You know how frustrating it gets to keep feeling aches and pains in the same area and just not know what is causing it?

I’ve gone through this many times and my first instinct used to be to go to the doctor. But after doing that for a few times I know that all the doctor will do is give me a prescription for Ibuprofen, Naproxen or any pain relieving medication, tell me to rest and then if necessary, send me to physical therapy.

Then, in physical therapy, they will work to get the swelling / inflammation / pain down, and then teach you a bunch of exercises to build up strength in the afflicted area. I’ve gone through this twice already and pretty much know the drill.

So nowadays, I try to manage these things on my own taking more of an interest in what the cause and corrections are. I see my chiropractor monthly for ART and adjustment tune-ups and get lots of good advice from her. I’ve resurrected the physical therapy exercises and have been doing them faithfully. I make sure to do strength training workouts at least once or twice a week, if not more. And I also get Thai and Sport massages on a regular basis.

Yet despite all of this I am still having problems in my R leg. Sometimes its my hip, sometimes it’s my knee and most times it’s a number of other little things in the surrounding area. I knew it all has to be related and I knew I was close to figuring it out, but I wasn’t quite there yet.

I saw my massage therapist earlier this week and was going on and on about my hip and knee and how I’ve been doing all these strength building exercises and “what was it gonna take to make it strong”, blah, blah, blah.

So he asked me what specific exercises I’ve been doing and when I told him he stopped and looked at me and said, “Silly girl, some of those exercises are the worst things you should be doing for your leg.”

HUH?

So he explained:

• Right now my feet are “duck” (vs. “pigeon”) meaning, they naturally turn outward (vs. inward). This tells him that my Hip A-B-ductors are plenty strong (some of the PTX exercises I’ve been doing like mad).

• The Sartorius (“like notorious but with an “sar”) muscle in my R leg is super, super tight which is why the outer portion of my R hip/IT Band hurts and the inner portion of my R knee feels like it is pulling.

• My muscle imbalance lies in my inner thighs and I should be doing Hip A-D-ductor strength-building exercises vs. Hip A-B-ductors.

Ohhhhh…..so that actually made sense.

Fun Fact: He also said that the Sartorius muscle is the longest muscle in the body.

{image from the Trigger Points iPhone app}

So I came home and looked up Hip A-D-duction exercises and realized that I never did exercises for them because they’re all the exercises I hate doing:

• Lunges
• Wall Squats
• Plies
• Side-lying Hip A-D-ductors

Blah.

One of the exercises he suggested was to swim with a pull buoy and cross my ankles, squeezing the pull buoy with my thighs.

Yesterday I had a swim workout scheduled, only my second time swimming this year. I *love* swimming and looked forward to it all week. I got to use my new Garmin (it was heaven-sent not to have to keep calculating the distance in my head as I swam) and tried his “crossed ankles” suggestion.

All I have to say is, “Holy cow!” Talk about fully engaging the inner thigh AND core muscles. Not to mention hip flexors! It was hard but I managed to maintain it for a good part of the 1525 yards I swam.

Last night I worked out with Trainer Dave and he modified the workout he had planned to introduce those Hip A-D-ductor exercises I love to hate:

5 sets:

- 10 TRX Atomic Push-ups. Here’s a video of what these look like:

I used to hate these with a passion but they’re kinda growing on me.

- 10 TRX Low Body Rows

- 10 Kettle Bell Sumo Squats with Overhead Swings: The sumo squats are very similar to Plie Squats but the KB nicely adds in some upper bodywork.

- 1 minute Wall Squats: He also added in squeezing a 4 lb medicine ball with my knees for more inner thigh work. I have bad memories of wall squats and absolutely hated these, but knowing that I *have* to build up strength in this area made them more tolerable.

3 sets:

- 10 Hamstring curls on a Fitness Ball

- 10 Ankle Band Pulls

I’m so sore (the good kind of sore!) from all of these exercises that I’m rearranging the rest of my workout schedule this week and taking today as a Rest Day.

Half the frustration of dealing with any sort of pain or injury is not knowing what’s wrong and how to correct it. I feel like once I know what it is; half the battle is won because now I can put together a game plan to address it.

