Put A Different RICE In Your "Diet"

"Achilles tendonitis..."

I turned in the direction of the voice.  Valentino, in a voice which seemed almost a laugh, said again, "Achilles tendonitis!" 

"You?"  I asked.

"Yeah, me.  I suspected that's what was wrong.  I could feel it when I got out of bed the past couple of mornings; all the popping noises and such."

"It's a sign we're getting old, man.  Our breakfast cereal is supposed to make noise, not our body," I replied. 

I'm not into schadenfreude, the concept of having joy at the misfortune of someone else, but it did seem a little bit ironic.  Val's also a running coach; he specializes in sprints at the high school and Junior Olympic level.  During my autumn of pain, he would shout angrily when I would limp into the office the day after my own track workouts -- workouts which had intensities or distances too much for my fifty-year-old (still-injured) tendons to endure.

So, Val has appointments with the base medical clinic, the physical therapist, base pharmacy and the like.  But he's going to keep running because he's stubborn...and he hates cross-training.

When runners think about injuries and their treatment, most of them have heard of the mnemonic RICE: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.  While this treatment method works well for the discomfort of soft tissue injuries, it's not a cure, and isn't as effective when we begin to talk about the more common overuse injuries from which runners suffer.

The same mnemonic, RICE, can be used to treat the cause of injuries like achilles tendinosis, plantar fasciitis, iliotibial band syndrome, patellar tendinosis, and the like.  Unlike the soft tissue RICE, this RICE stands for: Reflect, Identify, Correct, Evaluate.

Reflect - stop and think:  Has there been a sudden change in the run/workout routine?  Have I added distance, changed terrain, altered surface, or increased intensity?  When did I purchase this pair of running shoes?

Identify - what are the most-likely causes for the damage?  In the case of overuse injuries the culprit usually begins with "too:"  Too much speed work.  Too much added distance.  Too little recovery.  Too old shoes.  Too many hills.  Too many crowned or bad surfaces.

Also, take the time to identify what sort of exercise you can do to replace running for the next few weeks; you might lose some cardiovascular fitness during this period, but exercise which does not aggravate the present damage will allow blood to continue to flow to the injured area, continuing the healing process.  Anti-inflammatory drugs can be taken to ease swelling but shouldn't be taken to mask pain just so you can go out and run...remember the discomfort/pain is a message that something is injured and needs to heal.

Correct - what can you do to keep this injury from reoccurring?  A lot of overuse injuries are the result of a musculoskeletal imbalance or a muscular weakness, leading to compensation by a connecting part of the body which was unable to handle, or recover from, the increased strain.

Evaluate - is there really a need to train at the level which caused the injury in the first place?  If the root cause of the injury is strictly to do with poor equipment then I would recommend a gradual return to the training regimen where no pain existed.  If terrain, mileage, intensity or surface changes were the cause, then consider very conservative changes or increases, giving the body sufficient time to recover and adjust to the new stress.  If the cause is too little recovery, then you'll have to figure out a way to assist the recovery process either by taking a day off, engaging in "active rest," or implementing modalities like self-massage, massage therapy, compression garments, stretching and so on.

So, when it comes to injuries, you still need to remember the RICE mnemonic, but it's a completely different form of RICE.  Reflect.  Identify.  Correct.  Evaluate.

The Bow That's Continually Bent...

I vaguely recall a story which ( believe) was written by Eusebius, Origen, or one of the early writers of the Christian Church, about St. John (please keep in mind this is from a text I read back in my former life as an aspiring pastor). (I guess) there was a philosopher who went (in disguise of an outdoorsman/hunter) to visit John later on in his life, & was amazed to find him sitting in relaxation stroking a partridge. He asked John about the frivolity of his present activity, to which John responded with a question of his own. 'I see you have a bow in your hand. Do you always carry it about unstrung?' The philosopher replied, 'yes, if I were to keep it continually strung the tension would weaken the bow & I would be unable to use it to down stronger prey when the time came.'

