not exactly conducive to a p.r. result. However, what you now have is a benchmark for that particular course, and I'll bet you dollars to donuts that if you do it again next year, you will have a significantly better result. Yeah!

At what point did the neuroma start to make its presence known? Also, what approach did you use for the hill? And, any thoughts on what you might do differently, especially in terms of pacing? If you had it to do over again, right now, what adjustments might you make? Just curious!

That is excellent about finding a kindred soul to train with for Escape!! Even if you had had to slither on your belly like a reptile so as to finish the race today, it would've been worth it just to have landed a training partner. Superbamente!

What about the t-shirt? Is it as cool as the Martian dude might suggest?

Was the Bertucci's fare worth the price of admission, maybe?

AND WHAT ABOUT THOSE CELTICS?!?!? Woo-hoo!!

MANDY -

Not chip-timed? Man, that really is a throwback. I mean, some people chip-time walking out to their mailbox, or going on a bathroom break at work!

"Blais roll"? Explain further (at your leisure), please!

I think you should be very pleased with your time, given the givens! Moreover, it sounds like you did a wonderful job recovering from the "dark" (I like that usage) miles of 13-16. And you're right --- those are kind of oddball miles for things to go wrong at a marathon, especially when it doesn't end up a permanent derailment. Really -- most people who flirt with a crash (or fully suffer one) at that point in a marathon end up seemingly at death's doorstep for the duration. But whatever you did, which I guess was a combination of slowing your pace and walking the aid stations, sure worked out well for you. Bottle and market that, maybe!

No stickers? How rude! Well, a good medal is sure better than nothing, and even definitely better than a lousy medal, methinks!

It is very, very good that the calf hung in there and seems mostly none the worse for wear. If it just got angry at you, well, it'll get over it in time (we hope! ). But id you're not feeling especially halt and lame right now, I'd say you rolled the dice and won!

Happy nappy!

Hmm, if I could do it over again? I probably would have remembered to take a Motrin for the neuroma before the race, as I usually do whenever I run more than 2 miles. I just completely forgot to, since it's been so long since I've run that distance and haven't been taking anything. Another thing I might have done differently was WALK the big hill (or at least more of it) rather than huff and puff my way up and drain my energy. Perhaps if I had done that, I would have had to take fewer walking breaks later on.

T-shirt is cool! It's got the little alien dude on the front.

And the food? Ya, it was worth it. Two types of ravioli, eggplant parm, peppers and sausage with ziti, their awesome baked rolls, and salad. Yum.