I more or less run on the road 95% of the time. It’s convenient to run straight from my front door and around my neighborhood, but running on cambered (btw – I just learned what that meant) asphalt and concrete aren’t the best things for the body. Since the start of this year I have been wanting to return to the track and treadmill as an attempt to be preempt any injuries, but truth be told, the extra 30-40 minutes it takes to drive round trip to the track or gym is precious sleep time in the early morning. But when I started to get nagging aches and pains, I knew I had to switch things up – so in the past week I’ve ran on the treadmill, at the track, and at a new trail.

The Treadmill

I haven’t done a full workout on a treadmill since I fell off one 15 months ago. In fact, it wasn’t even a considered option when trying to schedule my run workouts around work, weather, etc. But after doing the VO2 Max and Lactate Threshold testing at UCSF, I felt hopeful I could become friends with the treadmill again. Yet I was still lazy about driving to the gym.

But last night I remembered that the mini gym in my housing complex recently upgraded the cardio equipment so I decided to check it out for this morning’s run. I walked on it for 5 minutes to get acclimated before starting the workout. The workout I had scheduled for today had a total of 20 different speed changes which forced my to stay engaged. The TM also had the track display where I could “see” myself circling a track – it was a nice distraction. I didn’t get bored and successfully ran 5-miles – more than I ever thought I’d be able to do. I was so happy about it and felt like I’d won a gold medal!

The Track

Getting to the track was a bit more of a challenge. When I run at the track, I usually go after work, because both high school tracks that I use are on the way home from the office. Only one of them has stadium lights and has been very popular with the local community in the evenings. It’s the track where I ran my first ever mile 8 years ago and I have been using it on/off ever since.

But when I got there, all the gates were locked. I raced across town to get to the other track so that I could get my workout done in time before the sun went down. Thankfully it was open and although the high school soccer team was practicing, there were other community people using the track so I did too. I switched up the direction that I ran in every 2 laps and was able to finish just as the sun was setting, hitting all of my target paces.

Later I found out that the local school district is restricting community use of all high school tracks until 8 pm or on weekends. I have a soap box rant about this topic which I’ll spare you all of. However, I was curious to see if the tracks were open for use in the early AM so I got up one morning before a 7 am yoga class and drove to BOTH tracks. Turns out the gates of both tracks were unlocked, and track with lights even had 2 ladies running and the flood lights were on. I’m glad I at least still have this option for the days when I’m up for some “Nascar running.”

Trails

A co-worker clued me in on a cross country course that’s about 15-minutes away from me. I was surprised I hadn’t heard of it before but since it was unpaved, I was anxious to try it out. I had a brief preview of it last Friday with Sesa, and then fully explored it on Saturday with RoadBunner. It was a pleasantly nice hilly trail with wide dirt paths that were so nice to run on. Unfortunately it’s pretty short, only 3.39 miles, so not ideal for long weekend runs. But it will be a nice option for shorter ones, as well as weekday runs during the summer.

It did lead me to research other local trails and there’s a few ones that I found that I really want to explore. The only thing that scares me is the threat of mountain lions. In fact, there was a sighting of one today in Los Altos. I have no idea what I would do if I ever came face-to-face with one.

Moving Forward
It could be a mental thing, but I don’t feel as beat up after running on the TM, track or trail as I do after running on pavement. My knee is still being funky (not while I’m running but afterwards) so I think I’m going to try and stick to these options (as much as possible) for a while and see how things go. If anything, it’ll build up mental strength and keeps things interesting!

So I got a bike last Fall and since then, it has not moved from this spot:

Oh I use it all the time…on the trainer, but it has yet to be taken for an outdoors ride.

You see, I am terrified of it. Every time I get brave, I google photos that random people have posted of photos of their scrapes and bruises from falling off a bike and it freaks me out.

My history of riding bikes is what you could call “limited.” The last time I actively rode a bike was when I was 12 years old and rode my BMX through corn fields with my friends. I have never ridden a bike with handle brakes or gears, much less one with tires as thin a road bike tires (I am *really* freaked out by how thin the tires are!)

Shortly after buying my bike last Fall, I took a “How To Ride A Bike” class from REI’s Outdoor’s school.

It was an adult class that was surprisingly full. And even more surprisingly, I had more “bike experience” than most others did in that class.