John replied, 'worry not about my present state of relaxation. As you have rightly said, "the bow that is continually bent will cease to shoot straight."'

So, I guess it's necessary for each of us to take time away from our pursuits in order to recharge, redirect, reevaluate, & sometimes even reacquire a perspective we once had or discarded. The hard part is what I like to call a painfully obvious fact: The more time we have away from working out, training, running, bicycling, swimming, just plain flat-out doing, usually provides us time & opportunity for stoopid things...those things which get us in trouble.

And if you're not careful, you can burn up those spousal approval units during down-time, when you probably should be earning them by doing those quality time things. I've found a few of those QTTs can also provide some much-needed perspective on how other people see us...us being defined as athletes, coaches, & athletic event participants...I guess even athletic event providers can be fit into the definition. And I have to admit the first week or two of I'm not getting up early to... is pretty nice, but after a while it does become a nasty little habit. Sleep, as my wife has told me, is one of her guilty pleasures in life. In the past month I've probably increased my sleep time to nearly ten hours a night, much to my d-a-w-g's displeasure.

But worry not...this is the end of the month & I truly intend to be back on the chain gang.Honestly, it has been nice in many ways. Unfortunately, it also means I've spent lots of time on activities which are simple, but much higher in impact (more running, less cycling or swimming). So my body has really had a tough time adapting to a decreased, but different form of stress.

On top of all that, the temperature has gone not so much through the roof as much as it has increased a minor amount. But, the humidity in our area has definitely gone up. Much harder to breathe when you feel like you need gills. Must scale back effort levels or move indoors for a time. That means more boring. I know many who take the entire summer to unbend their bow. While it might work for them I'd rather loosen the string some rather than take it off completely. That way I'm not looking for the notch when September arrives...believe me, it cannot arrive too soon.

Ask Coach: What Do I Need to Change To Stay Injury-Free?

I have been suffering from an overuse injury. What do I need to change to stay injury free?

Overuse injuries are caused by not listening to your body (or to your coach). You need to be smarter than your ego. You can do this by:

SETTING A GOAL that is specific, measurable, achievable, reasonable, & time-specific (in this case, performance in a particular race). Every training plan, regardless of the author, begins with a specific end in mind (which, by the way, author Steven Covey says is the first habit of highly effective people).
DEVELOPING A PLAN once you have the goal set. This means walking backward from the target race week anywhere from 18 to 24 weeks; 18 for 5K, 24 for marathons. Divide the plan into four phases. The first phase, Foundation, is where you establish the training routine, with lots of easy (aerobic) pace running. The second phase is where you begin to work on the mechanics of faster running; learning to run as efficiently as possible with a minimum of stress. Phase three is where you begin to stress different energy systems (the anaerobic & ATP/CP) & begin to challenge yourself with hard(er) efforts. The final phase is where you take care of the final details which prepare you for that goal race.
FOLLOWING THE PLAN but adapt your training as necessary. When I talk about adaptation, usually I mean to the more kind & gentle…rarely, if ever, does a workout get ramped up in intensity. It’s more likely to be scaled down. If you’re beat-up, take a day off. I CANNOT OVERSTRESS THIS: IF YOU ARE BEAT-UP, SORE, OVER-TIRED OR INJURED, TAKE A DAY OFF.
RECOVERING FROM THE GOAL RACE (or any race, for that matter) is included. The rule of thumb is a day of no activity for every hour of racing, followed by a day of easy running for every mile of racing. A person who runs a 40-minute 10-kilometer race should take the next day off completely, followed by six days of easy running. If it’s the goal race, it’s time to set a new goal & develop a whole new training cycle from the beginning. Plugging in periods of easier running, active rest or complete rest altogether between training cycles will keep you from getting injured, & from getting burned out.
Specific goal-setting & laying out a plan in macro will keep you from going out & running on the wrong surfaces, or the wrong terrain, or at the wrong intensity for too long a period of time. Even if your race focus is on early September 5Ks, the first week of aerobic-paced running in an 18-week training cycle would commence this week.

