There Must Be Some Triathletes Freezing Their Tits Off In The Atmosphere

This time of year is trying (TRI-ing?!) in so many ways. It’s that horrible dead spot where football has ended and baseball has yet to begin, MLK Day has come and gone leaving nary a 3 days weekend in sight until the glory that is Memorial Day shakes us from our seasonal affective doldrums, (that’s totally what SAD stands for), and, most topically, it’s that frigid pre-season epoch where summer seems so impossibly far away it becomes easy and enticing to skip training.

I can’t take my bikes out in the ice/slush/salt nightmare to which the city and its surroundings have been reduced. Even in the centrally-heated indoors the idea of stripping into a swimsuit to slog 25 meters back and forth seems both bone-shattering and needless. Because it’s barely March, and barely March is at least 19 months from tri-season kickoff in May.

And then there’s my beloved running. Ya know, that thing I love more than the health of my joints or bones? But. I truly hate the treadmill. I need for my long runs to take place outside. (At least for me,) that not-so-elusive runner’s high is bred from the changing scenery and the breathing of un-recycled outdoor air. Treadmills fuck up your footfalls and weight-distribution, and make you hold your arms like a T-Rex with a slight stroke of palsy. (Funny story for some other time – last year my orthopedist told me he thinks I have a palsy causing my left-leg-lameness, so I don’t really need help in that category.)

So working myself up to 15+ mile long runs by the first 2015 race has become a bit of a chore. (Also it didn’t happen.) Plus, and again, March 14th is at least eleven weeks away so what’s the rush? (It’s in less than a week. I just checked. [Related side note: Why is it March?])

I’ve actually been historically pretty proud of my ability to force work-outs in (at least DC’s version of) inclement weather. In last year’s uncharacteristically crappy winter one of my favorite long runs was during some pretty terrible freezing rain when the Mall was empty of all but a few intrepid (insane) runners splashing through sleet, leaning into sideways rain pellets, and leaping ice patches. (That includes zero tourists. That’s the dream!)

Even in happy weather I love the nods of understanding and approval shared between those of us out pounding the pavement. On this special (stupid) occasion though, those of us committed (should-be-committed) enough to brave the elements lauded each other with high fives and shouts of encouragement, and much humble-bragging at intersections. ‘What are we doing out here?!’ ‘I don’t know, we must be crazy.’ At one point I shouted over the rain to some equally-misguided and soaked-to-the-bone soul that, ‘this is the worst hobby ever!’ Then we laughed and congratulated each other (ourselves) for our hard work.

This year though, conditions have been legitimately dangerous and unrunnable. The sidewalks in my neighborhood have stood as makeshift ice rinks for weeks. (If you’re lucky enough to have a row home in Logan circle btw, shovel your [expletive-deleted] sidewalk.) The intersections are pools of black depth-less puddles. I supposed if I cared more I could run in my wellies, but who knows how many stress fractures I’d amass that way.

I don’t really have a point to this except to say that it’s hard. And it really does matter when you can push past the hard and get it done. All jokes aside it’s pretty rewarding to high five the soggy freezing strangers who’ve also pushed past hard to achieve something. And the flip side is that it will only stay hard as it gets warm, and then hot as hell. By June I’ll be cursing the sun and what the heat does to my tempo, and wishing like hell for a cold-weather run.

Ok it’s been a few months since I’ve posted. I could scapegoat the new job, wedding-planning, continued health frustrations, or any number of things, but I’ll just own it: I failed to keep up the consistent writing on my first go. I was aiming to get a post out every week to ten days, and fell off after about two months.

Take two.

I’m not gonna call it a new year’s resolution, because, much like tattooing a significant other’s name into your skin, the second you tether a goal to an annual makeover process you’ve destined it to fail. Also it’s already halfway through February. So yeah, in the same way I’m aiming blindly and wildly for an injury-free season, let’s just lean in and try this again and see what happens. Easier, less stringent goal-setting; how ‘bout two posts a month?