The class used mountain bikes and started us off without pedals. We just learned to scoot along, then practiced balancing and then eventually the pedals were added back onto the bikes and we were riding around the REI parking lot.

I guess that old saying of, “You never forget how to ride a bike.” is true. But sadly, after taking that class, I didn’t keep it up.

Being that I signed up for a Sprint Tri in June, I figure it’s about time to get more serious about learning how to ride a bike again. Luckily, the “How To Ride A Bike” class is the one REI Outdoor class that you can take as many times as you wish, free of charge. So I took it again over the weekend.

This time, there were only 6 people in class with 2 instructors – all women. We met at Coyote Point and went thru the same progressive steps as the last class and thankfully, I picked it up again in no time.

Being that this class was much smaller, I was able to spend some time picking the brains of both instructors. One is an avid cyclist and the other is an Ironwoman. They both gave me great advice on how to get started and encouraged me to keep at it.

The class was supposed to be 4 hours long, but after 3 hours I got pretty bored of riding around the parking lot so I left to get some lunch and rest up for an afternoon run.

Both instructors assured me that I was ready for the next class, the Bike Skills class, where they teach you basic bike handling skills. I’m signed up to take it in about 3 weeks, then after that will take the Introduction to Road Cycling class.

I’s exciting to learn something new, yet it’s intimidating at the same time. But I just keep telling myself, “if I can drive a stick shift, surely I can learn how to ride a road bike.” – right?

Monday, February 13

Plan
1-hr Spin
Strength Training

Actual
1-hr Bike Trainer
TRX Cardio Circuit Program

Tuesday, February 14

Plan
5-miles of Speed Work (400′s)

Actual
TRX Flexibility Program
5.53-miles of Speed Work

I did the TRX Flexibility workout in the AM. It was the first time I’d done it and I loved it. Unlike yoga, it is a solid mix of dynamic and static stretching. I was happy I did this in the morning with a run scheduled that evening.

After work I attempted to run at a nearby high school track. It is the only one that has stadium lights and is popular in the community for evening workouts. I got there to find all the gates locked. Ugh. So I raced to another local high school and ran as fast as I could to get the workout done before it got dark. I was able to hit all of the target paces set for me (7 400′s in the 1:45-1:50 range) and best of all – had no knee pain! At least not when I was running (had a little bit the next day).

Wednesday, February 15

Plan
Strength Training
Brick of 30-min Bike Trainer, 30-min Run

Actual
Reverse Brick of 30-min Run, followed by 30-min on the Bike Trainer
TRX Cardio Circuit Program

I had an early 6 AM work meeting, which meant I only had the afternoon to get all of the workouts done. The sun has been going down around 6 pm so decided to do the second half of the Brick first and went out for a run as soon as I got home from work. I left the Garmin at home and ran on the paved route around my neighborhood, then came home and watched the Biggest Loser while I rode the Bike Trainer.

Shortly after I finished that, Trainer Dave came over and and had me finished the rest of the TRX Cardio Circuit workout that I wasn’t able to finish on Monday. It was a long day, but thankfully, it didn’t kill me for the rest of the week.

Thursday, February 16

Plan
1-hr Run

Actual
TRX Flexibility Program
1-hr Strength Training

I have found that I can’t really get in a quality run less than 12 hours after a hard strength training session so I have been doing my Thursday runs in the evening. I woke and did the TRX Flexibility Program again. It was much easier the second time, as I knew what I was doing.

After work I drove to both high school tracks (again) only to find there were soccer games going on and the tracks were closed for running. Frustrated, I decided it just wasn’t going to happen so I came home and decided to switch up Friday’s schedule did a strength training workout.

Friday, February 17

Plan
Strength Training
Yoga

Actual
90-min Bikram Yoga Class
2-mile Run

I went to my first yoga class in 2 weeks and not surprisingly, it felt like I was starting all over again. Physically, my flexibility was still decent and I was able to do Camel pose which I will always consider a *win* in Bikram. But energy-wise, it really took a lot more effort than usual.

That afternoon I met up with Sesa to check out a new cross country trail that I had recently learned of.

It was the first time I was running with Sesa and was excited to get to know her better. Turns out we did more chatting than actual running, but I’m not complaining – I had so much fun!

