Recovery 101

Water Running
Rest was scheduled for today, but I say Bah to that!

Session
5 minutes warm up
30 seconds hard 30 seconds recovery by 10
2 minute easy
30 seconds hard 30 seconds recovery by 10
5 minutes cool down

I challenge anyone to get to the track and do this, for me it would be like doing 10 by 200 with 30 second float, twice! Heart rate during the hard reps was about 165-170 bpm and again I have the satisfying tired feeling.

Recovery Nutrition
I bought a great book last year and couldn’t recommend it highly enough, I got my copy from Angus and Robertson.

The Complete Guide to Food for Sports Performance by Dr Louise Bourke

So lifting from this publication I am going to treat you to a summary on when and what to eat to help recover from a workout.

First up, I don’t need to say it but rehydrate, get that water down.

Your aim after a work out is to replenish depleted glycogen stores ready for the next days run. Runners should be aiming for 8-10gms of carbohydrate (CHO) per kilogram of body weight per day. Runners doing about 2 hours of training per day need to ensure their CHO intake is adequate as over time the bodies glycogen stores will deplete to the point that the you will hit the wall. This has happened to me, usually when I have run on a Friday night and backed up again for a Saturday morning run without eating properly in between. I get the shakes and start to sweat and my heart rate goes up and I have to get some food into me asap.

The optimal time to replenish glycogen is within 2 hours of finishing a run. Studies have shown that CHO eaten within 2 hours of a run will be rapidly synthesised into glycogen & stored in the muscles, twice as fast as it would be if you waited a couple of hours. It is recommended that you eat 1gm of CHO for every Kg of body weight. So for people worried about a high CHO diet needn’t be too stressed about it, it is just a matter of timing. This is also the time when it is OK to get onto the high GI CHOs as they will be assimilated more rapidly. It is best that CHO eaten at any other time of the day is the low GI, slow release variety.

Examples of 50gm CHO snacks are as follows -
250ml liquid meal replacement (like Sustegen or Up and Go)
250ml home made fruit smoothie with low fat milk, fruit and honey
800ml - 1000ml sports drink
500ml fruit juice
50gm packet of jelly lollies
Jam sandwhich (no butter)
3 medium pieces of fruit
2 breakfast bars
3 rice cakes with jam or honey
250gm tin of baked beans on toast
Bowl of cereal with low fat milk
Banana Jaffle (YUM!)
Toast with a little peanut butter and mashed banana (double YUM!)

Hope this brief summary is useful.

Now if only I had have paid more attention to page 54 - Calcium

On another note
Major, major, major grumpy pants today, just one of those “when is this going to end and will I ever be able to run again” days.

Also someone in the letters page of The Age today used the words “reverse discrimination”, I bloody hate it when people say that. It is DISCRIMINATION, end of story, here is what it means, learn it

The unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, sex, religion or orientation

You don’t have to be part of a minority to be discriminated against, there is no such thing as reverse discrimination, it is an oxymoron, you moron (oops, I guess I just discriminated against people who say reverse discrimination)

MEOW, someone has got her bitch pants on today

Almost as tiring as real running

Water Running
The schedule for today was 5 minute warm up and then 35 minutes tempo with Jo for company.

However due to the gasbagging we ended up doing a further 48 minutes after the warm up, at least 35 of which were at the required tempo pace, so all up today 53:31 in the pool so much easier with someone to chat to. I guess this is the closest I am going to get to my beloved mid-week mini long run for a while.

My legs continue to feel more normal every day and today was definitely a 1 out of 5 day (remember the closer to 0 the better). Never fear I am not becoming complacent but I am starting to be less conscious of being injured. I was very careful not to run to my towel after getting out of the pool tonight, despite the fact that I was wet and it was 12 freaking degrees!!!

I am also noting down my calcium intake every day to make sure I get that 1500mgs, I am getting away with only needing about 1 or 2 supplements each day.

After yesterdays session I was shattered, I fell asleep on the couch by 9pm, it was the first time in ages I have had that tired from exercise feeling, it was great.

Where did all the Goths Go?
Alright, these next bit is going to go off on a few tangents.

