William's mild tendonosis micro thread
Patrick-
About the time of my last race in October, I developed a very mild achilles tendonosis. It didn't stop me from running at all, but it ached. I figured to go away, but it hasn't.
I recently went to the PT and they have me on a rehab program. They want me running no more frequently than every other day for a little while.
I had been doing the Run Durability 3 plan in advance of entering the marathon/semi-OS at the first of the year. Obviously, I need to get this tendon business taken care of, but I am not restricted as to the kind of running I do...just the frequency...as long as I don't go totally nuts.
I had been planning to extract the three key runs from RD3 for the next couple weeks, i.e., two TP sessions and a long run with a bit of tempo work. I'm allowed to bike as much as I want, so, I'll be filling in the other runs with bikes for the short term.
Sound good to you? Any specific suggestions?
Thanks,
William
Comments
If you ran Wed/Fri/Sun that lets you get Monday off and bikes on Tue/Th/Sat....
Anyway, this inflexibility means when I forefoot/midfoot strike, I put very little wear on the heels of my shoes (true), but they think that a combination of lateral instability and the lack of my heel coming down a bit more means I just put more strain on the tendon where it connects to the heel than I should. Too much wiggle work it has to do.
They think the "injury" is a chronic degeneration rather than an acute "you hurt it this day" thing due to my physiological shortcomings, but they think it will heal up. When I go in, they do all kinds of manipulations on my ankles and calves. Today, my therapist was a 20-something woman who worked up a pretty good sweat trying to loosen up my ankle for about 5 minutes on each side ... she got a few more degrees out of it by the time she was done. My usual guy is a rather beefy looking fellow. My ankles don't stand a chance against him. :-)
I just started this regimen a few days ago. Because of all the manipulation and work, the chronic ache is a little worse than it was before I started. On the other hand, I ran today, and it loosened up a lot faster than it did last week.
I do have every reason to trust this crew. In this college town, they are THE sports PTs. They work with all the high school and many of the college athletes and the local expert "sports injury surgeon" ...in addition to us relatively regular guys. Most of the time you go in there, half the patients are identifiably "athletes". Most of PTs were college athletes or married to one, interestingly. Anyway, they also know me from a few other injuries over the years (like when I separated my shoulder in a biking accident) and know my athletic history, that I'm running Boston, 2014, etc. So they "get it" about me.
(Not coincidentally, they go out and do "the concussion talk" on demand to community groups and coaches, and did a nice job of educating our soccer board on evaluation methods, what to do, etc.)
It's kind of a bummer to have to slow down the running for a while just as i thought I was starting to get some decent condition again, but I have big goals for this year and I realize I have to take care of myself.
Re Sat/Sun... assuming the weekends are my longer workouts, is Sat ride "long" (90-120' on a trainer) and then Sunday run "long" the preferred order? Or should I reverse the alternation? Or really doesn't matter?
For now, their priority is fixing "me" instead of shoes or anything else.
Bottom line is they like the way I run...they want me to do it better/stronger, rather than change the artifices with which I do it.
I ran on orthotics for many (15? 20?) years and went out of them a while after shifting to the Newtons. Among the items that he wants me to address is building up my own arch strength...I talked about moving back to using the orthotics, and he wasn't fond of that idea. I showed him my current shoes and the wear pattern, and we talked about them (low drop, etc). Bottom line is he's really trying to get me to have better quality feet/ankles in addition to healing up the current issue. He's working me to get me more flexible and stronger both in both dorsiflexion and side to side. Today's assignment included standing on one foot for balance and rotating my head back and forth to intentionally make me wobble so I had to fight to keep standing up. So, it's the usual recovery stuff, plus this sort of holistic bit.
I'm hopeful, but obviously we'll see how it goes. I'm already feeling somewhat less stress at the beginning of the runs.
Quick update: The tendonosis is taking a while to resolve, but it's clearly better. And it's not getting worse while I rebuild my run, so that's a good thing. Bottom line is that I'm not worried about it for now.
As per some previous conversation, I've messed around and found s standard week pretty close to what you suggested:
Mon: interval run
Tues: FTP bike (straight off the OS)
Wed:tempo run
Thu morning easy run; Thu evening bike (something with intervals)
Friday: off
Saturday: long run
Sunday: easy brick (Z2 biking, easy running, total of about 90 min)
I've been at this for most of 3 weeks and seems to work so far.