Saturday, February 18

Plan
Untimed 10K Run

Actual
3-hour Bike School Class
Timed 10K Run

I took Bike class in the morning (more on this later), and then met up with RoadBunner for an easy 10K run. It was her recovery run and since we both only had 6 miles planned we decided to head back to the cross country course to further explore it.

It was the hardest 6.2 miles I have run in a long, long time. It was mentally challenging. We didn’t know where the heck we were going and ran into a lot of dead ends. Not to mention the fact that the whole thing is pretty hilly and has wild life.

{this guy just stared me down – i was intimidated}

The course maxes out 3.39 miles so we had to do a lot of looping to get the mileage we’d planned to do.

{our failed attempt to get a self-portrait with crystal springs reservoir in the background}

I ran without my music and was huffing and puffing up and down the hills. I was breathing so hard that at one point I even stopped and asked RoadBunner how she was able to run without breathing so heavily. She told me that she didn’t hear me breathing at all which I was pretty shocked about because it’s ALL that I heard. It was distracting and I felt like it sucked all the energy out of me. It’s a good thing RoadBunner was with me because I may not have made it to 6.2 miles. Seriously. But in the end we made it and were rewarded with views like this:

Sunday, February 19

Plan
Rest

Actual
Rest

I didn’t really feel like I needed a rest day, but listened and took one anyways. I did errands, chores and then watched The Bodyguard. I forgot how much I liked it.

Now sadly, the Sunday dread had set in – no holiday for me tomorrow. But I do have a massage scheduled and am counting down the hours to it!

It’s been well-documented how much I love TRX workouts. Other than the kettle bell and a couple of light free weights, all of my strength training is done with the TRX. Yet I still haven’t fully explored all that it offers.

{the TRX Training Center in San Francisco. If there were more parking, I’d visit more often…}

I subscribe to the TRX daily emails where they share How-To videos, new workouts, challenges, etc. A recent email was about a 6-Week Challenge using the TRX Cardio Circuit, Strength and Flexibility Essentials Programs. My interest was piqued so I downloaded the 3 Essential workouts and loved them.

I looked at my calendar and realized that the Oakland Running Festival; i.e., my next half-marathon is 6-weeks out. Perfect Timing! I quickly forwarded the Challenge email to Trainer Dave and told him, “I WANT TO DO THIS!” and got this response:

“We can do this workout but you’re going to have to learn all the exercises first. Otherwise we’ll never get through it. Let’s start going through some of these new exercises this week. Once you have them down we can start the 6 week challenge.”

My first reactions was, “Blah! What is he talking about, I can do these NOW!”

So this past Monday night we started the Cardio Circuit workout. We purposefully left out the jump rope; i.e. “cardio” part of the workout so we could review the strength exercises. I hate to admit it but he was right. I didn’t know how to do most of the exercises and spent the entire time learning proper form, transitions, etc. We only made it through half of the exercises before calling it a night. It was then that I realized that this Cardio Circuit Essentials workout is no joke. The exercises are challenging and keep your heart rate in Zone 5 with ZERO rest for 60-minutes.

Last night we finished going over the rest of the Cardio Circuit workout. While every exercise engages your core, these particular ones are what I call “core crazy”:

• Mountain Climbers
• Planks with abductions
• Hamstring runners
• Side planks
• Hip press

Unlike the traditional ways of doing these exercises, the TRX version of these takes the intensity to another level.

I’ve also now done the TRX Flexibility Essentials program twice on my own. It has lots of dynamic stretching which makes it great for doing before a run. And at the same time, like the other exercises, your core is fully engaged for the entire workout.

Since I’m still learning these workouts, we’re modifying the 6-Week Challenge, but the goal is ultimately to be able to do each of them in its entirety by end of March.

And now I have a new motivation for sticking with this. I just booked a Hawaiian vacation that begins 2 days after Oakland! I haven’t been home in over 2 years so I’m so looking forward to it! Six weeks and counting to get into bathing suit shape!

And as it turns out, my cousin Becki is also running her very first half-marathon while I’m there:

And now I’m signed up to run it with her!

What’s a vacation without a race, right?!

I skipped writing a Weekly Workout Recap last week. I contemplated just not doing it altogether but the OCD in me got really bugged when I missed weeks last year so I’m recapping 2 weeks worth of workouts in this post.

