Training Update 4/5/14: Return From Injury, Racing Plans (Maybe an Ultra?) and More

So good news and bad news.

   The good news is my foot has healed and I've been able to jump right back into running.  The foot thing was probably a Peroneus Longus tendon irritation due to a lack of strength of the PL and the Posterior Tibialis muscle (leading to very weak arches).  I plan to continue my rehab program for those muscles just as a precaution and I'll stick to training in shoes with some amount of support.  I've been running all my recovery miles in the Altra Repetition which has been a great shoe so far.  The zero drop with a wide toe box, cushion and support have been really nice, but we'll see how long my Achilles tendon lasts.  I guess I need to keep hammering those eccentric heel drops.

    The bad news is that this blog is going to be very quite for a while.  School is beating the crap out of me and is taking almost all of my time.  I have to study constantly and my only real break is when I wake up at 5:30 in the morning to get 10-12 miles out on a bunch of trails I just discovered near my location in Pomona, CA.  Or a workout.  So yeah.  I'll do my best to update how I'm doing and what my thoughts are, but know that school and running comes first before the blog.  Someday I'll have more time to really keep this thing up.

   As for a return to racing, I decided to get out for a little bit during the last weekend of my spring break and race at the Anaheim Angels 5k.  Which I won in 15:31.  It was a great race.  I went through the first mile in 4:48, then slowed down a bunch because the police bike left me right before mile 2.  Really it was more that I haven't been doing 5k specific workouts... mostly because I've been injured.  My foot held up well and was only a little sore after the race.

    This last week I managed to get 87 miles in on singles only.  My one hard workout was a 6 mile tempo run averaging 5:22 pace.  I found a great flat two mile loop that I'll be using for tempo runs from 4-10 miles.  Those tempos will be a staple of my workouts the next month as I prepare for my next set of races.  I thought I might want to do some half marathons... but maybe I'll just bypass those and go right to trail ultra races.  Other than that I've been doing those 10-12 mile runs on trails that have very steep elevation gains every morning.  So low key hill workouts.

   I got excited last weekend after the Angels 5k and wanted to race again.  So I signed up for the Derby Day 5k in Santa Anita.  Which was stupid.  I really shouldn't be racing every week.  Oh well.  I placed 6th in 15:52 and felt like crap.  I did not taper at all for this race as I ran 9 miles averaging 6:10 pace the day before.  After the race I cooled down for a few minutes, then launched right into a 30 minute farltek.  It started a bit slow as I was stiff from the race, but after 5 minutes got myself down into the 4:45 to 5:00 minute per mile pace.  After the fartlek I kept going until my mileage totaled to 17 miles.  Because... #tackon.  That's why.  So a nice tempo/fartlek/long run combination.

    I really can't be surprised by the Derby Day 5k result.  I haven't done any 5K specific work since the injury (although it's only been two weeks) and have been focusing on longer workouts and runs.  So I guess that is to be expected.  Combine that with the rigors of DPT school and a lack of sleep.  It all makes sense.

    For the time being with school taking so much of my time I'm going to focus on consistency over the next few months.  I think I'll look into getting some 10k races in, so I'll be sure to get some longer tempo runs in.  I'll also make sure I get some speed stuff in like my favorite 10x400 with one minute rest workout.  Hopefully that speed stuff will help get my 5k wheels back.  Most of my training will just consist of those 10-12 mile trail runs in the early morning before class (in addition to a 18-20 mile long run on Sunday).  Hopefully the hills will build a great deal of strength.

    I know nothing comes quickly, so I have to keep reminding myself that the most effective way to become a better athlete is to be patient and work on long term development.  I know I was complaining about not being selected for various sponsorship programs, but the truth is that I am not even close to those levels.  I'm going to back off on racing, focus on school and workouts and just do my best.

    So for the future?  I'll probably move up to doing more 10ks and maybe ultramarathons.  Why?  Because I like long slow distance, but want to keep my speed up.  I've always wanted to dabble in ultras, so maybe I'll jump into a random 50k and see how I do.