Wednesday is Ausrun weight challenge weigh in day. After going to the loo, stripping down to my undies (OK too much information, here come all the weird google searches again), expelling all air from my lungs, removing all jewelry, taking out my hair tie, thinking light thoughts and trimming my toenails I stepped onto the scales.

Lo, to my total surprise 600gms down from last week, giving me a total of -800gms for the last 2 weeks. Not at all bad considering I am not able to burn as many Kjs as usual and it has been really difficult to simply eat less because I am still just as bloody hungry as always.

It would appear that maybe the pool running is more effective than I thought and the fact that I make sure I don’t eat too much at night, which means going to bed hungry and staying off the vino is keeping the balance tipped ever so slightly in my favour.

I plugged “Waterproof MP3 Player” into Google today, in what I thought would be a pointless search for well, a Waterproof MP3 Player and found that you can get waterproof casings and headphones for iPods, woo hoo.

Well almost woo hoo, turns out the Australian distributor is no longer importing the casing for the 1st Generation shuffle. Why the hell not I don’t know, because they don’t actually make a casing for the 2nd Generation because of the clippy thing. Bugger bugger bugger, I thought my long session in the pool boredom would be a thing of the past. You can get a casing for the Nano’s but I don’t have a Nano and don’t want to buy one. I checked out the dimensions, in particularly the depth and the Nano casing is deep enough to take a 1st Gen shuffle, so I have shot off an e-mail to the US company to see if I could use the Nano casing instead. I am assuming they will say no because they will want me to send off for the proper casing. In which case I will go to the Mac shop on the weekend with my shuffle and see for myself if it fits.

The only reason I am not buying it direct from the US is because they only offer UPS express postage and US$60 for US$79 worth of product is stupidly exorbitant.

Also I could only find one waterproof MP3 player on the market, specially designed for swimmers and $299, sorry, too much. It would appear that waterproof MP3s are very much an untapped market.

Where did all the Goths go? Back in the day, that is, back in the day when I was all black eyeliner, green velvet, PVC and narky attitude you couldn’t chuck a coffin shaped handbag down Swanston Street without hitting at least 20 moody Frankensteins and attendant wan black haired lasses. These days you barely see them, granted most have grown up, cheered up and become, well, me, but what of the young and the restless, what happened to the Baby Goths that were fluttering around in the wings like little vampire bats while I was still doing the Gothic 3 step to the stains of The Sisters of Mercy?

Or maybe they have just all gone Emo.

PS - Oh Beki, Fields of the Nephilim, tempted to go see if they are on iTunes for a real nostalgia trip. And from memory, without Googling it I am pretty sure the Nephilim were the offspring of Angels and Mortals, but I could be wrong. I have a sudden urge to apply some heavy kohl and stand in a dark corner now. I have a scanner at home now, I’ll have to dig out some old Em as a goth photo’s.

Water Running
5 minute warm up
7 by 2:30 with 30 second recovery
5 minute cool down

Yep that’s it, 7 reps, not the 6 I posted last night, I was looking at last weeks plan. Frankly just a wee bit tuckered out this evening, I worked pretty hard tonight. Now what was with the weirdo with goggles who kept swimming underwater near me? I mean Euowww, why do the strange ones always gravitate to me, I do try so hard to give off Ice Queen vibes, I may have to start wearing one of these Victorian swimming costumes.

Fun and Games
I had to be on my guard on the drive home today, as soon as the weather goes funny everyone starts driving like an idiot, I reckon I had about 5 near misses

It was very strange this morning with the weather still all balmy, but so windy that walking up Elizabeth St I almost got blown backwards. Then sitting in my office looking over the bay I could see all the dark clouds and rain rolling in. Also I have noticed when the weather is bad they must change the flight patterns because lots of planes were coming in over the city, this always freaks me out a little bit.

Here is another band for you to check out, British India, they have slowly started to grow on me, Tie Up My Hands is top stuff. The girl I sit next to at work is out all week, and as much as I enjoy her company I love it when she is away because I can listen to the radio, LOUD, all day It’s a shame though the Feature Album this week is Powderfinger. I used to like them but lately, sheeesh, lighten up guys.