Week 5: Sunday, January 29 – Saturday, February 4, 2012

Sunday, January 29

Plan
Rest Day

Actual
8-mile Run recapped here.

Monday, January 30

Plan
1-hr Spin
Strength Training

Actual
AM: 30-min Strength Training: actually it was Physical Therapy Exercises (PTX) but I count it as Strength Training
PM: 90-min Bikram Yoga Class

Tuesday, January 31

Plan
1-hour Run (15-min easy, 30-min speed stuff, 15 min easy)

Actual
AM: 6.06-mile Run in 01:02:17 – 10:16 pace
PM: 90-min Bikram Yoga Class + PTX

Wednesday, February 1

Plan
Brick Workout (30-min Spinning, 30-min Running)

Actual
AM: Brick Workout (30-min Bike Trainer, 3.16-mile Run in 00:30:01- 9:29 pace)
PM: PTX

Thursday, February 2

Plan
40-min Run (increasing pace every 10 min)

Actual
AM: 4.49-mile Run in 40-min – 8:54 pace
PM: PTX

Friday, February 3

Plan
Yoga

Actual
AM: 90-min Bikram Yoga Class
PM: PTX

Saturday, February 4

Plan
20-min Run

Actual
2-mile Untimed Run

Overall it was a pretty routine week; nothing to complain about.

Week 6: Sunday, February 5 – Sunday, February 12, 2012

Sunday, February 5

Plan
Half-Marathon

Actual
Kaiser Half-Marathon

Monday, February 6

Plan
Strength Training
Yoga

Actual
2-hour Thai Massage (basically passive yoga)

Tuesday, February 7

Plan
1-hour Spin

Actual
1-hr Bike Trainer + PTX

Normally this workout would be done at 6 am, but I kept putting it off until I finally guilted myself into doing it at 8 pm.

Wednesday, February 8

Plan
5-mile Run of Speed stuff

Actual
5.20-mile Run in of Speed stuff with heavy emphasis on the “walking recovery” part in 57:06 – 10:58 pace + PTX

Another workout that would normally have been done in the early AM that didn’t happen until late in the afternoon after a full day of procrastination.

Thursday, February 9

Plan
1-hour Spin

Actual
Unplanned Rest Day

Friday, February 10

Plan
Strength Training
Yoga

Actual
1-hour Bike Trainer while watching Jeremy Lin score 38 pts over the Lakers + PTX

Saturday, February 11

Plan
14-mile Run

Actual
Unplanned Rest Day

Sunday, February 12

Plan
Rest Day

Actual
The Two-Faced 14-mile Run recapped here

This week was a different story from the previous one. After Sunday’s race, the rest of the week went downhill. What became known as “the car ordeal” week made me pretty much a hermit, stranded at home with no transportation.

Workout wise, this should not have been an issue. I worked from home all week and had all the flexible time in the world to workout. Other than swimming and yoga, I am more than equipped to do all my workouts at home. I can run around my neighborhood, ride my Bike Trainer and use my TRX for strength training – all things I already do now. Technically, I could have even popped in a Yoga DVD and practiced at home.

I don’t know what happened – maybe I had too much extra time on my hands, I know I worked much longer hours than when I go into the office. Maybe I was stressed about the whole car situation. All I know is that I felt like all motivation had been sucked out of me. I had low no energy week.

But my car is fixed (fingers crossed) and I’m back to my usual schedule. Oddly enough, I was so excited for Monday to arrive; that’s how excited to go into the office today. Here’s to a bounce back week!

I was supposed to do run yesterday, but life happened and the run got pushed to today. Turns out the weather was much better for it today anyway. The sun was shining and I ran in a t-shirt and shorts. The temps are still very mild so I didn’t get started until late morning yet didn’t have to endure any heat.

14 miles were on today’s schedule and the only instruction my coach listed was to run with no watch. Normally I would *love* this, BUT…the Garmin that I ordered 4 months ago finally arrived and I was anxious to take it out for an inaugural run. So I set it to display Distance only and I set out to see where my feet would take me.

Originally, I wanted to run these miles in Palo Alto and include a loop around The Dish. Since time wasn’t a goal for this run, I could slog up the soul-crushing hills of The Dish and not worry about pace. Sadly, this plan didn’t happen (but I am tucking it away for a future run) so I just ran around my neighborhood. Since everything else about this weekend run was going contrary to plan, I decided to keep things impromptu and didn’t map out a route.