When I last left you, dear readers, (hi mom and dad!) I was trying to stay active and upbeat while the annual left ankle stress fracture kept me off my feet. I am now slowly getting back to running, a couple protracted miles at a time. I keep thinking back to this time last year when I was doing the same thing starting to run again after being sidelined throughout the fall.

The facts are so similar, but this second time around I’m not so exuberant about running again as 2013/14 me was. I thought then that I’d gone through a one-time freak injury. I’d done my time in my air boot and given up a chunk of that season, and whatever my body or the universe was trying to teach me, they’d succeeded. I’d made my sacrifice to the injury gods and they were satisfied. It was full steam ahead to the next season!

Now that I’ve gone through the same body-betrayal twice, I. Am. Terrified. I feel like I can’t trust my own bones. And I still gleefully registered for a full sampling of runs and tri’s for 2015, but with the first one (Rock n Roll USA) looming a month away I’m starting to wonder if I can do this.

I still love running, fuck I love it. Even in these frozen cold windy weeks it’s all sorts of joy and freedom. But each run and recovery are now an emotional pendulum between reveling in the freedom of it and a forced pumping of brakes. I’m shouldering the proverbial angel and devil duo, whispering competing refrains of, ‘you can do it.’ ‘No you can’t.’ ‘You can!’ ‘You can’t!’ ‘YOU CAN! GO FASTER!’ YOU CAN’T! SLOW THE FRICK DOWN YOU ASSHOLE!’ Honestly, I’m not sure which voice is which. Who’s really on my side.

The oscillating self-confidence manifests manically in my long run splits each week.  The (judges) mile-marking updates from the MapMyRun vocal avatar seems to house and spew the you-can-you-can’t ravings of both my angel and devil hangers-on. Am I over an 8:15? Pick up that turnover you pitiful glacial midget!  You can! Did I drop sub-8? What’s wrong with you, you slow lazy season-saboteur?!

I’m just trying to be smarter about it than I have been in previous years. Adding the miles more slowly, both in terms of accruing distance and picking up the pace. And I have successfully listened to my body and taken actual rest days and skipped run days or kept them slower or shorter than planned when my legs called for it. I’ve also started taking a class called SolidCore (more on that some other post – don’t worry – didn’t you hear? I’m writing two a month now!) which is building strength in ways I’ve never experienced. (I WILL earn my crop top after-party wedding dress! I finally have the ab definition to pull it off!)

And the Vitamin D! I have no idea if it’s making the difference I think (hope [pray to Odin]) it is, but twice daily I knock back 1000 IU of D and 1200 mg of Calcium, praying to someday outstrip my octogenarian grandmother’s bone density. I’m on 500% of my daily recommended value of D and over 200% on Calcium – that’s gotta count for something, right?? (Oh and that’s for a regular-sized human. For this 4’10” 100lb mini-munchkin it’s probably more! Then again, I chow right past that average 2000 calorie daily diet, usually before dinner, so maybe not.)

Maybe at some point I’ll become comfortable again in my shaky bones, but maybe not. And if comfortable means complacent, or that I forget what I’ve learned from my setbacks, then I’ll take the anxious running. A little worrying is still a helluvalot more fun than standing on the sidelines. (As long as it doesn’t cause worry-wrinkles. As far as I know they don’t yet make PT for crow’s feet.)

I love races. Er. Ma. Gerd. Do I love races. I love the mercilessly early alarm clock shattering the inevitably fitful bouts of sweaty, restless sleep. I love the frantic dash to arrange clothes as accessibly as possible always-later-than-planned the night before, and the mad scramble to decipher that arrangement the all-too-early next morning. I love force-feeding cliff bars and beans into my anxious, groggy belly, only then to be forced onto over-long porta-potty lines cutting it uncomfortably close to the start gun (and the thresholds of my bladder…TMI?)

