Shifting My Focus

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Until this week, I have not felt like myself since returning from Leadville. I have never had to take so long to recover from a race. I am sure that the altitude was a big part of my fatigue. Between that and my foot injury, I haven't run in 3 weeks. In fact, until this week, with the exception of waterskiing, I hadn't done much activity at all. 

I returned to CrossFit on Monday and felt as if I hadn't missed a beat. That made me happy. Without running on my schedule, I found other activities to keep me busy, and on Friday, I laced up my running shoes again. 

The first six months of this year were very focused and intense as I prepared for my goal race in June. For the rest of the year, I am looking forward to just having fun with fitness, getting back to running, and not training for anything. There are some adventures planned, including Brooks Hype Fest in LA in 2 weeks, a GoRunTour with Erica after that, a sister trip in October, and the Mammoth Challenge on the Ice Age Trail in October. But it's all about having fun and dialing back the intensity, something I am really looking forward to!

Weekly Rundown

Sunday: run/hike Ice Age Trail 3.5 miles/waterskiing

Monday: CrossFit, back squats

Tuesday: 250 burpees

Wednesday: Fluid Running with Jennifer and Jen! 

Thursday: Strength training

Friday: run 5 miles

Saturday: waterskiing

Running

Feeling very sad about not running, I decided to put my foot to the test by hiking the Gibraltar Segment. I told myself I'd also try some easy running. I slipped the Zen toes metatarsal pad on my foot before putting on my shoes and socks. I started up the steep climb to the top and when I could, I broke into a jog. The foot felt no different than before I got my diagnosis-mildly painful. There were a lot of downed trees across the train and that forced me to slow my roll. There was one especially large tree across a narrow section of the trail behind the rock. I attempted to climb over it-unsuccessfully- and I skinned my arm as I slid over it. On the way back, I crawled underneath it. Feeling good, I ran most of the way down to my car. When I got back to the house, the hubs took me for a ski on the most pristine water conditions I've had in a long time!

Pool running counts as running, right? So I'm going to include it in my running rundown. Wednesday was a fun pool running sesh because not only was it a live class with Jennifer Conroyd, founder of Fluid Running, who was in the pool with me, it was led by Jen Govitis, who is one of the instructors on several of the workouts! She is a seasoned runner with multiple marathons under her belt and is currently preparing for the 'No Frills Marathon' in Minocqua, Wisconsin. She's hoping to escape the heat in the Northwoods and a BQ. Runners, they are all friends we haven't met yet, am I right?

Jennifer, me, Jen

The other really fun thing about this class is that it was held in an outdoor pool! The sun was shining and the temperatures were just perfect. Most of the level 3 classes are coached by Jen, and this 'level 2' felt pretty level 3-ish to me! The cueing was perfect and it was nice to have popular music to workout to (as opposed to the canned music on the recorded classes). I absolutely loved this class and hope to get back to another one before the end of summer. 

Since my ortho told me to 'let pain be your guide', I decided to try running on Friday. After 4 weeks of not running, I was excited to lace up my shoes! The plan was to use 4:1 run/walk intervals. For the first 3 miles, I felt surprisingly good. The early morning heat and humidity started to take a toll and for the last 2 miles, I really slowed down. I discovered that my foot hurt more when I walked than when I ran and that running down an incline also causes more pain. Since the injury is in the ball of my foot, it makes sense, if you think about the mechanics involved. Anyhoo, I'm grateful for this return to running and we'll see how things go.

I want to provide clarification about my foot injury, a plantar plate tear, as it seems that a lot of people think this is similar to plantar fasciitis. It is not. The plantar plate is attached to the base of the toe joints (in the ball of the foot) and provides support to the toes. That is where my pain is. Injury can be caused by a variety of factors including biomechanical stress such as landing on a rock like I did, arthritis, and others. There is really no treatment and my orthopedic surgeon said surgery isn't often successful. We'll see how things go.

CrossFit/Strength Training

Back to work! The strength portion of Monday's WOD was a snatch complex at 60-70% consisting of a snatch pull, hang snatch (with overhead squat), and power snatch (with OHS). I worked on these at 35#. They felt pretty good and SJ came by to give me some corrections. The MetCon was 4 rounds for time with a 3 minute rest after each round of a 100m run, 10 power snatches (35#) unbroken, and 8 barhop burpees. I was consistent with each round, finishing at 2 minutes and those runs didn't bother me much at all!

I finished up last week's heavy lifting challenge, with 4 more sets of 10 back squats at 85#. I tweaked my right hip flexor, so I'm glad to be done with that! I swear, I'm falling apart. 

I still had 250 burpees from week 4's challenge and as much as I wanted to quit the challenge, we all know I am not a quitter. SJ and the owner of the gym gave me grace on the burpees and told me to get them done this week. I woke up early Tuesday morning, determined to knock these out. Using a suggestion by the owner of the gym, I did a 1 minute EMOM of 5 burpees, completing 150 in the morning before work and 100 when I got home. This was a great strategy and made the large task very manageable, but I was so glad to be done with that!

On Thursday, SJ had a fun workout planned. I started out on the Bosu ball and played catch with SJ. After that, she had me balance on one foot while we played catch, alternating feet. It was challenging and it made both of us laugh out loud, but I got better at it as we went on. I alternated that activity with hollow holds from the bar, working on form. Then I did 4 sets of 'sissy squats' with my heels on a plate, holding a 25# KB. I alternated those with 4 sets of 10 situps, holding 12# DB overhead the entire time. Super challenging--try it sometime!

For this week's summer challenge, the task is to accumulate 8 minutes inverted. I chose to do handstands against the wall, holding them for 30 seconds at a time. 

How was your week? What are your plans for fall running? Have you ever needed extended recovery from a hard race?

I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown. I might not get to everyone's post today, but I will before the weekend!