If you have comments about the week, great, but my specific question is about the Thursday bike. Given that I'm only doing two "hard" bikes per week, but overdoing the intensity is a bit of a potential issue because of the 3 quality runs (counting the long run), I wonder what you suggest for the Thursday bike.
My impulse is to stick with another FTP set (which I've done 2/3 weeks so far) instead of the currently proscribed VO2 sets, but I'm curious as to your thoughts.
(When it comes to the regular bike season, I am FTP limited, not VO2 limited.)
Thanks!
Could you do the 110% x 4' or 5' per the OS plan? So a bit more than FTP but not all our VO2 stuff? Given it's a Thursday night before a day off, I think it _could_ work, but I don't want to jeopardize your weekly routine. Maybe try it once and see how you feel..start with 3 x 4' or 4 x 4' (both with 4' rest).
I'm going to give that a go. Thursday is kind of a hard day because the Wed tempo run is also my "moderately long" run and will almost always happen in the early evening. For example, I did 11 mi as 6 mi between 7:30 and 8:00 followed by 5 mi right around 7:00 (which is between MP and HMP) tonight. So tomorrow morning's easy 5 makes it sort of a safer second long run. That's why I really like that Friday off. But I think the 110% is something I can muster Thursday PM, and no reason I can't back off once in a while.
I'm trying really hard this time to (a) make the easy easy and the hard hard and (b) fuel every workout to make sure I can do this part well and still feel great about the "seccond season" leading up to IM WI after Boston.
Coach-
Just checking in and giving a bit of an update. And you're the expert on a Boston buildup along with OS biking...
I finished my active PT a couple weeks ago and have a check-in appointment scheduled for mid-February. The injury I had was chronic (and my PT guy had had it too...so he knows...) and a slow one to heal in general. I am not completely symptom free, but I am 80-90% better and have managed to do that while building up my run, so I feel like this has been successful, though I have to keep at it.
I am still following the weekly plan shown in the Jan 14 post. The Thursday rides have worked their way up to 4 or 5 x 5' at 110%. Thursday is my one "hard" day to do well, so I'll sit up more than I should. My philosophy, though, has been that I'm doing my best to maintain a decent bike, and maybe make marginal improvements, rather than trying to completely maximize the bike...so pushing the watts is the thing to do, no matter whether I have to sit up or not, with just two hard bikes per week. I'm always ready to go by Saturday morning's long run.
As of this writing, I am finishing week 5 of a 16 week build.
So here's the rub...things just feel too smooth/easy so far. Do I
I'd appreciate your thoughts, whether they agree with one of my suggestions or you think I should do something else.
Thanks!
The fueling thing does seem to be very successful as far as the workouts go. It has made weight loss very hard, though. I have two growing teenagers who are swimming 12 hours a week or something like that and we just have too much food...because they will eat everything and are rail skinny. I'm not gaining, but I'm not losing. I guess I just have to work on being more disciplined.
1) It almost always happens that strong athletes get STRONGER after time off / down time. In your case injury time. I see it all the time. "Coach P I got sick…but then I tested and I gained 17 watts WTF???" So your improvement isn't exactly unexpected.
2) The true question about the ^above^ is can you actually embrace that and learn from it and USE it going forward. Few can. I feel like you just crash landed the Millennium Falcon in my swamp and you know you need help…
3) Before you judge any runs or your week, you HAVE TO acknowledge that you are getting stronger, week by week, on critical workouts…to the point that you are running faster than target RACE PACE.
With #3 in mind, here's some more thoughts…
* Any running NOT on a treadmill counts as "real" running -- indoors or not. Take the outdoor gifts when you can, but don't sweat it.
* If you can sustain the faster pace, for all the intervals, stick it. The second you fade we back off. So 6' this week…next week try 5:55s, etc.
* That wed run is the hardest run on your schedule right now…I think that instead of focusing on raising distance of the tempo set, we work to get to HMP. So we keep the distance fixed for a bit but you build more of that run into HMP vs MP. Note as you move to HMP, you might have to start slower (7:30s?).
* Let the weekend run distance be good, but I still want 2/3 of that run at 8:00 pace. Just not worth it to push more. Between VO2 and Tempo and the last 1/3 of that Saturday run you have lots of quality in there…and let's not forget your Thursday bike.
Bottom line I am really really happy with where you are at. F the diet. You are running consistently faster than your target pace numbers across the board. The bike is strong. So what if you aren't at race weight? That's a switch we can make if we need to.