    Those are my plans.  We'll see how they work out.

Thanks for reading!

As always, my opinions are my own!

Tack On!

Matthew Klein, SPT

-On a side note, I'm also really working on my flexibility and strength right now.  Mostly through eccentric range of motion exercises.  I'm been seeing a few articles pop up in the Physical Therapy world about eccentric exercises through the full range of motion doing as well as static stretching for increasing flexibility.  Plus they build a ton of strength.  Why am I focusing on that?  Because my hamstrings are insanely tight, I am lacking in the hip extension department and my form looks like crap because I've been neglecting my flexibility work.  The article can be found here.  Interesting stuff.  I'm curious to see how this affects my running.

Training/Life Update and New Training Ideas 2/28/14

My brain hurts, but I'm alive.

    It's that time of the semester.  DPT school is ramping way up (or I just realized that I need to bump myself back up to that level) and a crazy schedule of midterms is continuing.

    But things are going well!  This last week I have recovered well from the Brea 8k, which turned into a great workout rather than a good race (Brea 8k Race Report).  I learned some good things from it and am ready to start implementing some new ideas that I'll get into in a bit.

    On some not so great news, Saucony began sending out their offers to athletes for their sponsored 2014 Saucony Hurricane Team last week.  I kept checking Twitter with various hashtags (#sauconyhurricane, #sauconyhurricaneteam, #findyourstrong) to see who was announcing their spot on the team.  After a week I have heard nothing, which based on who I saw sponsored is not totally surprising.  Some very fast people are on this team, particularly those with fast half marathon times.  My 1:11:11, despite being my first half marathon, is fairly slow for a sub-elite runner.  If I ran in the 1:06:00-1:07:00 range that would be different.  Unfortunately I don't think I have the time or money right now to adequately train for a fast half marathon.  Post DPT school is definitely a time when I will focus on that distance.  For now though I will be racing it sparingly.  Although we'll see where my Elliptigo training goes as I have a stationary trainer adapter coming for it that I'm hoping to use while studying so I can get more aerobic training in (more on that later).

    So yeah.  I don't think my application to the Hurricane program was accepted.  It is a little strange that I saw a few other people comment on the fact that they actually received nice rejection e-mails that still wished them the best.  I have received nothing in the way of communication from Brian Mahoney (marketing director at Saucony), who I originally sent my application to.  To which he replied confirming that he had received them.  I even e-mailed him earlier this week when I did not receive a rejection letter wondering what the status of my application was.  Still have not received any response.  

    That is not going to keep me down though!  I will continue looking to the future and continue to train as a member of the Cal Coast Track Club.  I'm hoping if I get fast enough this will mean some seeding of gear from Asics, but we'll see.  I already received really nice short and long sleeved shirts from the team, so things seem to be going well.  It's nice to be on a team again!

And those new training ideas.

So here's what I've been doing.

    I have incorporated a great deal of plyometric exercises into my post-run drills.  These started Sunday after the Brea 8k and I will definitely keep them in my arsenal.  I've started with just doing variations of single leg hops up on a step and down.  I do forward single step hops, side step hops (both directions, laterally hopping and medially hopping) and then diagonally hopping up and down in both a medial and lateral diagonal direction.  This seems to really be helping my ability to push-off from the ground, along with continued step-ups on the stairs of my apartment.  The step-ups have been really good for my glute max strength and stride length as I have seen a decent increase in running speed since I added it to my routine.  Mostly because the glute max is one of the main hip extensors.  Why do you think fast (good) sprinters have such huge butts?  Because that's the main propulsion muscle.  I learned about this exercise's effectiveness on the glute max at the recent CSM 2014 Physical Therapy conference in Las Vegas.  I have not found the article the talk referenced (Running Injuries: From Youth to Collegiate), although I have found several articles discussing how much the single limb squat activates the glute max and medius and how much the side leg abduction exercise activates the glute medius (Distefano, Blackbun, Marshall & Padua, 2009 & Lubahn et al., 2011).  Both of these exercises have been very important to my core/strengthening routine, particularly the single leg squat.  The side leg abduction has been in my routine for a while now, but it wasn't until recently that I added some medial and lateral limb rotation during that motion to stimulate the glute medius and minimus more (this was something I just learned in my Kinesiology in DPT school).  Doing external rotation with the hip slightly extended during a side leg abduction will really hit the glute medius and doing internal rotation will hit the glute minimus a bit more.  That and clamshells with my trunk stabilized has allowed me to continue working on my glute medius strength.  When I am satisfied with my strength level, I will start adding therabands and leg weights into these exercises to make them harder.  For the single leg squat I need to start holding light dumbbells to work on strength once I am ready to move up difficulty-wise.  