I’ve been working on “plug & play” training plans which focus on specific distances, which I can adapt to the individual athlete’s personal schedule. Talk to me so I can help you fill in the details.

Things Aren't Always As They Seem

"There's one guy we don't have to worry about." - Gordon McKenzie, American marathoner, thinking about Abebe Bikila (standing shoeless), before the Rome Olympic Marathon (1960)

The nice thing about sports is it's loaded with irony. The media are not the only ones who tend to get the predictions wrong more often than not (think Bode Miller in Torino rather than Michael Phelps in Beijing), coaches & individual athletes do so, too. While you can make an educated guess as to how well a person is going to perform from the exterior view it's much harder to tell what lies underneath the flesh, dwells within the muscle, bone & nerves of the individual. You cannot measure drive - heart - of an athlete by their physiological data.
One of my favorite training partners in the past five years, if you looked at him before a workout or a race, you would not be a bit impressed. In fact, he always looked more like a misplaced softball player than he did a road racer. I think nearly all my best workouts/races always had something to do with him...and many of his with me. Before a knee injury cut short his career about two years ago, he went on a tear...ended up winning a local half-marathon, ran some great trail ultra-distance races, and such. I miss not having him around to sharpen me up.

Not every athlete exudes what my father once desctibed as bad-ass in three easy lessons. A great case in point can be found in the realm of masters' swimming. A (relatively) slender, cardiovascularly efficient young(er) guy can be on the blocks at a masters' meet next to someone ten years older with a serious case of dunlap disease (the disorder where ones' midsection has done lapped over ones' belt line)...yet the paunchy, hoary one might be the one handing back the @$$ of the younger, relatively svelte, technically less-efficient swimmer at the end of the event. Trust me on this one. I've stood on the deck trying to find a way to graciously stuff my butt cheeks back down into my Speedo after having them handed to me by one of my adipose-enhanced training mates.
Our favorite local beer/bite hangout didn't quite go all-out last night for St. Patrick's Day; they did offer corned beef & cabbage, but we avoided it. It's not that I doubt the uniqueness or the genuine-ness of a place with the last name of O'Brady's, but I knew it would not sit well in my tummy either last night or this morning...especially this morning, in the pool... They did surprise us with some new appetizer items, one of which is a fried calamari, something we don't see much of unless we assault an Italian joint, a place I eat at only under extreme duress. My friend Paul doesn't do calamari, but Suzanne & I will try anything on the menu there at least once to make certain it's not bad. It wasn't the classic overly-chewy squid rings, though. A tad more on the crunchy side, as though they had been fried a little longer than the average bear. However, there was no overwhelming garlic smell/taste (and I like garlic!), nor serious grease...not bad with a side of marinara.
We're approaching the mid-term for our performance system, which means it is high time to do what is better known around here as brag sheets. Unfortunately, with this system, you might be in the walk on water, talk to God realm in all of your duties, but if your duties don't exactly line up with the standards, you are screwed. Yep, you can do all the good things for your fellow employees, your instructors, your courses & the service at large, but if you can't justify it, it's like you did nothing for the past six months but sit on your butt, drink coffee & write blog entries. Oops, I did it again, didn't I?

Is any one else as offended as I by the audacity of big corporations, ostensibly owned now by the federal government (& hence owned by the taxpayer), giving millions of dollars to executives for driving the business into the ground during the previous year? And then, my co-worker tells me some of the executive recipients are people who left the company. Well, I guess that blows the if we don't pay them their bonuses they might leave argument right out of the water, doesn't it?

Oh, & for those of you who don't know the rest of the story: Bikila destroyed the Olympic & world best times for the marathon; McKenzie finished 18th. As Chuck Berry sang: C'est la vie...most days you never can tell...