But even better than all that (and what could possibly be better than staving off self-imposed diarrhea at 6 in the morning?) are those first few hopeful footfalls over the startline, when the energy that has been building over hours and days, and months of early mornings and evenings turning down happy hour invitations, springs an adrenal leak in that steely anti-happy hour resolve, and the whole world revolves around you and however many hundreds or thousands of your closest friends swarm that start line with you.

No matter the race distance, it’s profound the way that energy ebbs and flows with the turns and climbs and crowd’s enthusiasm. Each stride strips a little of your emotional and physical wellbeing, and you’re left to your thoughts, your training, and maybe your playlist. (Neyo had a lead role in the last few miles of my first half marathon.) Eventually, your feet and legs and brain and iPod overcome the miles laid before you and you sprint or limp or do whatever you need down that finisher’s shoot to collect your medal, your banana and chocolate milk (and beer!), and your newly-elevated pride. The rest of the day – the length of which is inversely proportionate to the length of the race you just crushed – is left to revel in your victory and your well-deserved bottomless brunch. (Unlike daylight, the earned depth of your post-race brunch is directly proportionate to the race distance.)

All this is to say, races are the best. From sleep deprivation, to bowel instability; from mental and physical anguish, to bottomless self-esteem, champagne and eggs.

And here I am, laying out clothes for Scott; affixing his number to my race belt and digging into my bulk stash of energy beans and shot blocks to make sure he has all the fuel he needs for the best race possible. He’s gone to bed now, and I’ve laid out a water bottle and Nuun, and set my alarm to wake up with him to see my gorgeous runner-man off.

In the midst of all that partner-rather-than-self-prep, I’ve found time to gaze longingly at my own bib, which will go unused tomorrow. Ah screw it, let’s be honest, after Scott tucked himself in, I literally cried on my number. I held it in my lap, and thought about how many people out there entered that lottery back in the spring for the chance to run tomorrow. I have in my possession a red and yellow piece of paper that thousands of people wish they had, and it’s as useless as my left ankle.

(Oh and I myself fought harder than just entering a spring lottery to get my grubby, gimpy hands on it: I fought the online hordes last year for a spot in the disorganized Marine Corps 17.75k [11.03 mile] trail run out in Mothmen territory, suburural [I made that word up] Virginia to earn my ticket into tomorrow’s race. Money and miles well spent clearly.)

I was so excited a few months ago for another go at the perennially-popular Marine Corps Marathon after being benched with a similar left ankle stress fracture last year. (At least I’ll have Birkin rather than that air boot as a sideline accessory this time.) After my mushy brain and resulting dizzies denied me my first full Ironmen, I thought MCM might be my Boston Qualifying (BQ) race. Not PR’s be damned, I’m not even allowed to run down the block let alone 26.2 miles. It’s just another huge letdown. Another goal sabotaged by my own body. And I am so sad. Er. Ma. Gerd. Am I sad.

So as I’ve thrown this very pitiful pity party against Scott’s slumber party in the next room, I’ve tried to self-reflect at least a little, and what I’ve come up with is:

It’s not about me.

Not this time. It’s been about me, a lot. Running and cycling and racing triathlon have been endeavors that have caused not just my world to revolve around myself, but have also spun Scott, and Birkin, my family and numerous supportive friends and coaches into my orbit. So this selfish gravitational pull is just one more thing I need to shake off as this disappointing year winds down. Scott has been by my side since my first century ride and then tri, and my dear friend Lindsey was there at that first tri finish line too. And they deserve to have tomorrow be all about them, from wake-up through brunch and beyond.

In racing we often develop mantras that we repeat to ourselves to keep going when things get tough. When I [get to] race, I tell myself in my head that I’m doing great and I count down from 10, and outloud I yell, ‘Go legs!’ Tomorrow’s mantra will be a little change of pace (get it?). In my head I’ll be repeating, ‘It’s not about me.’ And, outloud, ‘GO RUNNERS!’