   Obviously for core I am still doing exercises focused on good core control via firing the transverse abdominals.  Two exercises I'm doing for that are a bridging exercise with alternating single limb hip flexion and the transverse abs engaged to stabilize the trunk and pelvis as well as the bird-dog exercise, also with the transverse abdominals engaged to stabilize the trunk and pelvis.  The bird-dog exercise is more focused on the multifidi and other deep muscles of the back, but pulling in the transverse abdominals helps those fire.

    Just this morning I started adding power skips for height and distance into my post run drills just to work on more pop from my push-off.  It's not a good idea to try starting new things right before a race (I'm running the Dairy Aire 5k tomorrow, which is part of the group of 3 races called the Triple Crown that I am trying to triple win), but I'm training through it anyway.  No report yet on how these have effected me but I'm interested to see where I can go with more plyometrics.  I've done a ton of drills throughout the last few years, but I'm beginning to see some discussion in the physical therapy and athletic world as to whether those drills actually do anything for motor patterns.  I still think drills are important before hard workouts in the sense of doing a dynamic warm-up.   But like how static range of motion may not relate to actual moving range of motion (dynamic ROM), I wonder how drills actually affect running form.  So as always, I am my own subject for this experiment.  Let's see where this goes.

    What I probably need to do is do my "drills"  (high knees, butt kicks, etc) before every run and plyometrics after.  I've done drills after runs for the last several years with the belief that I am solidifying motor patterns when my body is fatigued.  I have not seen peer-reviewed evidence regarding this idea, but I have continued to do it.  Maybe it's time for a change just to see what happens.  The only issue is motivating myself to do that before the run as usually I just want to get started.  I'll try any type of training once, so let's see where this goes.  

    Oh yeah.  And the Elliptigo?

   So I have a stationary trainer on the way right now so I can actually start using the Elliptigo.  Pomona has nothing in the way of bike lanes.  I have tried seriously riding it on the streets for 10 minutes before I realized I was going to get hit by a car.  Plus I don't have the time anymore to be doing a second workout during the day unless it involves studying.  In the last few days I've actually had some success using the elliptical machine in my apartment for 35-45 minutes hard while studying.  The material I have studied has stuck in my head and I feel like aerobically I gained something from the elliptical without any additional pounding.  I'm beginning to see why many elite athletes use the Elliptigo to get additional training in without putting them at risk for stress-related injuries.  The mechanics of the Elliptigo are much more similar to those of running than a traditional elliptical.  This is achieved through the athlete being taken through greater hip extension and hip flexion, as opposed to the limited mechanics allowed by a normal elliptical.

    So my goal is to try studying on the Elliptigo with the stationary adapter in my apartment to get my work for school in while getting aerobic work in for running without the pounding.  I'll still be running 10-11 miles in the morning for training with 20ish miels on Sunday for a long run so I can hit my +80 miles for training, but now I'll have this additional training that doesn't put me at risk for injury (I hope).  So in a way I'll be able to train like I'm running +110 miles a week again (I hope to work up to using the Elliptigo for an hour a day in the evening while studying), but with studying for a bunch of it.  We'll see what happens and what school allows.