It is not unusual for me to write out blog posts in my head while running. Of course, by the time I’m done, I usually don’t remember a word of it, but today I started out thinking that I could write a post about this run called, “Musings on the Run.” I started to make mental notes of things I could write about, like:

• “Vanilla-flavored Accel Gel isn’t too bad at all. It’s a little sweeter than what I’m used to, but I’ll definitely eat it again.”

• “Hey, this paved hill up The Bump isn’t too hard at all. And it’s .20 miles long – good for hill repeats. Add in the trail path that circles the top of The Bump and it adds up to a mile. (Note to self when needing to add on more mileage).”

• “Time to take some Hammer Endurolyte pills. What the… They *vaporized* in my pocket!” All 4 pills were completely gone with crumbled remnants of what was in them left behind.

• “I know there’s a dog park at the bottom of The Bump, but does that entitle every single dog to be unleashed?! Leash the crazy ones!”

• “I’m giving cyclists the entire path, why do they have to crowd me?”

• “Ew, ew, ew Strawberry Kiwi Accel Gel does NOT taste good! Do not buy more of these!”

• “I can’t believe how clear it is today. I can actually see San Francisco!”

{that’s san francisco on the horizon}

I had nowhere else to be today and generously took breaks to take in the scenery. In fact, if you look at the Elapsed Time for this run, it was probably closer to 3 hours. I stopped at the dog park to watch the dogs run around and play with each other. Talk about pure joy. I paused while running through Coyote Point to watch some of the golfers putt on the green. I even sat on a bench and watched airplanes approach SFO. There was something very relaxing about it. I genuinely enjoyed this run.

Until Mile 11.5

At the start of the run, the area under the shoelaces of my right foot hurt. This isn’t something new and I even mentioned it in last week’s race report. Sometimes it goes away after a couple of miles, and sometimes it doesn’t. Today it didn’t. But it didn’t hurt enough to make me feel like I needed to stop. However, the pain that showed up in my right knee at Mile 11.5 did…eventually.

I’ve gotten really good at diagnosing myself and I am fairly certain this knee problem is from my IT band. After last Sunday’s race my IT bands were super tight. I even cried when my massage therapist worked on them. I started the week being pretty good about stretching and foam rolling, but then slacked off towards the end of the week. Today’s knee pain didn’t feel structural, rather more muscular which makes me think it is IT band related. That or my gait was off from my foot pain – maybe both, who knows.

I made it to Mile 13 but that last 1.5 miles weren’t pretty. I felt like if I continued to push on the 14th mile I might actually end up hurting myself and there was absolutely no reason to do that on this run. So I made an executive decision to walk the last mile home.

This is where this blog post could have been renamed “The Walk of Shame.” But honestly, I didn’t feel shameful about it at all. I did however reset my Garmin because I didn’t want the numbers from the first 13 miles tainted by the final walk home. {…yes, that’s me being OCD…}

Once home, I did some light stretching, including a good 10-minutes of Legs At the Wall and noticed that the pain I had been feeling in my hips and glutes has drastically been minimized. I think doing the physical therapy exercises (PTX) I referenced in this post is helping and I hope it will eventually help my IT bands.

After stretching I filled the bathtub with cold water, dumped a whole bin of ice into it, threw on a sweatshirt and climbed in. In theory, I know all the benefits of ice baths and why we should do them, but I don’t think I will ever get used to them. I lasted 5 minutes then emptied the tub and filled it up with warm water, dumped some Bath Therapy into it and enjoyed the warm bath much better than the ice one. So much so I even nodded off for about 15 minutes.

I’ve since done a little more stretching and my knee is already feeling better. Aches and pains are inevitable with running. It’s not a matter of “if” but rather a matter of “when.” But part of the whole training process is learning how to manage them, and this run, is just another one to add to the learning experience. And this is just another thing that I love about running – it forces me to keep learning about my body and my health. What works for someone else may or may not work for me. It’s a continual trial and error process…and it definitely keeps things interesting.

A couple of weeks ago, fifteen months after my initial visit to UCSF’s (University of California – San Francisco) RunSafe clinic, I went back for a Performance Evaluation.