The 7 sweetest words

No problem, see you in six months

That’s what my dentist said to me this morning after the worlds shortest appointment. 15 minutes for a clean and a checkup from the sweet natured Angelica who knows exactly how to handle a Dentist wuss. I was told that I was looking after my teeth exceptionally well and sent on my way.

Yay, no fillings today

Water Running
Met Jo this afternoon at the fabulous outdoor pool in Balwyn. Lovely and warm in the water but nice cool fresh air to breath in, and with today’s set there was plenty of heavy breathing.

The session
5 minute warm up
6 by 90 seconds hard with 30 second “floating” (I slay me!) recovery
2 minute easy
6 by 90 seconds hard with 30 second recovery
5 minute cool down

Phew, another hard session and 1 extra rep per set than last week, basically the program steps up and gets harder every week. Tomorrow it will be 5 minute warm up/cool down with 6 by 2:30 hard with 30 second recoveries, last week it was 5 reps.

So today was 400s, tomorrow will be 600s

Everyday an improvement
I have been keeping an injury diary. That is, every day since diagnosis I have been noting down how my legs feel in general and then I give the day a rating out of 5, with 0 being Perfect feel totally normal and 5 being Totally Shithouse. Fortunately there have been no 5s, but also no 0s, however the last couple of days have all been 1s, Yipeeeeee.

I pretty much just feel the occasional dull throb, usually when I have been walking for a bit, whereas 2 weeks ago there was sharpish pain in the calves first thing and when walking after sitting for a while I would bet intermittent sharp pain in the shins. However the last couple of days I have felt as close to normal as I have in several weeks. In fact today I almost forgot about the injury and found myself striding around and walking up escalators and stuff again, before I remembered and went back to taking it easy. And today when I got out of the pool, the cold air hit my wet body, Brrrrrrr and I did this little skip to get my towel, them remember, SHIT, don’t run but at least I didn’t stop because it hurt!

I bought some Calcium supplements today. I did want to avoid this but being ever conscious of my Kj and fat intake I simply can’t meet the 1500mg a day on food alone. Each day I will asses my intake for the day and just take as many tabs as I need to make up the difference, they are 229mg each, today I only needed one.

I am due back at the doc late next week, I’ll ring up soon and make an appointment for Friday or Saturday. Not really sure what the next steps are and how we decide when I can start gentle running again, guess I’ll find out next week.

Congratulations
Big Ups to John over at Jruns for an amazing marathon PB in pretty dire windy conditions at Williamstown yesterday, ran 3 hours 12 minutes. A well deserved result after months of solid training

Who on earth is out there?
Holy Moley, I have 19,994 posts. Who the heck is out there reading my ramblings?

Though I suspect alot of traffic is coming via search engines and completely unrelated to people interested in running, at least of the Search Engine stats I get every day are anything to go by, Jellyfish legs, appendages hanging out of pants and so on.

Anyway, 20,000 not far off now.

PS - actually hit 20,001 while I was typing this post

I have added a new link to my Blogroll, I found Dame Kelly Holmes’ website today, she is the athlete who won the 800/1500 mtre double at the Athens Olympics. Kelly is a bit of a hero of mine, especially as she won her golds towards the end of her career after overcoming several injuries. I always turn to her for inspiration when I am injured and worry that I am getting too old to be any good.

Would you like to get paid, or not?

Exercise
35Km on the bike along Warby Trail at about 16.5Kph

An average ride, barely categorised as exercise really because I had to keep it easy and going up the hills was done at about walking pace still, as is becoming my mantra, “it was better than nothing”. Actually I confess I was a whiney little pain in the arse and I am pretty sure BF wanted to push me into oncoming traffic by the end.

About an hour after getting home I was climbing the walls so grabbed my gear and took off to the pool. I figured on just doing a 30 minute tempo session. I forgot to check what time I jumped in and decided that I wasn’t going to look at my watch otherwise I would end up clock watching. So I ended up doing “laps” of the pool, go hard for one and easy for the other and decided when the watch on the wall got to 4:45 I would check my watch, thinking that would be about 30 minutes. So off I went and imagine my surprise when I did check my watch and I had been at it for 40 minutes , well, once I had gone that long I may as well make it 45 minutes. So that was it, 45 minutes worth of tempo and fartlek work, phew.

