Week 1, Run 2

After Sunday's initial 6 mile run, I felt a good amount of soreness in my running muscles. It's somewhat surprising that my biking muscles can be in great shape, yet running differs just enough to make other leg muscles extremely sore. My right knee, the worst of the two, has been a little bit sore as well. I "rested" my running muscles on Monday and Tuesday, getting on the bike for both days with these workouts:

Monday, 8/17/2009: 13 mile Bike Ride around Garden of the Gods & Ridge Road. My bike computer, a Sigma Rox 9, has an altimeter which tells me the vertical gain, as well as a heart monitor. This ride is 1100 feet of vertical climb, providing a very good workout. Average speed was 18.5 mph, one of my better rides on this course. I also gauge my effort using the heart rate monitor. My average for the ride was 145 beats per minute, maxing out at 178. I also wore this same heart rate monitor on my run on Sunday, and I seemed to range from 145 to 150 for what I'd consider a moderate effort. My hope is to be able to maintain this level of effort for the half-marathon in a couple weeks.

Tuesday, 8/18/2009: 20 mile Bike Ride on a route my friend and I call the "Little Kahuna". This was originally designed as the toughest long-lunch bike ride we could manage, but since we first started riding it, we found a few tougher routes. The Little Kahuna is similar to my ride yesterday through Garden of the Gods & Ridge Road, but starts a few miles further away, and adds another hill on Flying W Ranch road. This ride was my best Little Kahuna ever, averaging 18.7 MPH over the 20 miles with 1750 feet of vertical rise. Average heart rate was 153 BPM. I felt strong the whole way, and this ride gives me confidence that I should be fine for my half-marathon, at least on a cardiovascular level.

Wednesday, 8/19/2009: The time has arrived for my second run. This one's important, as it will show me that my knees and running muscles can recover enough in two days to support a consistent running schedule. I figured if I can't run on 2 days rest for the knees, I will have trouble getting in the 2-3 runs per week over the next three weeks that will let me survive the half-marathon. I ran from work, which happens to be just a half-mile from the New Santa Fe Trail, the same trail as the half-marathon, though we are a bit north of where the actual course. Today, I ran 4 miles at just a hair over a 10 minute per mile pace. I used the run/walk/run strategy where I would walk 1 minute each mile at a decent clip to help recover and re-energize. The run/walk/run method is proposed by Jeff Galloway, and I've been using it since the first of the year, even in competitions. My knees felt a little sore for the first half mile. I wore my monitor and saw that my heart rate was between 145 and 150 BPM. About what I expected, and again a moderate level of effort which I feel I can sustain (or close to it) for the two and a half hours on race day. The Peak Ascent qualifying time is just 2:30, which amounts to an 11:26 per mile pace. Towards the end of the run, the last 1/2 mile or so, my lower right calf muscle began to show early signs of strain. This is the muscle that completely broke down on me last fall while training for a half-marathon. Using the Pose running method, the calf takes a lot of stress, as each stride lands on the ball of the foot (as opposed to the heel). The feeling of strain is very slight, and I'm hopefully just being over-sensitive since this is the injury that ended my last attempt. If the strain turns into pain, I do have a solution: I will alter my stride to land more towards my heel. I've found I can control the stress on the calf by simply altering the landing position. More towards the ball of the foot means more calf-stress and less knee stress. Moving towards the heel reduces stress on the calf and increases pounding on the knee.

After making it through today's run, I am confident enough that I registered for the half-marathon on September 7th.

As a precaution, I iced both knees. I'm a bit surprised, but my left knee, the better of the two, seems to be slightly swollen. I can feel swelling pressure on the back side of it. I don't remember tweaking it in any way during my run. I occasionally get slight pain in the front, seemingly on the front top surface of the tibia, where the lower bone meets the knee. I bit of pain there sporadically when I walk, which I've been able to deal with in the past. This swelling, though, is completely unexpected, and something I'll need to keep an eye on.