The Performance Evaluation was comprised of:

1. A Body Composition Analysis
2. Lactate Threshold Testing
3. VO2 Max Testing
4. A private consultation with an Exercise Physiologist

I was so nervous going into the appointment because I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew that both tests were designed to have me reach max level of exertion. As if that wasn’t enough to make me feel jittery, the tests were also conducted on a treadmill which I *never* run on. In addition, one of the reminder emails said, “Please be well hydrated and ready for a strenuous bout of exercise.” Umm, I wondered just how strenuous this workout was going to be…

When I arrived, I met the physiologist who was conducting my session, as well as the other person who was assisting with the testing. Unlike the RunSafe Clinic where 4 people were evaluated at once, this time I was the only person being evaluated, so it was just the 3 of us in the clinic that morning.

Body Composition Analysis

The Body Composition Analysis consisted of getting my weight, height, and body fat measurements. I have a Tanita scale at home and it turned out that my data was exactly the same as I had measured that morning. At least I know my scale is accurate – not sure if that’s a good thing. :/

Lactate Threshold Testing

The next step in the evaluation was a Lactate Threshold Test. A Lactate Threshold Test measures the maximum effort you can maintain before lactic acid enters your blood stream. You can Google the term for more detailed, scientific background on it, but basically it’s a test that tells you what level of exertion your body is capable of handling.

Prior to the appointment I was told that I could bring an iPod with my own music to be played while the test was being administered. I thought that was really cool; unfortunately, I brought my iPod shuffle, which couldn’t be played over the sound system. So instead they put on Pandora and let me pick out a station.

First I had to put on a heart monitor, and then they pricked my finger to get my first blood sample. Next I got on the treadmill, starting at a walking pace. The assistant had an RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) chart and I had to rate my RPE at every stage. Each stage was about 2-minutes long and at the end of 2-minutes I got off the treadmill, gave another blood sample and gave my RPE rating. This went on for about 8 stages, with the pace increasing by .5 each time, until I reached an RPE of 20; i.e., max exertion.

I was told that my finger would be pricked a maximum of 2 times but apparently I am not a good bleeder because they had to prick my finger after every stage. By the 4th time they had to move on to another finger. As bad as that sounds, it wasn’t too awful. It hurt more trying to squeeze the blood out.

VO2 Max Testing

After the Lactate Threshold Testing I took about a 15-20 minute break where they gave me water to hydrate and a towel to wipe my sweat. I watched them set-up for the VO2 Max test still not completely sure what to expect. Turns out, it’s exactly like doing a Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) test, just running on a treadmill.

What that means is you put on a headset that attaches a breathing tube to a computer. The breathing tube goes into your mouth complete so you can *only* breathe into it. Even your nose is clipped shut.

I got back on the treadmill and they started me at a slow, steady pace. But instead of increasing the pace every 2-min, for this test, they increased the incline by 1% every 2-min until I reached max RPE. I didn’t have to get off the TM for a blood sample, but I did have to rate my RPE. Since I couldn’t speak with the breathing tube in my mouth, I had to give hand signals – thumbs up/down – to rate my RPE and to give the okay that I was ready for the incline to increase.

I get claustrophobic quite easily so this test was difficult for me. I held on for as long as I could, going from a 1% incline to a 7% incline, then I had to stop because I felt like I couldn’t breathe. If I could have taken a breath of fresh air or a sip of water I could have gone on for longer, but since I couldn’t I had reached my max RPE.

Consultation

The physiologist took some time to review my test results then sat down with me to go over her preliminary findings.

• My body composition was in the normal range so there wasn’t anything to be concerned about there.
• My lactate threshold was about a 10-min/mile pace. This is the pace that I should be able to maintain for 26.2 miles.
• As for the VO2 Max, I didn’t quite hit max, but I did hit VO2 Peak and based upon the trends leading up to VO2 Peak they were able to determine my VO2 Max, which was in the mid-40’s, which was also normal.

The recommendations made were:

• To train at paces under 10 min/miles.
• Do lots of fartlek, speed, and interval work.
• About a week after the evaluation they also sent me a more detailed report that included what my training zones are based upon my HR and RPE’s.