So if you want to ADD anything, it would be some functional strength stuff. Planks, bridges, dead bugs….let's get you bullet proof (and continue the present trend).
Very inspired by you!!!
For the record, I haven't been putting speed in all the long runs...just a variable. So, the first 18 miler didn't have any significant speed, but the second one did. It is an advantage of getting up to close to full mileage on the long run pretty early...I have time to build that in. First 20-21 miler probably won't have much "quality" in them either...just good steady pace. Then subsequent ones I can toss in the last several miles at MP. I know don't advocate runs quite that long, but I can correlate my more and less successful marathons quite directly with a couple runs of that length (and I keep them to 2:45 or under).
Coincidentally, I listened to your most recent podcast during tho week's long run on Saturday. I totally identified with "that guy" who feels bad when he takes an unplanned day off. So true. Saturday I got a knot in my calf and Sunday I shifted my 90 min brick (trainer/treadmill) to being 100% biking in response. As I was sitting there up on my bike debating whether to run (because to not run would make me feel guilty) or keep biking (to make sure my calf would be happy today), your words replayed several times in my head and I stayed on the bike. For the record, the calf feels fine this morning!
Patrick-
As above, this is my standard week:
For the week of Feb 24-March 1, I need to hack this. Thursday at noon, I will be taking my kids to a 4-day swim meet (Thu through Sun). Fortunately, they already have those two days off from school. Here are my scheduling constraints
The good news is that this particular week is a "down week" for the length of my long run on my schedule. (About 15 mi)
I'm thinking something like this...not perfect, but it gets in my 3 key runs and loses an easy bike:
What are your thoughts? Thanks!
William
PS some time around the 25th or so I will check in again regarding paces and such, having let three weeks pass since your note of Feb 2.
Intervals (VO2 effort) on Mondays:
- 5 x 1000s at 5:35-5:50 pace
- pyramid (400, 1000, 1200, 1600, 1200, 600, 400) all very close to 5:50 pace
- 3 x 1 mi at 5:50 pace
Wednesday tempo run on Wednesday
- 4 easy, then 2 at 6:5x, then 5 averaging around 6:35
- 4 easy, then 4 at 6:40, then 3 at 6:16
- 6 easy, then 6 at 6:50 --- This run sucked. It was outside, but I didn't feel right and had a RPE/result disconnect. Getting over a cold
Saturday long runs
- 16 at 7:50ish, 5 at 6:40ish, 21.4 total
- 15 at 7:40ish, 5 at 6:35; 20.1 total
- 8 at 7:50ish, 2 at 6:47, 6 at 6:35; 16.2 total
I have not done a formal 5K test, but I'm trying to figure out an approximate VDOT to work with. I've got 8 weeks left, so now I think it's time to start focusing on pretty race specific training. I have got my OS timed so that the bike ends April 6, so two weeks before the race...figure I'll use that time to really focus on nailing a final race pace.
Given the above workouts for the last 3 weeks, do think I am out of line settling on the paces taken from VDOT = 54? I'm basing this on where my RPE paces have ended up and a guess of how fast I could really race a 10K, based on my tempo runs.
VDOT 54 paces:
EP = 8:01
MP = 6:49
HMP = 6:32
TP = 6:26
IP = 5:55
This would be pretty aggressive, as I have not previously trained at faster than about 53...and that was not for marathon. On the other hand, things are going pretty well. I think if I do this, there is no more "trying to get faster"...there is only "getting this fast for the marathon"... This is a freaking 3:00 marathon pace...
I am planning to shift most the Monday runs to HMP/TP with longer intervals and away from VO2.
The damn weather report for the next 10 days continues to look ridiculous. Highs of 10-15 degrees and snow every now and then. I am REALLY hoping I can get outdoors more starting with 6 weeks left and I may just force it if I have to starting somewhere around March 10.
What do you think?
In other news, I am okay with 1 x VO2 a week but cap them at 3 minutes. Your other runs are okay...tempo runs mainly at 6:40 pace...make sense?
I type for a living, dude. I can't be stopped! :-)
More seriously, I could run a 5K or 10K, but I know more or less how it would come out, and the uncertainty of that vs. marathon VDOT in a time of changing paces makes me think taking the 4-5 days of rest, race, recovery is of marginal value compared to the opportunity cost of getting in race specific training now.
..and I'm done with there being lots of VO2 stuff. Moving to mostly TP type stuff those days now. 6:40ish for tempo runs makes sense.