On yesterday, thanks again for the support, I was having a black day, I am not getting any younger here you know ;-). On the other hand it was pretty damn cool to be standing right there trackside while Australia’s best runners pass by within centimetres. I was “elite athlete support” for one of our runners who had a special sports drink in a bottle for the start of the third lap, this meant I had to stand in the middle of the road and got to watch all the super fast runners shoot past on their way to finish line (and dodge cups of water being chucked in the bin).

Remind me again, who is serving who here?
Met up with some friends and their 2 young kids (2 and 4) for breakfast in our favourite (not any more) cafe this morning. Fortunately the kids are really well behaved and apart from one minor tanty happily sat there colouring in for the hour or so that we were there.

It was a lovely morning with yummy food and lots of laughs, until it came time to pay. “sorry, no splitting the bill”, excuse me??!! since when, we have been coming here with these friends for 5 years and have never had a problem in the past. “it’s written on the menu” we were told, “uh sorry, we didn’t check the menu BECAUSE WE ORDER THE SAME THING EVERY TIME” and my Sunday morning is generally not spent making sure I am complying with your RULES.

Sorry, I don’t need this shit on a relaxed Sunday morning, since when was I paying for the cafe owners convenience, it takes one moment for everyone to say what the had and for the cashier to add it up. It takes alot more time for us to stand there and argue about it. In the end we just said “Would you like to get paid, or not?” I mean do we need to move the tables a few centimetres apart and make the waitress take the orders separately?? Fair enough in a restaurant or when there is a huge group, but in a tiny little cafe that seats about 15 at best, give me a break.

Anyway, they ended up letting us split the bill.

Unfortunately it’s time to find a new cafe. Honestly I am getting fed up with being told what to do all the time, you can’t make a move these days without someone telling you what you can and can’t do.

Just let me be!

Professional Cheerleader

Water Running
5 minute warm up
4 by 5 minutes hard with 1 minute easy between reps
5 minute cool down

The keen observer would have noticed by now that the pool running has a heavy emphasis on reps. There is 30 minute tempo session scheduled every week, but all other sessions are intervals, effort wise it is pretty much like going to the track 4 days a week and I am pretty happy with the work outs I am doing in the pool.

And yes Beki, the cats go mad for the chlorine, how bizarre is that. When I get home I usually hit the deck for some crunches and pushups, but I have 3 cats crawling all over me trying to lick my hands, they are weird critters.

There is a cross training (non-pool) session scheduled for Sundays, supposedly only 30 minutes, pointless! Tomorrow I will take the bike to Warby Trail, won’t be much good from a work out point of view as I am restricted to easy gear but I’ll roll along for 2 hours or so, it’s better than sitting on my butt.

In fine voice
It was the Skins Sandown Classic today, and I am not going to shy away from saying I was pretty disappointed to not be running this one

It has been almost a year to the day since I last ran a 10Km race and I was looking forward to making my current PB (48:14) hang it’s head in shame and crawl away into a dark hole with it’s tail between its legs. But absolutely no point dwelling on what could have been is there?

The start of the race was pretty spectacular and I wish I had have bought my camera with me. The men lined up on the track and the women were in pit row, when the gun went off a wall of bodies came hurtling down the straight and the men and women merged about 500 metres in. It was at this point that I got a bit of a lump in my throat and I started to cheer all my team mate on.

I love staying involved, but I am starting to feel like a professional cheerleader there are moments when being sidelined starts to bite. This was when I was going to start setting the foundations for better times to come, now I am pretty much going to have to start over, again!

*sigh* enough self pity, I am probably about a third of the way through my recovery so I guess I am still struggling to see any light at the end of it. In 2 weeks I get to go back to the doctor, I am sure by then the end will start to come into view.

In the meantime I’ll keep plugging away in the pool and maybe try to look for a 10Km race I can enter in a couple of months. The Gold Coast 10Km on 1 July will be out, I am hoping I’ll have the all clear to run/walk it, but there is no way I’ll be allowed to race it. Still my brother and sister will be there and we will do it together, just wondering if perhaps I should have entered under a pseudonym so I don’t have to live with the knowledge that a shocking 10Km time will be recorded against my name for all eternity

Rock Chick
My brother sent me this yesterday, my little almost 4 month old niece, the rock chick

17 Days and counting

That’s 17 days since I last had a run, and prior to that it was 4 days as I tried to rest the “injury” in the hope that it would sort it self out, little did I know that by that stage it was already too late.