Dr. Strained-Love Reads MRI Results or How I Learned that I am an Old Haggard Bag of Broken Bones

Look Ma! No boot! That’s right, after almost two weeks in the boot, on Monday while reviewing my MRI results, Dr. McBestie said I could ditch my Frankenstylish accessory.

However…

I got to ditch dasboot because it was apparently making things worse.

Doc M-B took one look at my MRI and asked if the boot hurt. I informed him that in fact it did, and he responded, ‘yeahhhhh, no more boot.’ The MRI confirmed the stress fracture, and on those pictures I could actually see the little white (bastard) line of pain bisecting my calf. There was also some burgeoning damage around my ankle and stress to the bottom of my foot he chalked up to leftover from a sprain at some point in my past. (Who knows?) But all in all, not nearly as bad as I was afraid of.

I’m off running for a while obviously, and Dr. McBestie put the fear of Mo Farah in me when he warned the fracture could take four to six months to heal if I don’t pull way back and listen to my body. I’m allowed to swim, (why must it always come back to swimming?) to use the elliptical, (which goes against everything I believe in,) and to bike and spin as long as I keep my ass in the saddle.

As frustrating as this has all been I’m hoping we’ve turned a corner on the endless parade of stress fractures by digging into their underlying causes this time. Through this third annual round of right leg infirmities I demanded answers more useful than ‘yeah it’s broken again.’ The mutual best interests served by getting rid of me for good this year were not lost on Doc McB and he obliged my request for some House-type diagnostic magic.

Likely deriving keen insight from his burning desire to never see me again, Dr. McFrenemy dug into the underlying cause of the repeated fractures asking me some uncomfortable questions about personal topics. (TMI perhaps but suffice it to say, it’s weird when your orthopedist asks about topics usually reserved for lady docs.) With a few well-placed interrogatories he’d alighted on the fact that my first physical in ten years last spring had awarded me a mostly-spotless bill of health, with one exception: my body pretty much just doesn’t produce Vitamin D.

Vitamin D is that important lil nutrient that enables your body to absorb calcium, which is that wee mineral critical to bone density. And bone density is that thing apparently crucial to keep your bones from crumbling like sun chips when you submit them to high impact fun like running. Apparently I have the bone density of a sedentary septuagenarian and my tibias have the consistency of cheetoes.

Vitamin D deficiency is pretty common for ladies, and as it’s generally derived through sun exposure, vain wrinkle-phobes like me, who wield an ever-present shield of sunscreen – even in winter – may find themselves especially lacking in the so-called “sunshine vitamin.” If this is indeed the root cause of my injuries, that’s exciting news because a vitamin deficiency is pretty reversible.

I’m now obviously on Sunshine D supplements, and calcium supplements to supplement the other supplements. And I’m definitely doing my part to speed the process along: I have made a legitimate effort adding extra milk servings and replacing some of my breakfast food binges with greek yogurt. And yesterday I really dug in when I opened that second wheel of goat cheese I let Trader Joe sweet talk me into, and today I had grilled cheese for lunch and they gave me FOUR SLICES!! (It makes unassailable sense to eat twice as much cheese at the same time you cut your workouts in half. That must be why my not-usually-compression-tights carved painful impressions into my mushy “obliques” and cut off circulation to my feet last night!)

So basically my ankle is probably already pretty much cheese-healed. And hopefully soon I will no longer have potato chip bones and I can move beyond senior living water aerobics. Because it’s getting about time to plan race season 2015…

(Part 1 of x number of Parts, where x equals I have no idea how many)

Guess who finally got the X-Ray she’s been threatening to get for several months??? I’ve alluded to my busted ankle in several posts of late. (Maybe all posts? I’ve only done three so…) Anyway, some backstory I guess is helpful. Flask back to just over a year ago.

In August 2013 I started getting intense stabby pain on the outside of my left ankle – the kind of pain you know is no good. I think most of us can tell the difference between pain from a little over-exertion that simply calls for som ice and foam rolling verses the pain that calls for a full orthopedic work-up. So the latter kind of pain struck a year ago August, and heeding my body’s call, six weeks later I booked a visit to a sports orthopedist specializing in foot and ankle injuries, a.k.a. my new best friend (who shivers in terror every time I make an appointment.)