    So that's what I've been doing recently.  I'm hoping for good things tomorrow at the Dairy Aire 5k, but it is raining pretty hard.  So I'll just be going for the win.  Then it's back to studying my rear end off.

Let's see where all of this takes me.  I'm excited for the future.

Thanks for reading!

As always, my thoughts are my own.

Tack On!!

-Matthew Klein, SPT

Citations:

Distefano, L, Blackburn, J, Marshall, S & Padua, D.  (2009).  Gluteal muscle activation during common therapeutic exercises.  Journal of Orthopedic Sports Physical Therapy, 39(7), 532-540.  

   

Lubahn, A., Kernozek, T., Tyson, T., Merkitch, K., Reutemann, P. & Chestnut, J.  (2011).  Hip muscle activation and knee frontal plane motion during weight bearing therapeutic exercises.  International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy, 6(2), 92-103.  

Training and Life Update 2/21/14

Hello!

    Since I plan to have this as a physical therapy, running, training, shoe review and more type of blog, I'm going to branch out from only doing shoe reviews (as I have been doing the last few weeks).

    Life has been going pretty well the last few weeks.  I am very deep into my 2nd semester of physical therapy school and have been trudging through the first few midterms.  This week I successfully made it through our equally difficult Kinesiology exam and practical.  I am extremely inspired by my professor, Dr. Fairly, in that class.  He's basically a god to me as he is the expert manual therapy, gait, foot and footwear guy.  So it was a little intimidating having him critique me on the practical.  Luckily I was paired up with my awesome friend Noelle, with whom I had practiced a great deal with the day before.  Because we suspected we would be partners, despite everyone telling us otherwise.  So that worked out well!  Got my highest practical grade yet!  Now I have to just make it through the next several weeks until spring break.  By make it I am referring to the fact that I have at least one major exam every week until then.  No rest for the weary.

   Training has been pretty awesome.  At my first physical therapy conference at the 2014 CSM (combined sections meeting) a few weeks ago, I made contact with a fellow UPS alumni and awesome runner for the Asics Aggies Kota Reichert.  It was inspiring to go for a run with him during the conference (a fairly quick 9 miles after a tired but fast 4 mile uphill tempo early that morning around 5am).  We talked a great deal and he mentioned In/Out workouts, which I'd never really considered before but have been integrating into my training.  Mostly in the form of hill workouts.  IE 1:00 min hard uphill with 1:10 to get back down the hill and start again.  Doing about 8 of those.  The first session I ended up averaging 5:33 pace for a little over 5K (3.2 miles).  It hurt, but in a good way.  Since my favorite workout is the Fartlek, I've tried to integrate this type of training into that by trying to keep the off session at a fairly decent pace.  I still have not done set distance intervals for a while.  I find it so much easier to get Fartleks in multiple times a week by having the workout during a normal run rather than a set loop.  I've still been running very quick during the workouts, doing things like 15-18x1min ON 1min OFF or doing informal fartleks to forget about specific time and focus on form.

    My form work has continued as well.  I know there is still a long road ahead, but I've made some good strides (no pun intended) working on hip extension and controlling my crazy arm swing.  I learned some new things about the best exercises for the glute medius and max recruitment and have been modifying those working on my glute max strength especially (the main hip extensor).  These exercises include high step ups, single leg squat touches and more.  This combined with some tweaks in my nutrition (adding in more healthy fats for a more balanced diet) seems to have contributed to me feeling much better during runs.  Enough that I have not had a run average over 6:35 pace for about 2 weeks.  Almost every normal run is in the 6:10-6:15 pace range and that is fairly comfortable.  I pushed a 9.52 mile run at 5:55 pace and even that felt pretty good!  This has been really awesome because I've been able to get more miles in without more time infringing on my studies! Also I've been integrating a little bit of POSE form back in.  Not in a major way but just some of the things I used to work on my form back during the summer before my sophomore year of college.

An example of my horrible arm swing an mechanics at the 2014 Run For Russ 5k.  Which I still won in 15:23.  This is before I started working on my form again.  