Thoughts

Although I have already been training at the recommended paces and doing speed-type of workouts, I actually laughed out loud when I heard “you should be able to maintain a 10-min/mile pace for 26.2 miles.”

A certain someone had been telling me this for months and to be quite honest, I didn’t believe it. But now here is science telling me that this is what my body is capable of right now — and I’m not even in marathon training mode at the moment.

I’ve definitely been pondering that data from this evaluation, and it is not lost on me that perhaps this experience is directly tied to the race that I had on Sunday. Either way, I think this was a beneficial process for me to go through and I hope to have the opportunity to do so again.

My car has been on the DL since Saturday evening when it died out on me as I was driving.

I picked up a car rental that evening that I used to get to Sunday’s race, and to take care of a few mandatory errands. But it has since been returned (do you have any idea how much a rental costs these days?!?) and I’ve been stuck at home all week.

I’m fortunate to have a job where I can work from home (WFH), which is what I’ve been doing all week. Normally I work from home 1 day per week, but going into my 5th day in a row (I also WFH’d last Friday), it is driving me batty.

I find myself working longer than normal hours, sitting on my couch for 7+ hrs/day. This poor posture has been brutal on my body. And other than my workouts, I’ve been completely sedentary, and I feel so lethargic. I’ve gone to new levels of laziness that even I have never seen.

I take pride in being able to manage work/life balance. Normally, other than monitoring email on my work cell phone I try not to think about work while at home. I like to maintain a separation and have my home just be for home things. This week I’ve slept terribly and have found myself waking up at 3 am thinking about work emails that I need to send.

It feels so unhealthy.

It’s funny; I always thought I’d love a job where I could WFH full time, if anything, for the flexible schedule. Now I understand that I should be more structured about it – have a designated work area and schedule time to take breaks. Learn something new every day…

As for my car, it was towed to my mechanics on Monday. At first examination they could not find anything wrong with it, but after 3 test drives they finally were able to replicate what I experienced. A diagnostic test showed a problem that I won’t even begin to explain, but after Googling the diagnostic code, and reading online forums, it sounds like it’s the problem that I experienced. It also seems to be a common problem with the type of car I drive because the replacement part that needs to be repaired is out of stock in Northern California and has to be flown in from Southern California. Once that repair is made they’ll have to do another evaluation to see if it wholly fixes the problem. Fingers crossed.

I’m hoping I’ll get my car back in time for the weekend; but at this point, all I’m seeing are $$$.

So until then all errands are being done by foot, such a new experience in suburbia.

The only reasons I even bothered to watch the SuperBowl was:

1. The promise of homemade enchiladas
2. The Half Time Show

And I loved both.

I loved, loved, LOVED Madonna’s show – I was so entertained. I thought she looked great and hope I look that good at age 53.

Last night I found her YouTube channel and spent HOURS watching almost every single video. And I realized why I love her so much – she spans my entire lifetime.

Check this out:

* Released 1983-1986: Childhood
* Released 1988-1992: Teenage Years
* Released 1994-1998: College Years
* Released 1999-Current: Adulthood

Every video watched brought me back to that period in my life.

So of course, in typical NJ fashion, I made a list of my Top 10 favorite songs. I could not rank them (it was hard enough to choose just 10), so here they are in chronological order:

1. Borderline: One of the original classics.

2. Material Girl: When I was 10 years old I was DYING for this album and my Aunty Delta bought it for me for Christmas. It remains one of the best Christmas gifts I’ve ever received.

3. Crazy For You: My college girlfriends and I always picked out a celeb to belt this out to (hand motions and all). Brad Pitt was always my pick, but he’s been replaced by Ryan Gosling.

4. Cherish: Just a feel good song.

5. Express Yourself: I love running to this song.

6. Vogue: Who doesn’t love, “Greta Garbo, and Monroe, Deitrich and DiMaggio…”

7. Take A Bow: I love this live performance with Babyface more than the video:

One of my all-time favorite songs. And by default – You’ll See – because it’s the follow-up to Take A Bow.

8. This Used To Be My Playground: A League of Their Own is one of my all-time favorite movies. Hearing the opening notes still gives me chills.

9. Music: Doesn’t this just make you want to dance?

10. 4 Minutes: I program this song to be the last 4-minutes of every run.