Long story medium, it didn’t take long for Dr. McBestie to diagnose a stress fracture and order me into a “boot”. The date of that diagnosis was September 20-something-or-other. The Augusta 70.3 I’d been preparing for all summer was September 29^th. You do the math. (No seriously, you do it. Did you see the algebra I wove into the blog subject line? Eek.) So I said, ‘Give it to me straight, doc, when you say it’s broken, are you saying I won’t go sub-2 in the run portion of my half ironman this weekend?’ My bestie blinked at me and muttered something to the effect of, ‘I ****ing hate triathletes’ and walked out of the exam room.

But he came back! (They always do.) And we made a deal: I could do the race, (only because he knew from experience [and from me explicitly telling him I was doing it no matter what] that he couldn’t dissuade me,) but if I felt the ankle getting any worse – and he promised I would know, oh, yes, I would know – I would quit, and I had to come immediately back to be fitted for a boot upon my return to DC. I told him not to worry, that I’d pop some Advil before the bike and he countered that Advil in fact weakens the bone and he insisted I do the race “full pain”. I conceded to his ridiculous drug-free demands and I think we actually shook on it.

That weekend I did my first half iron and had a blast. Scott drove down with me, my folks drove out from Atlanta with the dogs, the day was perfect, and I really can’t say enough about how great that race is. It is 100% my favorite race and I am very bummed to be missing it this weekend. I ran it much slower than originally planned, especially taking my sweet time on the transitions and the run. My first couple miles running clocked at a 7:46 average but luckily I realized – and Scott warned me – that I was going too fast for the ankle so I took it way down and did my slowest 13.1 ever. No matter, it was awesome. And, as promised, I came back to DC afterward and got fitted for a boot.

Usually boots excite me. I have an entire closet dedicated to them in my apartment – and my apartment is only 712 square feet. (Sorrynotsorry, Scott!) But McBestie was sneaky, and when he said boot, appaaaaarently he was not talking sexy over-the-knee, or spunky ankle booty, or even solid work-horse day-to-day Michael Kors equestrian. Nope. He meant a Frankenstein air boot.

And so I spent last fall in a monstrous boot. I had to cut back to lifting and swimming and gave up teaching all my classes except one bootcamp. (Haha! Oh my god I never made that connection till just now! So good!) I did try to satisfy my vanity by matching my air boot with the aforementioned MKs and booties. At one point I even tried pairing it with my sexiest Louboutin pumps. (Funny story: turns out, one Louboutin is somehow more uncomfortable than two.) On Marine Corps Marathon day I cheered friends on from the sidelines hobbling  around the course trying to bury my jealousy of those racing on healthy legs. I felt like I was atrophying until I finally got the all clear from Dr. McBestie a few days before Thanksgiving. Turkey Day morning 2013 I took my shiny new-again ankle out for my first run since Augusta and it was glorious. I promised myself I would never take health and training for granted.

And ya know what? I haven’t. I feel fortunate every time I get to run and sweat and push myself. Yet here I am again, after an already difficult summer, in pain and broken. This time the pain is on the other side of the same bum ankle. It started in mid-July, so, in honor of my body-conscious timeliness, today (September 25) I finally went back to Dr. McB. We talked, they X-rayed, we talked some more, and yeah, looks like another stress fracture, though I’m going in for an MRI next week to confirm because, there may be other stuff too. And YEAH, he ordered me back into the boot.

As my bestie tried to get away from me, I tip-toed into the how-far-and-fast-can-I-run line of questioning. He cut me off, and, not-so-happily demanded, ‘What? You want to do Marine Corps Marathon or something?’ I confirmed, ‘that and the Army Ten Miler.’ ‘Go get the MRI, he said. ‘Then we’ll talk.’

Which is not a no per se. Right? More next week…