   I added 3 mile night runs back into my training just to shake my brain out after long school days.  Also to get some more fast mileage in.  I wear my Brooks T7s on these runs and I push them pretty hard.  My fastest one so far has been 3.1 miles in 16:54 (5:27 pace average) and all of them have been under 5:50 pace.  That's with a 6:00-6:30ish first mile and then moving.  It takes less than 20 minutes for a nice run break and then I'm back to studying.

   Racing has also been going decently.  Three weeks ago I won the 2014 Run for Russ in 15:23 which is awesome considering I trained through it.  My training buddy John Barker PR'd and then we did a hard Fartlek right after just to get some extra work in.  I've done a second workout after every race except my half marathon this year and plan to continue doing that to try to get better.  A week ago I won the 2014 Anaheim Semper 5k in 15:48 on a very hilly course that I measured at +3.2 miles.  I was pretty excited to run that there as I had been working on my form and my pace had really increased early that week.  Also they gave out a pretty awesome first prize.

Picture from the 2014 Anaheim Semper 5k that I won in 15:48 on a long (3.2 mile) and hilly course.  Lower extremity form is better, but that arm swing still needs work.  Granted my left arm is like that because I'm pointing to the way I think I'm supposed to go for confirmation from a race official.  That part wasn't marked well.....

   Coming up on Sunday 2/23/14 I'm racing the Brea 8k.  Since I'm doing 3 races in three weeks (also doing the Dairy Aire 5k next weekend.  If I win that I'll have won all three of the Chino Triple Crown races.  The 2013 Reindeer Romp 5k and the 2014 Run for Russ 5k were the first two), I'm only doing a few workouts per week.  I'll probably be wearing a Cal Coast jersey and am hoping that if I win this I'll get some recognition from footwear companies.  Also it'll be a nice longer effort compared to the 5ks I've been doing. Even if I don't win it'll be nice to have some really good competition as that race has been very quick in the past.  Next week I'll be racing the 2014 Dairy Aire 5k going for a Triple Crown win (as I mentioned early).  If they have an accurate course I may have a shot at a PR since Chino, CA is completely flat.  And it should be relatively accurate since it's USATF certified.  However I've learned that certification is relative after the 2014 Ontario Mills 5k that I won in a slow time that I later learned was due to the course being much longer than a 5k.  Certification?  Yeah right.

    Speaking of footwear companies, I haven't heard anything from the Saucony Hurricane program.  I'm not totally discouraged (even though this last week was the time that athletes have heard from them in the past) because I haven't seen anyone else post anything on the internet about being accepted.  So maybe they're just taking a bit longer.  However I also submitted my application to the Skechers Performance Elite team just as another option.  I figure I'll wait it out for a bit and see who gets to me first.  If nothing happens I'll review my options from there.  If Cal Coast does not have an elite team with sponsorship I may have to head over to check out the Snail's Pace Racing Team to see what kind of benefits they get from New Balance.

Yep.  I got one of these for free.  I cannot thank Brian Brown and the wonderful people at Elliptigo enough for this wonderful opportunity.  

    So that is what's going on in my life.  I'll keep this blog up and we'll see where my future takes me.  Also..... I won an Elliptigo 8C at that 2014 CSM conference I mentioned (as you can see above).  I know this is completely random to throw in at the end here.  But it's awesome.  I'll have a review up soon.  I've made fun of people who ride these things for years and I take it all back.  If you haven't tried an Elliptigo yet, find one.  They are sooooooo awesome.  Seriously.  You feel like a badass riding one.  At least I do.  It has become a great tool that also gives me a huge piece of mind just in case I get injured.  Having this tool is insurance that I will be able to maintain my running fitness, my mechanics and still get outside in that event.

   So things are going to get pretty interesting!!  I'm hoping for some big things in the next few weeks and I hope you'll check back in!

Thanks for reading!

As always, my opinions are my own.

Tack On!!!

-Matthew Klein, SPT