Water Running
Todays session
5 minutes warm up
1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute hard with 1 minute rest between reps
5 minutes cool down

Taking my heart rate between reps it was getting to about 160 and not too many kids in the pool tonight.

I am sorry to say but I think I am getting to like the smell of the pool, it is all humid and “chloriney” and like a big warm wet hug on a cold day when you walk inside

I am now buying 10 visit cards (pay for 9 get one free) which is obviously an admission that I am going to be doing this for a while.

I really appreciate all the comments too. I am trying my utmost to maintain fitness and to not get all maudlin and depressed, though some days it is hard. I was walking along The Tan on Tuesday night to meet up with my training group for a catch up and it was really difficult watching everyone run past me while I was walking.

There have also been some less than, how shall I put it…..mature moments. Particularly on the Sunday of the Great Train Race when I sulked at home all day having not run since the previous Friday. My leg still hurt and I was starting to realise that there was probably a problem. Anyway, instead of fronting up to the race as promised to cheer and catch up with some mates I slumped around at home, ate too much chocolate, felt very sorry for myself and at one stage I think I threatened to hit my BFs hands with a hammer OK, I am not usually given to violence but he is an artist and I was trying to help him emphathise with my situation, as in “well, how would you feel if I smashed your hands with a hammer and you couldn’t paint?”

Moo
Under normal circumstances I should be looking at taking in about 800mgs to 1000mgs of Calcium a day, and a quick diet assessment earlier this week showed that I clearly haven’t been getting that. As a woman trying to recover from a stress fracture I am now supposed to aiming for 1500mg, Bloody Hell, that ‘aint easy, especially when I am trying to watch my diet. So low fat milk, cheese and yoghurt are the order of the day.

Which brings me to that, based on the reduced KJ cost of the work I am doing I figure that I need to cut my daily intake by about 1000Kj to 1500Kj a day, double bloody hell, because my appetite is still the same. As an example yesterday I spent an hour on the bike, I worked out that it cost about 1500Kj less than running for an hour.

I know, I know, I am probably being a touch obsessive, but I don’t want to gain weight, simple.

My 6 monthly dentist appointment is 3 months overdue, I finally bit the bullet and made an appointment for Monday morning. I HATE going to the Dentist, words fail me, nothing good ever come of it. I even had one Dentist ask me if I had seen the Marathon Man! Yeah, thanks mate, fucking hilarious, do you use that on all the patients or just the pale sweating ones with the look of raw naked terror in their eyes?

What The!

Riding
My water running plan scheduled a rest day today with 30 minutes of “flexibility” work. Huh! a rest day when you are not running anyway, I don’t think so. Instead I did 60 minutes on the exercise bike, just a flat steady effort as I am supposed to be avoiding hills. I think my chest strap is buggered because the heart rate readings were all over the place, as much as I’d like to say I am so fit that I can get a reading of 35 BPM while I am working out I don’t think that is the case.

I’ll do some more core work when my dinner has digested, if you can find these pre-packed curries at a health food shop or organic supermarket give them a go, just as good as anything I have made at home, perfect for the lazy vego. Last night I did a few rounds of The Plank and some Oblique Bridges and I can feel the results today.

Back to the pool tomorrow for a Pyramid session.

And Stu, you cheeky bugger, not sure what you find so amusing, remind me to punch you on Saturday

This arrived in the mail, I ordered it a week or so ago. It will be a nice change from the ice-block wrapped in plastic that I am used to using.

Oink
A big morning tea at work today to raise cash for the Cancer Council as part of Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea. Of course I ate too much and had that horrible sugar overload feeling all day. Though I only had a salad sanga for lunch then nothing until my chickpea and pumpkin curry just now so the reality is it probably wasn’t that much of a blow out, it just makes me feel a bit gross

Yesterday I was talking about the types of things people have googled to get to my blog, I thought Jellyfish legs was funny, until this one showed up today, YES, someone entered this in Google and found their way here (only censoring a little to avoid all manner of odd visitors)-

I walk with my pen1s hanging out of my underpants

OK, pretty sure I haven’t blogged anything along those lines, I don’t even have one

Eddie Stone seems popular though, stacks of people looking for him, but which Eddie are they after I wonder……..

