Good news, bad news, and...wait, what?!?

I waited yesterday until after 5 pm to hear from the doc, but I was impressed that he actually called me the day after my MRI with my results. He said the good news is that I have NOT torn my achilles tendon! My diagnosis is achilles tendonitis. He is not going to require me to wear a boot, because he says that I would lose muscle mass so fast, the marathon would no longer be an option. However, the bad news is that I am not clear to run or "do any activity where my foot leaves and strikes the ground." I cannot go walking, jogging, running or even think about those activities until my follow-up in two weeks. I can swim and possibly bike, if they do not cause more aggravation. I need to continue to ice my leg and was instructed by the doc to "take aleve until it burns a whole in my stomach." He did say that he saw "some very interesting bone inconsistencies, possibly due to stress...but will discuss this more at the follow-up." Wait...What?!? I have no idea what this means or if it is even significant. I did not have a chance to process this and ask about it with all of the other info he was spouting out. However, when I figure out this new mystery, I will explain in detail. Until then, I plan on following the doc's instructions to the 'T'. Hopefully I will be able to return to training very soon!!! -L

7:17pm, Friday, 09.26 - 4 miles: Missing La

Tonight’s run was smooth. I mixed in GU Energy Gel for a fuel fix. The strawberry-banana flavor is non-caffeine. I took a 1/3 15-minutes before the run and another 1/3 after three miles. I’ve tried honey, jelly-beans and Mike and Ike’s but none of these seems to fuel me up for 12 plus miles. Everyone swears by GU so I’m going to give it a try. Obviously, getting enough carbs the nights before a marathon is crucial, but equally important is getting carbs during the marathon.

Laura is resting up and is anxious to get back in it. I hate running without her. I miss nodding while she’s talking and other details like hearing her feet hit the road. Typically, I enjoy pursuing endurance activities on my own. But running is something Laura and I will always share together. -A

Thursday, 09.25 - 8 miles: To Pearson

Eight miles got split up in two portions. First portion was ran at 7:18am for three miles. School traffic was pretty bad but I caught a stunning sunrise. I ran an additional five miles from our house to my company, Pearson, to pick up our Jeep at around 6:00pm. While on the run, I ran into an elderly man who had his road bike upside down. His chain got caught in-between his crankset and bottom bracket. I'm always happy to see cyclist and other runners out there but especially when I see our seniors plucking away! After ensuring he didn't need to use my cell -- he had already called his wife -- he told me he was running in the marathon as well and was doing 18 miles this Saturday. I don't want to guess how old he was but he was one of those guys you see at church handing out the offering plate.


We are waiting for Laura's MRI results. Best case scenario, she takes a week off and is back in the game. We are pretty confident this will be the case. However, the doc wasn't too convincing. But what does he know. Laura is pretty driven. She'll give an update once we know more.

"Injury" or lack there of- Update!

After resting on Monday after our 14 m run, I was hoping that I was not going to hear another peep from my calf. Sadly, it bothered me during the run Tues. I came inside the house after our run and took a very hot and relaxing shower letting the water hit my leg. I also took NAISDs (non anti-inflammatory steroid drugs, i.e. Ibuprofen), iced my leg twice, and used a heating pad before retiring to bed. I then had a horrible night of tossing and turning...which I attribute to subconsciously stressing out about my injury, or lack there of. And this morning, I was distressed to find that I still had tightness and pain. I have called and made an appt with not one sports med specialist, but two!!! This is because apparently, a physician that sees pts for a calf injury will not address an Achilles tendon injury and vice versa (according to the appointment line.) And because (with more pain setting in) I am not sure of the root of the issue, I made two appts! (what a literal "pain"!!!) -L

A New Reason...

During our four mile run, which we shared with a heavy down pour, it occurred to me that I now have a reason to keep a legitimate blog. My first attempt at blogging was when I created Webb Extension. It didn’t really serve a purpose (which was the point) but now I’ve designated it as a journal, so to speak, about our trainings for our first marathon. If this works, we will use it for other future challenges.

Friday, 09.19 we officially paid the ridiculously expensive entry fee for the Inaugural Rock 'n' Roll San Antonio Marathon. We are now committed to running the full marathon (26.2 miles). We passed a milestone on the following Sunday by running 14 miles. This is significant because it says we can at least go the distance (and some) of a half marathon.

A summary of the first seven weeks of our training goes like this. Laura found a 16 week training log that we shorten to 14 weeks in order to synchronize with the marathon which is on November 16th. We run, rain or shine, on Tuesdays, Thursday, Fridays and our long run is on Sundays. Each week’s total mileage is increased by 10%. For instant, week six we ran a total of 28 miles; Tues. 4 mi + Thur. 6 mi + Fri. 4 mi + Sun. 14 mi = 28 mi. So this week we will run a total of 31 miles.

5:31 pm, Tuesday, 09.23 - 4 miles at 9.15
Since it was obvious that it was going to pour, Laura and I decided at the half mile mark to run back to our house and change into our bad weather shoes. We then continued on a three mile course in our neighborhood to complete our run in the rain. I've realized that I absolutely love running in the rain with my wife! It's happened a few times during our training. Once, a massive rainbow that made a perfect arch literally marked our finish line.

Today was a bad run for both of us. In the seven weeks of training we have had great runs and bad runs. Today, I went off my schedule a bit by taking 2, 200 mg Ibuprofen 30 minutes before we started our run. Usually, I take two around 2:00 pm. For the entire run, I kept burping and throwing up in my mouth. With the streets flooding and me spitting out wired colored mucus, I was having a hard time keeping up with my wife. Around mile 1, Laura's left calve started giving her trouble. In running, a tiny misstep that normally would not cause much of a problem can do some serious damage to your legs. Unfortunately, Laura stepped wrong on something during our Sunday's run. She is going to spend this evening and tomorrow recovering. Some useful info: RICE stands for Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevate. We enjoy learning about little acronyms like RICE and other runner's lingo. However, I never use the lingo properly and I constantly have to ask Laura to remind me what acronym stands for, etc.

Since we started getting into the 5 mile plus runs, I've started having severe pain in both shins and calves. I saw an orthopod (orthopedic surgeon, another lingo thing that I just asked Laura about) when I started having this pain about three weeks ago. Incidentally, the week before I saw him, I started taking 2, 200 mg Ibuprofen hours before our runs and right afterwards and that seemed to eliminate the pain, along with RICE. The orthopod did some x-rays and did not see any stress fractures and said that I should continue doing the Ibuprofen/RICE routine. He said one of his ultra marathon (100 miles) patients swears by Ibuprofen. Also, part of the pain was attributed to the fact that I was running toe/heal and not heal/toe. -A