I don't run many marathons ...the last two having been Boston 2010 and last Spring's Grandma's. Grandma's was of course weird with the timing of it, but in both cases, but all this said, in all three of these races, I nailed my predicted paces very well. In the halfs I've done since 2010 and Boston, there's been a pretty good connection between my 5K/10K VDOT and the half or full marathon performance. Certainly no 1 point decline at the half and 2 points at the full. (Grandma's was different, of course..but again, in the final weeks, I really figured out what the pace would be and I was able to stick to it.) So, weather permitting, I'm reasonably confident that at some point I'll "know" what the pace should be...it's the change in paces at the beginning of this that we've been discussing of course that has thrown me and I'm trying to settle into now for purposes of the last big six weeks of push.
As to race rehearsals, here are my current scheduled long runs, the Standard Patrick Plan (Adv marathon plan), and a third option with 2 RR.
I guess the question I have now is whether it makes sense to plan on two RRs to really nail down the paces (and, reality of the weather being what it is...one probably inside and the other probably outside...we are due for light snow every day for the next week.) And is 3 weeks out too close for a marathon RR?
Here you go...just one RR please...and some easier long runs given the cumulative fatigue factor...let me me know what you think...
Plan works for me.
(Boy I can see some bad editing in the paragraph in that note. Too bad I can't go remove those incoherent sentences.)
Please know that I genuinely and personally appreciate your help. You got me through last summer's double (HIM/Grandma's) and I'm feeling good about this one...and neither is the 95% solution for 95% of the folks.
Thanks William. I love doing this...seriously. Your drive to be your best is all the fuel I need....it's the folks who aren't that into it but want me to miracle a few hours off their IM finish...that stuff doesn't really get me that fired up.
Let's call it the 99%, shall we?
I'm writing this note on March 20, approximately 4.5 weeks out from the race, i.e., if I were using the 24 week marathon plan exactly, I'd be in the midst of week 20.
As such, I have about 10 more days of the meat of hard training, before the traditional 3 week taper starts. I've done 2 out of three of my hard runs for this week, with "only" my long run to go. It's been a few years since I did a real open marathon focus, but I know this is the hardest part...
Bottom line is things are going fine, but the cumulative fatigue of the combination of marathon volume and all this very fast running I've been doing has started to catch up to me. The bad news is that I'm feeling muscularly tired and my RPE is higher than it should be. Today's tempo run of 6 mi easy and 9 mi MP is on paper my peak one, along with an identical one next week. Two or 3 weeks ago, I could have done that run pretty easily with the fast part around 6:40 pace, and today it was around 6:50.
OK, so I shouldn't complain... the "BAD part" is I'm running a 9 mile tempo segment at 6:50 pace stopping only for drinks. Maybe that's the good news. But it definitely is harder than it was a couple weeks ago. Another good piece of news is that I have no "localized" areas where I feel like I've trashed quads or hamstrings or whatever (as I have occasionally done)...it's just a balanced fatigue.
So, what's your advice?
Again, I've put so much very good, very hard work in this, I don't want to booger it by either digging a hole or by bailing and tapering too early. If I pull it off and the weather cooperates, I should have the best marathon of my life. But I think I'm on that hard edge and I hope you can give me some feedback.
I'm disappointed I didn't get to do a formal RR, but there's no way with these total conditions, I am quite sure that what I would have learned is that this was very hard to run that fast while this tired with this much cold wind in my face. I didn't need to bury myself to find that out...and I don't think it would have been all that applicable to the real race, unfortunately.
The good news is that I got another long run in the books and the legs are still in decent shape.
No more FTP, should be 2 x 110% sessions, no third ride...one day off a week.
No extra runs...cool?
No worries. I don't expect immediate replies.
To clarify, I've been running 5x per week. For purposes of this conversation, I'll call this week (starting March 24) "week 4" and race week "week 1" (i.e., countdown style) That makes things look like this, if I understand:
Weeks 4 (i.e., starts today) and 3:
Week 2: Same, except
And of course race week is pretty standard stuff.
For the record, I have been sleeping like a bear in winter. I was getting 9 or even 10 hours last week during spring break. I've been fortunate that the kids have been on hiatus from their early morning and/or evening activities for the last few weeks. I've been sleeping more than I remember, even in my last couple IM cycles. Either I'm getting lazy of this is a lot of work. :-)