Jelly Fish Legs

Water Running
Today’s Session
5 minute warm up
6 by 2:30 hard with 30 second easy recovery between reps
5 minutes cool down

I wore my heart rate monitor and despite the fact that they say it should work in the pool they are wrong, so it was back taking my pulse manually between sets, managing to get to about 150-160 BPM during the intervals. It is starting to become a pretty easy routine now, knock off work and head to the pool, instead of The Tan. Having a structured program has been fantastic and I couldn’t recommend it more for anyone in my position.

I also did 27 minutes on the bike this morning. Why the weird times on the bike? Because I need to be in the shower by 6am and this morning it took me until 5:33am to get my act together

Diet ‘n Stuff
It was weigh in morning today, as part of the Ausrun 6-8 week weight challenge. Ultimately my goal is to drop some body fat (don’t start with me, I have plenty, 23% actually), but short term I really want to make sure I don’t gain during this lay off. When I had PF I gained almost 2kg, granted some of the lay off was over Xmas though, and I don’t want that to happen again.

Big sigh of relief this morning, no gain since last week, despite my criminal eating over the weekend with a wedding AND a road trip. Somehow when I get into the car with a long trip ahead of me I seem to think that anything consumed during said journey will kilojoule free and proceed to stuff myself full of garbage, probably to distract myself from the crushing boredom of the road trip. Ramble, ramble, ramble, the point I will get to eventually is that I managed, somehow, to drop 200gms.

I have changed my diet slightly now for the layoff and have reduced my carb intake slightly, the work I am doing at the moment does not justify it. Still having a very “carby” breakfast, but reducing the intake at lunch and dinner.

Having to get into my Speedo 2 piece and face myself in the mirror in bathers every day is proving to be very effective at keeping me honest

I did have some more Stress Fracture facts to share, but am going on a bit today so will save it for another day.

Crank it up and what the hell do you do with just the legs?
What is making me crank up the stereo and sing out loud (badly)?
Killer Bees - ‘67 Special (gotta find more!!! hope their other stuff is as good)
Icky Thump - The White Stripes (Jack and Meg rarely disappoint, and of course it instantly bought this to mind for those of us of a certain age )
We Danced Together - The Rakes (bit of an old ’80s vibe)

Now I have had some strange things turn up on the search page for this site (WordPress shows you what people have entered into a search engine to get to your site), but today someone was looking for “Jelly Fish legs $ per Kg” Probably as a result of me referring to having Jelly legs after a session in the pool. ‘Fraid I can’t help there, I have no idea what jellyfish legs cost, of why you wouldn’t just buy the whole jellyfish, or what you would do with it for that matter, can’t imagine they would taste of much.

Q & A

Not sulking, just not much time for posting tonight. After losing my whole weekend to the trip to Bright I am having trouble getting into the swing of the week so I am a little edgy.

Anyway, 20 minutes on the bike this morning and then a swim tonight. The stupid aquatic centre at Albert Park didn’t have any lanes open for pool running so I did some “attempted” swimming for half an hour. Then I headed over to Olympic Park to watch the team train, funnily enough it was great, although I can’t run I still enjoy interacting with the group.

Tomorrow back to the pool for proper pool running. So to answer your question Andrew it is done in deep water. You wear a special flotation belt, I got mine from here and try to mimic the running motion. Obviously it will be slower and I end up doing more of a piston motion with my legs, also the arms work quite hard so I am hoping to gain a bit more upper body strength from this caper. Pretty much only your head is above water, though when you are doing the hard reps you do rise up a bit.

Est - my advice is to find a specialist running store or see a Podiatrist for a gait assessment and to be told which shoes are best for you. You can’t always rely on your foot type to self determine the best running shoe. Although I have high arches I still need a stability shoe to correct a tendency to over pronate, which is not typical of a high arch foot. Also I can not recommend seeing a dedicated sports physician highly enough, rather than a GP, if you have a running injury, it will save you much heart ache in the long term.